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Saturday, January 18, 2020
APA: Submit your paper to the 2021 Eastern Division meeting.
Friday, January 17, 2020
ESQUIRE- Trump Melted Down at a Meeting With Military Leaders and Called Them Dopes, Babies, and Losers.
WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES.
(I HAVE HIGHLIGHTED PART OF THIS ARTICLE THAT PERTAINS TO SPECIFIC SUBJECT MATTER THAT
I HAVE COVERED OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS.- DAVID MCDONALD, PUBLISHER, WWW.SEARCHINGFORREASON.NET)
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Can you be impeached for knowing nothing about anything and caring less?
While even his most prodigious spokespeople teeter under Fox News questioning (!) about his relationship to Rudy Giuliani's Ukraine henchman Lev Parnas, it's worth considering that the scheme that led to the president's impeachment is just one of his various foibles. He could have been impeached, after all, for relentlessly obstructing justice in the Mueller probe. He could have been impeached for his blatant public corruption, which has reached the point where people have started renting large blocs of rooms in his hotels and not even bothering to stay in many of them. Gee, I wonder what they're getting out of it. Oh, and can you be impeached for knowing nothing about anything and caring less?
It's a question worth asking as a new book from Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig, A Very Stable Genius, begins to trickle out via excerpts. A New York TIMES review calls it "a comic horror story." The latest section published in the Post details a meeting Trump had at the Pentagon where he unwittingly laid out his attitude towards, well, everything, but specifically American military power: We can make some money off this. That was the only through-line as his senior defense and diplomatic and national-security advisers tried to tutor him in basic geopolitics and American history. Money. They owe us. We can get them to pay us.
“We should charge them rent,” Trump said of South Korea. “We should make them pay for our soldiers. We should make money off of everything.”
Trump proceeded to explain that NATO, too, was worthless. U.S. generals were letting the allied member countries get away with murder, he said, and they owed the United States a lot of money after not living up to their promise of paying their dues.
“They’re in arrears,” Trump said, reverting to the language of real estate. He lifted both his arms at his sides in frustration. Then he scolded top officials for the untold millions of dollars he believed they had let slip through their fingers by allowing allies to avoid their obligations.
“We are owed money you haven’t been collecting!” Trump told them. “You would totally go bankrupt if you had to run your own business.”
The president appears to view American military alliances as some kind of protection racket. He has openly mused recently about having Saudi Arabia straight-up pay for American troops. This is not the vision of service to the American republic and its Constitution most people have in mind with respect to our military service members. This is reportedly part of a general pattern in the book wherein Trump basically does not know anything about American history, the values and institutions of a democratic republic, or even geography.
In fairness, Trump offered some refreshing pushback against military brass who insist we must have bases everywhere, all over the world, always. The map of our installations abroad is mind-blowing. They're everywhere. Do we really have business deploying our troops and assets all over the place? Do we think there have been some negative consequences for our relentless meddling and interventionism?
The Adults in the Room in this scene talked a lot about The Post-War International Order, and that's been mostly good for us, but has it been good for everyone? Are their elements of it we might, uh, revisit? (Not that this president is the one to do it. That would require some capacity for strategic thinking.) We have Iran boxed in with bases all around and we wonder why they're getting twitchy, particularly after Trump shredded the Iran Deal because Obama—despite the fact they were complying—and re-instituted crushing sanctions on their economy.
Speaking of, that came up.
Trump then repeated a threat he’d made countless times before. He wanted out of the Iran nuclear deal that President Obama had struck in 2015, which called for Iran to eliminate its uranium stockpile and cut its nuclear weaponry.
“It’s the worst deal in history!” Trump declared.
“Well, actually . . .,” Tillerson interjected.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Trump said, cutting off the secretary of state before he could explain some of the benefits of the agreement. “They’re cheating. They’re building. We’re getting out of it. I keep telling you, I keep giving you time, and you keep delaying me. I want out of it.”
I don't want to hear it! the president said of dissenting information. And that right there, folks, is a nice microcosm of this presidency, which took the Bush-era disdain for inconvenient expertise and shifted it into overdrive. Who cares if they're abiding by the deal, reached in coordination with the other Western powers over many long years? I want it gone! The repercussions for this spasm of impulsive stubbornness was merely a war narrowly avoided, at least partly due to Iran's restraint.
BLAST FROM THE PAST: "THE IRAN NUCLEAR TREATY- AVOIDING REALITY." PART 3.
First, Ignore the Text, and Toss Out Any Objections That Have Been Raised Denouncing the Agreement. Go into an EXAMINATION OF THIS TREATY, OR ANY TREATY FOR THAT MATTER, AS A DISINTERESTED OBSERVER WHO HAS BEEN CHARGED WITH FINDING THE MOST EQUITABLE SOLUTION THAT WOULD BENEFIT ALL SIDES.
#1- Listen to ALL SIDES OF THE SUBJECT MATTER TO DETERMINE WHAT EACH SIDE VALUES MOST OF ALL, AND CONSIDER THE ELEMENTS THAT SEEM TO BE OF LITTLE CONCERN TO EACH.
#2- What Category do the Most Important Goals of Agreeing to a TREATY FALL INTO, FOR EACH PARTICIPANT?
- ECONOMIC- IMPROVING INFRASTRUCTURE, OR IMPORT/EXPORT
OPPORTUNITIES.
- MILITARY/PROTECTION FROM OUTSIDE SOURCES.
- STABILITY- ALLIES TO MAINTAIN GOOD RELATIONS, OR PLEDGE
OF SUPPORT.
AMONG OTHER THINGS.
#3- TO MEET THE BASIC REQUIREMENTS OF WHAT EACH SIDE IS LOOKING FOR, WHAT WILL THE OPPOSITION HAVE TO AGREE TO, OR SACRIFICE TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN?
#4- IS ONE SIDE , OR THE OTHER, PUSHING AN AGENDA THAT THE
OTHER SIDE COULD NOT REASONABLY BE EXPECTED TO AGREE TO.
IS ONE SIDE OFFERING JUST TOKEN CONCESSIONS, WHILE DEMANDING
EXTENSIVE SACRIFICES FROM THE OPPOSITION?
As I Mentioned in an Earlier Post, GOVERNMENTS DO NOT ENTER INTO THESE NEGOTIATIONS FOR NO REASON. EACH SIDE HAS SOMETHING THE OTHER WANTS.
This Leads us to the FINAL STEP- IF THE SITTING GOVERNMENT PROPOSING THE FINISHED TREATY IS FACED BY INTERNAL OPPOSITION, THEY MUST ALSO BE HELD TO THE SAME STANDARDS. OPPOSING A TREATY, OR ITS COMPONENTS, IS EASY TO SAY, BUT TO OFFER NO REALISTIC ALTERNATIVES IS JUST OBSTRUCTIONIST POLITICS.
Date- 9/2/2015.+
Thursday, January 16, 2020
SPECIAL SERIES Trump Impeachment Inquiry: Trump Broke The Law In Freezing Ukraine Funds, Watchdog Report Concludes.
Trump Broke The Law In Freezing Ukraine Funds, Watchdog Report Concludes.
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
A federal watchdog concluded President Trump broke a law when he froze assistance funds for Ukraine last year, according to a report unveiled on Thursday.
The White House has said previously that it believed Trump was acting within his legal authority.
Trump's decision to freeze military aid appropriated by Congress is at the heart of impeachment proceedings against the president that are shifting venues this week from the Democratically controlled House to the majority-Republican Senate.
Democratic lawmakers have accused Trump of abusing his office by withholding hundreds of millions in assistance in order to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rivals.
The Office of Management and Budget blocked the Defense Department from spending money designated by Congress on July 25, "pending a policy decision," according to OMB General Counsel Mark Paoletta. That hold was lifted on September 12.
But a 1974 law that governs budget procedure within the government "does not permit OMB to withhold funds for policy reasons," said Thomas Armstrong, general counsel for the GAO.
President proposes, Congress disposes
Documents and testimony released during and after House impeachment hearings revealed some administration officials had raised concerns that the Ukraine hold might have violated the law known as the Impoundment Control Act.
The law further designates the ways in which Congress has the power of the purse. Under the Impoundment Control Act, it is illegal for OMB to withhold money that has been appropriated by Congress and signed into law.
If the White House wants to delay or deny funds, it must first alert Congress.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, asked the Government Accountability Office to assess Trump's decisions to freeze the Ukraine aid.
Van Hollen said he thought the report vindicated Congress' decision to impeach Trump.
"This violation of the law reflects a contempt for the Constitution and was a key part of his corrupt scheme to abuse the power of the presidency for his personal political purposes," Van Hollen said. "The GAO's independent findings reinforce the need for the Senate to obtain all relevant documents and hear from key fact witnesses in order to have a fair trial."
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., opposes the introduction of fresh witnesses or evidence into a Senate trial, arguing the Senate's role is to assess the House's fact-finding, not do new investigations on its own.
Senators are expected to vote on that question and it isn't clear whether there might be sufficient support from enough Republicans to bring in new evidence or witnesses.
In a letter to GAO in December, OMB lawyer Paoletta argued that the hold up in Ukraine aid was a simply a "programmatic delay" and therefore did not require prior notice to Congress.
Paoletta also argued that the Defense Department's general counsel never told his office that it would have any problems spending the money before the funds expired at the end of the fiscal year in September.
However, Just Security reported in early January that Defense Department emails showed repeated warnings from the department to OMB that the delays put its ability to distribute the aid at risk.
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