Coronaviral Rage & Fringe Propaganda

A protester holds a doll with a noose around it's neck
at the statehouse in East Lansing, Michigan on 5/14/20

Last Thursday May 14, 2020 was Judgement Day.

At least in the eyes of the small slice of Michigan's populace who turned out in the rain for a protest held in front of the state capital building in East Lansing last Thursday.

The protest, against the scientifically-based social distancing restrictions put in place by Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, was supposedly organized by a group called Michigan United For Liberty.


That's the same group recently credited with organizing the "American Patriot Rally" back on Thursday 4/30/20 that garnered global attention and criticism when some of the protesters, heavily-armed and masked, entered the statehouse in East Lansing with loaded weapons to pressure Governor Whitmer and state lawmakers to lift health restrictions and cede to their demands to allow businesses across the state to re-open by Friday 5/1/20.

It's hard to believe that in 2020, some state legislators present during that rally wore bullet proof vests out of caution with angry protesters armed with rifles looking down on them from the visitor galleries above the floor of the chamber.

Take a minute to listen to Michigan State Senator Dayna Polehanki speaking out on the floor in support of a senate resolution to immediately ban the open carry of firearms in the state capital.

Organizers self-branded last Thursday's rally, "Judgement Day" - as if the the assembled crowd was now biblically empowered to act as some kind of kangaroo court authorized to sit in judgement of a democratically-elected governor and her policies.

There's something deeply disturbing about the sight a man (pictured above) striding up to the front of the rally holding a fishing pole with an American flag and a plastic doll representing Governor Whitmer with a noose around it's neck suspended from it.

Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer 

Personally I find the overheated, partisan opposition to Governor Whitmer's policies to be more evidence that pro-Trump dark money is likely fueling these protests.

I watched Judy Woodruff interview Whitmer on the Covid-19 challenges Michigan is facing on the 3/27/20 broadcast of The PBS Newshour.

She struck me as having what I consider to be the kind of instinctual political authority, bearing and demeanor that Trump so sorely lacks.

Governor Whitmer comes off as a down to earth, intelligent, informed, level-headed realist who clearly understands how the machinations of politics and governance work to create policy.

A virtual polar opposite of Trump in every way.

She also seems to be able to generate that difficult to define pragmatic optimism that effective presidents like Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama all had and were able to leverage to help lift public spirits during difficult periods where the U.S. faced serious economic, social and wartime challenges that altered society in indelible ways.

So it makes the sight of an angry protester openly hanging Governor Whitmer in effigy in front of the state house so much more disturbing, suggestive of mysogynist violence, and flat out crazy.

The sight of the noose in this country is also a disturbing reminder of the kind of lawless mob mentality that's led thousands of innocent people to be dragged from their homes (or from remarkably unguarded jail cells) by unruly crowds determined to see them hang without a fair trial.

Protesters with loaded semi-automatic rifles linger in 
front of the Michigan state capital on 5/14/20   [Getty Images]

American history is littered with terrifying examples of what can happen when the mob is allowed to run loose and unchecked by the power of the law.

Like the race-fueled massacre that took place in the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma when as many as 300 African-Americans were murdered over the course of two days in 1921.

Or the eleven Italian-Americans who were lynched by a mob stirred up by irrational, anti-immigrant fervor in New Orleans in March, 1891.

The recent protests in Michigan seem more intended to generate headlines, disrupt the news cycle, agitate the public, spark unfounded fears, and attract free media coverage for fringe conservative views that might otherwise struggle for recognition outside the spotlight of mainstream media.

Outside of these conservative-engineered media stunts, the kinds of fringe political and ideological views this movement attracts might otherwise only exist in online chatrooms, social media platforms - or deep inside the murky recesses of the Dark Web where exremist views fester and spread largely unchecked.

With an estimated total population of somewhere around ten million people, Michigan has the tenth largest population of any state in the U.S., a large manufacturing base, multiple professional sports franchises, a number of top colleges and universites, a large tourism industry and GDP that ranked 14th amongst the 50 states in 2019.

Do an assortment of members of fringe conservative groups showing up in front of the state capital holding signs and trying to turn a global pandemic into a pro-Trump political rally represent an accurate snapshot of how Michigan's population feels about the restrictions put in place to save lives?

There's no proof that all of the protesters at the statehouse were even from the state of Michigan at all.

Pro-Trump signage, hats and paraphernalia were everywhere and many protesters didn't even bother to wear protective masks, or observe the basic social distancing protocols recommended by the CDC, scientists and other leading healthcare groups.

Some of the estimated 900 tractors that encamped
on the National Mall for weeks in Feb. 1977  [Jo Freeman]

If these protestors want to excercise their right to freedom of expression, even if I personally disagree with them, I'll still respect their right to express their views - as long as that expression remains peaceful, and respectful of others.

Back in the winter of 1977 I was still in grade school in Bethesda, MD when thousands of farmers from across the U.S. descended upon the Washington, D.C. area with hundreds of tractors to demand increased federal support for family farms.

I was still too young to fully grasp the policy goals and politics behind their protest, but I remember thinking all the tractors intentionally blocking traffic on the crowded streets of DC were pretty cool.

The farmers camped out on the National Mall for weeks in cold February weather, and aside from a few minor traffic violations the protests remained peaceful and respectful for the most part - something that bolstered their position in the eyes of the public in addition to seizing media attention. 

That kind of grassroots protest is such a far cry from the intentionally divisive optics of offensive noose imagery and masked gunmen that's become associated whith these conservative crowd-bombing protests organized with the assistance of shadowy conservative dark money funneled from Republican Party rainmakers like the Mercers, Kochs and Adelsons.

And quite possibly agents of foreign intelligence agencies tasked with sewing internal division inside  America, manipulating media coverage and messing around with the 2020 elections.

That kind of expression-with-guns protest in the public square - that's a step towards the mob.

Protesters in downtown Huntingdon Beach,
California back on Friday 4/17/20

Are the members of this growing alignment of pro-Trump conservatives interested in policy, or disruption?

Can an assortment of Trump supporters bolstered by Libertarians, anti-government extremists, gun rights advocates, members of the anti-vaccine movement and Covid-19 deniers really organize around concrete policy issues - outside of publicly rallying to protect vague notions of "personal liberty" and "freedom"?

Are they really protesting Covid-19 restrictions like lockdowns and social distancing?

Or are they just using the pandemic as a platform to to vent ideological indignation, promote fringe, extremist theories and serve as a defacto radical arm of the 2020 Trump campaign?

It's not just here in the U.S. either, on Saturday protests were held across various German cities, inlcuding Munich, Berlin and Stuttgart. Like anti-Covid-19 protests in East Lansing and other U.S. cities, yesterday's protests attracted individuals from German far-right neo-Nazi and white supremacist elements.

A spokeswoman for the BKA, the German federal police, warned that extremist groups see the Covid-19 protests as an opportunity to promote thier own ideologies - noting that these groups are attempting to, "instrumentalize the situation for propaganda purposes."

It's interesting how quick some people are to vilify the Covid-19 virus and the necessary social restrictions that come with it as some kind of enemy - projecting their inner fears, insecurities and prejudices onto necessary social distancing rules that are in place to help stem the spread and level off the infection rate of one of the most highly transmissible viruses in modern human history.

Venting Coronaviral rage onto the very measures intended to help keep people alive - and calling it Judgement Day - is only a small part of what somes of these protests in states like Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin are really about.

The Things We Knew We Knew

Trump's first comments to the media since the release
of the Mueller report came with the Easter Bunny nearby

In the days since the release of the redacted Special Counsel's report drafted by Robert Mueller and his hand-picked dream team of investigators and prosecutors, a remarkable trove of disturbing information about a dysfunctional and dangerously authoritarian White House has been revealed to the public.

Among other things Trump directed Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to lie and say it was him, and not Trump's idea, to fire former FBI director James Comey - as if anyone else in Washington would even consider such a flagrant overreach of power.

Or the stunning revelation of the extent of to which Vladimir Putin, and the extensive network operating on his behalf, went to in order to interfere in the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential elections (in favor of Trump) using proxies such as the Internet Research Agency (IRA) and a host of Russian cyber criminals.

Speaking of which, if you didn't catch 60 Minutes on Sunday night, please be sure to take a few minutes to check out Lesley Stahl's segment on the "unholy alliance" between Russian intelligence and the elusive Russian cyber criminals who operate on their behalf - and under their protection.

And how American intelligence (with the help of Microsoft and other private internet security firms) finally discovered the massive global hacking criminal enterprise of prolific Russian hacker Evgeniy Bogachev - it's truly disturbing.   

In his first comments directly to members of the press since the release of the Mueller report last Thursday, Trump mostly avoided any tough questions about the content of the report as he strutted about the South Lawn of the White House with the Easter Bunny during the annual WH Easter Egg Roll on Monday.

As the New York Times reported, the embattled POTUS did find time to assure a young child that the Wall was indeed on track, assuring the attendee, "Oh, it's happening. It's being built now." 

Lying White House Press Sec. Sarah Sanders 

Like many people, I'm still in the process of trying to make sense of the 448-page Mueller report.

I'm absorbing the conclusions of journalists as they sift through it, and I'm also in the painstaking process of reading through it myself.

But it's going to take time.

(By the way you can download the PDF from the DOJ Website for free.)

If you're interested in a quick overview of some of the more interesting revelations from the Mueller report that haven't gotten a whole lot of media coverage as of yet (including Don Junior's interaction with Wikileaks and Trump ordering former White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller and then lie about it to the press) take a few minutes to listen to the first segment from Monday morning's Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC.

Aside from all the things in the report that were't public, one of the things that struck me was the sheer volume of things in the report that we basically already knew we knew.

Like the fact that the widely-despised White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders has habitually lied to the press and the American people in a pathetic effort to put some kind of "spin" on the almost unceasing torrent of lies, partisan half-truths and assorted hogwash that spew out of Boss Trump's mouth and Twitter feed on a daily basis.

Even though she admitted under oath to Mueller that she lied about "countless" employees of the FBI disliking former FBI director James Comey, she's embarked on this bizarre press campaign to insist that she is not, in fact, the lying sack of shit she's proven herself to be.

We didn't need the Mueller report to know that Sanders was a liar, but it's important that there's now irrevocable proof that she is one.

Equally disturbing were the revelations that many top White House advisers simply ignored Trump's most bat-shit-crazy requests, knowing that his childlike attention span is so short, that he'd eventually just forget about it, pick up his phone to Tweet something and simply wander off to watch TV and eventually move on the next nut-job idea or proposal that popped into his head.

Again, these were things we knew we knew, but the Mueller report just now confirms it for the world (and history) to see - all these "known knowns" and efforts by a White House to manipulate the truth for nefarious reasons reminded me of the heady days of George W. Bush; when things that we knew we knew had far more deadly consequences.

Let's take a quick look back.

Ex-Defense Sec. Donald Rumsfeld's now-infamous
Pentagon press briefing February 12, 2002

By February 12, 2002 when the eclectic former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stepped to the Pentagon podium for a press briefing, it was just about five months to the day since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

There were many still-traumatized Americans anxious to see the U.S. government unleash its military to deliver righteous retribution to the terrorist networks responsible for the murder of innocent people on 9/11.

By the time Rumsfeld gave his now-infamous press briefing on February 12, 2002, the U.S. and a coalition of its allies including the United Kingdom had been engaged in combat operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan since October, 2001 - but the Bush White House had grander designs.

As we now know, an alignment of hawkish Neo-conservatives (Neo-Cons), reactionary politicians, murky think-tanks and corporations with ties to the defense industry complex and the oil industry were building a movement to support an invasion of Iraq under the false pretense that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was a supporter of radical Islamic terrorists and possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) which (supposedly) posed a dire threat to security in the Mid-East and to the United States and its allies.

The White House and the Pentagon continued to push the false narrative that Saddam Hussein was somehow linked to the 9/11 attacks even though 11 of the 19 attackers were from Saudi Arabia.

But some members of Congress, intelligence agencies (both in the U.S. and in other nations), the press, members of the American public and people around the globe were highly skeptical about the existence of proof that tied Iraq to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

So on February 12, 2002, in response to a reporter questioning the lack of evidence proving that Hussein had, or would provide WMD's to terrorists, Donald Rumsfeld gave the following answer:

In 2003 ex-Sec. of State Colin Powell gave evidence of
WMD's CIA Dir. George Tenet (left) knew was false 

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. 

But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones." 

Rumsfeld wasn't alone in peddling false or unprovable "facts" to try and justify a military invasion of Iraq - on February 5, 2003 former Secretary of State Colin Powell famously took to the floor of the United Nations to present "evidence" that Iraq possessed WMD's.

As journalist Seymour Hersh detailed in a March 23, 2003 New Yorker article, former-CIA Director George Tenet knew that the widely-circulated claim about Iraq trying to buy 500 tons of Uranium Oxide from Niger to enrich for use in a nuclear weapon was not true - and not supported by fact.

Powell made that claim in front of the UN with Tenet sitting behind him (pictured above), a speech he has since called a "blot" on his lengthy public service record.

Sadly, after an estimated 655,000 casualties and trillions of American tax dollars spent on the Iraq War, we know all too well the devastating consequences of those lies.

Saudi Prince Mohammed Bin Salman high-fives Russian
President Vladimir Putin at the 2018 G-20 summit

At the time Rumsfeld said that now-infamous quote above, many people mocked him for engaging in what some saw as a murky kind of double-speak - a slippery attempt to evade the growing criticism that there was no link between the 9/11 attacks and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

But the quote is paraphrased from engineers and scientists who'd used the term "known unknowns" decades before to describe inherent structural or system risks in aircraft.

Unforeseen dangers or catastrophic accidents which couldn't be mathematically predicted because they were unknown problems which had never appeared before.

Or, like the 9/11 terrorist attack, simply couldn't be imagined.

Personally I think Rumsfeld's quote helps to offer valuable perspective on the complex layers of the Mueller report - and what it reveals about the Trump campaign's murky connections with foreign governments including Russia, the Ukraine and Saudi Arabia. 

Unquestionably there are more layers yet to be revealed from the Mueller report, especially if the Democratic-controlled House is able to subpoena an un-redacted version.

The things we knew we knew about the Trump White House are certainly disturbing enough, but as Rumsfeld's quote suggests, it's the "unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know" that could prove to be the biggest threat to America's imperfect democracy.

And may just prove to be the undoing of the Trump presidency as well.

Lowering the Conservative Barr

Illustration of the human Adenovirus, one of several
causes of viral conjunctivitis, or pink eye

Saturday morning marked the first time in three weeks that I could swallow without grimacing in agony.

Now that might not register as significant in the eyes of the casual observer, but after battling one of the most persistent throat viruses I've ever been infected with, it feels like nothing short of a welcome milestone to me.

As if that unpleasant throat business wasn't enough, a nasty, viral pink eye infection decided to set up shop in my right eye too.

These unwelcome visitors made for some long and restless nights over the past three weeks.

It also made for more than a few missed days of work too; during which I went through boxes of tissues, took copious amounts of Ibuprofen and gargled with salt water so frequently my throat is still a little raw.

Even though my throat is better and the Polymyxin B Sulfate + Trimethoprim antibiotic eye drops have dispatched most of the pink eye, in the interest of recovery I decided to lay low this past weekend.

So my Saturday and Sunday mostly consisted of watching coverage of The Masters, a trip to the gym, cleaning my apartment, doing laundry and rewatching past seasons of Game of Thrones on HBO in preparation for the long awaited final season premiere on Sunday night.

Battling the aforementioned virus made me really recognize just how fortunate I am to have comprehensive health coverage through work - when you're healthy it's easy to look at one's paycheck and raise an eyebrow at the bi-monthly health insurance deductions.

But when I felt sick, I was able to pick up the phone and go see my primary care physician to find out what was going on - and know that my co-pay and prescription prices would be relatively cheap.

Attorney General Bob Barr testifying before a
House Appropriations subcommittee last week

Just knowing that put my mind at ease.

Aside from the obvious fact that pink eye (or conjunctivitis) is highly contagious and the most sensible thing from both a personal and public health standpoint was to start treating it as quickly as possible to minimize the chance of my spreading it to others.

As the Affordable Care Act stipulates, the ability to see a physician or qualified nurse to get a health issue evaluated and treated should be a basic, affordable right - because it's good for the health of the larger society as a whole.

That's part of what confuses me about the bizarre, politically partisan testimony of Attorney General Bob Barr last week in front of a House Appropriations subcommittee.

As part of the barrage of questions Trump's controversial AG pick faced on Capitol Hill last Tuesday during almost three hours of hearings on the budget of the Department of Justice for the coming fiscal year, Barr sent yet another signal that he intends to use the power of his office as a platform to promote the policy agenda of the Trump administration.

He basically testified that he thinks it's his job to attack the Affordable Care Act in court.

As David Lurie observed in his April 12th Slate article, last month the Department of Justice announced that it would no longer go to court to defend the ACA against the slew of mostly frivolous and legally-shaky lawsuits brought by a consortium of conservative special interest groups and at least 20 Republican attorneys general of "Red" states where Republicans control the legislatures and occupy the governor's mansions.

That decision came a year after the DOJ announced it would no longer defend whether the ACA's protections for those with preexisting medical conditions are constitutionally protected.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, one of 20
Republican AG's filing lawsuits against the ACA

Lurie's Slate piece notes that Barr's insistence on the DOJ now taking the unprecedented step of joining those lawsuits against the ACA, legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama, represents a dangerous and radical reinterpretation of the role of attorney general.

By definition, the attorney general of the United States is the head of the Department of Justice and the chief lawyer for the federal government.

In essence, he or she is charged with acting as the people's lawyer.

But because of Trump's (and other Republicans) obsession with dismantling the ACA, Bob Barr is now open about using the power of his office to attack a federal law (ACA) in court - with the help of Republican state attorneys general like the Obama-hating, right-wing Tea Party shill, Texas AG Ken Paxton (pictured above). *

* Texas Fun Fact! In 2015 Ken Paxton was criminally charged with working as an investment advisor without properly registering with the Texas State Securities Board - he violated Texas law by taking fees for soliciting clients for Mowery Capital Management - and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) brought civil charges against him as well. 

As Emma Platoff reported for the Texas Tribune, In January, 2019 Paxton's wife, Republican Texas State Senator Angela Paxton filed Senate Bill 860 which would empower the state AG's office to exempt certain individuals who market "innovative financial products or services" from having to register with the state board - meaning Paxton would be able to exempt himself and whoever he sees fit from a law he violated. 

It's as if Bob Barr is acting as a de facto attorney for Trump, eager to strip healthcare from millions of Americans to please his erratic new boss' vindictive impulses - rather than acting as the chief lawyer for the federal government to protect American's healthcare.

Trump greeting his new Attorney General slash
personal lawyer Bob Barr in the Oval Office 

It's not like Barr's political loyalty to the Republican Party and the Trump White House was some kind of state secret or anything.

After all this is the guy who wrote and sent an unsolicited 20-page memo to the DOJ back in June, 2018 criticizing the scope of the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections.

A peculiar document in which he also floated a constitutionally-shaky and remarkably broad few of Trump's executive privilege.

As ACLU staff attorneys Jonathan Hafetz and Brett Max Kaufman observed back in January,
Former Obama administration lawyer Marty Lederman critiqued Barr's unsolicited memo for "the notion that the president has 'absolute' and 'all-encompassing' constitutional authority over actions by executive branch officers in carrying out law enforcement powers given to them by Congress, including decisions about criminal investigation and prosecution."

Given such lofty views of presidential power, which essentially portray the president as some kind of untouchable wizard-king incapable of committing a crime by virtue of his office, is it any wonder Barr shot straight to the top of the short-list of candidates to replace the oft-maligned former AG Jeff Sessions?

Considering that Barr wrote his memo to the DOJ in June, 2018, and Trump fired Jeff Sessions four months later in November, 2018, the memo reads less like a rambling meditation on the scope of presidential power and more like a 20-page essay which could be subtitled, "Why Donald Trump Should Pick Me As the Next U.S. Attorney General."

In the wake of Barr's intentional slow-walking of the release of the Mueller report and his release of a wimpy 4-page summary of what he claimed were his own "principle conclusions" of the Mueller report, his confrontational views on using his office to try and dismantle the ACA could arguably be considered a brazen attempt at a distraction, or a two-pronged attack on the American people.

Perhaps it's both considering his brief, shifty tenure as AG.

The week before last Barr made vague assurances about releasing a redacted version of the report "next week" when he knew most members of Congress would be away from Washington on their annual 2-week Easter break.   

Today multiple media outlets claim a redacted version of the Mueller report will be released to both Congress and the public this Thursday - I'll believe that when I can read it.

In the meantime I'm just thankful that someone like Bob Barr can't take my healthcare away, as I lament the lowering of the bar at the Department of Justice.

The Cliffs of Mueller

Trump before a rambling 2-hour speech at CPAC

Remember back in 2014 and 2015 when Donald Trump was still flirting with a presidential campaign simply as a gimmick to increase his leverage as a reality TV star with NBC and possibly launch his own media network?

Back when he was still fanning the flames of discredited, racist "birther" theories about President Obama on Fox News and demanding that the former constitutional law professor produce academic transcripts from Columbia to prove that he'd graduated.

This of course was well before Michael Cohen revealed publicly under oath that Trump had ordered his attorneys to send letters to the University of Pennsylvania, the College Board (SAT's) and other schools he attended threatening them with legal action if they released his own academic transcripts to the media. 

Such mind-boggling hypocrisy hardly mattered to then-candidate Trump, who never actually expected, or wanted to win the 2016 presidential race - despite his ceaseless stream of hot-air TV soundbites, juvenile insults and crackpot, pseudo-political rhetoric.

He was in the race simply because he thought it was a cool way to line his pockets.

As journalist Michael Wolff noted in an excerpt of his 2018 book 'Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House' published in the January 8, 2018 issue of New York magazine:

"As the campaign came to an end, Trump himself  was sanguine. His ultimate goal, after all had never been to win. 'I can be the most famous man in the world.' he had told his aide Sam Nunberg at the outset of the race. His longtime friend Roger Ailes, the former head of Fox News, liked to say that if you want a career in television, first run for president. Now Trump, encouraged by Ailes, was floating rumors about a Trump network. It was a great future. He would come out of this campaign, Trump assured Ailes, with a far more powerful brand and untold opportunities."

Stunned Hillary Clinton supporters on 11/8/16 

No need to rehash that surreal November 8, 2016 election night, we all know what happened and it seems like we've been waking up to the aftermath everyday since.

According to Wolff, Melania Trump cried when she heard the news that her husband won, not because she was happy either.

Don Jr. allegedly later told a close friend that his father "looked as if had seen a ghost." 

The rest, as they say is history.

Two years after Trump's inauguration was overshadowed by the largest nationwide protests in American history, the fallout from the conclusion of Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation has landed in Washington, D.C. with a thud.

For millions of Americans, the release of the widely-anticipated special counsel report was like an excruciating end to a seemingly endless two-year wait.

Because, in part, we now know it could still be weeks before a heavily-redacted version of the report is released to the public so politicians and people alike can read it for themselves and form their own conclusions about its contents.

Instead of having to endure the current Attorney General Bob Barr trying to substitute his own, edited 4-page summary of the Mueller report for the real thing.

Which, Barr insists, absolves Trump of any wrongdoing.

The Navy patrol boat reaches the scorched
ruins of Kurtz's camp in Apocalypse Now

Which isn't all that surprising of course, and not just because Barr is a longtime Republican.

He's the former AG under George HW Bush who, well before he was nominated to replace Jeff Sessions, famously sent a memo to the Department of Justice detailing his belief that a sitting president cannot be indicted while in office due in part to his sweeping executive powers.

There are times when it seems as if Trump's emergence onto the national political scene was like the beginning of a long, ominous trip up a dark, unknown river.

And I've begun to feel like one of the doomed crew members on the battered U.S. Navy PBR patrol boat making its way up the Nung river towards the Cambodian border in director Francis Ford Coppola's epic 1979 masterpiece Apocalypse Now.



Only instead of the delusional and dangerous former U.S. Army Colonel Kurtz waiting in his creepy jungle fortress at the end of the journey, he's been inside the boat the whole time.

I suppose I wasn't the only one who secretly hoped the Mueller report would somehow derail Trump's train wreck presidency - who knows, there may be more inside the report than we know.

Mueller is nothing if not painstakingly thorough, and the actual contents of the allegedly 300-puls page report are still unknown.

But in the meantime like many Americans, I'll just have to be patient and endure Trump's smug preening and inaccurate claims that he's been "totally exonerated" by a report no one in the White House or in Congress has even read yet.

Hopefully the Mueller report gets released sooner rather than later so the court of public opinion's ruling can be decided by the public instead of Bob Barr.

He can keep his partisan Cliff Notes - I want to read it for myself.

Costco Confession

Ex-Trump fixer / attorney Michael Cohen testifies in
front of the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday

This past Wednesday I left work early to make a 4pm appointment to get the oil changed in my SUV over at Midas.

The manager there is a young guy named Rob who's really cool, knows his stuff and is always honest and upfront about pricing and service needs - so I like to bring my business there.

My trusty Honda SUV is nine years-old and coming up on 66,000 miles and it's in good shape.

Like most Hondas it's been reliable, reasonable on gas and the only reasons it's ever in the shop is for oil changes, tire rotations, or the occasional new battery or windshield wiper blades.

A couple headlight bulbs have petered out now and then, but I learned how to change those myself (amazing what you can learn on YouTube) and they're pretty cheap at an AutoZone or on Amazon.

The oil change itself went pretty quick, I watched highlights of Michael Cohen's Congressional testimony (pictured above) in the waiting area while the mechanic was doing his thing - and he took me back in the garage area to show me a screw that was embedded in my rear passenger-side tire.

Fortunately I purchased the tires at Costco, so they came with a pretty generous warranty that covers the tires up to 70,000 miles with some restrictions depending on the wear and depth on the tire tread - basically if a tire gets damaged from a road hazard, they'll replace it for free.*

(* Note: I don't make any money from this blog, nor do I accept ads, so just to be clear, that's not some kind of guerrilla marketing campaign for Costco, it's just my experience. And they make a damned good rotisserie chicken in case you've never had one. Plump, juicy and $5.32 with tax.)

So I left work early again on Friday to roll over to Costco in Lawrenceville, NJ to get the tire replaced.

How I spent my late Friday afternoon

Being that I was a walk-in, the guy at the tire counter told me it would be about a 90-minute wait, which was fine as I wanted to go pick up a roasted rotisserie chicken to have for the weekend and also cash in my 2018 rewards for my Costco Visa card.

Not being in a hurry, I took my time and people-watched for a bit before finding a checkout line with a short wait with a cashier who seemed pretty efficient.

She was a white American woman with glasses who looked like she was in her late 60's or early 70's.

She was very nice with kind of a mischievous look in her eye, and as I handed her my Costco card she asked me how I was doing and I smiled and said I was doing pretty good as it was a Friday.

When I asked her how she was doing, she paused for a moment and gave me a rather serious look as she ran the plastic container holding my delicious-smelling rotisserie chicken over the scanner and said, "I'm not happy about my taxes."

"Uh, oh." I said raising my eyebrows with a sympathetic frown.

As you may recall the last blog I wrote in February was partly about Americans facing the unpleasant realities about the Republican Tax Con - including the fact that millions of middle and working class Americans are actually seeing significant tax increases and lower tax returns compared to 2018.

My Costco cashier was one of those people.

With a trace of wistful sadness, she told me she was a single widow living on her own and looked down at the register in thought  - as if for a moment the image of her deceased husband and the life they'd once shared had suddenly materialized in her mind.

I couldn't help but feel sympathetic towards her.

Based on my years of experience screening hundreds of prospective renters for apartments, it's a good bet that she lives on Social Security and some kind of modest pension, and is working at Costco part-time to make ends meet.

Parts of the Republican Tax Cut that Republican
politicians don't like to talk about publicly

If she's a homeowner, she may also have lost out on the Republican's decision to cap the mortgage interest deduction at $10,000 on state and local taxes in states with high property taxes.

Blue-leaning states like New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and California - states which coincidentally (or not) voted for Hillary in 2016.

During my leisurely stroll of Costco's gargantuan warehouse-like interior, I noticed something interesting.

The vast majority of the employees I saw out on the polished concrete floor wearing red Costco vests were clearly seniors 60-years-old or older - including African-American, white and Hispanic folks.

Personally I think that says something about the "booming economy" Herr Trump likes to brag about.

As I asked the cashier if her tax bill was a big increase from 2018, she rang up my rotisserie chicken and thought for a moment, then shook her head with an open flash of resentment, glanced at me and admitted in a clipped voice, "I was NOT expecting this."

Now in that momentary glance, listening to the sudden acid tone of her voice, I recognized that she had voted for Trump in 2016 - I can't tell you how I knew, the way she was dressed, the way she looked, I just knew it.

There was something about the expression on her face and the way she looked me in the eye, along with a palpable sense of betrayal in her voice - like she'd seen something for the first time.

When Trump supporters like this see their tax bills
or refunds, how are they going to vote in 2020? 

And somehow, and I'm completely speculating here folks, I got the sense that she was kind of confessing that to me, an African-American, in particular.

Just for a second it seemed like she wanted to say more.

Then the chipper smile magically reappeared on her face and she took the printout of the email with my Costco Visa rewards that I'd brought, deducted the $5.32 for the rotisserie chicken and handed me my change in cash and said something to the effect that she'd already said too much.


As I carefully placed the tantalizingly-warm plastic container holding my chicken into my reusable shopping bag and resisted the urge to tear it open, rip off a juicy leg and devour it right there in the checkout line, I wished the cashier a nice day and she glanced at me with a mischievous smile and said pleasantly (and not a little sarcastically), "I hope you get a nice tax refund."

With the news on Friday that Washington Governor Jay Inslee has officially declared his candidacy for the 2020 presidential race, the number of Democratic candidates now running is at least 12 - with some big names like former VP Joe Biden and former billionaire New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg still considering.

Based on the impromptu Costco confession I heard on Friday, it's not the growing list of Democratic presidential hopefuls, or even voters like me that the Trump campaign should be worrying about in 2020.

It's people like that cashier at Costco.

How To Hide a Tax Cut Behind a Wall

Fox News' Chris Wallace grills White House adviser
Stephen Miller on Trump's emergency declaration

Have you noticed how Trump's delusional anti-immigrant rhetoric has ramped up to "Defcon-1" just as tax season has begun to unfold and millions of Americans are now discovering the ugly truths of the Republican Tax Con Cut?

You know things are bad for the White House when they trot the unhinged, unapologetically white supremacist policy adviser Stephen Miller out on the Sunday morning talk show circuit - as they did this morning.

Politically speaking it's actually kind of like when the twisted character Zed orders his sidekick Maynard to "bring out the Gimp" in the unforgettable scene from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction.

Miller, who previously served in communications and advisory roles for right-wing Republican nut-jobs like former Minnesota Tea Party Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and ex-attorney general Jeff Sessions, is such a despised and divisive figure that the only real reason to put him on national television to speak is because he has the innate ability to draw media attention away from where the Trump administration doesn't want it to be.

You know how an octopus or squid has the ability to release a squirt of dark ink in the water as a way to temporarily confuse a predator to allow it to escape?

If you imagine the Trump administration as a squid, Stephen Miller is kind of like the ink.

When Fox News host Chris Wallace grilled Miller with facts and data that dispute Trump's rationale for taking the unusual step of declaring the situation at the southern border with Mexico a "national emergency", Miller simply responded as he usually does.

He launched into the predictably obtuse mix of right-wingy hate speech coupled with unhinged attacks on other politicians which usually has nothing to do with the question he was asked.

Trump announcing that his concocted half-truths
about immigrants constitute a "national emergency"

For example, as NBC News reported, in response to Wallace questioning Miller about the need for Trump declaring a national emergency at the border when immigration levels have plunged 75% since 2000, Miller responded by saying:
"former President George W. Bush's immigration policy was an 'astonishing betrayal of the American people'." 

As if Trump's emergency declaration can be blamed on Bush's policy decisions 18 years ago.

In my view Trump's obsession with the wall is little more than a convenient prop that serves as something of a political cattle-prod he can use to jolt his shrinking base of support awake whenever he needs to rile up the cult of personality that surrounds him.

When the brain trust at Cambridge Analytica, with the help of Republican billionaire Robert Mercer, produced data that showed that Trump's target core audience responded enthusiastically to the idea of a "wall" to keep the perceived "threat" of immigrants at bay - Trump embraced it.

To many of the disenfranchised working-class whites frustrated over an insular Washington political elite that has left them shut them out and angry over being left out of an economic system that's largely left U.S. manufacturing out of the equation and is tilted to benefit top earners, the wall became an easy symbol to grab hold of.

When Trump starts talking about the wall, his supporters know exactly what it symbolizes to them and it's a language they can understand; they can vent their frustrations onto it.

At this point, does it really even matter that it gets built?

Prototype sections of Trump's border wall east of
 San Ysidro, California near the Mexican border 

When Trump takes the podium to talk about the wall, those supporters are distracted from the dark reality of his administration.

When media headlines are filled with news of his former campaign associates pleading guilty to lying about their relationships with Russian figures associated with alleged interference in the 2016 elections, Trump starts talking about the wall.

When his popularity slips in polls, or a member of his cabinet resigns over ethical lapses, Trump starts talking about the wall.

And lets' be honest, does anyone really believe he cares about illegal immigration?

From the 200 undocumented Polish laborers hired to do demolition work on the Bonwit Teller building in New York back in 1980 to clear the site for the construction of Trump Tower, to undocumented Hispanic men and women who've been working at his various country clubs and golf courses for years, his companies have been knowingly hiring undocumented immigrants for well over a decade.

Where was his outrage about immigration when he was able to avoid the costs of hiring union workers by hiring those undocumented Polish laborers for $4.00 an hour?

The wall serves a purpose, and the cloak of bigotry needed to sell it slips easily onto Trump's shoulders - so my belief is that the government shutdown and the fake national emergency declaration were all orchestrated to distract people from the truth of the Republican tax cut.

The much-lauded (by Republicans anyway) tax reform bill was a secretive and widely-criticized piece of legislation that passed with no public hearings, and was quite literally drafted behind the closed doors of various Republican politician's offices just before Christmas in 2017.

So it's never really been out of the garage for a test drive so to speak - most Americans are seeing it for the first time this tax season - Trump certainly doesn't want any pesky questions about the ways in which the Republican tax cut benefits him and his family specifically.

Better to talk about invading hordes of drug-dealing, terrorist-rapists than how the Treasury Department under Secretary Steven Mnuchin fought to prevent high tax states like New Jersey, New York and California from getting around the $10,000 cap on deduction of state and local taxes.

Remember when Trump promised to simplify the tax
code so the form would be the size of a postcard?

Many Americans who filed their federal taxes early expecting a refund are now realizing that the Republican tax plan simply fiddled with the withholding calculation that employers use to withhold x-amount of federal tax from employee's paychecks.

By definition that's not a real tax cut.

It's more of a shell game that gives some Americans the temporary illusion that their taxes were "lowered" because they saw a few more dollars in their paycheck.


When in fact, that money simply translated into many Americans owing more to the IRS simply because it wasn't taken out of their paychecks.

That's something that any American could change by taking 5 minutes to go to the IRS website, downloading a blank W-4 "Employees Withholding Allowance Certificate" form, printing it out, filling in your name, address and Social Security number and simply writing in the amount you want deducted from each paycheck on Line 6 - and submitting it to your HR department or whoever handles payroll.

Want more money back in your refund at tax time? Just increase that number by a few bucks.

Want more money in each paycheck? Then just lower the number and come tax time, you'll just get less back, or owe a little more - it's not complex or some secret, Republicans just figured that many Americans don't take the time to understand how withholding works.

Remember when conservative media was pushing the misleading narrative of average Americans cheering about "seeing more in their paychecks" as a result of the Republican tax cut?

It was basically nothing more than a W-4 withholding gimmick Republicans used to try and distract Americans from the fact the REAL tax cuts were for top earners, cash-rich corporations and of course, people like Trump with "pass through" income from real estate investment holdings, rental income, s-corporations or partnerships.

By the way, the changes in "pass through" income translated to about $17 billion in tax cuts to the millionaires whose wealth allows them to receive income derived from their stakes in real estate and complex partnerships - only that income is taxed at a much lower rate than the rate that the IRS taxes the paychecks of average Americans.

It's a selective tax cut by the few, for the few - but it's easy to disguise that with intentionally overly complex tax forms, especially when you can't see past a wall that hasn't even been built yet.

The Enduring Power of Blackface

Gayle King interviewing embattled Democratic Virginia
Governor Ralph Northam on CBS  

Earlier this morning I watched excerpts of Gayle King's interview with Virginia Democratic Governor Ralph Northam on CBS' Face the Nation.

While the full version won't be broadcast until tomorrow morning on CBS This Morning, they did show a few interesting "teaser" clips.

A remarkably relaxed, and clearly well-prepared Northam opened the interview by pointing out the fact that they were only 90 miles from where the first enslaved African-Americans were brought to Virginia back in 1619.

It was nice to get a little history lesson but the fact that he called those slaves "indentured servants" offered some insight into the complex past of a southern Democratic politician who is facing calls to resign over the medical school yearbook photo in which he is shown wearing blackface while standing next to someone in a KKK outfit - if only irony could talk.

Interestingly, when King asked Northam whether he felt Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax should resign over allegations of sexual assault leveled against him by two different women, Northam claimed he hadn't spoken with Fairfax since the controversy blew up in the media last Monday.

Which struck me as a bit odd given what's at stake for him, Fairfax, Democratic Attorney General Mark Herring (who also admitted to wearing blackface while dressed as rapper Curtis Blow) and Republican State Senator Tommy Norment - who faced his own controversy after an article published in The Virginian Pilot on Thursday revealed that he edited the 1968 Virginia Military Institute yearbook which was strewn with students wearing blackface and a variety of racial slurs against African-American and Asian students.

Given the growing pressure over the blackface controversy, I decided to re-post a blog I wrote back in August, 2008 in the wake of some backlash over Robert Downey, Jr. wearing blackface in the Ben Stiller film Tropic Thunder - Now I don't normally re-post my blogs, but I was checking my stats and the blog has been getting quite a few hits in the last week so I re-edited some of the text and thought it offered some perspective (and links) on blackface that might offer a little insight.

"Actors in Blackface, An Enduring Hollywood Symbol" (originally posted 8/9/08)

Robert Downey, Jr. in the 2008
film Tropic Thunder

According to an LA Times interview by Chris Lee, actor Robert Downey Jr. was excited at the prospect of working with actor-director Ben Stiller on the comedy Tropic Thunder, but he looked at playing a role in black-face with trepidation.

Downey, (pictured left in character) plays the intense, self-absorbed Oscar-winning Australian Method actor Kirk Lazarus, who darkens his skin to completely immerse himself in the role of Sgt. Lincoln Osiris.

As far back as March, 2008 the images and promotional stills from the movie's trailer were fueling speculation about the possible backlash from a white actor in blackface in a comedy.

White actors portraying African-American characters in films, or performing in blackface isn't a new phenomenon by any means.

In 1927 entertainer Al Jolson performed in blackface in Hollywood's first feature-length musical, Warner Brother's hit The Jazz Singer.

If you've never seen it before, check out this brief clip of Jolson singing 'Mammy' in blackface that was typical of the period.

More recently, the decision to cast Angelina Jolie as Mariane Pearl, the mixed-race Cuban-American wife of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, in the 2007 movie Mighty at Heart stirred some controversy.

Particularly among critics who expressed confusion as to why an actual biracial actress like Thandie Newton, who'd demonstrated screen presence, range and ability in successful films like Crash and Mission Impossible II wasn't offered the role.

Especially given the lack of juicy parts that are available for an actress of color in mainstream Hollywood releases.

Angelina Jolie (right) as Mariane Pearl (left) 
in the 2007 film Mighty Heart

My take is that people who might be quick to react negatively towards Tropic Thunder because of Downey in blackface should step back and remember it is satire.

The entire point of having Downey's character choose to play Sgt. Lincoln Osiris in blackface is to lampoon the entertainment industry executives who routinely make the kinds of casting decisions that put white performers in roles that should arguably be played by an actors of color.

Downey is intelligent, socially responsible and hugely talented (If you haven't seen his performance in Chaplin put it on your Netflix queue right now) there's no way he'd take on a roll in blackface without knowing it was intelligently written, or that the black-face itself was an organic component of the story, character and script.

The film takes a comedic swipe at Hollywood actors and filmmakers who create war movies, in particular some of the over-the-top seriousness with which they prepare for fictional roles as soldiers and the assorted idiosyncrasies of the studio heads, producers and directors who bankroll and make these films.

Black-face is just one component of entertainment director/co-writer Ben Stiller lampoons in this film. I don't necessarily think it's inappropriate to use blackface in social satire, as Downey himself observed in an Entertainment Weekly interview:

“If it’s done right, it could be the type of role you called Peter Sellers to do 35 years ago. If you don’t do it right, we’re going to hell.”

Judy Garland performed in blackface
in Babes in Arms in 1939

This isn't the overtly racist minstrel-type of art of the late 19th and early 20th century. Minstrels were white performers who dressed up in black-face to lampoon the physical characteristics, dress, habits and lifestyles of African-Americans and more importantly; play upon and reinforce racial stereotypes.

But remember there were black minstrels too!

Black performers in blackface lampooning themselves to entertain audiences. What's wrong with that picture?

Director Spike Lee explored this question in his 2000 film, Bamboozled

What did blackface and minstrel imagery in entertainment and media look like?

Check out this montage of minstrel clips edited together by Spike Lee for his 2000 social satire, Bamboozle.

The speculative buzz about possible backlash in Tropic Thunder is just that.

Mostly from people who haven't even seen the movie.

It reflects the unhealed pain of this imagery - which was commonplace in America and other countries for years and has inflicted a lot of internal psychological damage to the psyche of black people.

Personally I think Downey's role is a positive thing, one of the ways we evolve culturally is to develop the capacity to look at ourselves, and view the past honestly.

Even when it's difficult to look at.