Domestic American Threats: Real & Perceived

Bad haircut showdown: Kim Jong-un & Donald Trump

Truth be told, the possibility of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordering his military to lob a mostly-untested intercontinental ballistic missile (with a nuclear weapon they may or may not actually possess) across the Pacific at America's west coast seems pretty slim.

It's doubtful that using a nuclear weapon against the globe's only remaining nuclear superpower over economic sanctions makes much sense, even to the North Koreans.

Especially considering that their recent grandiose posturing and cryptic-but-vague military threats cost them about a third of what is largely considered an already meager global export business courtesy of the harsh package of new economic sanctions overwhelmingly approved by the U.N. Security Council on Saturday.

To me the greater concern in this overblown geo-political hissy-fit is the erratic, narcissistic POTUS, whose tanking poll numbers, growing unpopularity and chaotic crisis-prone White House make pointless macho sword-rattling seems like a golden opportunity to try and kickstart his anemic approval numbers.

With Kim and Trump arguably amongst the most widely-despised leaders on the planet, the bottom line is that, from a PR standpoint, they kind of need each other right now - and melt-downs is what they both know best.

Remember, these are basically two unpopular, authoritarian man-boys with really bad haircuts who were both raised in the isolated cocoon of privilege under authoritarian, domineering fathers.

Kim Jong-un poses with a mobile missile launcher

Neither Kim nor Trump had a lick of political, military or diplomatic experience before assuming public office.

So all their blustery flag-waving and tough talk about unleashing their toys on each other's countries to vent their contrived rage is like global amateur hour rather than seasoned leadership guided by shrewd diplomacy and statesmanship.


Trump's threat to unleash, "fire and fury", issued from the comfy confines of his exclusive 600-acre country club in Bedminster, NJ on day four of a controversial 17-day vacation, (where he's holed up like some golf-junkie on a binge), seems like it was hastily scrawled on a cocktail napkin by his apocalyptic chief strategist Steve Bannon.

Rather than inspire fear, it only seems to have reinforced Trump's reputation as diplomatic neophyte who is so easily goaded and provoked that it'd be laughable if he wasn't the commander-in-chief of my country.

As Republican Senator John McCain observed, "The great leaders that I have seen, they don't threaten unless they are ready to act, and I'm not sure that President Trump is ready to act,"

But to pivot from our not-ready-for-prime-time-president, there are events happening that actually do represent a threat to American's domestic security.

As you may recall, last month the Bakersfield, California chapter of the NAACP utilized a social media campaign to bring global attention to an egregious case of police brutality committed against an innocent 19-year-old girl named Tatyana Hargrove.

Kern County District Attorney Lisa Green

The video interview, in which Hargrove described having been attacked and beaten by members of the Bakersfield Police Department (who claimed to have mistaken the 5'2" girl for a 5'10" machete-wielding bald man with a goatee), which was posted on the Bakersfield NAACP's Facebook page, has been viewed over 7.6 million times by people around the globe.

As MIC.com reported last Wednesday the Kern County District Attorney, Lisa Green, announced that the bogus charges filed against Hargrove by the same Bakersfield PD officers who beat her would be dropped.

The fact that the charges against her were dropped and that public pressure forced the Bakersfield PD to initiate an internal investigation is a reflection of the power of social media and grassroots activism at a time when the White House and Department of Justice have abdicated their responsibility for oversight of local and municipal law enforcement agencies engaged in clear and consistent patterns of bias based on race and ethnicity.

Over 47,000 people signed the Change.org petition calling for the Kern County DA to drop the charges.

But unfortunately, DA Lisa Green also announced that no charges will be filed against the Bakersfield cops who clearly used unjustified and excessive physical force on Hargrove for no reason.

That's a problem that reflects a broader domestic security concern.

Not just for the citizens of Bakersfield, but for Americans around the country of all races and ethnicities.

Because when local prosecutors refuse to bring charges against police officers who violate codes of conduct and use unjustified force to injure or kill innocent civilians, it sends the signal that such behavior is tolerated and acceptable.

People in Minnesota are still absorbing that lesson.

Jordan Norris being tortured with a taser by Cheatham
County deputies while strapped to a chair in 2016

After years of protests and outrage over the unjustified shootings of innocent African-Americans (cases where no charges were filed or officers found liable for taking the lives of civilians), Minnesotans were shocked when Justine Damond, a 40-year-old blond woman from Australia who'd called the cops to report an assault, was shot and killed at point-blank range when she went out and approached their vehicle to speak with the officers.


Did you read the story about 19-year-old Jordan Elias Norris?

After being arrested for felony possession of marijuana for resale, theft of under $500 and vandalism in November of 2016, three Cheatham County Sheriff's deputies (pictured above) strapped the then-18-year-old to a chair and tortured him with a taser multiple times.

On the surveillance video of the incident (it's not that long but it's hard to watch) the sadistic deputy using the taser can be heard telling Norris, "I'll keep on doing that until I run out of batteries."

And, remarkably, he keeps telling Norris to "stop resisting" as he tasers him even though the 18-year-old is strapped to a chair and also being restrained by two other deputies.

Cheatham County Jail

As the Daily Mail reported, the incident occurred in the just-under two weeks that he was being held in the Cheatham County, Tennessee Jail in 2016 before he was able to pay bond and be released - he had more than 40 taser burns on his body when he got out.

Norris has since filed a federal lawsuit against all three deputies, who've all been suspended pending an investigation.

I'm not citing those two cases to indict the thousands of police officers who risk their lives to protect and serve.

Men and women who do it by following the law, respecting people and conducting themselves as law enforcement professionals.

But the reluctance of the justice system to hold the small fraction of police officers who violate people's rights and injure or kill them literally puts innocent American lives in danger.

And that's far more of a threat to domestic American security than a despot in North Korea.

Overzealous police officers have taken more American lives than Kim Jong-un will - but don't hold your breath waiting for Donald Trump to order the DOJ to crack down on bad cops.

We know how he feels about cops who hurt people, but it probably ignites his increasingly narrow base of supporters more to turn Kim Jong-un into the boogeyman.

Let's just hope the military professionals on both sides are smart enough to keep their respective leaders from actually ordering the use or deployment of weapons of any kind to solve this tiresome international pissing contest.

Between the healthcare debate, the opioid crisis and lagging wages for the middle and working class, Lord knows we have enough fish to fry here in the U.S. without getting bent out of shape about a dictator from a failing state who starves his own people, lives in luxury and has turned obtaining a viable nuclear weapon into some kind of fetish.

The Ballot Box Beckons

Last week my sample ballot for New Jersey's 2016 Primary Election coming up on June 7th arrived in the mail.

Amidst the turmoil of a busy work schedule last week and an assortment of tasks related to the arrival of family for the Memorial Day weekend, it was a sobering reminder that I'm going to have to get off the fence and make a decision about which presidential candidate I'm going to back for the 2016 race.

Which for me means choosing between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.



Like millions of other people over the past months, I've watched televised debates between candidates from both parties and it was pretty clear that a divided Republican party just couldn't overcome the rigid partisan extremists who've seized control of the GOP and pushed more moderate conservative candidates with broader appeal over to the fringes.

Remarkably, Republicans have settled on a dangerously unpredictable former reality TV host-real estate magnate with a sketchy business record who openly peddles bigotry as a major platform position as their candidate.

Feeling The Donald? North Korean leader Kim Jong-un

Donald Trump has no experience as an elected public official in any capacity, and his grasp of macro-economics and foreign policy is almost as simplistic as it is non-existent.

But that didn't stop an editorial that was published in DPRK Today, a heavily-censored media outlet / propaganda tool of the North Korean government from praising him as a "wise politician" (whose never held public office?) and endorsing his candidacy.
So lets review.

Essentially, some of the very same Republican Congressional leaders, including Senators Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, who applauded George W. Bush for lumping North Korea in with Iraq, Iran and Syria as part of an "Axis of Evil" in the 2002 State of the Union address to drum up support for the most disastrous foreign policy decision in U.S. History, are now getting behind a presidential candidate who was just endorsed by North Korea.

An endorsement which would horrify most presidential candidates but which Trump can now apparently stack up next to ringing endorsements from ex-KKK Grand Wizard David Duke and an assortment of patriotic neo-Nazi and white supremacist organizations.

Regardless, droves of angry Republican primary voters, apparently intoxicated by his open embrace of racism, misogyny and seemingly immune to his continual flip-flopping on issues, distortion of facts and outright lying, have elevated him as the guy they want to see as the next President of the United States.

Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders and fellow progressive Senator Elizabeth Warren have been going after Trump for being a lackey for the billionaire class for months.

The war of words on Twitter between Trump and Warren got hot enough last week that Tump reached into his bottomless Lowest Common Denominator bag and called her "Pochahontas" in a trite but racist reference to her Native American heritage.


On the more mainstream side, the Clinton campaign hasn't wasted any time going after Trump on his steadfast refusal to release his tax returns to the media as part of a broader effort to portray him as a shifty con-man billionaire whose fiery rhetoric about supporting the working class is nothing but hot air; seriously, did Republicans learn nothing from Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign?

As Politico.com reported last week, the Clinton campaign is mining that excerpt lifted from a Trump University instructional tape (where The Donald admits he's looking forward to a housing market collapse to make a few bucks) for all it's worth - a shrewd move on the part of the Clinton campaign that could attract some of the fence-sitting Bernie Sanders supporters.

As much as I think the next president needs to bring a more balanced progressive world-view to the Oval Office, at the moment I'm more motivated by Democratic party unity and making sure that the unmitigated disaster of a Donald Trump presidency never happens.

Given Elizabeth Warren's popularity, there's no doubt Bernie's progressive message will resonate beyond the 2016 presidential race, and the ever-shifting polls could be correct that he would match up better against Trump in a national election in the fall.

Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia - 2016 DNC site

But as a long-time registered Democrat, the time is coming when party unity needs to become the bigger priority here - and defeating Trump and winning the White House must be the primary objectives over some kind of drawn-out ideological battle over progressive policy positions.

I'll think long and hard before I cast my ballot in the New Jersey primary next Tuesday, as I said Bernie's message and calls for meaningful systematic change have resonated with me, but I just haven't made up my mind.

But Hillary is a highly-skilled debater and a shrewd political candidate who, by the accounts of members of Congress on both sides of the political aisle in Washington, was an intelligent and well regarded U.S. Senator who was always meticulously prepared for committee assignments and key floor votes.

Her foreign policy experience as a former Secretary of State is certainly unmatched by any of the 2016 presidential candidates, Republican or Democrat.

My mind isn't made up yet, but right now, Hillary is looking like the candidate in the best position to win in the fall. No candidate is perfect, but they must be able to win the general election.

Anyway, those are my thoughts as May comes to a close, the critical California primary approaches and I prepare to cast my own primary vote in New Jersey primary next week.

However California and its large cache of delegates turns out, my hope is that both Democratic candidates will have the fortitude and vision to do what's right for the party and the country - and start mobilizing to keep Trump as far from the White House as possible in 2016.

That in itself would be a pretty good start to a progressive movement in this country.