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A Special Counsel
A Special Counsel was appointed in May 2017 by acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to protect the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Russian attacks took the form of public, lawful propaganda and covert cyber warfare. The assault on our presidential election began in 2014 with preparations to exploit social media. By early 2016, Russian operatives were working to break into our computer systems. They gained access to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) computer network in mid-April 2016. A week later they broke into the Democratic National Committee (DNC) network using credential stolen from the DCCC system. (tinyurl.com/2016InterferenceTimeline)
By mid-June 2016, a cybersecurity firm hired by the DNC had identified two groups associated with Russian Intelligence as the culprits in the hack. (tinyurl.com/FastFacts2016Interference)
A Romanian blogger, identifying himself as Guccifer 2.0 claimed responsibility for the hacks and posted stolen materials as proof. Further investigation proved that “the D.N.C.’s messages [were] running through communications lines controlled by the Russian military intelligence service, called the G.R.U.” (tinyurl.com/GucciferIdentified)
On May 17, 2017, Acting AG Rosenstein and Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe briefed the Gang of Eight plus Congressman Deven Nunes chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Congressman Nunes should not have been in the briefing because he had stepped away from the Russia investigation although he never actually recused himself. It is likely he joined the meeting because of his role as a Trump informant.
McCabe began the briefing by explaining how the FBI began its investigation into the possibility of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government in July of 2016. The investigators began with a simple question: “Which individuals associated with the campaign had had significant [recent] or historical ties to Russia?” (“The Threat” p. 245)
The break-in – the hacking of the DCCC and DNC computer systems — provided both information on a national security threat and allegations of a federal crime that justified opening the FBI investigation. (“The Threat” p. 210) The primary beneficiary of a Russian attack on the Democratic presidential campaign appeared to be the opposing campaign. The Bureau’s investigation began with four top-level members of the Trump Campaign
Foreign policy adviser Carter Page had “met with Russian foreign-intelligence officers in New York and had recently [visited] Russia.” (“The Threat” p.245)
George Papadopoulos, another foreign policy advisor, “had told a foreign diplomat” that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton and wanted “to help Trump’s campaign.” (Ibid)
“Mike Flynn, the campaign’s senior foreign policy advisor … was known to have had multiple high-level contacts with the Russian government.” He even sat next to Vladimir Putin at a gala in Moscow. (“The Threat” pp 210, 211)
Paul Manafort was a political operative who had engineered Victor Yanukovych’s successful 2010 campaign for the presidency in the Ukraine. Yanukovych was a former KGB agent and Putin associate. Manafort had strong ties to high level Ukrainian and Russian operatives. He joined the struggling Trump campaign at the end of March 2016 and took over as campaign chairman in May. During his five-month tenure with the campaign, Manafort added polling to the toolbox (Trump had previously disapproved of pollsters). It appears that polling data he shared with Russian oligarch Konstantin Kilimnik was useful in winning battleground states for Trump. According to the New Yorker (“Why Would Paul Manafort Share Polling Data With Russia,” by Sue Halpern, January 10, 2019, tinyurl.com/TrumpPollingData) two studies showed that the data “potentially offered demographic targets for Russian bots and Propaganda.”
“In her analysis of five million paid, issue-based Facebook ads—which covered such hot-button issues as gun rights, abortion, gay rights, immigration, terrorism, and race—during a six-week period of the 2016 Presidential campaign, the University of Wisconsin professor Young Mie Kim discovered that ‘the most highly targeted states—especially Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—generally overlap with the battleground states with razor thin margins.’ These were ads placed by two hundred and twenty-eight groups, many of which were later linked to the Internet Research Agency. Kim also found that these efforts were calibrated to appeal to certain demographics. Low-income white voters, for example, were targeted with ads focusing on immigration and race.”
This investigation into Russian interference with our 2016 election and possible collusion by the Trump campaign has occasioned extreme outbursts and vicious attacks by Donald Trump. He has repeatedly characterized the investigation as a witch hunt. He publicly criticized his Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the investigation instead of bringing it to a quick conclusion. Sessions eventually stepped away from his cabinet post so that the President could install AG Barr who promised to protect him from the fallout.
“Trump fired [FBI Director James] Comey on May 9, 2017, a move that Comey said later was aimed at undercutting the probe.
The Trump administration said at the time of Comey’s dismissal that the president had acted on the recommendation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and No. 2 Justice Department official Rod Rosenstein.
In an interview with NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt that aired two days after the firing, Trump accused Comey of being incompetent and noted the recommendation, but also raised the issue of the Russia investigation, saying he was thinking of ‘this Russia thing’ when he fired him.” (tinyurl.com/TheRussiaThing)
“President Trump told Russian officials in the Oval Office this month that firing the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, had relieved ‘great pressure’ on him, according to a document summarizing the meeting.
‘I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,’ Mr. Trump said, according to the document, which was read to The New York Times by an American official. ‘I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.’
Mr. Trump added, ‘I’m not under investigation.’” ( NYT May 19, 2017, tinyurl.com/FiringComeyEasedPressure)
Donald Trump has had amazing success in politics because of his ability to sell his point of view. He sets the agenda and the tone. Everyone else finds themselves in a position of pushing back against his assaults. As soon as he joined the presidential sweepstakes in June 2015, he went on the attack. He attacked war-hero rival John McCain for getting captured and imprisoned during the Vietnam War. He released Lindsey Graham’s phone number on national TV. He kept it up until he had ground his rivals to dust and steamrolled his last opponent, Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas. After the blood bath primary, those rivals either crawled off into obscurity or got in line to help create the new Conservative Ascendency under the former reality TV star.
Trump’s followers have taken up the “witch hunt” chant and adopted conspiracy theories in defense of their king.
Hillary Rodham Clinton is the one person he could neither cow nor pulverize. She still looked strong as the election approached. The dagger blow that may have tipped the election in Trump’s favor was administered by FBI director Comey when he sent a letter to Congress announcing that he was reopening the investigation into her emails eleven days before the election.
With or without that letter, Trump had a path to an Electoral College win. The road was tortuous and chances of success were slim, but victory could not be ruled out. So he came out on top. He could not have achieved that victory without a lot of help. There is no way to discount the impact of Comey’s last-minute letter. The Russian advertising blitz that ran throughout 2015 and 2016 was three-pronged: support Trump, bash Clinton and play up cracks in Democratic unity – especially by championing Bernie Sanders. When the Russians broke into the DCCC and DNC computer systems, they committed a federal crime much like the 1972 Watergate break-in. When Trump’s campaign manager handed internal polling data over to a Russian oligarch, he colluded with a foreign power to ensure that his candidate would win.
Donald Trump may not have won the Presidential election in 2016. Vladimir Putin may have engineered a victory over his arch-rival Hillary Clinton. The Russian president’s bonus for putting his own man in the highest office would be getting a Kompromat who could be manipulated to work for Russian interests.
The FBI investigation into Russian interference threatened the newly installed president in many ways. It was a personal insult. It threatened to undermine the legitimacy of his victory. It could lead to criminal charges and even convictions. So President Trump fired his FBI director to relieve the pressure. But acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein responded by appointing former FBI Director Robert Mueller as Special Counsel “to pursue the Russia investigation.” (“The Threat” p. 246).
The train had left the station. When Trump was unable to stop it, he appointed an AG who could intercept the Special Counsel’s report and bury it. William Barr issued a four-page summary letter that said or implied the Trump campaign had not colluded with the Russians and that President was absolved of Obstruction of Justice charges.
That letter has not convinced enough American citizens. A cursory review of publicly available evidence suggests that the campaign probably colluded with the Russians and that the President did everything in his power to obstruct justice.
We the American people and our representatives in Congress need to have the full, complete report from the Special Counsel so that we can reach our own well-informed conclusions.
The Church and Theodore McCarrick
The Church and Theodore McCarrick have divorced. A quiet parting of the ways. The Church will find another shining star. McCarrick’s future will be revealed in time. Prison is not out of the question.
Divorce is always messy. Even a No-Fault breakup leaves issues to be resolved. Marriage is supposed to last until one party dies. Relationships continue long after the marriage is legally over. My first wife died over 30 years ago. My wife’s first husband died over 40 years ago. Both spouses are still with us. They are not intrusive, but they join our conversations from time to time.
My experience with divorce is second hand. I know people who have gone through it and are living with the aftermath. The problems continue for years, if not forever. The former couple fights over kids, pets, and property. The hurts linger on. Grudges are shoved out of sight and left to fester.
In the case of the Church and Theodore McCarrick, the kids are now adults with profound and terrible wounds from the abuse they suffered. They will press for retribution and recompense. McCarrick wronged them by what he did. The Church by what it failed to do.
The former priest, bishop, and Prince of the Church was uniquely talented. His misbehavior, however, was nothing more than another outlandish instance of widespread abuse inflicted by the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church.
McCarrick’s case provides an extraordinary illustration of what is wrong with the Church. He climbed to the highest levels of the organization by being a great fundraiser. He had a talent for pressuring ordinary lay Catholics to give and give and give. His powers of persuasion made it possible for him to bask in power and prestige.
He took over the Bishop’s appeal when he was appointed head of the Archdiocese of Washington. That became the Cardinal’s Appeal when he was promoted. McCarrick turned the appeal into an extraordinary success. Before he took over, parishioners could avoid the fundraiser by going to a different church on the day their pastor made his pitch. Cardinal McCarrick mandated that every pastor make the appeal at every mass on the Sunday he designated. No one was allowed to skip the pitch. As a result, the Archdiocese took in $10 million year after year.
McCarrick’s successor continued the practice. After that prelate was forced to step down in the wake of revelations about Cardinal McCarrick’s misconduct, the fundraiser was renamed the Archdiocesan Appeal. It still operates under the rules set in place by the disgraced church leader, a man Pope Francis has characterized as a tool of Satan.
One Sunday is set aside for the appeal. On the designated day, the most sacred rite in the Roman Catholic religion is interrupted, and the priest steps out of his solemn role as celebrant to pressure his parishioners for a substantial donation. The pitch is made in the form of a recorded message delivered by the archbishop. Then the priest walks those in attendance through the process of filling out an envelope that has been placed in the pew. This part of the ritual is slow and painful. “Fill in your name. Fill in your address and don’t forget to fill in the name of our parish. Circle the amount you will donate. You don’t have to give anything right now. You can give us your credit card number, and you can spread the payments over 10 months.”
When the envelopes have been populated and sealed, they are collected. Then the priest returns to the regularly scheduled programming – the Sacrifice of the Mass.
Parishioners object to this heavy-handed approach, but it works. Pastors have apologized, but they dutifully follow orders from the bishop. The bishop, whoever that happens to be, continues to use the procedures established by Theodore Cardinal McCarrick in his heyday. Jesus may have taught that you cannot serve God and mammon, but the leaders of His Church know “money makes the world go ‘round.”
The Archdiocese goes to great lengths to let everyone know that the money goes to help the poor. A brochure lists charitable causes that receive aid from the appeal. The priest running the collection assures his parishioners that none of the money is used for administrative fees. In other words, the Church does not benefit from these donations. But one of the charities supported is the training and education of men preparing for the priesthood. Money is also given to parishes to pay tuition for students who cannot afford the parish’s schools. Besides a massive well-organized campaign like the Archdiocesan Appeal has significant overhead. The brochures and envelopes are obtained from commercial for-profit companies. Accounting for and distributing the money collected is too big a job for volunteers. Money to pay these expenses has to come from somewhere.
A healthy organization would be embarrassed by what is going on. The disconnect between what the Church professes to believe and the behavior of its clergy should be enough to bring about change. But church leaders still act as if they believe a few tweaks will be enough.
Pedophile priests are doing things that result in adverse publicity and even lawsuits? Get rid of the priests. But only years after the fact. A very successful fundraiser has been engineered by a practicing pedophile who has been kicked out of the priesthood? Change the name of the appeal and carry on.
Pope Francis convened a meeting in Rome at the end of February to address his Church’s pedophilia problem (nypost.com/2019/02/24/pope-francis-sex-abuse-priests-are-tools-of-satan). Apparently, one suggestion was to make sure that gay men like Theodore McCarrick will not be ordained in the future.
The real problem is that the Roman Catholic Church is a living fossil. As theologian Hans Kung demonstrated in his 1994 book “Christianity: Essence, History, and Future,” it is still a medieval monarchy. The pope is the king. Cardinals and bishops are peers – the dukes, earls, and barons. Priests are the knights, and lay members are serfs. An organization like that is no longer able to execute the mission laid out in the Gospels. Modern society sees the Church as irrelevant and ignores it.
The cure, the way out of this quagmire has been available to the Church for over 400 years. Some believe that it has been available from the beginning, but the institution moved away from its roots to establish its power in the world. Ignatius Loyola founded a group aimed at reforming the Church in the middle of the 16th century. At the core of his training method is the long retreat, which consists of 30 days spent in silence and intense meditation. The exercise that church leaders need to take to heart is “The Meditation on the Two Standards.”
The scenario as presented by Loyola is fantasy fiction. It could be Spartacus leading his gladiators against the mighty Roman army or Braveheart, William Wallace, leading his Scottish loyalists against the King of England. But it provides a simple, powerful way of looking at the situation facing the Roman Catholic Church.
The person doing the exercises ponders a confrontation between an evil kingdom and the good kingdom. A powerful central figure sitting on a throne controls the evil forces. He orders his minions to go out into the world and teach people to pursue wealth, power, and prestige. Opposed to this debauchery is the good side represented by Jesus on a plain with a vast gathering of his loyalists. The Messiah walks among the crowd as an ordinary man encouraging everyone to go out and spread his message of love of neighbor.
It is time for Pope Francis to lead his church along a radical new path. There is no place on the plain with Jesus for pomp, prestige, power or privilege. Men and women stand side by side as equals. Homosexuals mingle with heterosexuals. No one checks credentials. The Church needs to bring women to the table as equals. It needs to recognize that members of the LGBT crowd are normal people.
Those in power will not give up easily. They will continue to wring as much money out of the laity as they can. They will go on flaunting their power and prestige.
Early in February 2019, Pope Francis acknowledged in a press conference that members of the clergy had sexually abused nuns. That was hailed as a big step forward. But neither nuns nor lay women are allowed to debate and vote on the proper way to handle the situation. In 2013, the pope reaffirmed his predecessor’s position that the “radical feminism” of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) was incompatible with Catholic Doctrine. The specific complaint was about the biblical view of “family life and sexuality,” but the message was: The Vatican is in charge – women and children should be seen and not heard.
Pope Francis’ friend Cardinal McCarrick made a serious effort to tamp down on lay activists. Several groups of committed lay persons organizing and working in the Washington Metropolitan area had made Pentecost Sunday a special feast day. Each group held a get together on that day to celebrate their activism and fellowship. The meetings were inspirational as long as each group got together on its own. Cardinal McCarrick mandated that all of the groups gather for one event at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on Pentecost Sunday.
His approach turned the celebration into a chore. The combined groups filled the massive cathedral, but socialization was stymied. Everything about McCarrick’s version was tedious and drawn out. Then he gave his sermon. He skipped over thanks and praise for the dedicated people who had gathered to celebrate lay participation in the life of the Church. He lectured them about the shortage of priests.
If the Roman Catholic Church wants to address its shortage of priests, it will have to make changes. The life of a priest could be more attractive. Women could be ordained. The celibacy requirement could be dropped making the priesthood an option for married men and women. More duties and responsibilities could be turned over to lay members of the Church.
The Age of Royalty has passed. It no longer makes sense to treat the clergy as members of a unique, privileged class. Let those with the talent and desire to serve in the role of community leader step up. Let the community have a say in who gets the position.
The Church has failed to develop a moral and ethical posture that works in modern society because it has failed to move out of the Middle Ages. Theodore Cardinal McCarrick was a prime example of a Medieval clergyman functioning in the 20th and 21st centuries. He succeeded at some things, but he failed in serious ways. All parties were injured because he was afforded the power and privilege that goes with royalty. The Church has now divorced itself from him. But others like him are thriving because the underlying problems have not been addressed.
Mr. McCarrick is gone. Cardinal McCarrick’s ghost will be around for a long time.
Demented
“Demented” is a story of crime, punishment and getting away with it. Three young men lure a woman into a room and rape her. Two of the rapists get away with misdemeanor assault charges. The third man is given a 15-year sentence and sent off to prison. The woman must deal with the aftermath of the attack on her own.
Sixteen years later the four lives collide in Washington DC. The woman, Cindy (Smith) Foster and one of her rapists, Adan Jackson, are working in the same office. He has begun harassing her. His brother works in the company’s New York office. The third man, Troy Mondale, has been released from prison and is working to build a new life.
Cindy has secrets, and she fights to keep those secrets. When the PI she hires to deal with Jackson confronts him, things get out of control. He escalates his harassment and drags Mondale back into the mess.
The final kick in the butt that pushed me into writing this story was feedback from my last novel, “The Walshes.” I was castigated for not sending a character to prison because of a date rape. I understand the anger over my handling of the situation even though the way I wrote the arc accurately depicts what goes on in real life. I don’t believe my critics understand the seriousness of their proposed remedy. They may be thinking in terms of a TV cop drama where the bad guy is arrested and sent off to serve his time. That fantasy skips over the trauma of a real-life trial and the horror of actual life in prison.
I spent a year as a member of a group that visited with prisoners in a Berks County Pennsylvania jail when I was 19. On one occasion, I was allowed to go back in the cell block and talk with one of my contacts. His cell was much like those shown on TV. It was an 8 by 8 by 8 cage with a bunk bed for two inmates, but it had a sink and a toilet that seemed to be out of order. That visit was enough to convince me that I never wanted to go to jail for any reason. Staying one day in a situation like that is more than I want to think about. Surviving years of incarceration under those conditions would be an unimaginable challenge.
“Demented” is my attempt to put these issues and my feelings into words. The novel focuses on a character who spends time in jail for a serious crime and then faces life after prison. It shows how bad the situation can be. His jail time is not spent visiting with lawyers and police in relatively pristine settings. He has been dumped into a prison system designed to break a man’s spirit. He experiences prison the way Andy Dufresne did in “Shawshank Redemption.” Perhaps his experience is worse. He does not emerge from prison rich and unscathed. My prisoner comes to believe that the day he was released from jail was the worst day of his life. He comes out of prison facing a life of survival as a convicted felon and a violent sex offender.
The second motivator for “Demented” was an episode of “Law and Order SVU.” I watch the show intermittently, but my wife watches it religiously. The particular episode that inspired events in my novel started with two college men raping a female classmate who had starred in gang rape videos to get money for college expenses. One of the attackers is a rich kid. The other is not. He admits his guilt, apologizes for his misdeeds and goes off to prison. Then he drops out of sight.
At the end of the story, the young woman has been kicked out of school. She goes back to making porn videos. The rich kid is awaiting resolution of his case. It looks like he might get away with his crime. Detective Benson goes to the Dean of the College and berates her because the porn star coed has been expelled while the rich kid rapist has been allowed to continue his education.
The young man who went to prison is the character who sticks in my mind. His story is as exciting and as important as the woman’s story. In “Demented,” he becomes Troy Mondale. The rich kid becomes Adan Jackson. Cindy (Smith) Foster is the young woman. Adan’s brother Beau is added in the novel because I liked having a third member of the gang. Beau turns out to be an excellent counterweight in the story. Lydia Bennett is a thinly disguised stand-in for Olivia Benson.
The third motivator was an article that appeared in the Washington Post some time ago. A woman walks out of the Senate Office building and runs into a man who got away with raping her and trying to kill her. The man was on his way to work as an aide for one of the senators. This story provides the central conflict and the setting for “Demented.” Cindy and her attackers find themselves thrown together years after the rape – sixteen years to give Troy time to complete his prison sentence. Adan, Beau, and Cindy work for the same company. It is a large accounting and financial consulting firm with offices across the United States and around the globe. Cindy and Adan are both working in the DC office.
Several books helped me get a handle on prison life. “Earning Freedom” by Michael Santos (@michaelgsantos on Twitter) was the most important. Santos became an inspiration for my realization of Troy Mondale. When I write dialog for Troy, I hear Michael Santos’ voice in my head. Santos was charged and convicted as a drug kingpin because he had put together a small drug operation aimed at servicing the needs of white-collar customers in the Seattle area. He was sentenced to 40 years but got out in 25 by focusing on good behavior. “Earning Freedom” is a memoir of his time in prison and his return to civil society. Santos is founder and head of Prison Professors which can be found online. Mondale Legal Consulting Services was inspired by Prison Professors (
“Inside” also by Michael Santos is an earlier version of his prison memoir written while he was still serving time. In this edition, Santos provides more details about the people he met in prison and talks about incidents that illuminate facets of prison life. The two books are complementary but “Earning Freedom” was more helpful to me as a resource for “Demented.”
“Lockdown on Rikers: Shocking Stories of Abuse and Injustice at New York’s Notorious Jail” describes the prison experience from a completely different perspective. The author, Mary Buser (@busermary on Twitter), started as an intern in the Mental Health Department at Rikers and worked her way up to Chief Assistant. She talks about trying to provide
Finally, “Derailed” by Mark Roseman is the memoir of a lawyer who went to prison for two years because he misappropriated funds entrusted to him as a settlement for his clients. His benign experience provided some crucial details for Troy’s imprisonment.
I completed an outline of the story in October 2017. I wrote the first version over November and December. The first rewrite was completed by May of 2018. Over that period Adan Jackson developed into the central character. Nickey Arnold, the PI hired by Cindy to confront her tormentor, emerged as the villain’s obsession and primary foe.
Jackson disintegrates into madness over the course of the novel. Nickey becomes locked in a struggle with him to save herself and the world. She gets a lot of help, especially from DC police sergeant Jack Edwards. He is eager to get Jackson, but his hands are tied because the villain’s behavior does not become clearly illegal until the end.
Trump’s Wall
Trump’s wall is just the latest attempt to protect civilization from an imagined doomsday. The Chinese built their Great Wall. Hadrian had a wall constructed across England and Europe. The Communists built a wall separating East Germany from the rest of us.
South Vietnam was supposed to be the wall that prevented the Communists from taking over the world. The Anti-Ballistic Missile system (ABM) was going to protect America from an onslaught of Russian ICBMs. You can read about those things in history books.
Candidate Donald Trump loudly proclaimed that he would build a beautiful wall along our southern border to keep out illegal immigrants and drugs (tinyurl.com/TheWall-Trump-Promised). He also said Mexico would pay for it. Anyone with any sense immediately realized that Mexico wasn’t going to pay for a wall to keep Mexicans out of our country. Illegal immigration into the United States is our problem. If we want a wall we will have to pay for it ourselves.
You have to dig a little deeper to find out that the proposed wall won’t help much. Most of the drugs entering this country come in through ports of entry rather than across our border with Mexico (tinyurl.com/US-bound-drug-flows). Many illegal immigrants come into this country legally – they have passports and visas. They just stay and make themselves at home after the permit expires. Closing our southern border will not keep people like that out.
Terrain is another big problem. Our border with Mexico runs for 2000 miles along the Rio Grande River, the Chihuahuan and Sonoran deserts, the Colorado River Delta and the Baja Peninsula. The terrain is often mountainous. Soil in some stretches is not suitable for construction. If the proposed wall is ever built, it will become a maintenance nightmare. It would always need another expensive repair.
A border fence begun in 2006 under President Bush was canceled in 2010 because of costs. Six hundred miles of fence and vehicle barriers had been constructed at $2.8 million per mile – about $1.68 billion. (tinyurl.com/Mexico-US-Border-SecureFenceAc)
There isn’t going to be an actual wall. The current concept looks more like a picket fence. The pickets will be steel instead of wood and they will be too tall to jump over but there will still be spaces between the slats. Putting up a picket fence will be easier and cheaper than building a wall. Maintenance costs will be more reasonable. And it will probably be just as effective as an overpriced wall.
It is possible that Trump will be willing to settle for concertina wire by the end of next year. (tinyurl.com/Concertina-wire-along-border)
Walls don’t seem to work. I can’t say anything about the Great Wall of China because I don’t know its history. Hadrian’s Wall seems to have been built to keep the Romans safe from the barbarians. The Berlin Wall was not entirely successful in keeping East Berliners imprisoned on their side of the border. And the success it did achieve came at a high price. The barrier was 15 feet tall and topped with barbed wire. It had watchtowers manned by armed guards with shoot to kill orders. Over 200 East German citizens were killed in their attempt to escape the brutal communist regime.
East Germany used 50,000 handpicked troops to guard the 100 miles of concrete walls, fencing and barbed wire. Thousands of these guards turned traitor and attempted to escape. About one-third succeeded. So the East Germans employed a secret service to keep tabs on the guards and their families.
The border to be protected by Trump’s Wall is 20 times as long as the border protected by the Berlin Wall. It is currently guarded by 20,000 agents. President Trump has requested an additional 15,000 but hiring them has proven difficult. The standards are high, the training difficult and most Americans don’t want to live and work in a remote wilderness area.
I was drafted at the start of my senior year of college in 1966. A year later, I joined more than a million other young American males serving in South Vietnam to hold the line against a Communist takeover. We did our best but we were fighting history (tinyurl.com/VietnamWar-timeline). The Japanese drove the French out of Vietnam (Indo-China) at the beginning of WWII. President Truman supported a French attempt to reestablish its colonial hold on the territory in 1948. Six years later, Ho Chi Minh and his followers defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu.
The country was divided into North and South by the Geneva peace agreement. North Vietnam was led by the charismatic Ho Chi Minh. He was a communist. Ngo Dinh Diem, a provincial anti-communist leader, won control of South Vietnam. President Eisenhower established the Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) to provide training and other assistance to the South Vietnamese army (ARVN).
Eisenhower had served as Supreme Allied Commander in WWII. He knew war, armies and leaders. He certainly recognized that Diem was not capable of ruling South Vietnam let alone defeating Ho Chi Minh and reuniting the country. Ike advised President-Elect John Kennedy in 1960 that more troops would be needed in South Vietnam. Kennedy increased the troop levels and tried several strategies like the Hamlet program to secure the country.
President Lyndon Johnson took over after Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 23, 1963. He attempted to break Ho Chi Minh by a gradual build-up of pressure using bombing raids. The North Vietnamese and their allies in the south, the Viet Cong, mounted a counter-offensive. LBJ was forced to commit ground troops to defend South Vietnam
After five years of futile fighting, Johnson gave up. He dropped his bid for reelection in 1968. Richard Nixon won that election and took over. He scaled back the American commitment. A cease-fire was negotiated on January 28, 1973. Only a small contingent of American troops stationed near Saigon was left to support for the South Vietnamese government.
Fifteen months later, Saigon fell. Americans raced to evacuate the city as North Vietnamese troops charged in to take over.
The Wall had collapsed but nothing really happened. The Vietnamese got their country back. Ugly hostility gradually gave way to civility. Today, Vietnam is thriving.
Communism did not take over the world or even Southeast Asia. If anything, capitalism is sucking in all other competitors and digesting them.
The Berlin Wall was torn down in November 1989. Again there were no catastrophic consequences. The failed experiment in Communism had been abandoned. Germany was able to reunite its parts and heal.
Trump’s Wall is a political symbol. Building a wall or even a picket fence will slow the pace of intrusions from the south but it will not prevent them. More importantly, the proposed barrier will not solve the problems that cause the intrusions.
His wall will not keep out drugs. They come into this country because there is a market. Americans buy and use all kinds of drugs. We find ways to get our hands on them because we want them. Drug trafficking is driven by demand. No wall will address that problem.
Immigrants supplement our workforce. That is a benefit. Making immigration more difficult will make getting the workers needed for certain jobs more difficult. Other jobs will be filled by temporary workers with green cards or H-1B visas that give them a legal right to work in the United States. Many of these temporary workers are brought here to compete with American citizens and drive down wages. Trump’s wall will not address those issues.
Sometime down the road, in perhaps ten years or maybe fifty, that wall will be torn down because it is more trouble than it is worth. Nothing catastrophic will happen. Lives will change but not in big ways. Someday it might be as easy to travel to Acapulco or Machu Picchu as it is to travel from Boston to San Diego.
Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court Nominee
Brett Kavanaugh, Supreme Court Nominee, is destined to become a tragic figure in American Politics.The battle over his nomination reminds me of the battle over Judge Robert Bork’s nomination in many ways. It is different in significant ways. Kavanaugh, like Bork, is a striking man with strong conservative views.
I remember Bork as being a loud, portly man with a rough beard. Kavanaugh seems younger, more athletic and clean shaven. He might even be dashing.
Bork was the Assistant Attorney General who fired Nixon Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. He favored extreme expansion of Presidential Powers. Kavanaugh seems to have been the Machiavellian thinker for Special Council Ken Starr during the investigation of Bill Clinton.
Judge Bork favored expansion of presidential powers and believed the voting rights act was unconstitutional. (https://www.quora.com/Why-wasnt-Robert-Bork-confirmed-as-a-Supreme-Court-justice) Judge Kavanaugh has expressed some opinions that suggest he would expand the power of the presidency and overturn accepted norms. For example, in a 1999 discussion, he said, ““But maybe Nixon was wrongly decided — heresy though it is to say so. Nixon took away the power of the president to control information in the executive branch by holding that the courts had power and jurisdiction to order the president to disclose information in response to a subpoena sought by a subordinate executive branch official.”
On the other hand, Kavanaugh cited Nixon as one “of the greatest moments in American judicial history” in a 2016 law review article. When asked by the Senate Judicial Committee about his ten most significant cases, he said that in nine of them, the position expressed in his written opinion was later adopted by the Supreme Court.
Judge Kavanaugh carries an unusual stigma. Extreme views he has expressed on legal actions against a sitting president could have been an important consideration in his selection for the Supreme Court nomination. Candidate Trump promised to overturn Roe V Wade and may have selected Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court as a step toward fulfilling that promise. Kavanaugh has not challenged the Supreme Court ruling on abortion. He assured Senator Lisa Murkowski, a key GOP female in the Senate, that he considers Roe V Wade settled law. However, his actions in a recent case before him as a Circuit Court Judge suggest that he might find a way to weaken and even nullify the rights established by the ruling.
The case involved a 17-year-old illegal immigrant being held in a federal detention camp in Texas. She wanted an abortion. Texas law required her to get her parents permission or a judicial waiver. The young woman got a sponsor and a lawyer and won the judicial waiver. Federal authorities refused to allow her to leave the detention center to get the abortion. Her appeal was sent to the D.C. Circuit court. Judge Kavanaugh presided over the hearing. He did not dispute her right to get the abortion, but he imposed conditions that would have prevented her from getting her abortion before it was too late. When the majority overruled him. He wrote a dissent. That dissent has conservatives upset because he did not dispute her right to an abortion. It has liberals don’t like it because he wrote: “that delaying the procedure while the government sought a sponsor was permissible under the Supreme Court’s precedent because it did not impose an undue burden on that right.”
It is possible. It is likely that Kavanaugh was being truthful when he told Senator Murkowski that he considers Roe V Wade settled law. That would not prevent him from voting to decide in favor of officials who imposed draconian restrictions on access to abortions when such cases come before the court. Judge Kavanaugh could also change his opinion after he has secured his position on the Supreme Court. He could join other conservative justices in a decision to overturn Roe V Wade because it was wrongly decided.
The question for Senator Murkowski and others who have a vested interest in protecting Roe V Wade is: What will you do when Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh attacks or even votes to overturn that decision?
Can Judge Kavanaugh be trusted? Is there anything so sacred to the man that he would never betray it?
These questions lead to the allegations of sexual misconduct brought by at least three women. The allegations are political hot potatoes. Kavanaugh supporters insist that they are part of a campaign to prevent confirmation. Supporters of the women maintain that they are uncovering past wrongdoing that has to be addressed. In particular, Christina Blasey Ford made her allegations before President Trump announced that Brett Kavanaugh was his choice for Supreme Court nominee.
Public outcries appear to have forced a hearing on Dr. Ford’s complaint. But she was the only witness for her side, and Judge Kavanaugh was the only witness for his side. The plan was to vote on his confirmation the day after the hearing. Instead, the day after the hearing negotiations led to a limited one-week FBI investigation into the allegations. It appears that the investigation is limited in ways that guarantee serious issues in Judge Kavanaugh’s past are not addressed.
A sworn statement submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee in connection with the hearing on Dr. Ford’s allegations is specifically excluded from the investigation.
His drinking habits are not to be investigated. He admitted during the hearing that he drank beer and occasionally got quite drunk. But he insists that he never lost consciousness let alone blacked out. Several of his classmates from Yale have challenged his assertions. Two problems must be investigated. First is whether or not he lied about his behavior in high school and college. The second is whether or not his problem drinking stopped when he got out of the college environment. Either of those situations should disqualify him for appointment to the Supreme Court.
Judge Kavanaugh himself has provided the most serious evidence that he is not qualified to serve as a Justice on the Supreme Court. He clearly views the world through a political lens. He is not content to respond to charges that he considers baseless, he has to lash out at his perceived political foes. “This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit fueled with apparent pent-up anger about president Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.”
That statement alone should disqualify him from consideration for an appointment to the Supreme Court. Instead of limiting himself to addressing the alleged assault, he strikes back with a countercharge based on an unsupported conspiracy theory, and he brings in President Trump’s win in the 2016 election. The only evidence of a conspiracy on the part of the Democrats is the delay in making Dr. Ford’s letter public. It is difficult to see that things would be any different if the letter had been introduced into the process in August or even in July. The issues are whether Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted Christina Blasey 36 years ago and whether that matters in the present context. A judge must be able to stick to the issues.
According to the Code of Conduct for United States Judges (http://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/code-conduct-united-states-judges), a judge should uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary. He or she should avoid the appearance of impropriety in all activities. She or he should perform the duties of the office fairly, impartially, and diligently.
This hearing was not one of Judge Kavanaugh’s official duties, but his statements cast doubt on his ability to perform his duties fairly and impartially.
Fifty years ago, Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas was impeached and forced to resign because of ethics violations. He had been appointed by Lyndon Johnson. Fortas represented Johnson in a 1948 electoral dispute, and the two became friends. After Fortas was elevated to the Supreme Court, he continued to maintain a close relationship with the president which violated his duty to maintain independence and integrity. Fortas provided Johnson with inside information on judicial deliberations and helped write speeches for the president.
Judge Brett Kavanaugh was handpicked by President Donald Trump. The Judge appears to have the qualifications, but some of his writings suggest that the President had other motives for selecting him. Many believe that he perjured himself both during his 2003 – 2006 hearings for appointment to the DC Circuit Court and during the 2018 hearings on his nomination to the Supreme Court. The handling of current sexual allegations has been inadequate. No convincing evidence of misconduct has come to light (as of this writing), but the picture that has emerged leaves the issue unresolved. There is good reason to believe that, if he is confirmed, Justice Kavanaugh will face these issues again in the not too distant future.
Trump’s Friends List
President Trump’s Friends List should be at least as important as his Enemies List. He has many enemies and he adds more every day. Anybody who publicly criticizes him can end up on his enemies list. That has sinister implications. But his Friends List gives us better insight into what is going on. It is easy to become the president’s enemy. Only exceptional people are treated as friends.
Russian president Vladimir Putin is at the top of the list. The Helsinki Summit is the tip off (tinyurl.com/Trump-Putin-Helsinki-2018). The two men were grinning and touching like two kids in love at the press conference after the unheard of closed door meeting between heads of state. President Putin came right out and said the he wanted Donald Trump for president in 2016. He may even have said that he helped tip the race in Trump’s favor.
In March of 2017, Xi Jinping accepted the role of “President for Life” at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party. President Trump responded with admiration, “He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great and look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday.” (tinyurl.com/Trump-says-President-for-life)
A month later, April 7, 2017, Xi Jinping was Donald Trump’s honored guest at Mar-a-Lago when the President acting as Commander-in-Chief launched a missile strike against a Syrian airbase.
Kim Jong Un, leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or more simply North Korea, managed to get a summit with President Trump in June of 2018 (tinyurl.com/Trump-Kim-Singapore-2018). Our president was less effusive in his public appearances with the leader of the DPRK than with President Putin. Mr. Trump went so far as to admit that Kim Jong Un might disappoint him. But he has done some very nice things for the “Little Rocket Man.” He had the American people pay for Kim’s travel and lodging during the summit. He ordered joint military exercises between the US and South Korea halted because the North Korean leader found them provocative (tinyurl.com/Trump-cancels-military-exercis).
Kim Jong Un may not be in the same Friend category as Vladimir Put or Xi Jinping but he certainly ranks ahead of former CIA Chief John Brennan or Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Disgraced White House Staffer Rob Porter looks more like one of Trump’s friends than either of those two men. President Trump has looked at bringing the serial spouse abuser back onto his staff (tinyurl.com/Trump-friend-Rob-Porter).
Trump’s Friends List includes three dictators and a wife-beater. Two of the dictators are known to be murderers. Vladimir Putin’s opponents die at an astounding rate. Many of them are poisoned. Kim Jong Un had his half-brother Kim Jong Nam murdered in the Kuala Lampur International Airport by two female assassins using a liquid nerve agent (tinyurl.com/KJU-murders-half-brother).
Paul Manafort, who was just convicted of tax fraud, hiding foreign bank accounts and bank fraud, is also on Trump’s Friends List. Hours after the guilty verdicts were announced, President Trump took a moment to talk to reporters about his former campaign manager. He said that Manafort was a good man. He pointed out that Manafort had worked for major political figures like Ronald Reagan and Bob Dole (tinyurl.com/Trump-speaks-out-on-Manafort ).
Manafort worked for Gerald Ford’s re-nomination in 1976 when Governor Ronald Reagan was the principal challenger. He switched teams in 1980 and worked to get Reagan elected. He also worked for dictators like Phillipine President Ferdinand Marcos, Angolan guerilla leader Jonas Savimbi, Lebanese arms dealer Abdul Rahman Al Assir, and Russian oligarch Oleg Deripasaka.
In 2004, Deripaska enlisted Paul Manafort’s help in resurrecting the political career of former KGB operative Viktor Yanukovych (tinyurl.com/Viktor-Yanukovych-Story). Yanukovych had just suffered a resounding defeat in the Ukraine. Manafort transformed the man’s style and image. Yanukovych was elected president of the Ukraine in 2010. But by 2014, his corruption and exploitation of presidential powers led to a revolt that forced him to flee the country. He found asylum in Russia.
Manafort’s magic life came to an abrupt end. His luck had run out.
Then in 2016, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign gave Manafort an opportunity to get back in the game and start making money again. The Trump campaign was perfect. It “…was a shambolic masterpiece of improvisation that required an infusion of technical knowledge and establishment credibility.” (“The Atlantic”, March 2018, tinyurl.com/American-Hustler-Paul-Manafort)
And so Paul Manafort became Donald Trump’s mentor and is now enshrined on Trump’s Friends List.
An ancient proverb says, “Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are.” Franklin Foer suggests in his article, “American Hustler” that Donald Trump is no exception.
“… The president bears some likeness to the oligarchs Manafort long served: a businessman with a portfolio of shady deals, who benefited from a cozy relationship to government; a man whose urge to dominate, and to enrich himself, overwhelms any higher ideal.” (“The Atlantic”, March 2018, tinyurl.com/American-Hustler-Paul-Manafort)
College Education Monster
The College Education Monster lies satisfied in its lair. Millions of students battle their way through college. Graduates struggle to pay off student loans. Parents scrape together money for their children’s education. Some adults are paying off a student loan and putting aside money for their children. According to a report issued in January of 2018, 44 million American college graduates owe a total of 1.48 trillion dollars (tinyurl.com/StudentLoan-debt-stats).
The College Education Monster started life as a helper. It is an offspring of the learning process that enables all of us to figure out life without reinventing the wheel. Basic education teaches us how to feed ourselves, how to dress and how to behave in polite society. We learn to read and write because those skills give us to access to every kind of knowledge. Getting from basic education in life skills to widespread college education took a long time.
The ability to preserve our knowledge in writing and pass it on to future generations is what gives humans the edge over all other beasts on our planet. We can talk to each other. We have incredible manual dexterity. Our closest relatives, the Chimps, don’t. They can make hoots and whistles but they can’t sing “Mary had a little lamb.” They have opposable thumbs but their hands are built for climbing and knuckle walking. Human hands are specialized for making and using tools. Language is one of our most important tools.
Modern human speech and languages evolved over millions of years. Writing came thousands of years later. Art came first. Prehistoric humans recorded their knowledge in paintings on the walls of caves. It took thirty thousand years to go from cave paintings to the earliest written languages – cuneiform and hieroglyphics.
Alphabets and writing materials evolved over the succeeding centuries. The next big step, the printing press, was invented 600 years ago. That made the mass production of books possible. Universities with large student bodies followed. But very few people obtained higher levels of education before the post WWII surge. (tinyurl.com/History-of-education)
Two hundred fifty years ago we entered the Modern Age with a shift to an industrial economy. People abandoned farms and moved to the cities. By the early 1900s, the majority of working class adults earned their livelihood either directly or indirectly from manufacturing. Education adapted to the changing needs of society. Office and factory skills, literacy, math and science took on increasing importance. An elementary education in reading and writing was enough for most people. A select few attended college. A tiny fraction went on to obtain advanced degrees. Most of those who continued in school came from wealthy families and were preparing for careers in law, banking, teaching or preaching. Einstein studied for a teaching diploma in math and physics at the Zurich Polytechnic. He had five classmates. (tinyurl.com/Educating-Einstein)
College education took on new significance after WWII. Math, science and technology got a boost from the war effort. Consumers demanded and manufacturers delivered a seemingly endless array of new products. Television and air travel became necessities. Migration to the suburbs drove the demand for cars. Those developments created good paying jobs for people with college degrees in the right fields. Suddenly the demand for workers with diplomas skyrocketed and the College Education Monster began to grow up.
A college degree became a guaranteed ticket to a good paying job. Colleges could not produce graduates fast enough for decades after WWII. Salaries for college grads increased rapidly. No one complained about the steadily rising cost of a degree.
By 1970 the supply of college graduates was beginning to exceed demand. Many new graduates, even in fields like electrical engineering, were finding themselves with a diploma and a student loan but no job. By then the value of a college education was a firmly established article of faith.
There are many arguments for the value of a college education (tinyurl.com/Financial-Value-of-a-degree). Employers like including a college degree requirement because it simplifies the job of weeding out applicants. People who have completed four years of college can read, write and analyze. Anyone with a degree in a certain field has enough interest and talent in that field to make it through a degree program. And those who have a degree have been exposed to key concepts.
That may be wishful thinking. Colleges can’t keep up with the breakneck pace of change in modern society. Students end up learning from out of date text books. The diploma has become more important than the curriculum for today’s college graduate. Real education comes from everyday, on-the-job work experience.
The College Education Monster is here to stay. Companies are committed to including a college degree requirement for some of the best paying jobs. But the approach to education is adapting to the needs of society. Less expensive solutions are emerging. Brick and mortar colleges are cutting back. Online colleges are taking up the slack. People are getting jobs first and then going for the college degree to help them advance.
College degree programs including Graduate and Doctoral programs have their place. But getting a degree is an investment of time and money and should be evaluated like any other investment. What does the investor get in return?
Increased earning potential is an important consideration. It is not the only one. Studies have shown that a college graduate can expect to earn more over the course of a career than a contemporary who does not have a diploma. None of the studies shows that the extra income will be more than the cost of getting the diploma.
The cost of a college education includes tuition and fees. Living expenses can be ignored because they would be incurred anyway.
If money is borrowed to pay for college, interest on the loan is an additional expense that must be taken into account. Even if the money spent on tuition and fees is not borrowed, it could have been invested to produce income. That lost income is part of the cost of going to college.
Time spent working on the degree could be used to work at a paying job. Giving up that salary is another cost of going to college full time. In addition, part of that salary could be set aside to fund a profitable investment program.
One return on investment calculator (tinyurl.com/Investment-Value-Calculator) puts the earnings from a $100 per month investment at $50,000 over a 25 year period. That may not seem like a big deal at first glance. Add cost avoidance of $100,000 saved by not paying for tuition and books, and the sum is more respectable. Increase the monthly investment by $50 every year and the value of investing instead of going to college becomes very impressive.
A college education is not the only way to go. It may not even be the best alternative.What if parents saved up to give their children a $50,000 annuity to use in any way they see fit upon graduation from high school?
The College Education Monster is not such a terrible beast. Treat it with respect. Don’t let it take control. It is your life. Live it as you see fit.
The College Education Monster
The College Education Monster lies satisfied in its lair. Millions of students battle their way through college. Graduates struggle to pay off student loans. Parents scrape together money for their children’s education. Some adults are paying off a student loan and putting aside money for their children. According to a report issued in January of 2018, 44 million American college graduates owe a total of 1.48 trillion dollars (tinyurl.com/StudentLoan-debt-stats).
The College Education Monster started life as a helper. It is an offspring of the learning process that enables all of us to figure out life without reinventing the wheel. Basic education teaches us how to feed ourselves, how to dress and how to behave in polite society. We learn to read and write because those skills give us to access to every kind of knowledge. Getting from basic education in life skills to widespread college education took a long time.
The ability to preserve our knowledge in writing and pass it on to future generations is what gives humans the edge over all other beasts on our planet. We can talk to each other. We have incredible manual dexterity. Our closest relatives, the Chimps, don’t. They can make hoots and whistles but they can’t sing “Mary had a little lamb.” They have opposable thumbs but their hands are built for climbing and knuckle walking. Human hands are specialized for making and using tools. Language is one of our most important tools.
Modern human speech and languages evolved over millions of years. Writing came thousands of years later. Art came first. Prehistoric humans recorded their knowledge in paintings on the walls of caves. It took thirty thousand years to go from cave paintings to the earliest written languages – cuneiform and hieroglyphics.
Alphabets and writing materials evolved over the succeeding centuries. The next big step, the printing press, was invented 600 years ago. That made the mass production of books possible. Universities with large student bodies followed. But very few people obtained higher levels of education before the post WWII surge. (tinyurl.com/History-of-education)
Two hundred fifty years ago we entered the Modern Age with a shift to an industrial economy. People abandoned farms and moved to the cities. By the early 1900s, the majority of working class adults earned their livelihood either directly or indirectly from manufacturing. Education adapted to the changing needs of society. Office and factory skills, literacy, math and science took on increasing importance. An elementary education in reading and writing was enough for most people. A select few attended college. A tiny fraction went on to obtain advanced degrees. Most of those who continued in school came from wealthy families and were preparing for careers in law, banking, teaching or preaching. Einstein studied for a teaching diploma in math and physics at the Zurich Polytechnic. He had five classmates. (tinyurl.com/Educating-Einstein)
College education took on new significance after WWII. Math, science and technology got a boost from the war effort. Consumers demanded and manufacturers delivered a seemingly endless array of new products. Television and air travel became necessities. Migration to the suburbs drove the demand for cars. Those developments created good paying jobs for people with college degrees in the right fields. Suddenly the demand for workers with diplomas skyrocketed and the College Education Monster began to grow up.
A college degree became a guaranteed ticket to a good paying job. Colleges could not produce graduates fast enough for decades after WWII. Salaries for college grads increased rapidly. No one complained about the steadily rising cost of a degree.
By 1970 the supply of college graduates was beginning to exceed demand. Many new graduates, even in fields like electrical engineering, were finding themselves with a diploma and a student loan but no job. By then the value of a college education was a firmly established article of faith.
There are many arguments for the value of a college education (tinyurl.com/Financial-Value-of-a-degree). Employers like including a college degree requirement because it simplifies the job of weeding out applicants. People who have completed four years of college can read, write and analyze. Anyone with a degree in a certain field has enough interest and talent in that field to make it through a degree program. And those who have a degree have been exposed to key concepts.
That may be wishful thinking. Colleges can’t keep up with the breakneck pace of change in modern society. Students end up learning from out of date text books. The diploma has become more important than the curriculum for today’s college graduate. Real education comes from everyday, on-the-job work experience.
The College Education Monster is here to stay. Companies are committed to including a college degree requirement for some of the best paying jobs. But the approach to education is adapting to the needs of society. Less expensive solutions are emerging. Brick and mortar colleges are cutting back. Online colleges are taking up the slack. People are getting jobs first and then going for the college degree to help them advance.
College degree programs including Graduate and Doctoral programs have their place. But getting a degree is an investment of time and money and should be evaluated like any other investment. What does the investor get in return?
Increased earning potential is an important consideration. It is not the only one. Studies have shown that a college graduate can expect to earn more over the course of a career than a contemporary who does not have a diploma. None of the studies shows that the extra income will be more than the cost of getting the diploma.
The cost of a college education includes tuition and fees. Living expenses can be ignored because they would be incurred anyway.
If money is borrowed to pay for college, interest on the loan is an additional expense that must be taken into account. Even if the money spent on tuition and fees is not borrowed, it could have been invested to produce income. That lost income is part of the cost of going to college.
Time spent working on the degree could be used to work at a paying job. Giving up that salary is another cost of going to college full time. In addition, part of that salary could be set aside to fund a profitable investment program.
One return on investment calculator (tinyurl.com/Investment-Value-Calculator) puts the earnings from a $100 per month investment at $50,000 over a 25 year period. That may not seem like a big deal at first glance. Add cost avoidance of $100,000 saved by not paying for tuition and books, and the sum is more respectable. Increase the monthly investment by $50 every year and the value of investing instead of going to college becomes very impressive.
A college education is not the only way to go. It may not even be the best alternative.What if parents saved up to give their children a $50,000 annuity to use in any way they see fit upon graduation from high school?
The College Education Monster is not such a terrible beast. Treat it with respect. Don’t let it take control. It is your life. Live it as you see fit.
The Celebrity Apprentice Presidency
The Celebrity Apprentice Presidency is in full swing. Sham projects are under way. Participants are being fired. In this edition of “The Apprentice,” President Trump is both The Boss and the Celebrity Apprentice President.
Trump bragged that he could theoretically run his business and the country at the same time. As the Celebrity Apprentice President, he is doing his best to convince the world that he was right. He has split his management team. Sons Donald Junior and Eric are charged with administering the family business, while daughter Ivanka and her husband Jerrod Kushner are in the White House advising him in his role as President. DJT himself remains the mercurial, autocrat in charge of everything.
It will be an amazing accomplishment if it succeeds. It is shaping up to be a colossal disaster. Running a country is not a tidy undertaking like running a Reality TV show. The presidency operates in the real world where chaos rules and losing is the norm. Every victory comes with an asterisk.
What starts out as a bright vision full of hope and promise dissolves into an ugly mess as life moves forward. Very quickly The Vision set out at the inauguration collides with reality and begins falling apart. There isn’t enough time or energy to get everything done.
Candidate Trump promised a big, beautiful wall paid for by Mexico. Mexico said no. President Trump backed down despite his vaunted negotiating skills. He has to face realities that Candidate Trump ignored. The physical, legal and cost challenges of a 2000 mile wall will dictate whether President Trump gets a wall, a fence or nothing.
Candidate Trump promised to bring manufacturing jobs back to America. So far jobs seem to be leaving faster than they are coming home.
President Trump has made good on Candidate Trump’s promise to slap tariffs on Chinese exports. Now his supporters in the Midwest are concerned about Chinese retaliation.
Candidate Trump promised tax reform and a middle class tax cut. Congressional Republicans handed President Trump a victory on that one by changing the rules and ramming their tax reform plan through without debate. But the tax cut is going to rich guys like businessman Donald J. Trump. Middle class taxpayers are getting stuck with the tab.
The bright promise of January 20, 2017 has already faded. The surrender to Mexico in the battle of The Wall was the beginning of the end. Passing tax reform that was not debated, not even formalized before the vote was a failure. It was an admission that the Trump administration is incapable of leading a democracy.
President Trump announced his intention to pull out of Syria. After a chemical weapons attack, he has announced a planned retaliatory missile strike. Can he afford to go back on his word and re-engage in Syria? Can he afford to pull out after the recent atrocities?
He is pulling out of standing trade agreements which are important to the American economy. Can he fix the situation?
Every proposed solution has advantages and disadvantages. Making decisions under that kind of pressure can weigh a man down. Taking time off to play golf is a good way to reduce the strain. Candidate Trump said that he would be too busy to take vacations and play golf. President Trump has spent more time on vacation and played more golf in one year than his predecessor did in eight years.
And he is still running a business. He has stepped back from active management of the Trump Organization but he did not completely sever ties. President Trump spends about one out of every 4 days at a Trump property. He keeps his security detail with him. The Trump Organization charges American taxpayers for their room and board. Trump the businessman is profiting nicely from the Celebrity Apprentice Presidency.
When the apprentice and the boss are the same man, the boss will never say, “You’re fired.”
The President is only a figurehead when billionaire businessman Donald J. Trump is calling the shots.
Common Sense Health Care
It’s time for a common sense tough love approach to health care. Even Barack Obama recognized that his signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) needed an overhaul. The American Health Care Act of 2017 (AHCA) proposed by President Trump and GOP congressional leaders is not the overhaul that is needed. It will not provide health care and it will not be affordable. It will take insurance coverage away from an estimated 22 million Americans. Drastic cuts in safety net programs like Medicare and Medicaid are being proposed. And it looks like all of the savings will be plowed into tax cuts.
The AHCA or Trumpcare will not deny access to medicine or services. It will just make those things too expensive for a very large segment of our society. It will also guarantee that health care costs continue to rise. Insurance is the problem. Health Insurance is the engine that is driving up the cost of health care. Any insurance program including both Obamacare and Trumpcare will push the cost of health care up.
The opponents of Trumpcare who say that getting rid of Obamacare is a murderous assault on Americans are mistaken. Failures and diseases kill people. Healthcare may prolong life in some cases but in the end death always wins out. Replacing the ACA with the AHCA will not kill Americans. It will just make their lives more miserable.
As the song said, “There’s battle lines bein’ drawn. Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.” (For What It’s Worth by Buffalo Springfield.)
We need service. We need government provided health care not insurance that promotes pricey solutions. We need to get back to the concept that every American owes her/his country a debt of service. We should re-instate mandatory universal service. This time everyone would be required to report for duty of some kind. Such a service requirement could provide a labor pool for government health care clinics and services.
The proposal does sound foreign and outlandish. But it works in other countries. There are only two ways to control health care cost. The cost of labor must be capped and the cost of treatment has to be controlled. Our government will be able to do both of these things if it is the health care provider.
My father was a career navy enlisted man. He served for 20 years in the US Navy. I was born in a naval hospital and I received medical care through naval clinics until I was 18. I am ready to go back to the good old days.
If everybody is wrong, it is time to take a fresh approach to the problem.