Trump destroying our social fabric 8-25-2016

25, August 2016                  Trump destroying our social fabric

All across America Trump’s incendiary rhetoric is rapidly destroying America’s fragile social fabric – tearing away at the civility and tolerance - harking back to the days of the Wild West “hang em” culture.

Students no longer feel the need to suppress their innermost racial demons but now feel free to hurl nasty epithets to minorities chanting slogans like “Build a Wall” or “Go Back”.

The open hostility is so bad at many high schools that more and more students are choosing to be home-schooled.

Donald Trump relishes goading his supporters by encouraging them to rough up protestors and dropping sly hints for them to invoke their second amendment rights to prevent Hillary Clinton from making judicial nominations.

His more vociferous supporters raised the ante by demanding that Clinton should be executed by a firing squad for treason while others have shouted “hang the b . . ch!” The NYT have made a video which captured the screams of his supporters which resembles a KKK lynch mob.  Racial slurs are also directed against Jews, Blacks, Latinos Muslims and gay people. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported a huge spike in bullying at all grade levels. Many Latino students are carrying their birth certifications and Social Security Cards out of fear they will deported.

The immense damage that the Republican front runner has inflicted on America’s psyche and his own party will linger on well after the November election.

Trump is the winner 8-21-2016

21, August 2016               Trump is the winner

There is little lingering doubt that Donald Trump possesses neither the band-width nor the stomach to meet the demands of the presidency. Readers may recall he offered John Kasich to be his Dick Cheney VP clone with the understanding that he would assume the responsibilities of domestic and foreign affairs freeing Trump to bask in the trappings of power.

Trump is not an ideologue like his former Republican rivals, or a “Bernie Sanders” driven by a desire to level the playing field for poor Americans suffering job losses and unpaid medical bills or the younger Millennials burdened with student debt.

Regardless of the outcome of the election, Trump will be a clear winner.

The unprecedented media attention has already boosted his business profits and assured him a coveted presence among the ‘talking heads’ of mainstream media.  It is also possible that he might abandon the ‘crooked media’ and form his own media company with the help of former Fox chairman, Roger Ailes.

The media continues to be enthralled with the Trump phenomena offering him free air time to report his daily outlandish pontifications. Likewise his supporters seem to be in a perpetual trance mesmerized by their Pipe Piper. Even his flip/flopping on the issues and insults don’t seem to faze them. Little do his admirers realize that their media idol will dump them as soon as he has capitalized on their support in much the same way he acquires properties, extracts handsome profits and then discards the dead carcasses. 

War Crimes 8-19-2016

 

19, August 2016                        War Crimes

In a perverse twist to its stated reason for promoting “stability within the region," the U.S. continues to sell large numbers of weapons  to Saudi Arabia, (a staggering $110 billion) — which the Saudis have been raining down on a predominantly civilian population in Yemen.  President Obama bypassed Congress to facilitate the sales.

The State Department recently approved an additional $1.5 billion in arms sales. Our British and European cousins are also jumping on the bandwagon eager to participate in the bonanza.

Despite clear marking and GPS coordinates provided to the warring factions, a Doctors Without Borders hospital was recently attacked   - again, killing medical personnel, patients,  and civilians.   

The attack on DWB and their support facilities was the fourth attack in the past year. The war has killed 6,500 people and displaced 2.5 million.  We also continue to ignore mounting evidence of Saudi’s close alliance to terrorist groups (including the perpetrators of 9/11) and its long history of exporting its Wahhabism strain of Sunni Islam which has fueled greater intolerance of “non-believers”. Daniel Benjamin, a former State Department coordinator for counterterrorism, has called Wahhabism "a devastating invasive species in Islam's enormous ecosystem”.

It is time the American people raise their collective voices and demand an immediate halt to further weapons sales to Saudi Arabia.  Failure to do so will make us complicit in Saudi’s war crimes.

As Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut told CNN:  “There’s an American imprint on every civilian life lost in Yemen.” Shameful.  

Foreign Money 8-15-2016

 

15, August 2016                        Foreign Money

There is mounting evidence that foreign corporations are attempting to influence our political system with large donations to super PACS permitted under the landmark, Supreme Court, ‘Citizens United’ decision.

An investigation conducted by the Intercept has revealed how a Chinese corporation, ‘American Pacific International Capital Company’ surreptitiously donated $1.3 million to Jeb Bush’s super PAC. George W. Bush’s brother, Neil Bush, now sits on the board of APIC and is paid upwards of $700,000 for serving on the board of a sister company, SingHaiyi.

Gordon Tang, one of the owners of APIC, has worked assiduously to gain U.S. political friends, inviting U.S. politicians to his ribbon cuttings, and also soliciting the help from Gary Locke, the former governor of Washington, former secretary of commerce and former U.S. ambassador to China.

In another troubling twist to the incestuous relationship, Locke sold his home in Bethesda to the Tang family for $1.6 million. The Intercept has an audio recording of a bribe of $200,000 being offered to one their reporter’s to quash the investigation.

Tang is also concerned about allegations a company he controlled is under investigation for smuggling and tax evasion in Shantou.

The pervasive influence of foreign money prompted the Federal Election Commission to propose an outright ban from domestic subsidiaries of foreign corporations. Politicians and the media would love to enrich themselves by opening the floodgates of foreign money, but the ultimate losers will be our democracy.

Russia’s hacking? 8-15-2016

15, August 2016                   Russia’s hacking?

It is surprising that Democrats have expressed outrage that Russia has (allegedly) been hacking into their emails to upend their efforts to secure the keys to the White House.  They further accused the Kremlin of interfering in the US democratic process. Oh really? I seem to call a very high profile Prime Minister Netanyahu addressing Congress using his ‘red line’ fear tactics to try to torpedo the Iran nuclear deal and undermine President Obama’s reelection.  Would our intelligence agencies ever listen to private conversations of world leaders or UN officials? Do readers recall Angela Merkel’s cell phone being hacked by the NSA? Or, private conversations by participants at the Paris Climate summit?

Classified documents released by Edward Snowden show that the NSA was targeting the Chinese Huawei’s network in Shenzhen and monitored the company’s top executives.  The NSA is recording every single phone call made in an undisclosed foreign country. A surveillance system called MYSTIC stores the billions of phone conversations for up to 30 days. According to Ashkan Soltani, who co-wrote the Washington Post exposé on MYSTIC, revealed how the NSA uses Google cookies to pinpoint targets for hacking and how the NSA secretly broke into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world. Responding to mounting outrage of their citizens, foreign governments are shunning America’s cloud computer industry deemed to be unsafe to the prying eyes of the NSA. For example, Microsoft has lost customers, including the government of Brazil. IBM is spending more than a billion dollars to build data centers overseas to safeguard data of their foreign customers. Former President Jimmy Carter has revealed he limits his own email use out of fear he’s spied on by U.S. intelligence. In an interview with NBC News, Carter says he avoids emails when corresponding with foreign leaders — instead using old-fashioned "snail mail." Perhaps we should demand our own intelligence agencies halt their illegal activities before pointing fingers at foreign government. Or as the old proverb states more succinctly, -“what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.”

Trump, back in the news - again 8-11-2016

11, August 2016                Trump, back in the news - again                     

Trump’s remarks during a rally in North Carolina slyly hinting to his rabid supporters that it was perhaps time to conclude the presidential race by ‘taking out’ his rival – is beyond the pale. 

His careless remarks were met with predictable outrage. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut tweeted, "Don’t treat this as a political misstep. It’s an assassination threat, .  .  . Former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who survived an assassination attempt  commented Trump’s rhetoric, "may provide inspiration for those bent on bloodshed."

The U.S. editor of Israeli Haaretz, tweeted, "People who remember the incitement that led to Rabin’s assassination will find Trump’s rhetoric hauntingly familiar." See Amos Gitai mesmerizing film ‘Rabin, the last Day’ who argues the current Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu conducted a similar campaign to Trump’s and is ‘morally culpable for the 1995 assassination’.

Trump should heed the New York Daily News’s call to end his campaign. The GOP should stiffen their collective spines and withdraw their endorsement. His campaign has degenerated from offensive to reckless to criminal. Trump can no longer temper his remarks. He craves the adulation of his misguided supporters and feels compelled to win their continued support with more and more incendiary comments stoking violence. His latest diatribe accusing President Obama policies of being responsible for the birth of ISIS is laughable. It was President George Bush’s disastrous invasion of Iraq which triggered the armed  Sunni insurrection.

White Collar Crime 8-10-2016

10, August 2016                       White Collar Crime

Commit a minor infraction and the strong arm of the law will descend on you without mercy. Collude with other major financial institutions to manipulate interest rates and you suffer no jail time and pay a small fine relative to your assets.

The Libor corruption was one of the biggest financial scandals of all time.  A number of the largest banks in the world were caught manipulating world interests rates through the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) which impacted more than $300 trillion of financial products.

British banks, who often boast to be the bastions of probity, played a central role in the scandal which has severely tarnished their image.

Barclays paid $453 million settlement in England and a minuscule $100 million fine in the United States. None of the officers are serving prison time. The fines offer no deterrent and are merely the cost of doing a very lucrative business. 

Bank officials will escape personal fines and will merely pass on the settlement fees to their shareholders.

The damage that was done to municipalities, city and state pension funds was enormous.

The LIBOR settlement is similar to the HSBC scandal, where the bank walked away with a relatively small fine for laundering hundreds of millions of dollars for foreign drug cartels.