7.19.20: More Human Wood on the Fire / Comment on the Passing of John Lewis

To begin, this column, inspired by individuals such as Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), is reminded to keep going despite being spit in a rain storm of politically-based content. Well, sometimes and at some point there is the thousandth cut, the final blow, the poison pill, the glob of spit in the rain... We enjoy the status and to keep writing it as we see it.

Congressman Jim Clyburn (D-SC) said there was no greater force in the civil rights movement who personified the goodness of this country. Today's cover of The New York Times:

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We would suggest that instead of the "conscience of congress" it should be the Conscience of America. Mr. Lewis taught this country at a time it didn't want to learn, but he recognized that it needed to. He sacrificed in blood for this country and stood of the right side of history when others just stood by. He overcame injustice and made his voice heard in the very halls of justice. In congress, he was a inspiring and inspired leader for all Americans.

Mr. Lewis embraced nonviolent protest and resistance to "restore America's goodness," as Congress Clyburn said the two spoke about. He also said that the Black Lives Matter movement reminded them of the 1960's. It can be bigger by invoking this hero to America, because there would be no progress without John Lewis.

Another principle that Mr. Lewis held close to his heart was his desire to help others. With that in mind we're going to nakedly transition into discussing the national disaster that is the corona virus running almost out of control across the south and west of the United States.

As of this writing, the White House is actively trying to block the Senate from additional federal funding for testing and tracing, which the states desperately need.

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Above are the blocks of states in the 'red zone' for infections leading the way to a one-day milestone of 75,000 plus cases. Chuck Todd interviewed two governors that aren't in said red zone, but are seeing cases spiking. All this, we remind you, with a president who is in denial that any of this is even happening.

But there is some good news... and some bad. The good news is that we can trust the science and the data coming from the refreshingly candid Director of the National Institutes of Health Dr. Francis Collins. The bad news is that the science and the data are not good.

Dr. Collins explains the turnaround time for test results nationwide is an average of three days, but in some states it's as long as eight days. Either way, it makes contact tracing and tracking of the virus an exercise in futility. Again, with a president in denial, we have no plan for a federal tracing and tracking program. Governor Jared Polis (D-CO) explained that when his state sends out tests to federal labs the response time is eight days; through private instate it's 1 to 2 days.

Dr. Collins explained that NIH is developing 'point of care' tests, the first of which is being deployed in nursing homes where the wait time for a result would be an hour. He explained that individuals should wear a mask when out in public, socially distance, et al pointing out that the data shows it helps. He also flatly stated that the wearing of masks should not be politicized and that everyone should do it.

However, Dr. Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota said there's still a lot of human wood to burn in this corona virus firestorm. (What a way to put it.) The way we're going, we're looking at 60 percent of the population, he said.

But he's not wrong. Take the mask example: Governor Mike DeWine (R-OH) said he is very concerned that Ohio is at a point where 'we could become Florida.' Everyone's dissing Florida right now, because Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) took one in the face, courtesy of the Covid-19. He went on television how great Florida was doing while doing nothing, and now the state is the epicenter for cases. Yet, Gov. DeWine has anti-mask protesters outside his capitol and his house. Though he talked around it, it's the reason why he hasn't instituted a statewide mandate on masks.  In Ohio, 60 percent of the counties the population has a mask mandate, which is 19 counties. Here's how it breaks down:

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The largest red zone is in the center of the state and has no where else to start burning but outward. Soon, all those red dots will be connected. Governors, especially ones in states like Ohio, not only need federal money, they also need federal muscle to rally and educate people about public health, specifically how wearing a mask protects you, your family and your neighbor. (Again, president in denial.) But if we kept in mind, just for a moment, John Lewis and the spirit of helping one another, it would have been (shouldn't have been) an issue to ask people to do it.

Sadly, until we have leadership from the White House, one that cares about the public health of Americans, we're needlessly throwing more human wood on the fire.

7.12.20: The Plight of the Pitied Helpless Giant

A "pitied helpless giant" is how George Will described the perception that other countries around the world have of the United States because of our dismally tragic respond to the coronavirus pandemic. Mr. Will explained that politically for the president, this is worse than a 'Katrina moment' because we can compare our response to other countries and it's clear that we're failing at the task.

The last results from the CDC website, as of today, are as follows:

The total number of deaths just yesterday was 811. Even if the United States were to lower that number to 500 a day for the next 100 days, that would still total another 50,000 deaths by November.

The Asst. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Adm. Brett Giroir, M.D. said that we can bring this virus under control, but it has to be a collective effort with 95% compliance with community mask wearing. But that's simply not going to happen. Take for example, Texas governor Greg Abbott (R) who recently mandated mask wearing in his state, but the citizens of the state aren't buying in, not at this point. Adm. Giroir also made it very clear that all the health professionals in the administration have been very clear and consistent when it comes to mask wearing. This clear and consistent message certainly hasn't come from Mr. Trump.

Now, there are those who commend the president for finally wearing a mask in public on his visit to Walter Reed Hospital yesterday, but let's be honest here, that's 4 months late and 133,666 lives short. It's a failure of national leadership pure and simply.

Maryland's governor Larry Hogan said he didn't want to Monday morning quarterback, casting blame at who was to fault in February and March because it's a waste of energy and not where we are now, with which we agree. However, he was clear to point out that we needed a national testing and tracing strategy from the beginning. That's on the president.

The same president is now pressuring governors to open schools in their respective states irrespective of the data and community safety. Chuck Todd interview the public schools superintendent of Miami-Dade county, which at present has a 29% positivity testing rate. That's almost 1 in 3 people in the entire county. Mr. Carvalho said that they would be very aggressive with mitigation strategies, but that science would be guiding policy, not politics.

Speaking of politics, you may know that the city of Washington D.C. is literally built on top of a swamp, which makes adding to it much easier than draining it. Point being, our current president is "in his element," with his latest act of commuting the sentence of Roger Stone on Friday.  Read Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Op-Ed in The Washington Post today and you'll be concisely reminded of the crimes committed by Mr. Stone. Relieved of any jail time, which he deserves, Mr. Stone said that he would not 'roll' on the president meaning that he will not tells what he knows, clearly implying that the president is guilty of something. To again quote George Will, "This is mob talk."

As Kristen Welker said, Mr. Trump is trying to paint his opponent (Joe Biden) as a criminal while at the same time commuting the sentence of a real criminal. What do they say - that dog don't hunt.


Panel: Kristen Welker, NBC, George Will, syndicated columnist; Anna Palmer, Politico

7.5.20: America Has To Live with a Dual Viral Threat

The governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson (R) was right when he said that we have virus fatigue but he didn't internalize why that is because he also said that in his state the number of Covid cases were down then they went up, then back down and now they're seeing a rise again. This translates in what we're seeing in other states such as Florida, Texas and Arizona - governors who opened their respective states too early and are now having to shutdown many businesses once again.

The fatigue is frustration.

Whatever you want to call it, this result is due to the initial lack of a national strategy to curb the spread of the virus, along with the president's fanciful denial back in January and February that it would magically disappear. Even this week, Mr. Trump reiterated this thinking when he said that the coronavirus would "just disappear, I hope."

And now as NBC's Peter Alexander reported, the administration's message is that we just have to live with it. It's one thing that this administration has gotten correct, we do now have to just learn to live with the coronavirus because the administration created these conditions. And for those who are hoping that in November a Biden Administration takes over and tries to implement a national strategy, it will fail because of the fatigue and the frustration of changing protocols and messaging. Also, the poison pill that is Donald Trump is unlikely to go away and will continue to sew seeds of dissent.

What a new administration may be able to do is to nationalize contact tracing, but as infectious disease doctor Nahid Bhadelia explained, the amount of positive cases could be so many that it would render contact tracing ineffective. By the November election we could be staring at 200,000+ Americans dead from Covid-19. So yes, we are now in a position where we're going to have to live with it because of Mr. Trump's magical thinking and irresponsible actions holding rallies where there is no social distancing or mask requirement.

And then there is the other 'virus' to contend with - Mr. Trump and his continuing strategy to divide America and pit groups against one another instead of uniting people.

Saddest of all is the fact that this political 'virus' is now presenting compounded danger for our troops in war zones. The story of Russia's GRU paying bounties to the Taliban for killing U.S. and coalition troops has been called a hoax by Mr. Trump. Take about frustrating... nay, it's infuriating. First, administration officials said that the president wasn't briefed even though this information was in the President's Daily Briefing and then the president says it was a hoax? Well, which is it because it can't be both. Fmr. National Security Advisor Susan Rice was spot on when she described this situation as a clown show, consisting of sycophants and weaklings in the administration. The president has no plans for a response and once again we see him taking the side of Vladimir Putin over the U.S. intelligence community. Then he has the gall to speak about American patriotism?

Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute described this in two parts. First, she said that if the president wasn't briefed, this is a dereliction of duty. If? The White House has been guilty of dereliction of duty since January 20th, 2016. However, she also said that this was an incredibly damaging leak about extremely sensitive information. But again, we have to examine the 'why' here. Why was there a leak? It's fairly evident that this information was leaked because the administration has known about this going back to 2019 and the president has done nothing about it. There is extenuating harm from Russia facing our troops in a war zone and what does the president do? He advocates for Russia to be included in the G7 again. So while Ms. Pletka frets over the leak, it is justified to put this information out to the public to try and force the president's hand and say something. But once again, we've learned that Mr. Trump will not socially distance his lips from Putin's butt.

America is confronted with a dual viral threat, and unfortunately we are just going to have to learn to live with it.


Panel: Danielle Pletka, American Enterprise Institute; Jeh Johnson, fmr. Secretary of Homeland Security; Peter Alexander, NBC News

6.28.20: Senate Republicans Can Not Unhitch Their Wagons

Lordie... No matter if you're discussing the pandemic, John Bolton or election politics, it all comes back to the all too frustrating common denominator - Senate Republicans. This one group is the hold up, the enabler, the shameless, the feckless, the problem.

Among the many things John Bolton said that this column disagrees with is that the Republicans should keep control of the Senate whether Mr. Trump is reelected or not. Mr. Bolton reasoned that a political party shouldn't be driven by the individual but the philosophy and it's that conservative philosophy that needs to be in place as a check for a stable republic. However, Republicans in the Senate jettisoned their conservative philosophy for Trumpism, which isn't really even an 'ism.' Following the whims of an individual is not a political philosophy, it's the abdication of responsibility. What Mr. Bolton is saying is that if Joe Biden is president, they'll find their conservative footing again. Well, isn't that convenient? They all swore an oath to uphold the constitution and in these past 3 1/2 years, they've collectively broken that oath by not keeping a corrupt president from unlawful action.

In the case of John Bolton, he thought that Senate Republicans would want to know the truth from the guy who was in "the room where it happened" during the impeachment trial and subpoena him. Think again. Under the leadership of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Republicans had no interest, calling no witnesses. The bottom line is that if Mr. Bolton wanted to come forward and testify, he could have in the House of Representatives. And now he's worried that the republic would not be able to survive a second term of Donald Trump? Many Americans are worried about the same thing, but Mr. Bolton was in a position to do something about it. Instead, he cut and ran in the moment with an eye on a payout once he reached the other side. Mr. Bolton said that he sticks to his conservative philosophy, but if this is it, it's thoroughly compromised and needs to go. In other words, a Senate Republican majority needs to be sent home.

As NBC's Kasie Hunt explained, it is in June when the political bedrock is set for the fall election and many Senate Republicans have hitched their wagons to Donald Trump's, and it's too late to jump off. However, because of the spikes in coronavirus cases in namely Texas, Arizona and Florida, Republican senators are starting to grumble in an attempt to get their own voices back a bit, and Ms. Hunt reported that Senate Republicans, behind the scenes, definitely want a stronger federal response from the administration. They all know that the Trump Administration has handled the pandemic horribly. Mitch McConnell is now encouraging people to wear a mask, which can reduce the chance of transmission by 25 percent, but people on his side of the aisle aren't listening because the president refuses to wear a mask in any circumstance and will not encourage people to do so. His vice president can not even say the word 'mask' during a coronavirus task force press conference.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar this is a county by county issue that the federal government will be there to support counties and states as they need help. In his interview, he basically conceded that there is no national strategy and that the administration is essentially ignoring the 'pan' in pandemic. Without a national strategy one of the worries that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo mentioned was that the progress made in his state will be negated because other states haven't taken the necessary steps. All the administration's talk of counties and states was rightly interpreted by Mr. Cuomo who summed it up by saying that the states are on their own.

And because states on are their own with no national strategy to combat the spread and mitigate death totals, the rosy picture that Hugh Hewitt painted for January isn't going to happen. It was refreshing that Kasie Hunt called him out on his depiction of how great it will be if Trump is reelected - in January will be back at 3.5 percent unemployment, for example - so that this column didn't have to on that. However, in reaction to the president giving a nonsensical answer to what his second term priorities would be, Mr. Hewitt said that the president gave a Klayton Kershaw (Los Angeles Dodgers ace pitcher) windup but didn't deliver the pitch. We guess he could have said something stupider, but this comment was impressive in that respect. It's like he was trying to pull the best smelling crap from a pile of crap. Why Mr. Hewitt still has a radio show or platform is anyone's guess with these types of ridiculous comments.

Mr. Hewitt should do what the Senate Republicans have been doing with regard to the president's lawlessness, offensiveness, and impotent response to the pandemic. He should just say that he didn't see the tweet, put his head down and scurry away.


Panel: Kasie Hunt, NBC; Eddie Glaude, Jr.; Princeton University; Hugh Hewitt, Salem Radio Network

One more thing...
According to U.S. intelligence officials, Russians are paying bounties to the Taliban to kill U.S. soldiers. This story was reported in the New York Times, in which it also said that the president was briefed about it in March. The president said that he was not briefed on this, hence the administration has had no response. As much as we disagree with John Bolton, we're with him on this one thinking it's odd that a president would go out of his way to say that he was not briefed. Will Mr. Trump act? Maybe if he's pressured enough because he doesn't want to look anymore like he's in Putin's pocket than he already does.

 

6.21.20: It's Not Only the Supreme Court...

President Trump said via Twitter, "Do you get the impression that the Supreme Court doesn't like me?"

This tweet came in response to the Court's ruling on DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) which came after the Court also ruled earlier in the week that individuals could not be fired on the basis of their sexual orientation, which is a major victory of course for the LGBTQ community.

Along with the LGBT community, DACA recipients are mostly Latino so there are two other groups not in the 'like' column for Trump. Then there are those four former cabinet members - John Kelly, John Bolton, Rex Tillerson and James Mattis - that really aren't seeing it either. The African-American community... please.

Then there's 60 percent of the American public that disapprove of his job performance. Suburban moms are in the midst of a sickening kerfuffle, figuratively and literally, so they're keeping their distance as well.

Then there was the rally in Tulsa last night.

One million tickets requested, 19,000 Trump supporters indoors and another 40,000 expected outside. But only about 7,000 showed up, and the campaign cancelled the 'overflow' speech that the president was to give to the crowd outside because it would have been in front of only like 40 people. Concerns about coronavirus spread, given that masks were optional and were not worn, plus what Carol Lee reported on Trump's enthusiasm issue while he paints a doomsday scenario if he is not reelected.

So many have tuned out, even rally supporters who know they're going to get the same show, that Donald Trump is desperate. So much so that he sees the mountain coming and the plane is out of control. The president playing defense as Yamiche Alcindor described was an understatement and a half (understandable, Ms. Alcindor works for PBS), because the president has to do something to fire up his base. Ms. Lee said the rallies are the campaign's only play, but this time around that he is the incumbent they will not go over as well if Tulsa is any indication.

Also in desperation with more nefarious intent, Mr. Trump along with Attorney General Bill Barr, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin who all see the writing on the wall are covering for the president in multiple ways, namely this latest firing of Geoffrey Berman, U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, who was investigating Mr. Trump's associates. Steve Mnuchin, this week, refused to tell a congressional oversight committee who he gave $500 billion of tax payers' money to through the business relief program. And Mr. Pompeo is there to cover up and mitigate the damage of all these self-interested foreign deals Mr. Trump is making. Firing all the Inspectors General has only made their collective tasks easier.

However, John Bolton put his dislike into print and the Trump Administration couldn't do anything about it. Another malfunction for the Trump campaign because as Ms. Alcindor described from her reading is that the book's general thesis is that Donald Trump is unfit to be president. And even though long-time Republican strategist Alex Cardenas who has known Mr. Bolton for close to 40 years calls him a 'truth teller,' One can not disagree with Congressman Adam Schiff's assessment that Mr. Bolton indicted himself on cowardice and greed. The damning excerpts that have already been released, would have put Republican senators in an untenable position if Mr. Bolton would have testified during Mr. Trump's impeachment.

Point being to all this, it seems it's not only the Supreme Court that doesn't like Mr. Trump.


Panel: Yamiche Alcindor, PBS; Carol Lee, NBC News; Alex Cardenas, Republican Strategist

One more thing...
You have to love that Mr. Cardenas said that the Trump Campaign got 'punk'd' when it came to getting a million RSVPs to the rally. The campaign was indeed nervous and they over-hyped it.

6.14.20: Mr. Trump Suffers Delusions that He Tortures the American People With

It's easy when writing a column to revert to just railing against individuals and their insights which you've deemed unacceptable. With a few notable exceptions (read: Hugh Hewitt and Pat McCrory), we like to also offer helpful suggestions so that maybe, just maybe, we can positively contribute to widening people's insights and perspectives.

With that in mind, here's one. If all goes well in November, what senate Republicans would be wise to do is make Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) their minority leader. Otherwise, the already shrinking relevance of Republican voices will rightly be disqualified from any national conversation on race or police reform. With more of Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) leading the party the enabling of a president who wants to kill productive conversation by a thousand cuts with continue.

Hence this exchange two days ago (6.12.20) between President Trump and Harris Faulkner (cool name) on Fox News:

Trump: So I think I've done more for the Black community than any other president, and let's take a pass on Abraham Lincoln because he did good, although it's always questionable, you know, in other words, the end result —

Faulkner: Well, we are free, Mr. President, so I think he did pretty well.

Trump: We are free. You understand what I mean.

Faulkner: Yeah, I get it.

Never mind the complete falsehood at the top of Mr. Trump's statement, but how exactly is the end result of freeing a race of people from the bondage of slavery and winning a war against an army lead by men who were traitors to their country questionable?

We have to side with The New York Times' Helene Cooper on this one and say that it's 'preposterous' to think that Mr. Trump can contribute productively to the conversation. As astounding as the aforementioned exchange is, let's not focus on that, but instead some of the statements coming from Senator Scott representing Republicans on police reform. It's heartening to him proclaim matter-of-factly that the time for the choke hold has come and gone. Also sounded very positive on a national database for police complains and misconduct for individual officers, which is something that should exist on a federal level. This way, officers fired from one department can not just simply go to another place and commit the same misconduct. What it would also does is allow departments to review individuals and consider the specific actions; if the level of offensive is such that maybe with counseling, retraining and a change of scenery, an individual can re-enter. 

Point being, it takes one's blood pressure down a bit when you hear a Republican senator comment that having Juneteenth become a national holiday (why isn't it already?) is a "brilliant idea." To be clear, whether you agree with that or not, it's a little encouraging to be open to the idea. As Kasie Hunt reported, it is only Tim Scott that can deliver anything from Republicans, as a cultural shift in the country threatens to leave them irredeemably out of touch, if they aren't already.

On top of all this, the fallout continues for Mr. Trump over his photo-op political stunt with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, making a video apology for appearing with the president and for the appearance of politicizing the military. With that as the backdrop, Chuck Todd interviewed the frustrating, but necessarily steady fmr. Secretary of Defense for both the Bush and Obama Administrations, Robert Gates.

Secretary Gates has had harsh words for both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump respectively, but gives Mr. Trump's foreign policy initiatives the nod over Mr. Biden's, with whom he said he disagreed with most all of his foreign policy positions going back 40 years. Conversely, Mr. Gates explained that "at least he hasn't gotten us in any more wars," something for which we're all grateful for but the fmr. secretary neglected to mention that Mr. Trump left a great steadfast ally, the Kurds, high and dry in Syria to be sandwiched by Turkey and Russia.

Additionally, Mr. Gates mentioned that he agreed with challenging China and engaging with North Korea qualifying both that nothing has become of either. But what good are the initiatives if there is no strategic plan, which Mr. Gates knows that Mr. Trump never has. The glaring omission from Secretary Gates's commentary was no mention of the alienation of our two most important European continental allies, France and Germany. Australia is relieved that they're on the other side of the globe from us right now and it seems like 100 percent of Canadians are wondering the same thing as 60 percent of Americans - when will the Trump exhaustion finally end? The diplomatic malpractice with these vital allies is enough of a disqualifier on foreign policy.

As frustrating as Mr. Gates's answers can be, he still mentioned what every other fmr. senior military official checked this week, character or the lack thereof. An illustration of this is Mr. Trump flat refusal on the idea of renaming military bases that are currently named after Confederate military figures. Ms. Cooper, senior Pentagon reporter, explained that the military was only in the beginning stages of suggesting a commission to look at the issue, and before it was even a thing, Mr. Trump slammed the door on it.

It's a bigoted bet that Mr. Trump makes against his political opponents on behalf of pleasing his base, feeding them the red dog-whistle as it were. The same can be said for the original scheduling for a Trump campaign event in Tulsa, which has malicious intent in triplicate. Given Mr. Trump's statements on race, having a rally on Juneteenth, the celebrated day of emancipation for African-Americans is uncalled for to say the least. On top of that, Mr. Trump is having the rally in Tulsa, the site of the worst post-Civil War racial massacre of African-Americans in U.S. history. And lastly, Oklahoma is one of the states where cases of Covid-19 are spiking and the Trump campaign thinks it's still a good idea to cram 15,000 people into an arena with poor ventilation. 

Dr. Nahid Bhadelia explained that hospital beds in Arizona are at 84 percent capacity and South Carolina is at 70 percent, illustrating the spikes in the South and the West. Because Mr. Trump is continuing to gamble with American lives, 116,000+ deaths and counting, by not taking the vitally necessary federal initiative to combat the virus, it seems as though we are indeed at the point that NBC's Joseph Fair (a Covid-19 victim) described as not a matter of waves or spikes but a consistent flow of infections and deaths until we discover a vaccine. And of course, the totals will disproportionately affect the black community.

Yet with all this, Mr. Trump still has the gall to say that he's done more for the black community then any other president, outside of Abraham Lincoln. The saddest part of Mr. Trump suffering from delusions is that the American people are tortured by them.


Panel: Kasie Hunt, NBC; Helene Cooper, The New York Times; Tim Alberta, Politico

6.7.20: When The President is Spinning Out of Control, We All Are

How influential is the office of the presidency? So much influence that when the individual who occupies the office is spinning out of control it can literally spin the country out of control, which now a majority of Americans believe that is in fact what's happening.

The tragic events of 110,000-plus deaths from Covid-19, the subsequent economic collapse and the protests for racial injustice may have happened on another president's watch, but the chaos and division that Donald Trump has wrought on Americans and the world is fully manifesting itself.

The culmination came on Monday with the Trump Administration ordering the U.S. military to disperse a peaceful protest outside the "People's House" with tear gas so that we can all have this photo...

Your Bible? A Bible.

Sorry... This photo:

Offensive on so many levels, one doesn't even know where to begin: unconstitutional use of the military for a photo op? turning the U.S. military on American citizens? using the bible and religion as a prop? Ivanka Trump carrying the bible in her purse then handing it to the president? completely tone-deaf to what was going on around the entire country at that moment? desecrating a sacred church where every president since James Madison (4th) had come to pray?

After that new low even for this president, the expected residual ooze of misleading and inappropriate statements seeped from the White House. Meanwhile, in the real world, former military commanders such as Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen, fmr. Trump Administration Defense Secretary General James Mattis, fmr. Trump Chief of Staff General John Kelly, fmr. Secretary of State General Colin Powell, fmr. Seal Commander General William McCraven and fmr. NATO Supreme Commander Admiral James Stavridis all harshly condemned the president's actions and in essence explained that he is actively part of the problem when it comes to bringing the country together.

Yet while protests continue, the president remains a dividing force for racial justice and has yet to exclude invoking the Insurrection Act to fully employ the U.S. military to stop the protests. Appearing on today's program, Admiral Stavridis explained that if it comes to that point, current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley will have a choice to make, either follow the order or hand in his four stars. The admiral also said that because Defense Secretary Mark Esper is a political appointee, he would have it easier on making the decision, but General Milley is a career soldier. And then there is abroad, in which Adm. Stavridis explained that because of Mr. Trump, America's moral authority (and thus its influence) and reputation are deteriorating rapidly. Even if Mr. Trump is indeed a one-term president, the damage he's already done to international relations and partnerships will take at least a decade to repair.

Who knows how long it will take this country to recover even somewhat from Mr. Trump's presidency, if ever. On multiple occasions, Kristen Welker described the press pool being shushed by the president when asked about the protests and what his plan would be for reform. Obviously, it's because the administration doesn't have a plan, but not only that. One is compelled to ask if the president even cares to have one.

Co-founder of Black Lives Matter, Alicia Garza explained it when Chuck Todd asked her about "Defund the Police." Ms. Garza said that what that meant was that instead of pouring tons money into militarizing the police, use the money for housing and education in black communities, not getting rid of the police force. Affordable housing and good public education are problems plague all demographics in the country but a Manhattan-type project should begin in communities of color.

Frankly, it won't happen under this "Law & Order" president, even if he is reelected. In terms of the election polls and the various crises that he has no aptitude or inclination to confront, Mr. Trump is like a wounded animal backed into a corner. In this case it means that invoking the Insurrection Act is not out of the question. The protests and the battle against white supremacy and our nation's original sin will continue. As The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson put it, "It will not be without conflict."


Panel: Kristen Welker, NBC; Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post; David French, The Dispatch


One more thing...
The NFL
"We admit we were wrong not to listen to players earlier."
                                  - NFL Commissioner Roger Goddell

Again, Mr. Robinson had it correct. Until they say his name and publicly apologize to Colin Kapernick before he's rightly standing on the sideline for his new team, Mr. Goddell's statement while a step in the right direction, comes up short.

5.31.20: The Frustration and Desperation of the Tormented in America

Where do we go from here?
Where do we start?

If those two questions can not be answered in a meaningful way then as a country we're lost. The individual who could provide the initial guidance to a vision for moving forward is the president of the United States. Unfortunately, we have a man as president (to say we have a president ill-suited to the moment would imply that he was presidential in the first place) who, as NBC's Garrett Haake reported from interviews in Washington D.C., no longer speaks in a meaningful way for the people or to the people.

Meanwhile, here's a short list: Minneapolis, Washington D.C., New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Oakland, San Francisco, Dallas, Baltimore, Sacramento, Boston, Las Vegas, Louisville, Salt Lake City, Houston, Philadelphia, Miami and let's not forget Atlanta.

These lifeblood hubs of America are literally blowing up because of the frustration and desperation of the tormented. One hundred thousand Americans died in three months, 40 million people are out of work, a third of Americans developing anxiety and depression, and then...

A white police office in Minneapolis is charged with 3rd degree murder and 2nd degree manslaughter in the killing of George Floyd - an African-American man, a human being with rights - ripping the scab off a wound that has been infected for 400 years.

We're overheating in an already hot summer that hasn't even officially started yet and we're only getting to a presidential election on which Donald Trump has no conceivable inclination to turn down the heat.

But in the moment, while local and state law enforcement restore order, the president should address the nation. As Joshua Johnson pointed out - the president's always matter, but can Mr. Trump provide words of sympathy and understanding while being strong.

Mr. Johnson also mentioned along the way in the panel discussion that without systematic changes, heavy-handedness will prevail. State Attorney General Keith Ellison (D-MN), DC Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance-Bottoms (D) all did make mention a different sort of element present at the protests, which will unfortunately only grow the anger and the numbers if those aforementioned systematic changes don't start to occur. But anger begets anger and white supremacists like the ones we saw in Charlottesville, the ones that Mr. Trump likes to send dog whistles to.

Did we say it was going to be hot this summer?

As with the coronavirus, we need leadership at a federal level or as Attorney General Ellison more diplomatically put it, more constructive help which would be a great start. In a more practical sense, the cities need more federal assistance. States going bankrupt is not an option despite what Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) would suggest, but both Mayor Bowser and Mayor Lance-Bottoms emphasized this point as it is truly an imperative, if only to prepare for a next wave of a pandemic which is sure to occur.

With the knowledge that Joe Biden is not going to pick a vice-presidential candidate until August, we find ourselves in the very rare position of agreeing with fmr. governor Pat McCrory on one point he made. A lot can happen between now and August. Ninety-nine percent of the time Mr. McCrory is clueless on presenting the right solutions or at the very least slightly tone-deaf as he was today. But Mr. McCrory also said as a Republican, Congresswoman Val Demmings (D-FL) worries him as a candidate a great deal. The two-term Congresswoman Demmings is the fmr. Orlando Chief of Police and pulled from her expertise to offer another way in which the federal government could act by re-implementing and build on national retraining programs for police forces and building relationships with their communities. From her informed position, she also explained that police forces are asking for this.

Chuck Todd asked Congresswoman Demmings if the president called her for help in this moment of crisis, would she help and she emphatically said that she would advising him to show compassion and that our diversity as Americans is what makes this nation strong.

Yes, Republicans look at an informed, steady hand of leadership and worry, no doubt she is one of the names at the top of Mr. Biden's list.


Panel: Teresa Maria Kumar, Voto Latino; Joshua Johnson, NBC; Pat McCrory, fmr. governor North Carolina (R)


A few more things...
1.
In response to a reporter's question yesterday about whether the president's supporters staging counter-protests would only escalate tensions, Mr. Trump responded with this:

"MAGA loves the black people."
                                  -President Donald J. Trump, 5.30.2020

This is just wrong on so many levels, again dog-whistle racism - a clear illustration of his us and them mentality at all times.

2.
Also, as Mayor Lance-Bottoms, we're beyond the tipping point in terms of systematic racial injustice and then how do blame a community for defacing symbols of that very thing:

Click on text to read the full story at The Washington Post

And talk about sticking it in an entire community's face, the United Daughters of the Confederacy? Really? 

We as descendants despite living in the 21st century are still united in representing symbols and a heritage of oppression, racism and slavery. 

As an law abiding everyday American, who just so happens to also be African-American, how would you like to walk by their headquarters everyday?

3.
Lastly, we don't usually feature screenshots from other news websites, but CNN's front page last night illustrated so many things unraveling on so many levels.

Click to enlarge

5.24.20: Taking Advantage of a Crisis

It's an unusual Memorial Day weekend to understate it, dramatically.  This column on this particular weekend traditionally puts the focus on the troops and the sacrifices they continue to make this very day, however, it's impossible not to be thinking about the 97,714 individuals who have lost their lives in the past three months from Covid-19 and the heroic efforts of all U.S. Healthcare workers who are putting their lives on the line for us here at home.

The most tragic is that of this writing the above number of Covid-19 deaths is already inaccurate as the total increases seemingly unabated. There is a race for a vaccine and in a joint interview with Dr. Dan Barouch of Harvard Medical School and Dr. Peter Hotez of Baylor Medical College, they acknowledged that there has been good news on this front and that 12 to 18 months is an imaginable timeline if everything breaks right in the development, but that's a big 'if.'

However, Dr. Hotez also made the point that with the development of a vaccine as such speed, the anti-vaccination lobby will certainly cast doubt on the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine. He stated that as many as 25% of the U.S. population would not take the vaccine even if it were available. He explained that the Trump Administration's designated name for the project is 'Warp Speed' which just helps to cast more doubt on vaccine effectiveness. It should be noted, as Dr. Hotez, pointed out as a medical expert on vaccination who has a child with autism, that he wrote a book refuting this claim making him public enemy number one, using his words, with the anti-vaxxers. In this column's humble opinion, the entire anti-vaccination stance stems from the conspiracy theories online that also push distrust of our public health institutions and government writ large.

But with Memorial Day upon us, all 50 states have reopened in varying degrees, and for the most part the governors, such as Mike DeWine (R-OH) of acting in accordance with scientific data and common sense on carefully reopening their respective states. As part of that reopening, governors are insisting that citizens wear masks. The emotional speech by North Dakota Governor, Doug Burgum (R-ND) emphasized the need to not make wearing a mask a political (red and blue) issue. After the clip, Governor DeWine said that he agreed with Mr. Burgum that this crisis effects all of us and that wearing a mask shouldn't be political, but that it's protection for your fellow citizen.

It's heartening to hear Republican and Democratic governors alike advocating this and providing model behavior. Unfortunately, as we've said before in this column, states are on their own as the federal government's response (i.e. the Trump Administration) has been abysmal, which was enforced every day this week by the president himself.

Monday: The president said he would have done nothing differently to combat the pandemic.
Tuesday: The president said he was taking hydroxychloroquine, which the FDA and medical researches could increase your chance of death.
Wednesday: The president said that he would withhold aid to states that mailed out applications for mail-in ballots.
Thursday: Mr. Trump went to a Ford Motors plant where they are making masks and didn't wear one in public, saying that he didn't want to give the press the photo-op (a photo was taken) because Mr. Trump wearing a mask doesn't send the right message. Huh?
Friday: The president said that houses of worship were essential and that he would override governors' decisions if they decided not to open them, despite public health risks. This is something the president doesn't have the power to do, but it's Trump so knowing what is legal and what is not never really matters to him.

As Andrea Mitchell pointed out, mask wearing shouldn't be politicized and governors are trying to tamp that down, however, the one person who is politicizing it the most is President Trump. Never has the president understood that he is the president for all Americans and in times of crisis, like this, the president should be working to bring people to work together.

Instead of taking responsibility, to which the president said he takes none at all, he has pointed the finger of blame at various entities and individuals, but in the past few weeks has been sharpening his ire toward China. In the interview with National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien, he compared the China's response (cover-up) of the Covid-19 outbreak to Russia's initial cover-up of Chernobyl. That's not going to go a long way for better relations, which are strained to say the least. Mr. O'Brien didn't really have a solid answer for what the U.S.'s response would be given Beijing's new crackdown on Hong Kong, which is seeing fresh protests today.

In a time of crisis, like now where the rest of the world is focused on the pandemic, President Xi's government is using the opportunity to crack down on Hong Kong. Chuck Todd asked Mr. O'Brien about sanctions, but even with those in place, it won't stop Beijing's actions. The panel, as well as this column, is that China will get away with it. The only voice that would stand up to this action would be an American one, but that's not going to happen for two reasons. One, Mr. Trump is desperate for a trade deal, which doesn't like it's going to happen and two, Mr. Trump is taking advantage of this crisis himself with the firings of 4 inspectors general in 6 weeks and the continued undoing of the Mueller investigation and the convictions that resulted from it.

President Trump has vacillated back and forth on being soft on China one minute and then being tough on them the next. The problems that we're seeing now between the countries (the world's largest two economies) is exacerbated by the lack of a consistent strategy and position on the part of the U.S. administration.

In a time when the president insists on politicizing everything to the detriment of us all, this column would like to wish that all Americans enjoy their holiday weekend and to look out for one another. Wear a mask, it's not for you but for the others around you - a small but selfless act.


Panel: Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, O. Kay Henderson, Radio Iowa; Jeh Johnson, fmr. head of Homeland Security

One more thing...
Chuck Todd signed off today, saying "Thanks for trusting us," which is so indicative of our time when so many outlets for information are not. The outlets of information that can not be trusted starts with the U.S. President, and until that changes America will see it's role in the world continuing to diminish.