The Pulpit of a Bully

Donald Trump enters the Oscar De LA Renta Fashion Show, New York. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The term 'bully pulpit' was coined by Theodore Roosevelt, which was originally meant as a way for the former President to promote his agenda when he was in office, whether it's busting trusts or protecting the environment.  TR also liked to say "bully" a lot, in reaction to anything he considered superb or great to him.

Fast forward to this century.  The word "bully" has taken on a more ominous meaning.  Under President Donald Trump the pulpit he uses, whether it be Twitter or the occasional public statement where no questions from the peanut gallery are allowed, has not resulted in getting his agenda across.  Instead, it's been mostly used to bully and intimidate all those who oppose him.  And the list is long:  his own staff, politicians from both parties, the news media, "Saturday Night Live", world leaders, environmentalists, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, anyone involved in the Russian investigation, etc.  Everyone, that is, except Russian president Vladimir Putin.

There are times when Trump's bully pulpit gets him in serious trouble, enough to endanger the lives of millions of people and his own credibility.  Here are two recent examples.

The North Korean Missile Crisis

When North Korea's nuclear program advanced much farther than anyone thought, developing a missile capable of reaching the United States, Trump responded with a war of words with "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-un that frightened the world.   The President threatened to unleash "fire and fury like the world has never seen" on the Korean peninsula if Kim dared to attack this country.  And should the North Koreans bomb the Pacific island of Guam, which has American military bases, Trump assures us that Our Troops are "locked and loaded".  Seeing that the Trump administration is nowhere near ready to commit the country to a nuclear holocaust, nor is Kim willing to sacrifice his impoverished nation to a war he's certain to lose, apocalyptic rhetoric like this is never helpful in the cause of world peace.

For now, Kim has apparently decided to back off on plans to bomb Guam, instead preferring to wait and see what Trump's next move might be.  So are we.

Charlottesville

In Charlottesville, Virginia--the home of a university founded by Thomas Jefferson and located in the heart of the old Confederacy--a march of extreme-right groups degenerated into violent clashes between them and the demonstrators who protested their mere existence.  A car rammed into those demonstrators, killing one woman and injuring 19 others.  The suspect, who is from Ohio, has been arrested and charged.

Trump took time out from his "working vacation" at one of his resorts in New Jersey to address the situation, sort of.  He blamed "all sides" for the violence in Virginia, spoke a few words about tolerance, then exited stage left.  The crescendo of criticism from "all sides"--including members of his own party--forced the President to make another statement from the White House two days later. This time he remembered to mention by name the hate groups--the ones who helped him win the election--who helped make this tragedy possible.  His critics were not impressed.

It should be noted that in neither speech did the President mention nor give his reaction to the bombing of a mosque in Bloomington, Minnesota the previous week, with no deaths reported.  As of August 15, the FBI is still investigating and no suspects have been arrested.

President Trump has turned the bully pulpit into the pulpit of a bully.  The longer he stays in office, the more likely it is he could say or do something that causes irreparable harm to him, his country and the world.  Not that he listens to anyone's advice but his own, but Trump might benefit from another of Teddy Roosevelt's famous sayings:  "Speak softly and carry a big stick".  In the President's case, it might as well be "Tweet Loudly and Carry a Big Mouth".

Random Thoughts '17: North Korea, Olympics, Glen Campbell, etc.

Flag of North Korea (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

With North Korea's ability to fire nuclear missiles at the United States getting better and better sooner than most experts thought, so is the warmongering rhetoric between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.  They're both acting like belligerent children instead of mature adults every time they make statements predicting the other's fiery doom.  Secretary of State Rex Tillerson actually told Americans to sleep well while defending his boss' rash words.  Um, no.  People in Seattle, the rest of the West Coast, Hawaii, Alaska, and now Guam are definitely sleepless over being in the line of nuclear fire should the Korean War ever restart after a 64-year absence.

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Ten days after Anthony Scaramucci was named White House communications director, he was told to scram by the new chief of staff, former Homeland Security chief John Kelly.  "The Mooch" came in like a wrecking ball (apologies to Miley Cyrus), getting press secretary Sean Spicer and Kelly's predecessor Reince Priebus to quit.  But then came the expletive-laden interview with The New Yorker magazine, in which Scaramucci ripped into other Trump staffers.  All this was accomplished before he officially got the job.  Nice work.  See ya, Mooch.

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Over the weekend, somebody snuck a pipe bomb into a mosque in Bloomington, Minnesota.  Nobody was hurt in the explosion, but there was substantial damage to the place.  The FBI is currently on the case, and no suspects have been arrested.  Yet the governor of Minnesota, Mark Dayton, called the incident a terrorist attack even though there is no evidence of that.  Peaceful demonstrations consisted of people of all faiths who came to show support.  President Trump, who has made no secret of his desire to deport every Muslim he can, has not made a statement condemning the incident.  But one of his advisers did claim that Democrats might be behind this.  Maybe we should all wait until the facts come in before we jump to conclusions.

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Paris and Los Angeles were the only two cities willing to pay big money for the opportunity to host the Summer Olympic games.  Both have hosted twice:  Paris in 1900 and 1924.  Los Angeles in 1932 and 1984.  Now both will host a third time:  Paris in 2024 and L.A. in 2028.  That is, if one of Kim Jong-un's bombs doesn't destroy the city first.

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Glen Campbell (1936-2017) was a musician who parlayed his master guitar picking and his good looks into a career that included songs that topped the pop and country charts in the 1960s and '70s ("Wichita Lineman", "Galveston", "Rhinestone Cowboy" and so many others), his own TV variety series and several movie roles.  When he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, he taught the world how to say goodbye with a final concert tour and album, which resulted in the documentary "I'll Be Me".  He was 81.

The Fall and Rise of a Minneapolis Bridge

I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapse, Minneapolis, Minnesota (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Portions of this post was originally published as "Tumbling Down" on August 9, 2007.  It has been updated and revised.

Imagine, if you will, driving down a major metropolitan bridge  in the heart of the rush hour.  Suddenly, the ground underneath you buckles, cars start disappearing in front of you, and either you fall into the river or come face to face with broken steel girders and crooked slabs of concrete.  Either you survive this or you don't.

No need to imagine.  This actually happened on the evening of August 1, 2007--ten years ago this week--on what used to be known as the I-35W Mississippi River Bridge in Minneapolis, which had been traveled on by an estimated 140,000 cars daily.  The collapse killed 13 people and injured 145.

This was a disaster that could have happened just about anywhere.  Roads, bridges and utilities decades old have gone without improvements.  The I-35W bridge, built in 1967, was deemed "structurally deficient" back when it was last inspected in 2005.  It wasn't supposed to be replaced until 2020.

The National Transportation Safety Board blamed the collapse on a gusset plate that was too thin, plus the added weight from all those cars.  Terrorism was not involved.

One question bothered me throughout this crisis:  What if this happened in New York City?  There are a few bridges crossing the Hudson River that could easily have gone down with ten times more traffic than Minneapolis.  If this were in New York, broadcast and cable news coverage would be wall-to-wall, not to mention the havoc it would have created on social media.  The President and Congress would be taking immediate action, and the country would be in mourning for several days.  If this had happened in New York, Minneapolis would be quickly forgotten the way the Oklahoma City bombing of its federal building was after September 11, 2001.

President Donald Trump made a promise during the campaign to upgrade the country's infrastructure, and he has proposed a budget that would improve roads, bridges, airports, etc.  But Congress, exhausted from having failed once again to repeal and replace Obamacare along with the ongoing shenanigans in the White House, is putting infrastructure on the back burner for now.

Soon after the bridge collapsed, plans were made to build a replacement on the same site.  Construction began in September 2007, and was impressively finished a year later.  The rebuilt structure, now named the St. Anthony Falls Bridge, opened September 18, 2008.  But every August 1st since then, a moment of silence is observed to honor the victims of what happened here on a summer's evening in 2007.  After all, it could have been you or me.

The Least Boy Scout

History of the Boy Scouts of America (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

"A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent"--Boy Scout law.

For decades, the Boy Scouts of America has invited nearly every President of the United States since Franklin Roosevelt to speak at its Jamboree, which is held every four years in West Virginia.  This year, it was Donald Trump's turn.

Most Presidents used their message to the Scouts to extol the virtues of patriotism, public service and the promise of a better future, not to discuss politics.  It wouldn't be appropriate for an audience who either couldn't vote yet, or just think it is so irrelevant to their lives.  Trump, as we all know, is not most Presidents.  He just had to go there.

In front of nearly 40,000, Trump bragged about how he won the election for the millionth time, ripped his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton and the "fake news" media, threatened his Health and Human Services secretary with his job if Obamacare isn't repealed, and made loyalty to him a priority.  Well, at least he got one part of the Scout law right.

Parents and former Eagle Scouts went wild.  This isn't the kind of thing you'd say to young people, even if you're the President.  Right?  Wrong.  This is Donald Trump we're talking about.  You can't count on him to stick to the script, let alone escort an old woman across the street without making a lewd remark.

The BSA, which has had its own public embarrassments over membership restrictions regarding gays and transgenders until they decided to let them in, has apologized for Trump's speech.  The organization, which says it's non-partisan, deserves a demerit badge for this one.

Here are other recent examples of Trump repeatedly violating Scout law:

• He tweeted an order banning transgenders from serving in the military, which is something that caught the Pentagon (and most everyone else) by surprise.  It came on the anniversary of when President Harry Truman in 1948 ordered the Armed Forces and other federal agencies to be desegregated.
• Letting his attorney general Jeff Sessions twist slowly in the wind because he recused himself from the Russian hacking probe, before he is eventually fired.  Special prosecutor Robert Mueller has, for all practical purposes, also been put on notice.  Meanwhile, the President is considering ways to pardon himself and his family should the worst happen.
• The White House media staff has been reshuffled with Anthony Scaramucci as the new communications director.  Press secretary Sean Spicer, who for months was in over his head and then mocked by Melissa McCarthy's impersonation of him on "Saturday Night Live", has been replaced by Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
• Trump has threatened to disown any Republican senator who dares to vote against repealing Obamacare.  So far, the Senate has voted down two proposals, and is considering another one as we speak.  That one's not looking so good, either.

There is one Boy Scout motto that applies not only to President Trump, but also to those who either work for him or cover him whenever he takes to Twitter, or says something outrageous in public.

That motto is:  Be Prepared.

Dial 9-1-1 for Murder

Minneapolis Police Department (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We have unfortunately become accustomed to news reports of police officers who shoot unarmed citizens during routine stops, and what happens in the aftermath.  This has usually happened to African Americans and other minorities who get pulled over for nothing more than a minor traffic violation, then end up paying the price.

But something happened recently to change the narrative.  In a south Minneapolis neighborhood not usually associated with crime, police responded to a 9-1-1 emergency call regarding a possible sexual assault matter.  The woman who made the call, Justine Ruszczyk Damond, was talking to one of the officers when she was shot and killed.  The alleged assailant, Mohamed Noor, an officer who had been with the Minneapolis Police Department for less than two years, apparently shot Damond through an open window in his patrol car.

No charges have been filed against Noor or anyone else at the scene, as of July 25.  There is not much information about what else happened.  Body cameras on officers were never used, so police are interviewing witnesses the old-fashioned way.  Noor and his attorney have not made any kind of statement, not even to local authorities, much to the consternation of Damond's family, local officials and those in her native Australia who have been following the case.   (By the way, whatever happened to that sexual assault case?)

Taking the fall for this incident is Janee Harteau, who had been Minneapolis' Chief of Police until mayor Betsy Hodges (who faces re-election in November) asked for her resignation and got it.  Before that, Harteau couldn't be reached for days because she was backpacking in Colorado.  When she did return to town, Harteau told the media that Damond "didn't have to die" and that body cameras should have been used.  Hodges named assistant chief Medaria Arradondo to be acting chief, pending City Council approval.

Harteau, who became the first openly gay chief of police anywhere in 2012, was not let go simply because of a poorly-timed vacation.  She and her department had been under fire for such high-profile mishaps as the handling of the officer-involved shooting of an unarmed African American named Jamar Clark, which resulted in the refusal of the Hennepin County attorney to bring charges against the officers involved.  More recently, two officers were caught on security video shooting at barking dogs in somebody's back yard.

The lack of body camera footage in the Damond case is because, in Minneapolis, police officers aren't required to use them.  It's also possible that the cameras were turned off by the rank-and-file in response to the way Harteau and Hodges had been running things.

Noor is a native of Somalia, whose citizens came to Minnesota to escape the war and violence in their homeland.  With all the scrutiny Somalis have been getting from federal officials about young men who are allegedly joining terrorist organizations, and from others who have reacted negatively to their presence, the alleged shooting is just one more thing for them to deal with.

But most of all, incidents like the Damond case (and Jamar Clark and Philando Castile, etc.) have decreased our trust in law enforcement to protect and to serve.  You know those old movies and TV shows where the victim pleads with the lead character not to involve the police in their dangerous situation because (A) the hostage would be killed, or (B) the cops are such incompetent fools that not cooperating with them would be a plus.  When it gets to the point in real life where someone gets shot for making a 9-1-1 call like Justine Damond did, or for getting stopped for a minor traffic violation like Castile did, something's wrong.  Something is terribly wrong.

UPDATE (3/20/18):  Eight months after the incident took place, Noor surrendered and has been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.  Should Noor be convicted in a court of law, he could be serving up to 25 years in prison on the murder charge and up to ten years on the manslaughter charge.

Like Father, Like Son?

Description: Trump Tower, in New York City Author: Photo by Martin Dürrschnabel, Benutzer:Martin-D1, user:Martin-D (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son of the 45th President of the United States, is not a government official.  He is the executive director of The Trump Organization, the family-run business that oversees all of their properties which include hotels and golf courses.  But Junior wasn't above helping his old man out during last year's presidential campaign.  That helps explain why father an son are in trouble today, caught up in the ongoing Russian election hacking scandal.

Most of it was explained in the e-mails Junior voluntarily released before the New York Times could:  On June 9, 2016, Junior, Jared Kushner (Trump's son-in-law and presently his senior advisor) and campaign director Paul Manafort met with attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya and a lobbyist or two at Trump Tower in New York, hoping to hear whatever dirt the Russian contingent said they'd had on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.  Instead, the half-hour meeting centered on what to do about a U.S. law imposing sanctions on Russian individuals, and President Vladimir Putin's response of suspending adoptions of Russian children by Americans.

What's wrong with this picture?  Let's start with numbers, such as the number of times Junior has changed his story.  The number of people who may or may not have attended that meeting (reports tell us it is now eight).  The amount of money in campaign contributions that may or may not have been exchanged.  And maybe Junior should have notified the proper authorities before the meeting took place?

In defending his son (as every father would do, even when it involves national security), the President went on his usual Twitter rant, saying the whole thing was a 'witch hunt' and 'that's politics'.  He also claimed he didn't know about Junior's meeting until recently.

Donald Trump, before he entered the White House, was a businessman who made his name using tough negotiating tactics to buy and sell properties.  Donald Trump Jr. has apparently learned many of the same things, except he may have done his father one better.  He just might have helped sell his country down the river.

Make America Wince Again

Donald Trump enters the Oscar De LA Renta Fashion Show, New York. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

AS Americans celebrated what might be one of the last July Fourths as a free country, President Donald Trump provided the fireworks.  He does that every week, actually.  Some of them happen to be duds.

At the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, Trump did not say or do anything stupid--which is a change from the last time he visited Europe.  He even let his daughter Ivanka save a seat for him during one of the meetings.  How sweet.

What was noteworthy during the summit were the latest examples of American prestige in freefall since Trump took office.

• Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin finally met face to face.  You might say it was a one-sided discussion with Putin doing most of the talking, no matter how much the White House tries to spin it.  From what we heard, there were questions about whether there was a serious back-and-forth between the two leaders over the Russians' alleged hacking of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.  You might also say that Trump wouldn't dare offend the man to whom he owes his job.
• The rest of the G-20 leaders reiterated their commitment to the Paris climate accords, telling Trump in so many words that his decision to take the United States out of the agreement is non-negotiable.  Hoping to pick up the slack, many American states and cities have said they're going to abide by the climate agreement with or without the federal government's help.  However noble that gesture is, it just wouldn't be as effective without Washington's backing.

Another sign of American weakness comes from North Korea, where they launched an experimental ICBM that's supposedly capable of reaching Alaska.  Short of war, there's not much Trump can do to put a lid on Kim Jong-Un's destructive ambitions except impose more economic sanctions.  China could help, but they've apparently decided that a united Korea with U.S. troops at its border would not be in their best interests.  Meanwhile, we wonder how the International Olympic Committee feels about staging its Winter Games in a potential war zone.  It's scheduled for Pyongchang, South Korea next February, and who knows what might happen by then.

The gulf between the President and the "fake news" media grows ever wider.  At the summit, trump did not hold a news conference.  His secretary of state Rex Tillerson did hold one, but only with no cameras present.

Before leaving for Europe, the President took to Twitter to pick fights with CNN and the "Morning Joe" program on MSNBC, whom he believes are guilty of not being as deferential to him like the hosts of "Fox and Friends" are.  So he tweets about "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski's appearance in an unflattering manner, much like he's done with other women in the media.  He also retweeted a video showing him punching out a man with the CNN logo on his face at a pro wrestling match.  Classy.

Some believe Trump should be kicked off of Twitter for his constant violations of their policy.  But Twitter's not going to do that.  Just like Republicans and other Trump supporters are looking the other way, not seeing what he's doing to them.  He's the President of the United States, for goodness sake.  Nobody wants to do anything about him.

In the six months since President Donald Trump took office, he's done more through his actions to diminish the status of the United States at home and abroad (except maybe Russia) than any other leader in recent memory.  And we're just getting started.