Let's Do the Right Thing!

I have been listening intently to all the arguments pro and con about whether the Democrats should start impeachment proceedings or whether they should wait for the 2020 election. I have watched as current candidates take a position on what to do.  I have been watching Trump parry every attempt at oversight with further obstruction.  I have listened to the blathering of all the correspondents and pundits as they try to play out the possibilities.

At some point each of us has to take a position.  It is time for me to do that.

I see a man who is currently the President of the United States who treats the Constitution as a convenient toy.  He agrees with it when it suits him and disregards it when it doesn't.  You can’t do that.  Our founding documents were brilliantly conceived and have been remarkably resilient and prophetic for the past 242 years.  There are safeguards in those documents that the prescient founders created to deal with just about any event or condition. 

We have a situation now that there are remedies for, and processes that we can employ to bring us through this current unpleasantness.  The Constitution provides for the Legislative branch, the Congress, to have oversight over the Executive branch.  We have three equal branches of our government.  Equal.  That doesn’t mean that the Executive branch is more powerful than the Congress.  

The Congress has the right to investigate and bring to light any criminal activity it believes may have been or is being pursued by the Executive branch.  That investigative right employs the use of subpoenas and the ability to call witnesses to testify before Congressional investigative committees.  The Executive branch cannot simply say they don’t want to abide by those rules, …..unless we are all just fine with trashing our Constitution!  Assuming we are not, then the President must provide documents that are requested and permit executive branch staff to testify.  If they refuse, then in my opinion, they should be cited with Contempt of Congress citations, arrested and jailed until they submit documents or testify.

By refusing to answer subpoenas and not testifying, the Executive is further obstructing justice, obstructing the rule of law, and the Constitution. 

It seems to me that Trump is purposefully trying to change the nature of the Presidency.  He is trying to make it more powerful than the other two branches of government by refusing to abide by the rules and processes outlined in the US Constitution. He simply believes that those rules do not apply to him.

He therefore should be impeached and removed from office before he can damage our democracy further.

It does not matter that most believe that he would never be convicted in the Senate.  If Senators vote to acquit him, then it is on their heads.   For recorded history they will be known and remembered as opponents of the rule of law and the Constitution.

We are not stupid.  We can all see the corruption at play.  As much as the spin-meisters try to make all the lies seem like truth, they cannot do it.  We are not imbeciles.  It is not ok to say, “Well, I don’t like his style, but he sure is doing such great things, even though he lies to us.”  He is not doing great things for us.  He lies to us on a daily basis!  How can that be anything good?

It is a matter of principle that truth is more important than lies.  It is a matter of principle that we, as patriotic citizens, stand up and declare our allegiance to the founding principles of this democratic republic.

I say cleanse this muck from our national soul using the tools provided by our Constitution…..and thank God we have the tools to use!  We must not be afraid.

And a quick word about Robert Mueller.  Everyone says he is such a straight arrow.  Well, that may be true, but I think he suffers from what I call in my business “producer wimp-out”. 

A TV producer’s prime obligation is to get the goods on the screen when you are out there spending lots of money to shoot something.  If you are too timid to get that perfect shot or ask that incisive question because you don’t want to offend anyone or are too scared to put your balls forward and go for it, then you suffer from ‘producer wimp-out’.  You settled for second-best.

Mueller was too timid to call a criminal obstructor of justice what he actually was.  He didn’t want to go against some arbitrary Justice Department ‘tradition’ not to indict a sitting President.  Why not—I ask!  What would have happened if he grew a set of cojones and indicted the President on corruption charges and obstruction of justice?  He could have been bold, but he wimped out.  So instead, he has left us whining about what we should do next and trying to decide what to do with his ‘breadcrumbs’.

I say, do what is right and true.  Impeach the scum—he’s ‘playing’ us and we are letting him. Let’s get rid of him!

Madam Secretary

There is a narrative series on Commercial Television that should be seen by everyone.  The title is Madam

Secretary starring Tia Leone as the MSEC.  There are a number of reasons to start tuning in to this show, the first being its uncanny ability to predict events.  It seems that all their stories parallel real life political story lines with plot situations that are dramatically similar to the headlines we read every day.

I read an interesting interview with Madam Secretary’s creator Barbara Hall and her showrunner, Lori McCreary.  The way they craft their episodes is by carefully identifying issues taken directly from current events and then modifying the characters to fit the characters in the series’ Dalton Administration.  Then the challenge is to take the issue and ‘game’ out the possible paths that the main story will develop.  Out of those scenarios, which might number 4 or 5 possibles, the writing team and Hall choose the one that provides the best possible outcome.  This series is also executive produced by Morgan Freeman.  I only wish his presence was felt on screen as well, but surely his gentle intelligent hand is firmly on the wheel on this one..

In effect, the writers on this show are doing the foreign policy (and domestic too) job of the government, and in most cases coming up with better solutions!  The reason that they can do that is that there are no politics involved!  (Money, special interests, lobbying)  All the writers need to do is make the solutions ‘dramatic’ and the best story.   The series portrays many of our legislators as they really are, mean spirited, greedy, lustful for power, influenced by special interest and money, etc.  

While Elizabeth McCord, the MSEC of the Dalton administration is no stranger to combative politics, she always seeks the advantage by claiming the high road, the solution and position that portrays intelligence, integrity and honesty.  What a concept!  That’s why this series should be mandatory viewing for our legislators, but even more importantly for our citizens—you and me.  Because ultimately, ‘we the people’ are the government, and if we answer to the ‘best angels’ of ourselves, my guess is that we would choose better leaders who were more interested in finding positive solutions to the thorniest of our challenges rather than promoting their own self-aggrandizement.

In addition to the mesmerizing matching of their story lines with current events, the beauty in this show is particularly evident in the writing.  The dialog is real and the situations are believable, both politically and personally between the characters.  And the cast is superb, great moments and REAL moments.

In this week’s episode, Elizabeth is about to announce for the Presidency, and her chief opponent is suddenly discovered to have secret financing for his campaign provided by several Russian oligarchs.  Sound familiar?  Perhaps that is a little ‘on the nose’ as far as similarity to what’s happening in reality, but there are other scenarios that are written well before they actually occur.  And then they turn out almost eerily identical to what actually happens.  This is not coincidence.  The writing staff taps into the most authoritative and intelligent consultants who give concentrated background to the events the show writers want to portray.  Then the consultants work with the writers to play out the 4 or 5 scenarios that might result.  The fact that they get it right so many times is testimony to their clear understanding of what is actually happening.  However their solutions really do point the way to how real-life legislators could solve the problems.

There is a lot of crap on TV these days, but in a reminiscent nod to series like The West Wing and The Newsroom, this series is a worthy successor.

Just Shaking My Head........

I keep reading and hearing all the pundits who are analyzing how Trump is going to prevail again in the election of 2020.  It is truly frightening to think this man could be re-elected.  Peter Baker of the New York Times describes how Trump has never considered himself the President of all the people, and has simply rejected any obligation to represent all the people of the country.  He speaks only to his base.  He now proclaims that all Democrats are treasonous.  He rejects any conventional obligation felt by all previous presidents since the 1800s to reveal his business interests, tax returns, or other engagements that might be directly opposite and conflicting with the interests of the country.  He simply doesn’t care.

And yet, there is still almost half the country that is OK with that.  His politics of discord, division and prejudice strike a sympathetic chord with so many of our citizens!  This is a disheartening realization for those of us who imagine an idealized vision of our country.  The concepts of honesty and integrity and the rule of law are simply not valid for Trump and his followers.  They are simply not as important as winning at all costs, regardless of the method.

Trump’s policies are policies of cruelty.  There are so many examples of his heartlessness.   “His new budget strips away essential resources across multiple agencies and offices that serve Americans with disabilities”, according to Tom Ridge in an editorial in the New York Times.  “Budget decisions that harm people with disabilities and their families will hurt our economy and weaken us all.”

What are we to make of his immigration policies of separation and rejection?  He is trying to blame his policy of separating children from their families on Obama.  While there were instances of separation during Obama’s presidency, children were separated from parents only when authorities had concerns for their well-being or could not confirm that the adult was in fact their legal guardian, but not as a blanket policy.  In April 2018, at Trump’s direction, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Justice Department would prosecute 100% of illegal border-crossers in a policy known as "zero-tolerance." Adults went to jails and awaited criminal proceedings. Children were sent to detention centers run by the Department of Health and Human Services, were placed in deplorable confinement and many were eventually placed in foster care.  There are still thousands of children not reunited with their families and the Trump Administration simply didn’t care enough to keep decent records to enable reuniting the families.

All environmental regulations are under review, and destructive dismantling of all the protections for clean air and water are being discarded in the interests of corporations who want the shackles removed so they can increase their profits while not caring in the least about fouling our environment. 

Secrecy and non-transparency are the watchwords of the Trump Administration while they rail at the Congress for trying to exert its legal authority to provide oversight to the Executive Branch.  Trump calls them traitors and never satisfied liberal socialist activists trying to accomplish a coup d’etat!  Can you imagine any President since George Washington trying to sell that bill of goods to the citizens of the country?  He has single-handedly deconstructed the Justice Department and rid himself of anyone who tried to dispute what he considers his unrestricted power to interpret the law for himself.

After witnessing so many examples of bad policy, failed leadership and mean spirited lying to all of us, what comes next cannot be good…..

And so here we are at last on the eve of the release of the ‘lightly redacted’ Mueller Report.  Why in God’s name are our Congressional representatives not allowed to see the complete report?  We, as taxpayers, have paid for a report that tells us how our election was compromised by a foreign adversary.  We must see it.  We must depend on Congress to take appropriate action against a President who may have obstructed justice and abused his power.  It is their duty to examine fully ALL the evidence.  That evidence would be the basis of any action the Congress decides to take..The Constitution demands that. 

So why should we tolerate the object of the investigation, President Trump(in the incarnation of William Barr),  deciding how much of the report we or our representatives should be allowed to see?  The only conceivable reason he and his compromised Attorney General are trying to spin this report and pre-sell his innocence is probably because they have something awful to hide.  The shameful behavior of William Barr in continually trying to summarize the findings is an effort to obfuscate and paint the results of a report that none of us have even seen!  How ridiculous!  The reality of how the President is pressuring William Barr to provide cover for him is a disgrace.  Barr is supposed to be the Attorney General for all of us citizens.  He has become just another lackey for a disgraceful President.  Barr’s reputation is lost because of his bending to Trump’s will.

There is so much wrong with the way this is being handled that it boggles the mind.  Our Constitution is being crushed by this Presidency and his Justice Department. 

What do you think George Washington, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton would have to say about all this?