Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 171

Trump���s financial arsonists

(Credit: AP/John Locher/Shutterstock/Salon)

There���s been lots of fire and fury around Washington lately, including a brief government shutdown. In Donald Trump���s White House, you can hardly keep up with the ongoing brouhahas from North Korea to Robert Mueller���s Russian investigation, while it already feels like ages since the celebratory mood over the vast corporate tax cuts Congress passed last year. But don���t be fooled: none of that is as important as what���s missing from the picture.�� Like a disease, in the nation���s capital it���s often what you can���t see that will, in the end, hurt you most.

Amid a roaring stock market and a planet of��upbeat CEOs, few are even thinking about the havoc that a multi-trillion-dollar financial system gone rogue could inflict upon global stability.�� But watch out.�� Even in the seemingly best of times, neglecting Wall Street is a dangerous idea. With a rag-tag Trumpian crew of ex-bankers and Goldman Sachs alumni as the only watchdogs in town, it���s time to focus, because one thing is clear: Donald Trump���s economic team is in the process of making the financial system combustible again.

Collectively, the biggest U.S. banks already have their get-out-out-of-jail-free cards and are now sitting on��record profits��after, not so long ago, triggering sweeping unemployment, wrecking countless lives, and elevating global instability. ��(Not a single major bank CEO was given jail time for such acts.) ��Still, let’s not blame the dangers lurking at the heart of the financial system solely on the Trump doctrine of leaving banks alone. They should be shared by the Democrats who, under President Barack Obama, believed, and still believe, in the perfection of the��Dodd-Frank Act of 2010.

While Dodd-Frank created important financial safeguards like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, even stronger long-term banking reforms were left on the sidelines. Crucially, that law didn���t force banks to separate the deposits of everyday Americans from Wall Street���s complex derivatives transactions.�� In other words, it didn���t resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 (axed in the Clinton era).

Wall Street is now thoroughly emboldened as the financial elite follows the mantra of Kelly Clarkston���s hit song: ���What doesn���t kill you makes you stronger.��� Since the crisis of 2007-2008, the Big Six U.S. banks����� JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley����� have seen the share price of their stocks significantly outpace those of the S&P 500 index as a whole.

Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the nation���s largest bank (that���s paid��$13 billion��in settlements for various fraudulent acts), recently even pooh-poohed the chances of the Democratic Party in 2020, suggesting that it was about time its leaders let banks do whatever they wanted. As he��told��Maria Bartiromo, host of Fox Business���s��Wall Street Week, ���The thing about the Democrats is they will not have a chance, in my opinion.��They don���t have a strong centrist, pro-business, pro-free enterprise person.���

This is a man who was basically gifted two banks,��Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual, by the U.S government during the financial crisis. That present came as his own company got cheap loans from the Federal Reserve, while clamoring for billions in bailout money that he swore it��didn���t need.

Dimon can afford to be brazen. JPMorgan Chase is now the��second most profitable��company in the country. Why should he be worried about what might happen in another crisis, given that the Trump administration is in charge? With pro-business and pro-bailout thinking reigning supreme, what could go wrong?

Protect or Destroy?

There are, of course, supposed to be safeguards against freewheeling types like Dimon. In Washington, key regulatory bodies are tasked with keeping too-big-to-fail banks from wrecking the economy and committing financial crimes against the public. They include the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Treasury Department, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (an independent bureau of the Treasury), and most recently, under the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (an independent agency funded by the Federal Reserve).

These entities are now run by men whose only desire is to give Wall Street more latitude. Former Goldman Sachs partner, now treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin caught the spirit of the moment with a selfie of his wife and him��holding��reams of newly printed money ���like a couple of James Bond villains.��� (After all,��he was��a Hollywood producer and even appeared in the Warren Beatty flick��Rules Don���t Apply.) He���s making his mark on us, however, not by producing economic security, but by cheerleading for financial deregulation.

Despite the fact that the Republican platform in election 2016��endorsed��reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act, Mnuchin made it clear that he has no intention of letting that happen. In a signal to every too-big-not-to-fail financial outfit around, he also released AIG from its��regulatory chains. That���s the insurance company that was at the epicenter of the last financial crisis. By freeing AIG from being monitored by the Financial Services Oversight Board that he chairs, he���s left it and others like it free to repeat the same mistakes.

Elsewhere, having successfully spun through the revolving door from banking to Washington, Joseph Otting, a��former colleague��of Mnuchin���s, is now running the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). While he���s no household name, he was the CEO of OneWest (formerly, the failed California-based bank��IndyMac). That���s the bank Mnuchin and his billionaire posse picked up on the cheap in 2009 before��carrying out��a vast set of��foreclosures on the homes of ordinary Americans (including active-duty servicemen and -women) and reselling it for hundreds of millions of dollars in��personal profits.

At the Federal Reserve, Trump���s selection for chairman, Jerome Powell (another��Mnuchin pick), has repeatedly��expressed��his disinterest in bank regulations. To him, too-big-to-fail banks are a thing of the past. And to round out this heady crew, there���s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) head Mick Mulvaney now also at the helm of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), whose very existence he���s mocked.

In time, we���ll come to a reckoning with this era of Trumpian finance. Meanwhile, however, the agenda of these men (and they are all men) could lead to a financial crisis of the first order. So here���s a little rundown on them: what drives them and how they are blindly taking the economy onto distinctly treacherous ground.

Joseph Otting,��Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

The Office of the Comptroller is responsible for ensuring that banks operate in a secure and reasonable manner, provide equal access to their services, treat customers properly, and adhere to the laws of the land as well as federal regulations.

As for Joseph Otting, though the Senate��confirmed��him as the new head of the OCC in November, four key senators��called��him ���highly unqualified for [the] job.����� He will run an agency whose history snakes back to the Civil War. Established by President Abraham Lincoln��in 1863, it was meant to safeguard the solidity and viability of the banking system.�� Its leader remains charged with preventing bank-caused financial crashes, not enabling them.

Fast forward to the 1990s when Otting held a ranking position at Union Bank NA, overseeing its lending practices to medium-sized companies. From there he transitioned to U.S. Bancorp, where he was tasked with building its middle-market business (covering companies with $50 million to��$1 billion in annual revenues) as part of that lender���s expansion in California.

In 2010, Otting was hired as CEO of OneWest (now owned by CIT Group).�� During his time there with Mnuchin, OneWest foreclosed on about��36,000 people��and was faced with sweeping allegations of abusive foreclosure practices for which it was��fined $89 million. Otting received��$10.5 million��in an employment contract payout when terminated by CIT in 2015. As Senator Sherrod Brown��tweeted��all too accurately during his confirmation hearings in the Senate, “Joseph Otting is yet another bank exec who profited off the financial crisis who is being rewarded by the Trump Administration with a powerful job overseeing our nation���s banking system.”

Like Trump and Mnuchin, Otting has never held public office. He is, however, an enthusiastic��proponent��of��loosening lending regulations. Not only is he against reinstating Glass-Steagall, but he also wants��to weaken��the ���Volcker Rule,��� a part of the Dodd-Frank Act that was meant to place restrictions on various kinds of speculative transactions by banks that might not benefit their customers.

Jay Clayton, the Securities and Exchange Commission

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was established by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1934, in the wake of the crash of 1929 and in the midst of the Great Depression. Its intention was to protect investors by certifying that the securities business operated in a��fair, transparent, and legal��manner. ��Admittedly, its first head, Joseph Kennedy (President John F. Kennedy���s father), wasn���t exactly a beacon of virtue. He had helped��raise contributions��for Roosevelt���s election campaign even while under suspicion for alleged��bootlegging��and other illicit activities.

Since May 2017, the SEC has been run by Jay Clayton, a��top Wall Street lawyer. Following law school, he��eventually��made partner at the elite legal firm Sullivan & Cromwell. After the 2008 financial crisis, Clayton was deeply involved in dealing with the companies that tanked as that crisis began. He advised Barclays during its acquisition of Lehman Brothers��� assets and then��represented��Bear Stearns when JPMorgan Chase acquired it.

In the three years before he became head of the SEC, Clayton��representedeight of the 10 largest Wall Street banks, institutions that were then regularly being investigated and charged with securities violations by the very agency Clayton now heads. He and his wife happen to��hold��assets valued at between $12 million and $47 million in some of those very institutions.

Not surprisingly in this administration (or any other recent one), Clayton also has solid Goldman Sachs ties. On at least��seven occasions��between 2007 and 2014, he advised Goldman directly or represented its corporate clients in their initial public offerings. Recently, Goldman Sachs��requested��that the SEC release it from having to report its lobbying activities or payments because, it claimed, they didn���t��make up��a large enough percentage of its assets to be worth the bother. (Don���t be surprised when the agency agrees.)

Clayton���s main accomplishment so far has been to significantly reduce oversight activities. SEC penalties, for instance,��fell by 15.5%��to $3.5 billion during the first year of the Trump administration. ��The SEC also issued enforcement actions against only 62 public companies in 2017, a 33% decline from the previous year. Perhaps you won���t then be surprised to learn that its enforcement division has an estimated��100��unfilled investigative and supervisory positions, while it has also��trimmed��its wish list for new regulatory provisions. As for Dodd-Frank, Clayton insists he won���t ���attack��� it, but thinks it should be ���looked��� at.

Mick Mulvaney, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of Management and Budget

As a congressman from South Carolina, ultra-conservative Republican Mick Mulvaney, dubbed ���Mick the Knife,��� once even labeled himself a ���right-wing nut job.��� Chosen by President Trump in November 2016 to run the Office of Management and Budget, he was confirmed by Congress last��February.

As he��said��during his confirmation hearings, ���Each day, families across our nation make disciplined choices about how to spend their hard-earned money, and the federal government should exercise the same discretion that hard-working Americans do every day.��� As soon as he was at the OMB, he��took an axe��to social programs that help everyday Americans. He was instrumental in creating the GOP tax plan that will add up to��$1.5 trillion��to the country���s debt in order to provide major tax breaks to corporations and wealthy individuals. He was also a key figure in��selling��the plan to the media.

When Richard Cordray resigned as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in November, Trump promptly selected Mick the Knife for that role, undercutting the����Cordray had appointed to the post. After much debate and a��court order��in his favor, Mulvaney grabbed a box of��Dunkin’ Donuts��and headed over from his OMB office adjacent to the White House. So even though he���s got a new job, Mulvaney is never far from Trump���s reach.

The problem for the rest of us: Mulvaney loathes the CFPB, an agency he��once called�����a joke.��� While he can���t unilaterally demolish it, he���s already obstructed its ability to enforce its government mandates.��Soon after��Trump appointed him, he imposed a 30-day freeze on hiring and similarly��froze��all further rule-making and regulatory actions.

In his latest effort to undermine American consumers, he���s working to defund the CFPB. He just sent the Federal Reserve a letter��stating��that, ���for the second quarter of fiscal year 2018, the Bureau is requesting $0.��� That doesn���t bode well for American consumers.

Jerome ���Jay��� Powell, Federal Reserve

Thanks to the Senate confirmation of his selection for chairman of the board, Donald Trump now owns the Fed, too. The former number two man under Janet Yellen, Jerome Powell will be running the Fed, come Monday morning, February 5th.

Established in 1913 during President Woodrow Wilson���s administration, the Fed���s official��mission��is to ���promote a safe, sound, competitive, and accessible banking system.��� In reality, it���s acted more like that system���s main drug dealer in recent years. In the wake of the 2007-2008 financial crisis, in addition to buying trillions of dollars in bonds (a strategy called ���quantitative easing,��� or QE), the Fed supplied four of the biggest Wall Street banks with an injection of��$7.8 trillion��in secret loans. The move was meant to stimulate the economy, but really, it coddled the banks.

Powell���s monetary policy undoubtedly won���t represent a startling change from that of previous head Janet Yellen, or her predecessor, Ben Bernanke. History��shows��that Powell has repeatedly voted for pumping financial markets with Federal Reserve funds and, despite displaying reservations about the practice of quantitative easing, he always voted in favor of it, too. What makes his nomination out of the ordinary, though, is that he���s a trained lawyer, not an economist.

Powell is assuming the helm at a time when deregulation is central to the White House���s economic and financial strategy.�� Keep in mind that he will also have a role in choosing and guiding future Fed appointments. (At present, the Fed has the smallest number of sitting governors��in its history.) The first such appointee, private equity investor Randal Quarles, already approved as the Fed���s vice chairman for supervision, is another major��deregulator.

Powell will be able to steer banking system decisions in other ways.�� In recent Senate testimony, he��confirmed��his deregulatory predisposition. In that vein, the Fed has��already announced��that it seeks to loosen the capital requirements big banks need to put behind their riskier assets and activities. This will, it claims, allow them to more freely make loans to Main Street, in case a decade of cheap money wasn���t enough of an incentive.

The Emperor Has No Rules

Nearly every regulatory institution in Trumpville tasked with monitoring the financial system is now run by someone who once profited from bending or breaking its rules. Historically, severe financial crises tend to erupt after periods of lax oversight and loose banking regulations. By filling America���s key institutions with representatives of just such negligence, Trump has effectively hired a team of financial arsonists.

Naturally, Wall Street views Trump���s chosen ones with glee. Amid the present financial euphoria of the stock market, big bank stock prices have soared. ��But one thing is certain: when the next crisis comes, it will leave the last meltdown in the shade because our financial system is, at its core, unreformed and without adult supervision. Banks not only remain too big to fail but��are still growing, while this government pushes policies guaranteed to put us all at risk again.

There���s a pattern to this: first, there���s a crash; then comes a period of remorse and talk of reform; and eventually comes the great forgetting. As time passes, markets rise, greed becomes good, and Wall Street begins to champion more deregulation. The government attracts deregulatory enthusiasts and then, of course, there���s another crash, millions suffer, and remorse returns.

Ominously, we���re now in the deregulation stage following the bull run. We know what comes next, just not when. Count on one thing: it won���t be pretty.

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There’s a much smarter way for cities to plan their futures

In this March 25, 2015 photo, tourists of different nationalities board a dhow for a cruise as the sun sets in the Marina neighborhood of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Dubai��s year-round sunshine gives the Marina a summer-vibe throughout the winter months, when temperatures rarely drop below a comfortable 75 degrees Fahrenheit (24 Celsius) during the day. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili) (Credit: AP)

U.S. cities, it seems, sometimes are setting themselves up for decay, with big tax giveaways, ever-rising prices��and systems that put the bulk of the tax burden on the poor.

Often, when the discussion turns to improving a city, the catchphrase is “sustainable” ��� sounds good, right? But according to smart-city thought leader Talal Abu Ghazaleh, we���ve been looking at cities all wrong.

The city, he asserts, is a ���living animal,��� and rather than look at job creation or technology, it���s more important to concentrate on social impact.

���A smart city cannot be for the citizens if it doesn���t serve its human purposes. You can have the best technology, the best cleanliness, best roads, best everything, but if it doesn���t take into consideration my comfort as a human being, it is not smart,��� he told NextCity,��a nonprofit that reports on urban innovations. ���Smartness is defined by its level of impact on the citizen and not on the level of the technology.���

Often cities look at growth rates or traditional economic indicators, Abu Ghazaleh explains. But what���s missing in those plans that make the numbers move is the human aspect. Abu Ghazaleh says a ���social impact indicator��� would give a more accurate indication of the ���status of the state of affairs of the impact on society, just like we have the economic and financial indicators that are very visible, very much watched, and very much announced.���

At the same time, many cities, in favor of business models that can move those traditional indicators, have ���discounted their local business community and local economic development,��� says Olivia LaVecchia, research associate at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ISLR). ���Some cities haven���t realized how important [local small businesses] are for an economically resilient city��� and continue to put their eggs into the baskets of massive corporations, like GE or Amazon.

ISLR approaches cities more as nation-state communities, says Christopher Mitchell, director of community broadband networks at ISLR. They help cities ���do their best with what [they] have.��� A fundamental question they ask is, ���Are resources staying in the community or are they leaving the community?���

Often, the harm a giant corporation or big-box store does to a community doesn���t seem to be measured using traditional indicators. Box stores will use what���s known as the “dark store tactic��� to reduce or eliminate their tax responsibility, LaVecchia explains. Since the big-box chain-store business model is to build a purpose-built store that has no resale value, the store, they argue, should be compared with stores that are closed, so a brand new Lowe���s might be valued as closed and compared to other closed stores. With this tactic, big-box stores ���are winning big slashes in what they owe in property tax, and in some cases cities have to refund back property tax,��� LaVecchia says. Not only is the company not paying tax into the community, the company is extracting ever more resources from the community.

Yet many cities place priority on that type of private sector ���growth.��� Rather, the focus, Abu Ghazaleh argues, should be on ���the impact on the citizen, on the society.���

We have ���state-centric��� data, such as unemployment data, inflation data, high school completion data, he says. Instead, cities should be looking at ���people-centric��� data that can show how a society is moving or progressing (or regressing).

For LaVecchia, it���s ���about creating a generally supportive environment��� ��� often with zoning policies that restrict franchises, chains and box stores, and facilitate small businesses and walkable communities. Zoning can also be used to bring back the night sky and generally create a happier environment for the community.

And states can also make interesting policies. In North Dakota, in order to own a pharmacy, ���you have to be a pharmacist,��� explains LaVecchia. ���So CVS, Walgreens, can���t open there. It keeps control in the hands of locals, and it keeps it more competitive, gives more pharmacy access in rural areas, with competitive prices. Some evidence suggests a higher level of service. With smart policies you end up with a more competitive environment and benefits associated with that.���

For Abu Ghazaleh, smart isn���t about sustainability in cities. ���I think what we need is terms like progress. We need progress goals with a timeframe. We need to have a timeline and not just wait for another 15 years. We have a very serious problem in the world, and that serious problem cannot be achieved by creating buzzwords that make everybody feel happy.���

Trump���s big parade turns military tradition and honor on its head

(Credit: AP/Evan Vucci/Getty/upsidedowndog)

The first military parade I ever attended was on April 16, 1951, when General Douglas MacArthur stopped off in Hawaii on his way back to the United States from Korea. There was a parade for him and he gave a speech at the Punch Bowl, the military cemetery on Oahu. I was four years old. My dad was over in Korea fighting the war, but my mother took me to the parade and speech. It was a solemn occasion. MacArthur was a hero for his command of the Pacific Theater during World War II, but now this military giant was on what we would today call a kind of ���pity tour,��� having been stripped of his command for his failures in Korea by President Truman. He would go on to a ticker tape parade in his honor four days later in New York City, and more parades and more speeches, including his famous last address to Congress, when he famously said, ���The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on The Plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barracks ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that old soldiers never die; they just fade away.���

I am here today to tell you a little about military parades, because I marched in a hell of a lot of them back when I was in high school ROTC and in my four years at West Point. The Plain at West Point, remembered so fondly by MacArthur, was where I marched in most them. When I was there between 1965 and 1969, we marched in as many as three parades a week, attired in Full Dress Gray uniforms, under cross belts and ammunition packs, wearing cadet full dress hats, carrying M-14 rifles, or if you were a First Classman, a saber.

Growing up as an Army brat, I was given to understand that military parades had two purposes. Most often, they were a form of training and inspection. On weekdays at West Point, we used to form up in the area of barracks and then march out onto the Plain where we would come on-line in front of the reviewing stand. The cadet First Captain would take a report from the Cadet Adjutant that the Corps was all present and accounted for, and then he would receive the order from the commanding general to ���pass in review.���

The West Point Band would strike up the march we called ���The Thumper,��� the Official West Point March written in 1927 by the West Point Bandmaster, First Lieutenant Phillip Enger, and off we would march, one battalion after another ���passing in review��� before the commanding general, who was there along with other officers of the Tactical Department inspecting our marching prowess to make sure it was up to the high standards of West Point.

On Saturdays, we would go through the whole thing again, but on the weekends the parade would be in honor of a distinguished visitor to West Point ��� say, the chancellor of the college we were playing in football that weekend, or a foreign head of state, or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff up from the Pentagon on an inspection tour, or maybe a congressman or senator on the armed services committee with jurisdiction over the Military Academy budget. In those cases, the ���pass in review��� was overseen by the distinguished guest, and the salute we registered as we passed in front of the colors was also to acknowledge his (or far less frequently) her honored presence. We all understood that parades were spectacles intended to kiss important asses. But we knew you didn���t have a parade to kiss your own ass.

This amounted to the official purpose of all those parades, literally hundreds of them over four years. To the cadets, however, the ass kissing of superiors by the generals was a gigantic pain in the ass for us. Avoiding parades was like a badge of honor for cadets. I had classmates who injured themselves on purpose to get out of the grim duty. I stood in a classmate���s room one night as he took a huge encyclopedia he had checked out of the library and crashed it down on his forearm, breaking the bone. Other guys took minor sports injuries and blew them way out of proportion so they could get a slip of paper from a doctor excusing them from parades.



To the generals in charge of West Point ��� the Superintendent, the Commandant, and the Dean ��� parades were a way to make West Point look good to their superiors, thus burnishing their own reputations and careers, and a way to advertise the West Point ���brand.��� Why look, dear! Look how perfectly groomed and fit all those cadets are in their little uniforms, how beautifully they march in unison, how respectful they are of authority! Aren���t they simply wonderful!

Meanwhile, to those of us doing the marching in our superb physiques and well-groomed countenances and perfect uniforms, the parades weren���t about training or honoring some dignitary ��� who gave a half a shit about the foreign minister of the Dominican Republic anyway? ��� they were just one more way for the fucking majors and colonels and generals to make our lives even more of a living hell than they already were. Out there on The Plain in the middle of those battalion formations, guys were farting and yukking it up, and plebes were being ordered to tell jokes to amuse the upperclassmen. One of my classmates could do an absolutely perfect impression of the sportscaster Howard Cosell, and he used to hilariously call the parade like Cosell would call a football game as we marched. During a parade one Saturday, the general noticed cadets in one of the battalions appeared to be shaking, so he ordered an investigation, which uncovered the fact that the Cosell impressionist was causing the whole battalion to laugh so hard, the formation vibrated with laughter. That ended that.

Perfectly executing parades was considered so essential at West Point, that occasionally cadets would pass out from the heat during summer parades, and our instructions were to march off without them. The whole Corps of Cadets would pass in review before medics would be allowed out on The Plain to police up the bodies.

Which brings us to the news yesterday that our president, Donald Trump, has decided he wants to give himself a gigantic military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue sometime later this year, maybe in November on Veterans Day. There are a number of things wrong with this picture, beginning with the idea that the United States of America as never engaged in the kind of silly military puffery and strutting done by fascistic regimes such as North Korea, or Noriega���s Panama, or Yeltsin���s Soviet Union, or Pinochet���s Chile. Such displays of burnished military power have seemed beneath us, at least until right now, when apparently there is nothing beneath us, nothing we can do to further debase ourselves as a people and a nation in the almighty name of Trump.

So the question arises, don���t the generals at the Pentagon get it? Isn���t there something they can do to warn him off this impending display that will make us look like a tin-pot dictatorship, in love with spit and polish and tanks and bullets?

The short answer is no.

The general officers of today���s military didn���t get where they are by warning their superiors against doing stupid shit, like say, invading Iraq, or keeping the so-called ���war��� in Afghanistan going for 17 years and spending thousands of young American bodies in the process. They got their stars and their offices on the E-Ring of the Pentagon by saluting and saying ���Yes Sir!��� every time some political dimwit told them to do something that would end up making the United States of America look like bullies, or fools, or both.

Sure, they know that military tradition says you don���t throw a parade in your own honor. None of the generals currently in command have thrown a big parade celebrating anything for the simple reason that they haven���t done anything worth parading for in several decades. So at least they can cling to that teeny little nugget of respect for tradition.

But do you think there is even one of them who���s going to stand up to Trump and tell him how his silly parade violates military tradition and honor? Hell, none of them has done the right thing and told him there���s no chance we���ll ever ���win��� in Iraq or Syria or Afghanistan, so we may as well stop killing young American men and women and get the hell out. Why would they tell him his parade amounts to the same kind of folly? They won���t.

So what���s going to happen? Well, there will be a savage scrambling at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel to see whose Infantry battalion, or tank battalion, or F-18 squadron, or battery of air defense missiles will be chosen to parade down Pennsylvania Avenue. They���ll pound on doors and pull strings and suck up trying to get one of the coveted slots in the parade because it will make them look good. And if they look good, the generals will look good. And if the generals look good, then the Pentagon will get more money in the next budget, and they���ll get to deploy more troops to more hell holes where they don���t belong, and they���ll get to engage in more spurious ���missions��� nobody knows the purpose of, and everybody���s careers will flourish, and everybody���s shoulders will sport even more stars, so when they retire from their do-nothing jobs accomplishing exactly jack-shit in hell holes like Afghanistan and Niger and Djibouti, they can pull down hundreds of thousands of dollars in salaries in jobs at defense contractors, and pocket beaucoup bucks distributing their spurious wisdom to the masses as commentators on platforms like Fox and CNN, and everything will be Right With The World.

Meanwhile, down at Fort Jackson, or Fort Bliss, or Fort Benning, or Pensacola, or Parris Island, soldiers and sailors and marines will be down on their hands and knees polishing lug nuts and shining warheads and painting turrets and Windexing canopies and waxing Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and they���ll be starching their battle dress uniforms, and polishing their M-4���s, and practicing ���forward MARCH!��� and ���column right MARCH!��� and ���present ARMS!��� until their fingers bleed and their soles wear out. And tens, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars will be flying out the door that could have given them a pay raise, or funded child care on military bases, or provided needed funds to VA hospitals, or help prevent suicides of victims of PTSD. Now that would make some sense. But are they going to make sense next Veterans Day? No, they���re going to march down Pennsylvania Avenue in a great big useless fucking parade.

Donald Trump will be sitting up there in the reviewing stand in front of the White House, and he���ll never hear them down there in the ranks laughing their asses off.

From White House to fake house: Omarosa debuts on “Celebrity Big Brother”

Omarosa Manigault on "Big Brother: Celebrity Edition" (Credit: CBS/Cliff Lipson)

America, it really has come to this: The reality show underling fired four times by our reality show president �����thrice on his NBC show ���The Apprentice,��� once in actual reality ��� is popping on a completely different unscripted competition series this week.

Way, way back in December 2017, which might as well be a year ago, the Honorable Minister Omarosa Manigault Newman left her post as director of communications at the White House Office of Public Liaison, either by force (according to multiple reports) or by choice (which is how she quickly spun it to Michael Strahan on ���Good Morning America���).

Prior to her ���GMA��� appearance I wrote, ���Freshly re-released into the wild, The Omarosa will likely migrate through the hotter, rockier climes of various talk shows who will have her before attempting to settle back into her familiar habitat of reality television.���

���Where she���ll end up is anyone���s guess,��� I added, failing to take into account CBS��� dire need to figure out an effective counterstrike against NBC���s coverage of 2018 Winter Olympics. With The Omarosa unexpectedly available, ���Celebrity Big Brother��� came calling. And the rest shall unfurl before our eyes starting Wednesday at 8 p.m. on CBS, and continuing Thursday and Friday at the same time.

Freshly bumped from the White House, The Omarosa shares the ���Big Brother��� biodome with a former Real Housewife (Brandi Glanville), a hulked-out UFC Fighter (Chuck Liddell), the sex symbol from the ���American Pie��� (Shannon Elizabeth) movies, and a man who aged out of the Nickelodeon system (James Maslow). ���Hairspray��� star Marissa Jaret Winokur also signed on to this mess, as well as Ross Matthews and ���90s pop has-been Mark McGrath.

One of The Omarosa���s main complaints about Donald Trump���s White House was a lack of diversity. Not here! The ���Big Brother��� house puts her in a tight squeeze with the one-of-a-kind former Lakers player Metta World Peace; Ariadna Guti��rrez, best known for being mistakenly announced as the winner of Miss Universe 2015; and Keisha Knight Pulliam, the actress who played Rudy on ���The Cosby Show.���

The relatively high profile of The Omarosa���s re-emergence in the public sphere ��� aside from various public appearances during her second White House tenure that really did not go well ��� defies the standard practice of a bygone era. Remember when ousted public servants would lay low and avoid the spotlight while planning a glorious comeback, complete with image overhaul and an apology tour sponsored by Ellen DeGeneres and the Oprah Winfrey Network?

Yeah. Well, The Omarosa, author of the 2008 opus ���The Bitch Switch: Knowing How to Turn It on and Off,��� is not dumb. Surely she knows that such a revival will be difficult to come by, in spite of her assurance to ���Nightline��� correspondent Deborah Roberts, ���The White House is not my ceiling, Deborah. It���s just the beginning.���

Surely she also noticed that her fellow predecessors on the lower rungs in the White House social hierarchy aren���t exactly tiring out their arms in the effort to bat away a multitude of the offers. Who wants to hire Sean Spicer? Nobody.

Given The Omarosa���s incurable habit of making everything about herself whenever cameras are rolling, an expert stint on CNN or MSNBC . . . I���m not even going to dignify that sentence with an ending.

Naively I suspected The Omarosa would pop up somewhere in cable���s nether regions first. That may yet happen. First, marvelously, �����Celebrity Big Brother��� and its host Julie Chen are there to accommodate The Omarosa���s new beginning since her sudden availability arrives at a time of mutual need.

���Big Brother��� producers and Chen���s husband, CBS president and CEO Les Moonves, know that some viewers who ordinarily wouldn���t care about ���Big Brother,��� Regular Flavor or Extra Celebrity, may tune in to see whether she���ll drop any tidbits about the things she reportedly witnessed in the White House that she was unhappy and uncomfortable with. She probably won���t reveal much, opting to save the real meat for any book deal ���Big Brother��� could help her lock down. Be that as it may, the reality veteran���s mere presence may be enough to peel viewers away from a few runs in the bobsled competition on NBC.

Fascinating and unexpected relationships tend to be a given in these weirdo series, too. The Omarosa and Pulliam, for instance, may find common ground with one another given each woman���s public displays of loyalty to men accused of sexually assaulting women. Remember that almost six years ago, in June 2017, Pulliam showed up on Bill Cosby���s arm on his first day at court in Norristown, Pennsylvania, to support him during his trial for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting former Temple University employee Andrea Constand.

The Omarosa still loves Donald Trump despite being fired (or warmly exiting of her own volition) or everything he���s done every day that has passed since January 20, 2017, approximately 10 years ago. So: we have two predator enablers in the age of #MeToo, plus a returned mixed martial arts guy and a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills. That is��. . . something.

You may have noticed that one of many feats of dark magic accomplished under this current political administration is to stretch our concept of time���s passage. Appropriately then, this round of ���Celebrity Big Brother��� will only last until February 25, or two and a half weeks, which is the equivalent of the usual 99 day stay of the non-famous ���Big Brother��� competitors. (The contestants entered the house on January 31.) It���s also about as much time as one can expect these B-listers to remain sequestered from cameras or autograph requests, even with a $250,000 grand prize at stake.

Following this week���s three-night premiere ���Celebrity Big Brother��� episodes will air Sundays, Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays at 8 p.m. ��How long The Omarosa will remain in the house is up to its guests. But let���s not kid ourselves, the show���s producers must be invested in keeping her in the place for as long as necessary.

With 87 HD cameras and more than 100 microphones recording everything these contestants say and do, The Omarosa is in her element once again.

Given her previous boss��� obsession with hogging the spotlight, what remains to be seen is whether Americans have any desire to spend their precious, ever-decreasing amounts of leisure time with one of his least-liked surrogates. Unlike The Omarosa���s recent stint in Washington D.C., where reportedly nobody really knew what she did, at least in the ���Celebrity Big Brother��� house we all know exactly what her role is.

A Kansas-based Dreamer fights for her fellow immigrants

(Credit: Getty/Spencer Platt)

In 2013, Claudia Amaro made national headlines as part of the Dream 9, a group of nine undocumented activists from Mexico who demanded to be let into the United States and granted asylum. In 2018, she is making local headlines again for her activism in Wichita, Kansas, the place she considers her hometown.

Amaro was brought to the U.S. from Mexico in 1988, when she was 12 years old, on an expired visa.��She says that was the year that her father had been murdered, and her mother, fearing for��their safety, brought her four daughters to America for a better life.��Seventeen��years later, in 2005, Amaro’s husband Hector Yaujar was deported. Rather than let her own family be split up, she moved back to Mexico with her son Yamil, who was born in America.

Life in Mexico was difficult for Amaro and her family as they tried to start over. Her son was teased for being an American and having an American accent. Her husband opened a hamburger shop but, according to Amaro, was kidnapped by the authorities who demanded thousands of dollars in exchange for his return. After the experience, Amaro was determined to figure how to get home to the United States.

She wrote to politicians and immigrant groups asking for help. In July of 2013, an immigrant rights group helped Amaro turn herself in to authorities at the U.S. border in protest of the U.S. Immigration law. She was detained with no idea when she would be released. After three weeks, Amaro was released and granted temporary asylum. Her husband Yaujar also requested asylum in 2013 but spent��two and half years in detention. He was released in December of 2015, two days before Christmas.

Amaro���s efforts to fight for her family and the country she loves have extended to fighting for all immigrants and the Latino community, especially in Wichita, the city that Amaro adopted after moving��there in 1996.

Amaro���s local activism started in 1997. She organized a youth group for Latino youth at St. Mary���s Cathedral that grew to over 300 people, and hosted two international retreats. In 2004, Amaro started a Spanish Newspaper named ���Cronos de Wichita��� with her husband after noticing that there was no local news in Spanish.

After returning to Wichita in 2013, Amaro picked up her activism again. She sought training from her attorney and others before organizing ���Know Your Rights��� workshops for immigrants. Amaro also organized DACA clinics to show Dreamers how to fill out the DACA paperwork.

Janice Bradley, a retired teacher who works with the Peace and Social Justice Center of South Central Kansas, met Amaro through activism. Bradley describes Amaro as someone who knows how to make connections and encourages people to take part in civic duties and engagements.

While advocating for her husband���s release, Amaro also spoke at different universities about the challenges immigrants face and the struggles her family has endured. Her story has been featured in several books, including “Dreamers: An Immigrant Generation’s Fight for Their American Dream.”

���I usually try to motivate [other immigrants] with my own role. With actions [rather] than words. All the work that I do, I do so that they can see it. With my attitudes towards zoning boards, creating new spaces for multicultural awareness, with actions,��� said Amaro.

Amaro worked toward melting cultural barriers when she worked as a Family Engagement Educator at a local elementary school. After again noticing a lack of local information in Spanish, she started a weekly nonprofit radio show that invites community members on.

Amaro considers herself a bridge between communities in Wichita and has organized several cultural and educational events with non-profits.

Christina Long, the owner of CML Collective, has worked together with Amaro on a number of entrepreneurship development initiatives like the Create Campaign.

���She was a leading voice in helping us be able to expand our reach from beyond the African American community to help launch and grow stronger businesses and also connect that with the Hispanic and Latino community and we had a great response because of her involvement.��� Said Long.

���I have served different boards from the Hunter Health Clinic Inc, The Urban League of Kansas, Wichita Area Sister Cities, WPD Hispanic Advisory board. I have been able to create more cultural awareness,��� said Amaro. ���Also after different talks, Wichita Police Department agreed to change their policies to treat immigrants with more respect by changing the term ‘Illegal Aliens’ by ‘Undocumented,’ a conversation I wish other departments and local media would follow.���

In 2016 the Kansas Leadership Center in Wichita was looking to create a Leadership Program in Spanish and asked Amaro to help.

���[Amaro] helped us get that program off the ground and implement it, we really relied on [her] to help us design that program. [She] is a great example of somebody who can exercise leadership without a formal position of authority,��� said Shaun Rojas, the Director of Civic Engagement at the Kansas Leadership Center.

Rojas describes Amaro as optimistic and determined, and someone that the Leadership Center wants to encourage further.

���We believe that leadership is mobilizing people to do difficult work and that���s what [Amaro] does and she does in the most effective way possible,��� Said Rojas, ���She shows people that you don���t need a formal title or position or to be an elected official to talk and try to make progress on tough issues. She���s the epitome of what we believe exercising leadership looks like.���



Amaro also created a campaign called ���Kansas Adopt a Citizen��� in 2016. The campaign sought to motivate people to vote and for those that can���t vote to motivate their family members to make a difference in the polls. The campaign included several events where volunteers registered more than 200 new voters. ��



���I think that everyone, every person, regardless of race, color, religion, anything ��� we all have power and we need to realize it,��� said Amaro. ��� For example, my campaign, Kansas Adopt a Citizen ��� sometimes legislators only see numbers and we don���t count, people that cannot vote but we can have power with our mouths and organizing ourselves. I just want people to know that they have power and we have to start using it.���

Amaro is passionate about creating a better life for those in her community and for people like her son. In 2017, she organized a leadership program called Jovenes Avanzando Juntos for Latino Youth after learning that ESOL programs keep kids away from leadership programs�������and often from attending college due to a lack of resources and information.

���I���m driven to make a difference in Wichita because of my love for the community, my love for this city, and a future for my son.��� said Amaro. ���I want a better future for my son, I want to make sure that he has a better life than me.���

It’s a��promise that Amaro is working hard to keep. In 2017, she was selected as one of four fellows of the League of Creative Interventionists of Wichita. Her team put on several events in the city to promote inclusion, awareness, and unity. Amaro also started AB&C Bilingual Resources LLC ��with two of her sisters to provide interpreting and translation services.

Courtney Bengtson, a friend of Amaro, is impressed not only with Amaro���s ability to bridge communities but also Amaro���s optimism towards life.

���I see her as someone who is willing to step out of her comfort zone and speak with individuals that may not have had the same experiences that she has had to try and make them relatable to people,��� said Bengtson.

As immigration reform and DACA continue to make national headlines, Amaro hopes that her efforts will change some hearts and minds. Despite her efforts, the odds that she and her husband will win their asylum request are low. Only a very small percentage of Mexicans are granted asylum.

���I love life and I love being a human. I believe that as a human, I have the right to choose where I want to live. Maybe I can���t choose where I was born, but I can choose where I want to die.���

Trump University students still haven’t been reimbursed

(Credit: AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)

President Donald Trump has frequently touted the fact that he doesn’t settle lawsuits,��yet days after his election to the presidency in 2016, he��offered a $25 million settlement to former Trump University students who had filed several lawsuits alleging fraud. On Tuesday, that settlement moved forward,��leaving the suing students one step closer to being reimbursed.

A challenge by Florida bankruptcy lawyer Sherri Simpson was rejected by the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Tuesday, Politico reported. Simpson hoped to bring the president to trial over $19,000 worth of classes she previously paid for, as well as a mentorship program.

In her 21-page opinion,��Judge Jacqueline Nguyen upheld the $25 million settlement and highlighted the difficulties associated with bringing Trump to court, as he would have been the president-elect at the time of the trial.

“Both classes of plaintiffs would have faced significant hurdles had they proceeded to trial, including the difficulty of prevailing in a jury trial against either the President-Elect (if the trial had proceeded as scheduled) or the sitting President (if the trial had been postponed, as Defendants requested),” Nguyen wrote in her opinion, according to Politico. “Under these challenging circumstances, the district court acted well within its discretion by approving the settlement.”

Simpson’s challenge was the only thing potentially preventing students from being reimbursed. Appeals to greater 9th Circuit judges or even the U.S. Supreme Court would have delayed the settlement much further. Trump’s lawyers have said that they would pull out of the agreed settlement if the court allowed Simpson to proceed to trial.

“I’m not surprised, but we are disappointed that there will never be a public trial on Trump University and that all of the lurid facts about the fraud won’t receive the public hearing they deserve,” Gary Friedman, an attorney for Simpson, told Politico.

In total, roughly 4,000 former Trump University students will be entitled to receive as much as 90 percent of their money back. Prices ranged from as little as $1,500 per seminar to as much as $35,000 for a top-tier mentorship.

Of course, Trump has blasted the idea of settling����� despite several past settlements ��� and when the Trump University settlement was announced last year, he said it was only because he wanted to “focus on the country.”

I settled the Trump University lawsuit for a small fraction of the potential award because as President I have to focus on our country.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2016

The ONLY bad thing about winning the Presidency is that I did not have the time to go through a long but winning trial on Trump U. Too bad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2016

In years past, he’s also bashed settlements.

The real J.P.Morgan is spinning in his grave at the ridiculous settlements the bank is making to settle disputes. A settler is a soft target

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 16, 2013

After settling for a ridicilous 13 billion dollars, J.P.Morgan's lawyer is critical of the amount of the fine-why did they settle then-DUMB!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 25, 2013

The wimps that run Penn State should be forced to resign (and be sued) for the pathetic settlement they made and destruction of great legacy

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 17, 2013

Jamie Dimon just gave away $13B to government in settlement. Terrible move & bad precedent. Could have done much better by fighting.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2013

White House aide Rob Porter resigns after photos of alleged abuse surface

Rob Porter (Credit: AP/Andrew Harnik)

Rob Porter, White House staff secretary, has resigned after allegations surfaced in the media that he abused two of his ex-wives.

The Trump aide announced his resignation and released a statement denying the allegations that were first reported by the Daily Mail. Other outlets corroborated the Daily Mail���s original reporting, and��disturbing photos emerged��that led to Porter���s resignation.

Porter���s statement via Axios stated:

“These outrageous allegations are simply false. I took the photos given to the media nearly 15 years ago and the reality behind them is nowhere close to what is being described. I have been transparent and truthful about these vile claims, but I will not further engage publicly with a coordinated smear campaign.”

���My commitment to public service speaks for itself. I have always put duty to country first and treated others with respect. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to have served in the Trump Administration and will seek to ensure a smooth transition when I leave the White House.���

The photographs he refers to in the statement are of Colbie Holderness, Porter���s first wife, whom he allegedly assaulted on their honeymoon in Florence, Italy. In an interview with the Daily Mail, who obtained the photos along with The Intercept, Holderness alleged he kicked and choked her, then punched her in the face. The Daily Mail also interviewed Porter���s second wife, Jennifer Willoughy, who alleged that Porter pulled her naked from the shower and was verbally abusive. The New York Times reported that Willoughby, Porter���s second wife, filed an emergency protective order against him in 2010.

���When he heard me on the phone with the police,��� Willoughby wrote in the complaint, ���he apologized and begged me not to involve them.���

According to��multiple��outlets, Porter is��currently dating White House Communications Director Hope Hicks.

CNN reports that Porter���s last day employed at the White House is unknown, but that Sarah Huckabee Sanders said he will stay on to��help his successor transition.

White House officials and Republican lawmakers��expressed shock at the news.

Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, released a statement��today��saying he was ���heartbroken.��� Porter was Hatch’s top aide��from 2015 to 2017.

Hatch said:

���I am heartbroken by today���s allegations. In every interaction I���ve had with Rob, he has been courteous, professional, and respectful. My staff loved him and he was a trusted advisor. I do not know the details of Rob���s personal life. Domestic violence in any form is abhorrent and unacceptable. I am praying for Rob and those involved.���

White House chief of staff John Kelly also released a statement about Porter.

���I can���t say enough good things about him,��� Kelly said. ���He is a friend, a confidant and a trusted professional. I am proud to serve alongside him.���

Both��Politico and Vanity Fair��allege that Kelly knew about Porter���s past transgressions.

Politco reported:

A senior administration official said White House chief of staff John Kelly had been aware of the 2010 protective order, which prevented Porter from getting a full security clearance. The official said Kelly considered trying to push Porter out of his role but never did.

Intriguingly,��Vanity Fair reports that White House officials are allegedly frustrated that Kelly tried to defend Porter.

���It���s beyond disbelief. Everyone is trying to figure out why Kelly is leading the charge to save him,��� one former West Wing official told Vanity Fair.

Another Republican said to a Vanity Fair reporter, ���How many times has Kelly put out a statement defending Trump?���

Politicians craft law to make Tide Pods look less tasty

Tide laundry detergent packets (Credit: AP/Pat Sullivan)

In what would seem to exemplify the��“mommy state” all those conservatives keep talking about, lawmakers in New York have proposed��a��bill��intended to keep Tide Pods out of the mouths of impressionable youths. If��passed, the law would require��makers��of all detergent pods to individually wrap each of the products, provide clear warnings detailing their toxicity and engineer them to appear less colorful and, one supposes, flavorful.

According to Albany’s Democrat & Chronicle, bill co-sponsor and Democratic Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas of New York City said, “We want to make sure these poisonings are prevented. It���s easy. All we have to make sure is that public safety trumps their profits.”

Co-sponsor and State Senator Brad Hoylman ��� also of New York City, also a Democrat ��� added that��“We���re asking for all laundry detergent pods to be uniform in color. We don���t need them to look like Gummy Bears in order for consumers to use them.”��He added, “We need to impose clear warning labels on all packaging, including each pod.”

In a joint letter, the politicians wrote, “While our legislation would only protect New Yorkers, we urge Procter & Gamble and all manufacturers of colorful detergent pods to offer the same protections to the nation and immediately commit to the precautions set forth in our legislation.”

The proposed bill is��an explicit response to the ongoing series of poisonings associated with the “Tide Pod challenge,” an internet-based meme tied to the product’s colorful appearance that has spurred multiple people, usually young, to ingest the products.

While��surely well intended��and possibly beneficial in the case of infants and young children, the proposed law does not seem to��take into account the fact that there is little confusion among the teen and adult population as to whether Tide Pods are delicious snacks��or not. Generally speaking,��many who take the “Tide Pod challenge” are aware that the products are not food and can do serious harm ��� they just don’t care. It’s a situation that has left the producers of Tide Pods, Procter & Gamble, in quite the bind.

As well, all��detergent pod products are already clearly labeled with warnings about their dangers per federal regulations.��Honestly, you can’t legislate wanton disregard of self-care out of existence (though politicians on the right and left constantly try).

As the CEO of the company that produces Tide Pods, Procter & Gamble, said in a statement last month, “Even the most stringent��standards and protocols, labels and warnings can’t prevent intentional abuse fueled by poor judgment and the desire for popularity.”

 

Nancy Pelosi speaks for six hours (and counting) in support of DACA

Nancy Pelosi (Credit: AP/Steven Senne)

The Senate reached a bipartisan proposed budget deal��today, but House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.,��readied the opposition��by demanding��Congress address immigration legislation before the Senate deal was announced. Indeed, in the late morning on Wednesday, Pelosi took the stage to give a marathon speech to support��DREAM Act��immigrants and��put pressure on the Republican party to address immigration issues.

The hope is to pressure House Speaker Paul Ryan, R.-Wisc., to hold a vote on the immigration legislation that kept the budget from being passed in January.

���Why should we in the House be treated in such a humiliating way when the Republican Senate leader has given that opportunity in a bipartisan way to his membership? What���s wrong? There���s something wrong with this picture,��� Pelosi said, according to the Washington Post.

In her speech, which has been streaming live on Pelosi���s Twitter and on various��news channels,��Pelosi has��shared numerous back-to-back stories from DREAMers, for six hours, outlining their accomplishments, fears and what���s at stake for them and their immigration status in this��politically uncertain climate.

���These young people have accomplished things that I think many of us would not have been able to accomplish��� Pelosi said at the podium. ���Their parents were courageous and they had a dream for their children.���

While her speech isn���t technically a filibuster speech, it surely resembles one. It���s unclear how long Pelosi will continue to speak, but reporters and aides on the floor are reporting that she still has plenty of papers on her podium to share.

Pelosi appeared to be wrapping up her almost six-hour speech — but found another stack of papers, so she picked them up and started reading.

— Natalie Andrews (@nataliewsj) February 7, 2018

.@NancyPelosi has been standing in four inch heels and talking for five hours straight about #Dreamers and #DACA on the House floor.

More and more House members have trickled into the chamber to listen

— Sarah D. Wire (@sarahdwire) February 7, 2018

Pelosi has never done something like this before. In fact, no one really has. The House doesn't have a filibuster the way the Senate does. Leaders have used their extended "one minute" privilege to speak for maybe 20-30 minutes before, but Pelosi has spoken for nearly 3 hours

— Sarah D. Wire (@sarahdwire) February 7, 2018

Pelosi has also mentioned that ending DACA could worsen a physician shortage in America, and read a statement from the American Medical Association (AMA).

���President Trump���s recent announcement to end the DACA program in six months fails to recognize the enormous contributions of hundreds of thousands of individuals who are living, working, and providing vital services in the United States, including health care services,��� AMA CEO and Executive Vice President James L. Madara, M.D, said in a statement in September.

It���s unclear how long she���ll continue speaking for, but Pelosi has reportedly received word that the House will vote and recess once she���s finished.

.@NancyPelosi indicates that she's gotten word the House will vote and recess as soon as she is finished, then laughes a bit as she says she doesn't expect that to happen soon.

— Sarah D. Wire (@sarahdwire) February 7, 2018

 

Donald Trump offers a helping hand to China and Russia

Donald Trump; Vladimir Putin (Credit: Getty/Mikhail Klimentyev)

In his State of the Union address, Donald Trump��warned grimly��of ���rivals like China and Russia that challenge our interests, our economy, and our values.����� In response, he demanded that Congress give even more money to ���our great military��� and fund the growth and modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, making it ���so strong and so powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression by any other nation or anyone else.��� And yet, in a near biblical performance in his first year in office, President Trump inadvertently rolled out a love-thy-enemy set of policies that only enhanced the roles of both of those challengers, favors never imagined by the Robert Mueller Russia investigation.

It���s hardly surprising, then, that last October in Beijing in his speech to the 19th congress of the Communist Party, Chinese President Xi Jinping displayed the sort of confidence that befits a true rising power on planet Earth.�� With remarkable chutzpah, he anointed his country the leading global force on contemporary political, economic, and environmental issues by��declaring, “It is time for us to take center stage in the world and to make a greater contribution to humankind.” With the unintended help of Donald Trump, he could indeed make it so.

 

Two months later in Washington, President Trump launched his National Security Strategy (NSS), an uninspired hodgepodge lacking in either vision or clarity. It did, however, return the U.S. to the Cold War era by identifying China and Russia as the two main challengers to its power, influence, and interests, though offering��no serious thoughts��about what to do on the subject (except dump more money into the Pentagon budget and the American nuclear arsenal).

In reality, many of Trump���s actions, statements, and tweets in the months before the release of that document provided Beijing and Moscow with further opportunities to extend their influence and power.

On the eve of the anniversary of Trump���s first year in office, for instance, a��Gallup survey��of 134 countries showed a startling drop ��� from 48% under Barack Obama to 30% under Trump ��� in global approval of Washington���s role in the world.�� For a president who values records, that was an achievement: the worst figure since Gallup started recording them in 2007. China, on the other hand, surged to 31% and Russia to 27%. And that was before President Trump��referred to��various unnamed African nations as ���shithole countries.���

Here, then, is a list of favors that Donald Trump has done for America���s latest challengers and how they have reacted on what, after almost two decades of a sole superpower global order, is once again a planet with more than one world power.

Ditching the TPP

On his first day in the Oval Office, as he had promised in his election campaign, Trump abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal. Its goal had been to tie 12 Pacific countries����� Canada to Chile, Australia to Japan ��� into a complex web of trade rules that would cover approximately 40% of the global economy. Among them, tariffs would be lowered and rules established for resolving trade disputes, the granting of patents, and the protection of intellectual property. One obvious Asian power, however, wasn���t included because the TPP was meant, above all, to limit China���s future economic clout in the region by permanently linking the United States to East Asia. The pact was, in other words, meant to be an economic bulwark against a rising China.

President Obama had worked on the agreement for almost eight years, with House Speaker Paul Ryan and other congressional Republicans granting him fast-track authority to negotiate it. Still, he left office without submitting it for approval to Congress.

Trump���s day-one act was, in fact, a triumph for China.�� As Michael Froman, the trade representative who��negotiated��the pact, put it, ���After all this talk about being tough on China, for [Trump���s] first action to basically hand the keys to China and say we���re withdrawing from our leadership position in this region is geo-strategically damaging.��� Trump argued that he was protecting American workers against competition from low-wage countries like Vietnam and Malaysia which were included in the deal. But in so doing, he ignored the outstanding advantage of becoming part of a Pacific free-trade zone that excluded China, while offering the U.S. and Japan, which generate the globe���s first and third highest gross domestic products, the clout that goes with such a zone.

Washington���s Climate Change Leadership Abandoned

By pulling out of the 2015 Paris climate accord in June 2017, President Trump created another global leadership vacuum ��� soon to be filled both by French President Emmanuel Macron and Chinese President Xi.�� In December 2017, on the second anniversary of the Paris climate accord and in coordination with the United Nations and the World Bank, Macron chaired a One Planet summit of more than 50 heads of state and government, as well as three mega-rich individual sponsors ��� Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, and Richard Branson ���and assumed the leadership role ceded by Trump and his administration of��climate-change deniers.

In opposition to Trump, eight American states, all invested in speeding up the use of electric vehicles, remained committed to the Paris Agreement. So, too, did a private-sector coalition called America’s Pledge, which promised to honor the climate goals set in 2015.����According to��former New York mayor Bloomberg, that pledge group “now represents half of the U.S. economy.”�� In this way, Trump ceded leadership on what may be the single most crucial long-term issue for humanity to the French president and China���s Xi.

At the meeting, Macron, the 39-year-old former investment banker, hailed the progress made so far and insisted that it was possible to create alternatives to a fossil-fuel driven global economy by expediting the steps already taken even without the United States. He then proceeded to take a jab at the American president by��awarding��18 climate scientists ��� most of them U.S.-based����� multimillion-euro grants to move to France for the rest of Trump’s term; that is, to a country that valued their work.

Four weeks later, the French president and his wife Brigitte flew to Beijing where they were��effusively welcomed��by Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan. The Chinese president recalled that France had been the first Western power to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China and that his country now stood ready to work closely with France to enhance cooperation not just on��climate change��but on China���s expansive almost-trillion-dollar One Belt One Road initiative, an infrastructure and transportation project meant to link the vast��Eurasian landmass��in a great economic web whose heart would lie in Beijing.�� (These days, the only��trillion-dollar�����initiatives��� out of Washington involve building up its national security state, the military, and the nuclear arsenal further.)�� This was the sort of global project that once would have been a natural for the U.S.�� No longer. Macron reacted enthusiastically,��adding��that “France would like to take an active part in the Belt and Road Initiative” since “the new roads cannot only go one way.”

So from climate change to global economic integration, the U.S. was being left out in the cold. The way was now open for China ��� which as early as September 2013 had begun taking groundbreaking action to clean its highly polluted air, in part by cutting the country���s massive industrial use of coal ��� as it pursued a global leadership role being ceded to it by the Trump administration.

China���s One Belt One Road Initiative

By the time President Xi formally launched the One Belt One Road initiative (OBOR) in September 2013 along the centuries-old Silk Road that once connected Europe to China, the cargo train service that linked Yiwu (a center for more than 70,000 wholesale suppliers and manufacturers southeast of Shanghai) to European destinations was already a year old. Its first��test run��to Duisburg, Germany, had taken place four years earlier. Traveling through Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, Belgium, France, and Spain, those freight trains took 17 days to cover about 7,700 miles, cutting in half the cost of shipping by sea (which took twice as long) and by nine-tenths the cost of airfreight (which took just three days).�� As the new initiative develops, it is expected that, by 2020, more than 7.5 million containers��will leave��cities like Yiwu for European destinations.

In short, when it comes to the economic future, Washington is losing out to Beijing. In the future, according to Chinese plans, OBOR projects will link��China, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central and Western Asia, parts of the Middle East and East Africa, and Central and Eastern Europe. It will involve the construction of oil and natural gas pipelines, highways, rail lines, deep-water ports, and power plants, among other things. Financing will significantly come from Chinese banks, joint-venture funds, and ��� another major Chinese initiative ���the��Asian International Investment Bank.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen encapsulated a widely held view when he��commented��that ���other countries have lots of ideas but no money, but with China when it comes up with an idea, it also comes up with the money.���

Last May, addressing a gathering of nearly 70 national leaders and heads of international organizations in Beijing, President Xi��pledged��$113 billion in extra funding for the initiative and urged countries across the globe to join hands with him on the project. ���We have no intention to form a small group detrimental to stability,��� Xi said. ���What we hope to create is a big family of harmonious coexistence.��� Though invited to that assembly, the United States and India stayed away. U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis caught the spirit of the American moment when he��said, ���In a globalized world there are many belts and roads, and no one nation should put itself in a position of dictating ���One Belt, One Road.������ But these days, the U.S. is offering neither belts nor roads to anyone.

According to��The Economist,��86%��of OBOR projects already underway use Chinese contractors, which allows China to employ the excess capacity it built up in steel and cement during its rapid industrialization phase.�� Beijing has, for instance, committed $46 billion to a China-Pakistan Economic Corridor that will involve upgrades to pipelines and highways linking western China to Pakistan���s deep-water port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea. Gwadar is less than 400 miles from the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial passageway for oil tankers. That means crude oil sent from Persian Gulf ports to China will soon begin arriving on Chinese soil by pipeline after a drastically curtailed sea journey, resulting in steep savings in time and expense.

Beijing���s drive to have a footprint abroad and extend the OBOR concept beyond Eurasia, particularly to Africa, has been impressive. Between 1976 and 2016, for instance, China built five major railway lines in Africa,��deploying��50,000 Chinese workers to complete the 1,150-mile Tanzania-Zambia Railway. Eight more rail projects are now underway.

At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Chinese officials even played up a potential OBOR project linked to a climate-change-influenced future ��� a ���Polar Silk Road��� that,��according to��the��New York Times, ���would link China to Europe and the Atlantic via a shipping route past the melting Arctic ice cap.�����In this context, Donald Trump���s America First policies should be considered a truly ���big league��� bow to the rise of China.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East…

What about that other great power highlighted in the Trump National Security Strategy���s return to the Cold War? Russia, a petro-state with an economy the��size of��Italy���s, is no longer exactly the ���evil empire��� of the Soviet era.�� Still, Russian President Vladimir Putin has three strong cards in his hand: a rehabilitated, enlarged military backed by a robust defense industry; the second highest oil output in the world at a time when oil prices are��climbing����� and the all-purpose Rosatom State��Atomic Energy Corporation which��offers��the nuclear industry���s entire range of products and services, and runs all of Russia���s 360 civilian and military nuclear facilities. Those assets are capped by Putin���s 18 years in high office, which have enabled him to see the fruition of his policies in a way no American president could.

By using Russian forces to intervene in the Syrian civil war in September 2015, Putin helped turn the tide in favor of Syria���s autocratic president, Bashar al-Assad. His alliance with Assad had three dimensions: Syria���s historic links to the Soviet Union in the Cold War era; the Kremlin���s desire to have a��naval facility��in the Mediterranean after the loss of such a port in Libya when Muammar Gaddafi fell in 2011, and his doctrine that any group that takes up arms against an internationally recognized government is a terrorist organization.

Having acquired a key, if��brutal, role in the Syrian civil war, Putin proceeded to coopt not only Iran, a traditional ally of Syria, but also Turkey, a NATO member initially opposed to the Assad regime. Later, when Putin made a congratulatory call to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for aborting a July 2016 military coup attempt against his government, Erdogan agreed to join him in working toward a peace deal in the Syrian civil war.

Today, while the Trump administration���s input in the Syrian crisis diminishes, the Kremlin���s influence has become yet more dominant. Washington, which used its��air power��and��2,000��troops on the ground to support a Kurdish-led force of fighters in Syria against the militants of the Islamic State, now finds itself dangerously at odds with Ankara. An ardent Turkish nationalist, Erdogan considers irredentist, ethnic Kurds ���terrorists��� and recently��sent��his planes and tanks against some of them in northern Syria.�� Washington has been largely reduced to reacting to the Kremlin���s moves in the region.

A confident Putin has been busy wooing other U.S. allies in the region.�� In 2016, to shore up the price of a barrel of oil, which had dropped to a dismal $30, Saudi Arabia pressed other Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members to cut overall output. For such a strategy to succeed, however, non-OPEC oil producers needed to cooperate. Being the largest among them, Russia was the key player and Putin, as eager as the Saudis to see prices rise, agreed. A year later, when those reductions were set to expire, Riyadh��argued��for their extension to December 2018. Again, Putin backed the move. As a result, prices are now in the $60 range.

Unsurprisingly, King Salman��became��the first reigning Saudi monarch to visit Moscow last October. While there, he��signed��15 cooperation agreements covering oil, military affairs (including a $3 billion arms deal involving, among other things, the purchase of Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missiles), and even space exploration. By doing so, the Saudi monarch broke the monopoly the U.S. (and other western nations) had on supplying advanced weaponry to the kingdom. Significantly, while insisting that any peace settlement in Syria should maintain that country���s territorial integrity, he��did not repeat��his government���s call for Assad to step down.

Before establishing a rapport with the Saudi monarch, Putin had also managed to attract the interest of Egypt, another long-standing ally of Washington and the��recipient��of more than a billion dollars in U.S. military aid annually since 1987. In October 2016, more than 500 Russian and Egyptian paratroopers even��took part��in joint counterterrorism exercises in the desert near Alexandria.

The flirtation between the two countries, which started in 2014 when General Abdel Fattah al Sisi visited the Kremlin, gained momentum during Sisi���s second trip to Moscow six months later after being elected president. During the Trump presidency, it has only grown stronger.�� In 2017, Rosatom agreed to��build��Egypt���s first nuclear power plant in El Dabaa, 80 miles northwest of Cairo, which is scheduled to cost $21 billion. Eighty-five percent of that will be provided to the cash-strapped Egyptians by Rosatom, which��can afford��it since its total orders last year, domestic and foreign, amounted to $300 billion.

And so it goes.�� Though powerful and wealthy, the United States looks ever more alone.�� Whether in its��fruitless wars, in its remarkable focus on military power, in its��dismantling��of the State Department, in its urge to build walls of every kind and shut so many people out, in the president���s insulting��tweets,��comments, and��phone calls, even in the ���Trump slump��� in tourism, American isolationism����� that well-worn phrase ��� is acquiring new meaning. While chanting his mantra of ���America First,��� Donald Trump has so far followed policies that have only eased the way for the Chinese dragon to roar past Uncle Sam, with the Russian bear not far behind.

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