The Art of Preparation & Apology

Sen. John McCain savors the sweet taste of revenge

Many people recognize the oft-quoted motto of the Boy Scouts of America, "Be Prepared" - but not everyone.

It's doubtful Donald Trump was prepared to face the repercussions of his having mocked Arizona Senator John McCain (a former U.S. Navy pilot) for being shot down on a mission over Vietnam, captured then tortured and held as a POW for five years.

McCain had the last laugh this morning as he cast the deciding vote that killed the GOP's last-ditch effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

There's little question that McCain has been carefully preparing for just the right moment to publicly back-hand Trump since July 2015 when the liar-in-chief had the gall to publicly low-ball McCain as a "dummy" not long before an appearance in front of the Iowa Family Leadership Summit when the draft-dodging hypocrite dismissed the Vietnam combat vet by saying, "I don't like losers."

To add to Trump's humiliation today, his newly-tapped director of communications Anthony Scaramucci is being eviscerated by the press today for his shocking, expletive-ridden tirade against the as-of today now-former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus for allegedly leaking The Mooch's financial disclosure statement (and other juicy tidbits) to the media.

Now remember, Scaramucci was hired as the head of communications for what is arguably the most powerful government institution on the planet, right?

So he reads a tweet from Journalist Ryan Lizza that quoted an anonymous senior White House official revealing that The Mooch was having dinner at the White House with Trump, his wife, right-wing nut-job Sean Hannity and Bill Shine - the former co-president of Fox News who was fired earlier this spring for his role in covering up sexual harassment allegations against Bill O'Reilly.

Does The Mooch shrug it off and demonstrate that sometimes silence is the best answer?

The Mooch speaks with the press in stylish shades 

No, he gets pissed and calls up Ryan Lizza Wednesday night, and while being on the record (it's questionable if he really understands what that means), rips into Priebus  - and in the same interview that was published in The New Yorker on Thursday, also suggests that chief strategist and resident white supremacist Steve Bannon is able to sexually self-satisfy himself in a way that suggests the perpetually-unshaven former Brietbart News executive chair has totally mastered yoga in ways I shudder to imagine.

So while it's still unclear to many people why Scaramucci was hired, aside from his near constant fawning over Trump, what is clear is that The Mooch was totally unprepared to take on the role of White House director of communications.

Conservative commentator Ana Navarro was less sparing in her summary of Scaramucci's comments, on Twitter she called him "an unpinned hand-grenade."

Be prepared.

Those two words are much more than a simple slogan.

For the thousands of boys, men (including myself) and women, fortunate enough to have participated in, supported and enjoyed the challenges and experiences of Scouting over the years, those two words encompass an approach to life that spans beyond the BSA experience into how one approaches life from the standpoint of family, work, spirituality and everything in between.

It's too bad Donald Trump used an opportunity to speak in front of thousands of Boy Scouts gathered for the National Jamboree in West Virginia to (yet again) fan the flames of his obsession-hatred of President Obama, denigrate his political opponents as well as Republican members of the Senate, and ramble on incoherently like an obnoxious drunk at a party.

True to his long history as a "Birther", once again, Trump was not truthful in his disparaging comments about President Obama - he told the crowd that Obama had never addressed a Jamboree without apparently realizing that Obama recorded a video message that was played for the assembled attendees of the 2010 National Jamboree.

A speech that was infinitely more substantive, meaningful and inspiring than Trump's was - to say nothing of the fact that, unlike Trump, Obama actually was a Boy Scout.

BSA Chief Scout Executive
Michael Surbaugh 

In response to the anger and outrage over Trump's inappropriate and deplorable comments in front of thousands of Boy Scouts at the National Jamboree in West Virginia on Monday, Chief Scout Executive Michael Surbaugh drafted a well-written but somewhat milquetoast apology on the BSA's Facebook page.

As a former Boy Scout who was one of the 29,765 scouts who attended the National Jamboree held at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia from July 29th - August 4th 1981, and as a writer, I thought the apology should have spent more time addressing what I and many others consider to be the perversion of everything the Boy Scouts of America stands for that Trump's idiotic comments represented.

The bulk of the apology read like more of a shopping list of all the positive things that had taken place over the course of the Jamboree.

Which is fine, but the problem is that the parents and scouts don't need a rundown of why the Jamboree is a good thing.

Scouters of all generations know the kinds of amazing experiences, activities and personal interactions that take place at the Jamboree - memories that I can tell you from personal experience last a lifetime.

The overall tone of Surbaugh's apology seemed more like he was more concerned with protecting the "brand" of the Jamboree, rather than focusing on more definitively distancing, and distinguishing, the values of the BSA from the repulsive and inappropriate comments Trump gave last Monday.

To be fair, Surbaugh obviously had to walk a fine line in drafting a written apology.

My father was an executive for the Boy Scouts of America for over 25 years, finishing his career as the executive director of the BSA's Northeast Region, which covers 11 states, the northern part of Virginia, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico and the Trans Atlantic Council (Western Europe).

So I know quite a bit about the internal workings and culture of the BSA's professional executive ranks, and I can tell you that it's populated by many politically conservative individuals from what we would call "Red States" - the BSA is headquartered in Irving, Texas.

That doesn't mean everyone who works for the BSA is a Republican, far from it, but the overall culture of the organization tends to lean right, a reflection that many of the values espoused by the BSA could be regarded as "conservative" in the traditional sense.

Don't take my word for it, if you want to get a snapshot of how members of the scouting community reacted to Trump's speech and Surbaugh's subsequent apology, you may find it instructive to read through some of the hundreds of comments posted on the Boy Scouts of America's Facebook page.

It reveals cultural and political divisions within the scouting community that are reflective of the divisions in the broader American populace - (and within the White House if Trump firing chief of staff Reince Priebus this afternoon is any indication).

Divisions exasperated by a man for whom the necessity, and art of preparation, are elusive concepts.

A man who, like his new communications director, is clearly not prepared for the rigors of working in the White House - let's hope General John F. Kelly knows the Boy Scout motto better than his new erratic boss does.

Which GOP Senators Have Received Cash From the N.R.A in 2016?

2016 N.R.A donations to GOP Senators

Despite political maneuvering to try and respond to public pressure for a Congressional response to gun violence, the Senate failed to reach consensus on four different gun control measures today.

Republicans blocked two Democratic-backed proposals that would have put into place mandatory universal background checks, and one that would prevent anyone on the terrorism watch list from purchasing a gun.

Democrats blocked two Republican-backed compromise measures that were considered "lip service" legislation without real teeth.

Of the last 100 different gun control measures introduced into Congress, none have passed.

Shocking considering that since the 911 attacks in 2001, more than 400,000 Americans have been killed by guns in the U.S. - more than all the American service men and women killed in World War II.


So why is it so hard to get Congress to pass sensible gun control legislation?

It's instructive to see a list (see above) of which Republican Senators have taken donations from the National Rifle Association in 2016 and how much they've received.

Now by no means is it illegal or necessarily wrong for a Senator to accept campaign contributions from the N.R.A, in fact there are some Democrats who've accepted money from the gun lobby too.

Take a look at this Google Docs spreadsheet that lists N.R.A contributions for the members of the Senate and House provided through the OpenSecrets.org Website - just scan down and look at the big five-figure donations, all given to Republicans.

N.R.A-friendly - (R) Sen John McCain

But given the public pressure generated by Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy's recent filibuster (along with the help of New Jersey Senators Corey Booker and Robert Menendez and others) to call attention to the fact that until today Republican leaders wouldn't even allow a bill to the floor to even be discussed or voted on, understanding who is receiving money from the NRA offers valuable perspective and transparency on the political process.

Especially given that the vast majority of Americans are in favor of Congress enacting gun control measures.

As some of you may know, Republican Arizona Senator John McCain is currently facing one of the most difficult re-election campaigns of his political life, interesting to note that the N.R.A has donated $7.7 million to his campaign since January of this year.

No need to guess how he's going to vote when gun control measures come to the floor.

When it comes down to it, the N.R.A is basically paying Senators to block gun control legislation from being passed and signed into law.

Given the thousands of lives lost to gun violence in this nation this year alone, that's a pretty sad example of the Democratic process being usurped by cash.

It's a sad testament to the Republican party's ongoing effort to use their numerical majorities in the Senate and House to shackle the government's ability to work on behalf of the American people.

Sure there were Democratic senators who voted against some of the Democratic-backed measures today, as The Hill.com reported, North Dakota Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp was the lone Democrat to vote against Senator Diane Feinstein's proposal to block people on the terrorist watchlist from buying guns or explosives - think about that, how do you vote AGAINST a measure to keep guns and explosives out of the hands of suspected terrorists?

But it's Republicans who control the legislative branch of the American government.

Summer begins tomorrow, and as the latest statistics from GunViolenceArchive.org show, there have been 24,472 incidents involving guns in America this year, including 145 mass shootings and 6,278 people killed and the response from Congress is the same it's been for years.

Do nothing.

Tears From Trail to Highway & The Navajo Water Crisis

Iron Eyes Cody's iconic 1970's anti-pollution ad

It's a genuine shame that a diverse culture with such a rich hisory as that of the indigenous peoples of North America are so often associated in mainstream media with tears.

From the forced relocation of thousands of Native Americans from their ancestral lands in the southeastern U.S. following the Indian Removal Act of 1830 know as the "Trail of Tears".

To the iconic 1970's anti-pollution television commercial for the 'Keep America Beautiful' campaign.

The brilliant oft-played commercial that famously featured Native American Iron Eyes Cody shedding a tear after traversing a trash-strewn American landscape.

Yet tears were what came to mind after I read a couple stories about issues that impact the lives the Native American people both here in America and just to the north along a lonesome stretch of wilderness in Canada.

Last night before going to bed I read Dan Levin's New York Times article about Canada's "Highway of Tears".

Some of the women who've vanished along the Highway of Tears

It's a a sad account of a notorious stretch of Highway 16 that traverses vast isolated stretches of British Columbia where anywhere between 18 and up to 50 women and girls, the majority of them indigenous people, have vanished, or died, since 1969.

Like so many other Native American communities, it's a story of indifference by government and law enforcement.

It also speaks to how the lack of adequate and balanced infrastructure spending in Canada adversely impact the lives of those who happen to live far from a modern urban metropolis like Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal.

As Levin notes in his article, a number of the women who've gone missing along Highway 16 were hitchhiking because of the lack of even basic public transportation - and of course the accompanying economic circumstances that make it difficult for many to have access to a car.

After years of conservative leadership ignoring the tragedy of young indigenous women disappearing along Canada's Highway of Tears, Newly elected progressive Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is finally devoting resources and leadership towards addressing the societal imbalances that have existed between the government and Canada's "mainstream" population, and the people who originally lived upon the lands upon which the country was built.

More than a thousand miles to the south on the sprawling 27,425 acres of the Navajo Nation covering parts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, the same pivot of government attention to life-threatening issues impacting Native American communities is yet to take place.

Uranium-poisoned water flows through Navajo land

While the scope of the Flint water crisis is simply devastating for the thousands of current and former Flint residents impacted by lead poisoning of the water supply, according to a recent email sent from the eco-activist group Environmental Action, the water supplies on the sovereign lands occupied by Navajo people has been contaminated by toxic levels of uranium since the 1950's - and it's still going on.

Back in February, environmental activist and filmmaker Christina Laughlin wrote a detailed and troubling article in the Huffington Post that offers a 360 degree perspective on the Navajo water crisis - and reminds us that Flint, Michigan is not the only place in America where people marginalized by society through no fault of their own face monumental obstacles to access safe, clean water because of  government indifference.

Since the 1950's, over 400 million tons of radioactive uranium were extracted from mines located on Navajo lands, these days there are some 500 different uranium sites that contain 25 times the level of radioactivity considered safe.

The legacy of decades of uranium mining to provide fuel for nuclear weapons is that most of the water on the more than 27,000 acres of Navajo lands is now too contaminated to use; for a sovereign nation with a staggering 70% unemployment rate.

Cancer rates on Navajo lands used to be almost non-existent, 60 years after uranium mining began, Cancer is now the leading cause of death in the Navajo Nation.

The scope of this environmental crisis dwarfs the lead poisoning in Flint, Michigan, but you don't hear much about it from mainstream media or from the politicians who control the purse strings who could do something about it - remarkably, according to the Free Thought Project, there are still no federal or state laws that mandate that the over 15,000 abandoned uranium wells must be cleaned up. 

The fact that 75% of them are located on Navajo and federal land might have something to do with that.

Darlene Arviso - "The Water Lady"

Why is it that in 2016, so many residents in a rural impoverished area of New Mexico that has suffered years of environmental abuse at the hands of politicians and the mining corporations they serve, must now depend on the charity and kindness of someone like Darlene Arviso to get fresh water delivered once a month?

Known as "The Water Lady", she drives a distinctive yellow tanker truck on behalf of the St. Bonaventure Indian Mission.

As NPR reported in a feature back in January, she covers hundreds of miles delivering fresh water to 250 different families - some of whom would have to drive up to 30 miles to get fresh water.

Speaking of a man-made water crisis, is it possible that the horrific scope of the Flint water crisis actually motivated the members of U.S. Senate to do their jobs?

As the New York Times reported last Thursday May 12th, for the first time since 2009 (a year after President Obama was elected...), the Senate passed a "Regular Order" Energy and Water Appropriations bill to fund energy and water programs in 2017.

Senate Majority Leader (R) Mitch McConnell

Regular Order means that all twelve appropriations must pass through the burdensome Congressional committee process, then pass both the Senate and House so both chambers can appropriate the money to actually fund the bills.

H.R. 2028 Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2016, as it's known, would appropriate $37.5 billion to water and energy programs.


Whether the more contentious House of Representatives also does their part to get it passed and funded, the fact that the Senate passed the Water Appropriations Act 98-0 suggests that it's just possible that some members of the Senate are not completely immune to the suffering of the residents of Flint Michigan or the Navajo Nation.

And to the credit of Senator Mitch McConnell (wow did I just say that?), the passage reflects his goal as Senate Majority Leader to have the Republican-controlled Senate do their part to pass all twelve appropriations by the end of this year so that government programs can be properly funded without the kind of insane gridlock former House Speaker John Boehner faced with the extremist wingnuts in his party forcing government shutdowns over petty bickering and partisan nitpicking on appropriations spending.

Spending that, as is evident in places like the Navajo Nation and Flint, Michigan, can make a difference between life and death.

It's unfortunate that it takes a presidential election year that could have dire consequences on the Republican majorities in both the Senate and the House to motivate the GOP to take action on critical spending measures (which is their job after all) that affect clean water - and the appropriations being passed won't magically cleanse the water on Navajo land or in Flint.

But some progress is better than no progress, hopefully, buried deep in the pages of H.R. 2028, are some measures that would offset the decades of uranium pollution of water on Navajo land by mining companies that made profits, but are nowhere to be seen now that costs to undo the damage is in the billions.

The Water Lady traversing hundreds of miles of remote New Mexico territory on her own to bring fresh water to families can't be the only response to the needs of Native Americans.

People who are living in parts of the nation where there's not enough water for tears.