Amos's River of Justice

Category: U.S. Politics

  • Was Election 2016 Just the Way the World Works?

    I think I’ve finally figured out why it’s so hard to describe what happened in the 2016 election. Judging by the comments about Hillary’s Clinton’s book tour the entire election was a demand by establishment Democrats that we recognize them as ultimate authorities. That’s why they don’t hesitate to say things that everyone knows are patently false. They’re trying to force obeisance to their authority. If HRC is as mad as her critics say she is there is a method to her madness. Her post-election rhetoric has stopped just short of gloating over the outcome. Her book says, “Don’t believe your own eyes. Don’t believe your own hearts. Believe me!”

     

    Didn’t she want to be president? It’s probably true that powerful players usurped the Trump candidacy, but was that a complete surprise? Didn’t Bill have a meeting with Trump before he announced his candidacy? Didn’t the corporate media build Trump up during the primary race? Didn’t Hillary ignore the Rust Belt during the general election? One way or the other, it stands to reason that the Clinton Foundation would need to operate. The Clintons still owe their donors after all. But how do we endure the false narrative of the 2016 election? I’m going to propose an alternative to Hillary’s interpretation:

     

    The establishment didn’t think anyone on the left could challenge them, but Bernie’s supporters sent them scrambling. Now their sacred altar has been torn down and they’re desperately trying to shore it up. The question Hillary is trying to answer is whether the entire edifice is going to crumble, and whether the rebellious voters are going to get in line?

     

    Which brings me to the most curious part of this election. Bernie Sanders is not an anti-globalist so what exactly was so dangerous about his challenge relative to the challenge of Donald Trump? It makes me wonder if maybe the new order is not powered entirely by invisible, impersonal forces behind the throne, or by political alternatives like democratic socialism. Maybe it’s personal. That is the scariest thought I have had in a long time–that control of this global order is still up for grabs.

     

    Maybe a literary analogy will lighten the mood. The DNC’s claim that they could have picked the candidate in a smoke-filled room was vintage Clinton. The Clintons believe that’s the way the world works and they’re fine with it. Of course this implies that they either failed to resist this system or they helped to create it. But ignoring that for now, the Clinton belief that that is how the world works reminds me of the movie, Babe.

     

    Farmer Hoggett wins a piglet in a raffle. The piglet, Babe, feels insecure about his position in the farmyard so he decides to become a sheepdog, or rather a sheep-pig. Farmer Hoggett recognizes his talent and encourages him. However, the night before Babe’s competition at the fair Babe has the following conversation with Duchess the cat:

     

    Narrator: “There are many perfectly nice cats in the world, but every barrel has its bad apples, and it’s well to heed the old adage, “Beware the bad cat bearing a grudge.”

     

    Cat:     Oh, do forgive me for scratching you, dear. I got a bit carried away. It’s a cat thing.

     

    Babe:  [laughs] Oh, well, but…

     

    Cat:     Feeling good about tomorrow, are you?

     

    Babe:  Um-hmm, it should be alright I think.

     

    Cat:     You know, I probably shouldn’t say this but I’m not sure if you realize how much the other animals are laughing at you for this sheepdog business.

     

    Babe:  Why would they do that?

     

    Cat:     Well, they say that you’ve forgotten that you’re a pig. Isn’t that silly? And they even said that you don’t know what pigs are for.

     

    Babe:  What do you mean, ‘what pigs are for’?

     

    Cat:     You know, why pigs are here.

     

    Babe:  Why are any of us here?

     

    Cat:     Well, the cow’s here to be milked, the dogs are here to help the boss’s husband with the sheep, and I’m here to be beautiful and affectionate to the boss.

     

    Babe:  Yes?

     

    Cat:     [sighs softly] The fact is that pigs don’t have a purpose.

     

    Babe:  [confused] Wh, I-I don’t, uh…

     

    Cat:     Alright, for your own sake, I’ll be blunt. Why do the bosses keep ducks? To eat them. So why do the bosses keep a pig? The fact is that animals that don’t seem to have a purpose really do have a purpose. The bosses have to eat. It’s probably the most noble purpose of all, when you come to think about it.

     

    Babe:  They…eat pigs?

     

    Cat:     Pork they call it. Or bacon. They only call them pigs when they’re alive.

     

    Babe:  But, uh, I’m a sheep-pig.

     

    Cat:     [giggles] The boss’s husband’s just playing a little game with you. Believe me, sooner or later every pig gets eaten. That’s the way the world works… Oh, I haven’t upset you have I? [chuckles softly]

     

    But the cat was wrong about Babe.

  • There Are Worse Things Than Losing a Primary

    Hillary put herself in a very bad place when she shut Bernie out of the primary. Now there are stories that confirm our worst suspicions. Like the one about how her donors threatened to call it quits if she lost Nevada, and her brilliant plan to cheat Bernie in Nevada, because what could go wrong?

    Try as she might, Hillary won’t be able to undo the outcome of the election. True, there may be more to the Trump-Russia narrative than the pundits give her credit for, however she knew about his ties with Russia from the beginning, and they were only indirectly related to the election. Worse for her, Trump can’t be impeached for his Russia ties because the actions in question took place before he was president. It’s all in Geoff Gilson’s Book, Maggie’s Hammer. Or you can watch Ed Opperman’s interview here. Gilson’s part ends at about 48:00:
    https://youtu.be/dHDi0D6kGrk

    Hillary Clinton’s behavior in this election has handed Donald Trump a blank check signed by the United States of America. That will be her legacy.

  • Democrats: Stop Using the Intelligence Bureaucracy to Fight Trump

    The circus of the 2016 election was too weird to be explained by ambition. I suspected one of three motives. Keep in mind that I may have been in a state of paranoia:

    The geopolitical situation is so precarious that the oligarchs are afraid they’ll lose their hold on world domination if they give up power for four years.

    The establishment planned actions on specific dates determined by numerology and astrology and they have to be in control to carry them out.

    Any new president will find out what they’ve been up to and neither Party could take a chance on that new president being Bernie Sanders.

    But then I learned of a forth motive. An article in the June issue of Harper’s reveals the stranglehold that un-elected individuals in the intelligence and security establishment have on international policy. Apparently, whatever may have been going on during the election, we are now witnessing a fight to the death between competing intelligence interests. Trump’s firing of James Comey was part of this fight. However, this is not a fight between Republican and Democrat. You and I are not even in the game.

    This is the video that made me decide to write about this today. Before I go on it’s important to mention that this is definitely not the time to get bogged down in partisan politics, nor is it the time to demonize figures on the ‘other’ side because that will never give you a complete picture of what’s really going on. The video’s focus is an article on Circa by John Solomon and Sara A. Carter concerning the establishment’s frantic effort to hide evidence of illegal information gathering and surveillance of the American population. This activity was also revealed in George Web’s videos, but the article in Circa claims that evidence of it was presented to James Comey and that he failed to act on it. (http://circa.com/politics/accountability/james-comey-sued-by-intelligence-contractor-dennis-montgomery-over-spying-on-americans)
    https://youtu.be/0nRooYMzCgI

    But the problem is much bigger than the current actors. In the Harper’s article Michael J. Glennon describes its history:

    “A defacto directorate of several hundred managers, sitting atop dozens of military, diplomatic, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies, from the Department of Homeland Security to the National Reconnaissance Office, has come to dominate national security policy, displacing the authority not only of Congress but of the courts and the presidency as well. The precise sizes of the agencies’ budgets and workforces are classified in many cases, but the numbers are indisputably enormous—a total annual outlay of around $1 trillion, and employees numbering in the millions.”

    It began with the policy of containment of the Soviet Union. Harry Truman centralized national security decision-making, supposedly to end the ‘internecine warfare’ between U. S. armed services after World War II. Then Congress created the modern Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, and the National Security Council. Truman established the National Security Agency personally, through a secret order. Liberals generally approved of these actions, but conservatives feared it was a threat to democratic institutions and civilian control of the military. And they were right in this case.

    Power has gradually been transferred from elected officials to bureaucrats. In order to maintain the legitimacy of our democratic institutions, the illusion is perpetuated that national security is controlled by our constitutionally established democratic institutions. To this end, successive presidents projected an image of unity between themselves and the security directorate. Obama is a good example of this.

    “When the Pentagon advocated a troop surge in Afghanistan, Obama kept his disagreement largely out of the public eye. When NSA mass surveillance became a public embarrassment, Obama stuck with the organization. When his director of national intelligence, James Clapper, lied about it to Congress, Obama did nothing. And when the Senate Intelligence Committee’s torture report sparked calls to punish the torturers and their bosses, Obama came to their defense. No one was prosecuted.”

    However, after the NSA’s eavesdropping on Angela Merkel the facade began to crumble: Obama’s national security advisor claimed the president knew nothing about it (Secretary of State John Kerry claimed that some of these programs were on automatic pilot); the courts used ‘ringing rule-of-law rhetoric’ in high-profile disputes about national security but not so much when it came to unlawful war-making, torture, surveillance, and kidnapping; and Congress’s role in defining national security became more and more ceremonial.

    By the time Donald Trump appeared on the scene, the bureaucracy’s dominance was out in the open. Early in the campaign Trump criticized the military’s top brass and the intelligence community. Then after the election he refused to attend security briefings, which have become agenda-setting meetings where the agency lays out the framework for thinking about international developments.  (There is an activist internationalist nature of these briefings, which Glennon criticizes for taking precedence over domestic priorities, but of course domestic priorities are not high on Donald Trump’s list either.)

    In response, intelligence officials have allegedly withheld sensitive information from Trump and refused to give security clearance to one of his NSC officials who reportedly had been critical of the CIA. However the leak has been the Bureaucracy’s weapon of choice.

    Finally, the Democrats’ approach is not better than that of the president or the bureaucracy. The Democrats have apparently been using the security bureaucracy as their best hope ever since its disclosure of Russian interference in the election. They seem to believe that the Security directorate can act as a check on presidential policies, however this would actually represent an ‘entirely new form of government’ in which institutionalized, bureaucratic autocracy would displace democratic accountability. We have already seen the abuses of unchecked security forces in the United States. The bureaucracy was never intended to be a coequal of Congress, the courts, and the president.

    Glennon warns of serious consequences as a result of both strategies–the White House and the intelligence bureaucracy–and argues that they are not really working for either side. They cast doubt on the soundness of Trump’s security decisions and undermine his authority, because regardless of what Trump thinks of the bureaucracy he needs intelligence to make good decisions. And they also hamstring the intelligence community whose credibility is derived from the public’s belief that it is controlled by elected officials.

    Again, lest you think this is an argument for Donald Trump, savior, Glennon suggests an even darker scenario:

    Trump’s adversaries assume the security bureaucracy will fight him to the death, but the White House does have power in such a fight. What if the result were the desertion of some factions within the bureaucracy who approve of many potential Trump initiatives, such as stepped-up drone strikes, cyberattacks, covert action, immigration bans, and mass surveillance?

    “Undoubtedly, some officials will leave when faced with Trump’s sticks. But plenty, I suspect, will overcome their qualms, accept Trump’s carrots, and do his bidding. I have witnessed this dynamic firsthand. In 1978, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was interested in what steps American law enforcement and countrintelligence officials were taking (or not taking) to stop the intelligence services of repressive ‘allies,’ such as Pinochet’s Chile, the shah’s Iran, and Marcos’s Philippines, from harassing, surveilling, and intimidating opponents within the United States. In Langley, Fort Meade, and elsewhere, my colleagues and I took the (still classified) statements of dozens of security officials. Some of them described conduct they found deeply repugnant. But we encountered no one who had objected, and identified no official who had resigned in disagreement. Everyone stayed.”(Michael J. Glennon, Security Breach: Trump’s tussle with the bureaucratic state. Harper’s, June 2017)

  • The Unraveling of the Intelligence Game

    First shot across the bow of the security state:
    https://youtu.be/Ses_qfxTqLs

    Then watch:
    https://youtu.be/S43hft-jJhw

    And:
    https://youtu.be/ipufl_-2rVA

  • Irreconcilable Differences?

    We’re all aware of the conflict in the Catholic Church between those who want the Church to be more modern and those who want it to maintain traditional discipline and forms of worship. For those of us on the outside, the public comments have been so cryptic and contradictory it’s impossible to know which way it is headed. That’s probably why a recent news story on Crux Now took me by surprise. The writer congratulated the pro-life faction on the election of Donald Trump because Trump plans to cut funding to Family Planning. This was published shortly after the bombs were dropped on Syria and Afghanistan. Apparently the Church is fine with Trump’s military brutality even as it applauds his pro-life agenda. This is very disappointing.

    I’m sure you’ve heard the pro-life claim that protecting life in the womb will assure world peace. I would argue instead that the frantic determination to conquer the womb is the root cause of disorder in our society. For forty years conservatives in the United States have been using the abortion issue to attack our democracy. One of their most effective strategies has been electing presidents who will appoint Scalia-type justices to the Supreme Court. Now we can see where this has led us. Their persistent efforts have finally brought our republic to its knees.

  • The Town Hall as Battleground

    The political process is important and necessary but we’re long past the point where anything worthwhile can be said about this election. All that’s left to us is bad theater played by bad actors. At some point you have to let it go–just tell the truth about it and move on. In Thursday’s town hall the lead actor would be Senator Jeff Flake. However I think the cast also includes grandstanding members of the opposition and the bloodthirsty media whose job it is to make a partisan mountain out of every molehill.

    It’s been reported that Senator Flake bravely withstood a drubbing by a liberal audience, which sort of discounts the audience’s responses in my opinion.  However, it must also be said that Senator Flake gave as good as he got, both during the meeting and in the interminable years leading up to it. After postponing this inevitable confrontation with his cuckolded constituents as long as he possibly could, he arrived at the arena armed only with his trusty list of non-answers and his famous smile. It’s not surprising that this smile was perceived by said long-suffering constituents as disrespectful rather than jovial. As one man explained when it was finally his turn at the mic, everything of importance has already been said, so he commented instead that the senator seemed to be smiling an awfully lot.  All things considered, serious self-reflection would be more appropriate.

    Of course, serious self-reflection had no part in Mr. Flake’s battle plan on Thursday. His sole purpose seemed to be sticking to his guns regardless of what the bad people did to him, and stick to his guns he did. Some in the media counted the public’s outrage a victory of some kind. I have a different take on it. If Jeff Flake’s goal was to deliver a lesson in futility to the unruly masses, the evening was a smashing success–for him.

    I’m not denying that the masses were gloriously unruly. I’m just saying the Senator was going through the motions. He was there because of the petition that was signed by his constituents.  He’s still the same guy who spent his career ignoring their wishes. So naturally the smiling delivery of his all too familiar non-answers worked like a knife in the heart and the people responded by the only means at their disposal—howls, cat-calls and chants. None of it had any effect on the good senator however, who often ended his responses by stating, “I disagree,” which is patently absurd coming from a representative of said masses.

    Somewhere in the middle of this standoff things got really…interesting. A young girl stepped up and delivered her line with the timing of a vaudeville straight man, “I’m a sixteen-year-old girl of color and you’re a white man of privilege,” or something to that effect, at which point I suddenly lost my concentration.  I can’t quote her exactly—find a clip of it on the web. But the gist of her comment was, Jeff Flake is a powerful bully who ignores the needs of the underprivileged. Unfortunately for her this turned out to be a perfect setup, because it allowed the senator to wryly muse about being the middle child of eleven children, implying that he grew up in a poor family.

    An awed silence fell over the crowd as scenes from The Grapes of Wrath flashed before our eyes. We were so stunned it didn’t occur to us that eleven children is not a natural disaster like an earthquake or the weather; nor is it a national disaster, like a depression. Last but not least, being born into a poor family with eleven children is not even a social handicap–not in Mormon country. Dang! This guy is good!

    I left feeling sorry for the town component of this town hall. I still do, even after learning about the Democratic establishment’s email instructing people to ‘put Jeff Flake in their grill’. That pretty much describes what happened but this was no victory for the people. Jeff Flake and the Democratic establishment got what they wanted—the continuation of the status quo–but the people who continue to languish under the policies of Senator Flake and his cronies, got zip. I’m sorry Senator, but that is the very definition of privilege.

  • Arizona Town Hall Tonight

    Senator Jeff Flake has scheduled a town hall Thursday from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. PT. According to the email sent out by his office, which includes a code of conduct, the venue seats 1,750 people. This town hall is bound to go a little differently than his telephone town hall in March. These are my notes from the last town hall. There were no responses to his answers so I assume the callers were no longer on the line.

    1. He was asked about Arizona’s plans for public land. He said land trades were common in the past and that they were only talking about 6,000 acres of BLM land out of 137,000.
    2. On immigration, he said policy should be based on national security, not nationality.
    3. On the environment, he began by saying that he loves the outdoors. However he thinks we need common-sense regulations and that Arizona is being penalized for dust storms that have nothing to do with development or human activity.
    4. When asked how he could vote for Betsy DeVos, he said “Elections have consequences,” and the president deserves his cabinet. After all, he said, he confirmed Obama’s Attorney General even though she was unqualified.
    5. On the concern that a border wall will split a reservation in Tucson, he said that is one of the complexities about the wall that people don’t understand.
    6. When asked why he didn’t hold a town hall the previous week, he said that he had to stay in Washington because of the nomination process.
    7. One caller asked how he could say he cares about veterans when bills that would restore military retirement pay don’t get a hearing. He said he thought they had already made the situation better. He added that Senator McCain is concerned about the problem and is still working on it.
    8. When asked how he was going to pay for infrastructure spending he agreed that more spending is necessary, but that we have to be fiscally responsible. He would support lowering corporate taxes. This would bring all the corporate money parked overseas flowing back to the United States.
    9. Another caller was concerned about the possibility of turning Social Security over to Wall Street. He replied that the current program will be bankrupt unless it is reformed. The Republican legislation won’t affect retired or near retired people, and it will tag benefits to prices, not wages. However the retirement age will continue to increase.
    10. He is against a special committee to investigate Trump’s Russia ties.
    11. To another question about the wall, he said 750 miles of it has been funded since 2013; that the terrain won’t allow the wall to be built everywhere; and that in many areas the water shed flows north, not south. (It’s not clear if he thinks the border should be left open in those areas.) He said we also need more interior enforcement.
    12. On the proposed increase in defense spending, he said he’ll support McCain. We need to spend more, budget better, and pay people properly so that the economy continues to grow.
    13. He’s against a border tax. He thinks it would not be good for either side.
    14. Social Security should not decide who’s mentally fit to have a gun.
    15. One caller said he hoped Republican healthcare reform would keep the rule on preexisting conditions. Flake said Obama Care is not sustainable and he praised Ryan’s plan.
    16. Responding to a call about School Choice, he said he advocates choice. Competition makes schools better and state control is better than federal control.
    17. Senator Flake assured another caller that Gorsuch is not pro-corporate and that he will follow the law. Then he praised him for being an Originalist. He thought Gorsuch would probably be confirmed in early April.
    18. A caller said we should not privatize the VA. Flake answered that he doesn’t think that’s where we’re going. He said seniors can pay for private care and be reimbursed later.
    19. In response to the idea of increasing taxes for the wealthy to remedy the national debt, Flake said we need economic growth. He thought we could accomplish that with a proper tax and regulatory environment. Instead of increasing taxes for the wealthy we should reform entitlements. They are the drivers of debt and deficits. He pointed to the stock market, which he said is responding to what has been done so far. (The stock market has nothing to do with economic growth.)

    Tonight’s in-person town hall is Flake’s response to a petition circulated by Change.org, which got 5,886 signatures. Although the petition requested a central location in Phoenix, the meeting will take place at the Mesa Convention Center in the East Valley. (I believe this area is predominantly Mormon). And although the petitioners asked for at least two hours, Flake scheduled one and a half hours.

    The location is 201 N. Center Street, Mesa, Arizona. Doors open at 6:00 p.m. Parking and lines at the door are not allowed before that time. Seating is first-come, first-served.

  • Arizona’s Republican Representatives Try to Silence Dissent

    Arizona’s Republican-controlled legislature is advancing a bill to silence future protesters and financially punish the organizers. The bill is justified by state Representatives’ claims that ‘paid protesters’ are intentionally starting riots (these claims have been debunked) and their apparently genuine indignation over having to deal with irate constituents at town halls, whom they also claim are being paid. The Senate passed Senate Bill 1142 along party lines this week after heated debate with Democrats over its effects on free speech.1. [Alia Beard Rau, Arizona protest bill: What you need to know, The Republic, Feb. 23, 2017. Available: http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/legislature/2017/02/23/5-things-know-arizona-bill-arrest-protesters-riot/98302932/]↩

    Rioting, defined as ‘two or more people using or threatening force or violence in a way that disturbs the peace’, is already illegal in Arizona, but SB 1142 would expand the definition to allow charges if the force or violence results in property damage. Because rioting is defined as ‘two or more people acting together,’ this bill could allow protest organizers to be prosecuted if someone else is involved in the rioting, even if that person isn’t part of the organizing group. It cold also lead to organizers to being prosecuted just for planning an event that prosecutors believe could result in rioting. The bill would also add rioting to the list of offenses that can be addressed under state racketeering statutes. If a case is made for racketeering, the sentence would include more than a year in prison and seizure of protesters’ or organizers’ assets.  In addition, it would make them financially responsible for any property damage.

  • Standing Rock: U.S. Government Genocide

    Update: This is the kind of thing that drives people apart and makes them give up.

    Can anyone back up these claims?

    February 19, 2017:

    I published these videos after they showed up in my YouTube feed. Sorry to say, I wasn’t suspicious about them until after I published them. As you probably know by now, this YouTube channel supports Donald Trump.   Now I see that my suspicions were justified.  Since Trump owns shares in the Dakota Access Pipeline it’s not likely his supporters would be concerned for the water protectors–it’s more likely they would try to scare them off.

    I guess this is nothing new—lies have been filling up the airwaves these days. What really gets to me is the gleeful way the lies are carried out. The monetary rewards alone can’t explain it in my opinion. None of the things we’ve been seeing make sense in the context of what we were trying to accomplish in this election.

    Maybe they assume we’re as cynical as they are and that we didn’t mean what we said. Or maybe they don’t need an excuse. Maybe they just enjoy making mischief.

    (more…)

  • A Third Party With a Difference

    There is lasting value in Bernie’s campaign–his progressive support.   For Abraham Lincoln  this kind of support was the basis for a new party.   Judging from the continuing bad behavior of establishment Democrats it looks like it’s time for Bernie to go the way of Lincoln.  If nothing else it will keep his supporters from getting lost in the political wilderness.  Fourteen million Democrats have already left the party.

    This would not be a replay of the last election. The Green Party and the Libertarians didn’t have the kind of support that Bernie has.  He could make it could work.  What can you do?  Go to the website: draftbernie.org.  Or go to FaceBook: Draft Bernie for a People’s party.

    https://youtu.be/7f28dVrtEWA

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