Throwing Some Darts at the Board.

Approaching the 1.5 year mark in the Trump Administration, it is a good time to simply throw some darts at the board and comment on just a few of the ongoing episodes surrounding Trump Mania.

Watching the testimony of FBI Director Wray and Deputy AG Rosenstein before House oversight committee members is really depressing.  At a minimum, the recent DOJ IG report on the Clinton email investigation and some of the circumstances surrounding it expose a culture of corruption at the highest leadership levels in the DOJ and FBI.  Yet, judging from the post-report attitudes and remarks of Wray and Rosenstein, you would think that the report is simply another day at the office and business as usual.  Whether or not they are personally culpable in this abuse of power aside; I find their laissez faire attitudes regarding the IG’s findings as simply inexcusable.  If anything, these two guys should be the most outraged individuals in the room about this type of conduct.  They are the leaders of these entities who have been exposed as institutions of political bias and gross perversion of their assigned duties and responsibilities at the highest levels.  I cannot imagine how they can bring anything less than a scorched earth and clean the entire house strategy to the table when considering how to react to this type of revelation.  I have no trouble at all understanding the total frustration being exhibited by House members who are trying to get to the bottom of this cesspool.  If something as consequential as the IG report cannot create a “come to Jesus” moment for Wray and Rosenstein, I have serious doubts about their fitness for their current jobs.  But you know…an even larger question is this: Where the hell is Attorney General Jeff Sessions?

I continue to marvel at the ineptness of the Republican Party and its apparent inability to capitalize on the chaos we are seeing in the national Democratic Party.  Seasoned and even-tempered Democrats (I don’t “think” they are entirely extinct…yet) must be sitting back and grinning; thinking that even through this terrible slump their team is experiencing, they are still in the pennant race.  On the heels of the Democrats nominating self-proclaimed socialists for office and having their recognized leadership daily lurch further to the left, the Republicans in the House continue to fuss and feud like children in a sandbox.  It is really hard to be sympathetic towards President Trump when discussing childish behavior; he being the master of the art.  But in this case, one can easily understand his absolute, volcano erupting frustration with House Republicans as they quarrel amongst themselves on pressing issues such as immigration reform.  Given sole possession of the stage to perform a validation dance of reliability and effective governance, they instead put on their version of the Keystone Kops comedy routine.  The Republican Senate can be mind-numbingly stoic at times; but at least McConnell has his eye on the ball and when it comes to big moments (tax reform, SCOTUS appointees…), the man delivers.  Such clutch performances earn him some forgiveness for the dropped ball moments like failure of the Obamacare repeal vote (thank you, John McCain).  Whomever the House Republicans choose to replace Paul Ryan (the sooner, the better), here is hoping that they are a person of action and principle and very adept at herding cats.

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Speaking of SCOTUS…..most conservative journalists that I read seem to agree that any nominee off of President Trump’s top 25 list for Justice Kennedy’s replacement will be a marked improvement over Kennedy.  This is encouraging.  History has shown us repeatedly, as with Kennedy and Souter, that the person nominated to the Supreme Court does not always rule as expected.  It should be reassuring to any American that this new member should move the SCOTUS nearer to a body that does far less legislating from the bench and far more strict interpretation of our founding fathers’ writing.  In my humble and grossly unqualified opinion, this living document nonsense from the Left regarding the constitution is nothing more than a judicial end run around what they have failed to accomplish in the legislative arena.  The Legislative and Executive Branches of our government exist to accommodate the evolution of our nation and our society; therein lays your living document remedy.  Fundamental changes to our country’s legal and political foundation should be properly addressed by those entities; not by the Judicial Branch.  The perversion of this principle by the Left through their conscious utilization of rogue federal judges has been a cancer to our form of government for decades now and needs to cease.  When he leaves office, it is quite likely that President Trump’s greatest accomplishment will be the reversal of this disturbing trend by the placement of sound and reasoned federal judges throughout our judicial system.  This long-term investment by this President is one of the more surprising items of his unexpected election and has taken this nation off of a very dangerous path that it was traveling. 

On a final note, I want to offer just a word or two about civility.  The recent outrageous behavior of the Left exhibited through public harassment of certain conservative personalities is absolutely inexcusable.  That sentiment is validated by the condemnation (understated as it is) from Democratic leaders such as Senate Minority Leader Schumer.  The environment that has created this recent string of events has been brewing ever since November of 2016 and has apparently reached a boil.  That environment has been created and nurtured by liberals both in and out of government who have vested interests in creating and sustaining such a culture.  It has also been aided by the irresponsible and total abdication of journalistic ethics by the mainstream media.  But let there be no mistake about it; President Donald Trump bears a large portion of the blame for creating this type of uncivil environment.  He has been irresponsible and careless with his rhetoric ever since he first announced his candidacy for President.  When presented with the binary choice of civil or uncivil reaction to a provocation, he has more often than not chosen the uncivil course.  His public comments range from the inappropriate to the inaccurate to the vulgar to the flat out disgusting.  More than anyone else who is integrally involved in this devolution of public political conversation and behavior, President Trump holds the greatest potential to influence the direction it takes.  And even though I concede that his unconventional approach to politics and governing have no doubt led to many of the policy accomplishments which I heartily approve of, I continue to hope that as his term(s?) in office progress, his ability to rise above the chaos around him and grow into a more civilly -persuasive President becomes more apparent and more prominent in his execution of office.  Eventually, and inevitably, when one continues to pour gasoline on the fire; something of irredeemable value is going to get burned.

The Republicans and Democrats Think It’s Christmas, and then There is California.

There are times when the behavior of Congressional Republicans simply defies reason.  After enduring the Left’s hypocritical hyping of the immigration family separation problem for days, the House Republicans have in their hand the politically delicious option of passing a legislative solution to this particular issue, sending it over to the Senate, and thus daring the Democrats not to vote for it.  Instead, it appears that once again the Republicans will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and allow their internal feuding to prevent passage of any new immigration law.  I do believe that if the Democrats chained and padlocked the door to the United States Capitol and gave the Republicans the key to the lock; the Republicans would tear down the building looking for bolt cutters. Just as they fumbled away a golden opportunity to repeal and replace Obamacare in the Senate, they are now on the verge of relinquishing an equally favorable chance to pass much needed immigration reform in the   House. 

On another WDC political note, the dust from the introduction of the DOJ’s Inspector General’s report has now somewhat settled and there is at least one inescapable conclusion that any rational person must make.  The leadership at the DOJ was dominated by rogue ideologues that literally hated Donald Trump and permitted their bias to corrupt not only their own work as civil servants, but the entire Department and Agencies where they worked.  It is difficult to imagine how the entire leadership of such a critical governmental Department could become so perverse and create an environment that would permit abuses of this type.  With bias this pronounced, the work product of anyone associated with these people in the Clinton Server, the Trump/Russia Collusion, or the Special Counsel Mueller investigations is absolutely lacking in credibility.  These gloriously idiotic haters have given Donald Trump a gift that he could never have obtained from any other source.  They have now guaranteed that even if their investigations were to turn up some serious misbehavior or acts by Trump, his Campaign, or his Administration; there are sufficient grounds to challenge the findings based on the source of the reports.  Judging from the apparent findings thus far by these efforts, such a gold plated escape clause does not appear to be needed by Trump.  But if in fact there is some substantive charge that has not yet become public that exposes bad actions by Trump or his people, he now has all the cover he needs to simply challenge the accusations on the basis of political bias.

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And finally, there is the amusing effort by some in California to split that state into three new states.  The mind explodes at all the possibilities of names for these three potentially new states.  Let us count the ways: Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest; Left, Lefter, and Leftest; Larry, Daryl, and the Other Brother Daryl; Unconscious, Subconscious, and Hyperconscious; and See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak…wait, that one won’t work!.  For California, there is no limit to the madness that is the liberal nirvana of our nation.  From the classic movie that should be California’s theme for everything…

“Just when I think you couldn’t possibly be any dumber, you go and do something like this…and totally redeem yourself”.

Chopping Thistles and Pulling Cockleburs.

Barack Obama came into office with the support of a Democrat super majority in the Senate and an operating Democrat majority in the House.  He had a historically large amount of good will and literally could have accomplished almost any legislative goal he dreamed of.  All of those things he complained about in his last six years that the Republicans prevented him from accomplishing?  They were there for the taking in his first two years.  And what did The One do with this magic legislative wand that he was presented with?  He foolishly frittered away all of his considerable political capital and his fleeting (Republicans…are you paying attention?) legislative majorities in the dubiously successful effort of ramming Obamacare down the throat of this nation.  This extraordinary legislative adventure sufficiently poisoned the waters on Capitol Hill so that the ordinary legislative process eventually reached the point of absolute dysfunction. 

So two years into his eight year tenure as president, Obama found himself at the famous fork in the governing road.  One path led to the difficult, time-consuming, humbling, and intense option of working with the Republicans in Congress to reach bipartisan agreement on policy initiatives.  The other fork led to the rather effortless and vain-glorious process of Executive Actions; those whimsical and idealistic notions that the President can arbitrarily impose on the American people at will.   Obama chose the path of least resistance; taking the use (abuse?) of Executive Power to new and historically high levels.  And now, barely a year and a half into his first term, President Trump has essentially unwound most of those Executive Actions taken by Obama.  You see, the easier path in the road came with a price.  That price was the impermanence of the Executive Action.  It felt good at the time and I can only imagine the celebrations that took place in the West Wing when Obama and his cohorts ceremoniously announced their frequent liberal solutions for whatever social problem they were targeting for reengineering.  It felt good at that moment, but now that we have a President who is diametrically opposed to Obama’s policy ideals, the previous president and his crew are left with empty glasses and precious little legacy.  What we also have is a President who is showing disturbing signs of choosing that same fork in the road that Obama chose. Governance through the excessive use of Executive fiat, be he Democrat or Republican, is an aberration of the principles our nation was founded upon.

Two of the toughest and most resilient weeds in the world are the thistle and the cocklebur.  You can chop ‘em down, you can ravage their very roots with a grubbing hoe … but they will come back.  You can put both hands on that hoe handle, gin up that primitive, Neanderthal enthusiasm and cut that thing down with relish.  But the rush is ephemeral.  They will return with a vengeance that makes you think that they are something akin to a creature or entity capable of a devilish vendetta. If you are really serious about getting rid of a thistle or a cocklebur; there is a way to accomplish it.  You can spray a thistle with a systemic pesticide that will kill the plant from the roots up; a permanent and lasting demise.  The cocklebur is a bit more tricky, but if you pull it up roots and all over a period of a few years and make certain that those incredibly fruitful little burs don’t make their way back into the soil, you can eradicate them for once and for all.  The lasting and permanent solutions to these invasive plants require much more time and effort than the quick fix of slicing and dicing.  The battle that many farmers wage with the thistle and the cocklebur is similar to the battle that our Presidents wage with Congress in the legislative process.

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Just as the simple and easy way to deal with the weeds is to take a swipe with a sharpened edge and whack it down (outta sight, outta mind); so is the Executive Action the expedient end-run around legislative incompetence.  These remedies are not lasting and it is inevitable that the battle will be repeated at some point in the foreseeable future.  That warm and fuzzy feeling the Chief Executive gets when they unilaterally impose their policies through Executive Actions must feel good at the time; but those issues will likely have to be revisited somewhere down the road.  Just as Obama unwound George Bush; Trump has unwound Obama.  It is time for a President to take the bull by the horns.  It is time to do the hard work similar to spraying the thistles and pulling up the cockleburs.  It is time for Congress to reassume its proper role as prescribed by the founding fathers and once again become the source of the written law in our country.  It will be difficult and often thankless.  It will require giving up something in order to gain something.  It will require seriously discussing solutions to problems that come from other people than yourself and that might run counter to your personal beliefs.  It will require, as the old saying goes, a compromise on practice while maintaining a solid adherence to strongly held principles.  It will require … shall I say it … bipartisanship.  Not the weak, watered down bipartisanship that is initiated by great statesman wannabes and results in meaningless and unprincipled legislative mush.  I am talking about the kind of bipartisanship where all parties can walk away with an honest feeling of a job well done and the Congressional bill is not at odds with itself.  It is understood by all that it might not work as exactly planned; but it can be revisited at a later time through our democratic process.  I am talking about Republicans and Democrats circling their wagons around the good things they can agree on and putting aside their political concerns about who gets the credit and who gets the blame. 

This restoration of a functioning Congress is not going to occur organically.  The environment in today’s Senate and House is politically corrupted beyond comprehension and they can only do serious business in fits and starts.  At some point in time, hopefully sooner rather than later, and hopefully with this President, our Chief Executive must figure out a way to exert and provide sufficient leadership and wisdom to create a working relationship with both Parties that results in a Congress that once again routinely passes legislation; thoughtful and deliberate legislation that addresses the needs and desires of our citizenry.  And it will pass that legislation in a bipartisan, principled fashion that simultaneously permits open debate about differing political philosophies while recognizing that business must get done and the laws of our land must reflect the will of all people, as channeled through their elected representatives. 

My wife and I shared a dinner and visit with some friends recently and I found myself the only real critic of President Trump at the table; outnumbered three to one.  In defending my personal distaste for our President’s crude, rude, ill-considered and sometimes outrageous rhetoric, I noted that I supported his policy initiatives but not the man.  My friends around the table shot back that it was the very traits that I dislike in Trump that have enabled  him to implement the policies I am so fond of.  I thought about that for a few moments and replied in this fashion … I want the President to be more than he is.  I want him to be all he can be.  I want to be able to embrace the man as warmly as I embrace his policies.  I want him to be that leader that can somehow bridge the widening gulf between our two Parties that has split our Congress with a Grand Canyonesqe political divide.  I think … I hope … that his ideals on governing can move us in that direction.  In many ways, Donald Trump is the accidental President who came into office courtesy of a perfect storm and unusual circumstances.  One could argue that he is uniquely qualified to serve as an agent of change in an attempt to address this partisan divide that exists in our government; a rank outsider being elected President is not likely to reoccur any time soon.  I fear that his personal penchant for continual chaos will prevent him from ever achieving this lofty goal.  Perhaps I am simply naïve to see this potential in this President.  Perhaps I am naïve to seek this potential from any President.  But if President Trump has any aspirations of rising to this level of leadership, he needs to put down the grubbing hoe, pick up the hand sprayer, and start pulling weeds.