Broken Promises

Whether you agree with the Iranian Nuclear Deal or not, we have a problem. During the last administration, the United States signed a multi-country contract that removed most economic sanctions against Iran for their promise that they would not develop a nuclear weapon during the terms of the agreement. There doesn't seem to be any evidence that the Iranians have broken their end of the bargain. The International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA), EU, and US have all certified compliance. Apparently, deals with the United States are only good during one administration. Any change at president or Congress is a valid reason to break agreements, deals, treaties. With that is mind, an agreement with the United States may only be honored for two years, when Congress could turn over. I have to wonder, does Trump really think this is a bad deal or is it just a deal that Obama's administration made, thereby bad by association? No one has ever claimed it was a perfect deal but the participants felt it was the best deal possible at the time. 

This is a hallmark of the Trump administration. Since Trump's inauguration, we have withdrawn from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), The Paris Accord, and now the Iranian Nuclear Deal. There is also the threat to exit NAFTA. There were veiled threats about not honoring our NATO obligations. There seems to be no past contract by the United States that can't be broken. That is especially true of any deal agreed to during the eight years Obama was president.

The Iran deal was not a bilateral agreement between Iran and the US. The deal also included The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union. NAFTA is between three countries. TPP included 11 other countries on both sides of the Pacific. The Paris Accord has been agreed to by virtually every country on Earth except the US. Is the goal to isolate the United States from the rest of the world? If so, the Trump administration is doing a great job. 

Specifically, we have broken or withdrawn from a nuclear deal. How trusting of negotiations with the US should Kim Jong-un be? Even if there is an agreement, will the US honor and live up to it in two or four or six or eight years? There are also ongoing trade negotiations going on with China.

Regardless of whether you agree with the terms of a contract you agreed to, you are obligated to live up to the terms. We all have made bad decisions over the years. It may be a bad deal on cable TV, cell service, a mortgage, a car, a lease, etc. I would like to reduce my monthly rent by a few hundred dollars. Unfortunately, there is a pesky lease that I signed.

Historians know that this is a troubling pattern for US agreements. Our government broke almost every treaty we signed with the numerous Native American tribes. It appears that we continue this behavior into the 21st century. 

There are some old fashion ideas that a person, group, company or nation should live up to their commitments. I guess those principles are outdated. 

Based on history it would seem precarious to make a deal with the United States. It would seem foolish to make a deal with Trump either in his private or public life. 

I'm hopeful that Iran and the other signers of that nuclear agreement can work out an acceptable alternative. I also hope that North Korea, South Korea, and the United States can work out a peaceful and long-term solution to that tinderbox. 

While we often hear the term "trust but verify" in regard to treaties we usually assume that applies to the other party because they are not completely trustworthy. Maybe it is really the United States that can't be trusted. 

wjh

Winning - April 2018

• Donny doesn't realize The White House is named The White House, or whatever they call it. Tippy top.
• The Administration imposes case quotas on immigration judges. Quantity, not quality. 
• Markets decline in the first quarter. Stocks are negative for the year. The first negative quarter since 2015.
• Trump reaches 100 visits to his golf properties in 62 weeks. This from the guy who would be too busy being president to play golf.  
• China imposes 15% to 25% tariffs on 128 US products, mostly agriculture. 
• 04/09 - The FBI raid Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen's office, home, safe deposit box, and hotel room and seize documents including those related to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.
• Trump calls the FBI raid on Cohen, a legally served search warrant, "an attack on our country". Yet, he has never used those word to describe Russia's cyber attack on our country. 
• White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert is leaving the Trump administration. A victim of the Bolton appointment.
• 4/11 - Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan (R-Wisc), will not run for reelection in November. There will be a new Speaker in 2019 regardless of which party gains the majority.
• 4/13 - Elliott Broidy, deputy chairman of the RNC finance committee, resigns after $1.6 million payoff to former Playboy model who he got pregnant comes to light. The payoff was arranged by Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.
• 4/16 - A federal judge rejects Trump's request to review files seized by FBI raid of Michael Cohen and block prosecutors from reading the documents.
• Scott Pruitt's $43K secure phone booth violated spending laws. The EPA failed to notify and get Congressional approval. More swampy behavior by Trump's cabinet.
• Karen McDougal reaches an agreement with the National Enquirer. She is now free to tell her story about her affair with Trump. Expect interviews and probably a book.
• China places a 179% tariff on sorghum in retaliation for sanctions on Chinese tech companies.
• Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State and leader of Trump's defunct Commission on Election Integrity, was found in contempt of court in a voter ID case. Karma.
• Mick Mulvaney, Trump's Director of the Office of Management and Budget, admits to only meeting with lobbyists who gave him money when in Congress. Very swampy and corrupt.
• A third federal judge again rules that Trump cannot stop DACA. Orders the administration to reopen the program to new applicants. 
• Adm. Ronny Jackson, MD withdraws as nominee for head of the VA. Another example of the excellent extreme vetting by the Trump administration.
• 4/27 - Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.) resigns amid ethics probe. More harassment payoffs with public money, $39K.
• 4/30 - Thomas Homan, acting director of ICE and Trump's nominee for the directorship, steps down. Has conflicts with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. Another failed nomination by the administration.

wjh

Mueller Time - First Quarter 2018

On 05/17/2017, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller as Special Council. Mueller was to investigate any possible collusion between the Trump presidential campaign or other Americans and the Russian government regarding the 2016 elections. The investigation was not limited to that issue and any crimes discovered while investigating were also subject to prosecution and/or being turned over to the Justice Department or state prosecutors.

A partial list of first quarter 2018 news about the investigation.

01/16/2018 - Steve Bannon is subpoenaed by Mueller to testify before the grand jury. He later agrees to a more informal interview by the investigators in lieu of the grand jury.

01/23/2018 Attorney General Jeff Sessions was questioned by the Mueller team for several hours the week before.

James Comey, former FBI Director, was interviewed by special counsel investigators in 2017.

02/16/2018 - The Justice Departments indicts 13 Russians and three Russian organizations for interfering with US elections and other crimes.

02/16/2018 - In a court filing in the Paul Manafort case, Mueller's team indicates that there could be additional charges including fraud and money laundering.

02/20/2018 - Alex van der Zwaan, a lawyer who worked with Manafort and Gates, has been charged with making false statements.

02/22/208 - Mueller files additional charges against Manafort and Gates in a 22 count indictment. New charges include income tax fraud.

02/23/2018 - Rick Gates pleads guilty to conspiracy and lying to the FBI.

Former Trump aide, Sam Nunberg, subpoenaed by Mueller to appear before grand jury. Nunberg says he won’t comply. Well OK, the tough guy did comply. Good choice.

More Russian links are disclosed by Mueller's team. Paul Manafort and Rick gates have links to Konstantin Kilimnik, a suspected former Russian intelligence officer.

Stay tuned.

wjh

Winning - March 2018

• Trump thinks a trade war is a good thing and is easy to win. He announces import tariffs on steel and aluminum. Says no countries will be exempt. Stock market drops. They are opposed by most.
• GOP Speaker of the House Paul Ryan breaks with Trump on tariffs.
• 3/8 - Trump signs tariff order that exempts Canada and Mexico. Leaves door open to exempt more countries.
• Trump name and management removed from Panama hotel. The third building since Trump's inauguration to remove the name.
• Trump imposes $60 billion in tariffs against China. They respond by increasing tariffs on US goods.
• Gary Cohn, Trump's Chief Economic Advisor, resigns. Trump appoints Larry Kudlow, a cable news pundit, to replace him.
• Stormy Daniels sues Trump over the nondisclosure agreement. That's the nondisclosure of the non-affair for which your lawyer made a non-payment.
• In an interview on 60 Minutes, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos shows how unqualified and unprepared she is for that post. 
• John McEntee, who has served as Mr. Trump’s personal assistant since he won the presidency, was forced out of his position and escorted from the White House on 3/12 after his security clearance was revoked.
• Trump fires Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, names current CIA Director, Mike Pompeo, as the new head of State.
• 3/19 - The Supreme Court refuses to block new Pennsylvania congressional district maps.
• Conor Lamb, a Democrat, wins Pennsylvania special election for the US House, Trump won the district in 2016 by 20 points. Trump also campaigned in person against Lamb.
• Karen McDougal, a former Playmate, sues The National Enquirer to get out of nondisclosure agreement about Trump affair.
• A New York judge allows Summer Zervos's, a former Apprentice contestant, defamation suit against Trump to proceed, potentially opening him to discovery. Another sexual harassment victim. 
• John Dowd resigns as Trump's lead attorney for the Mueller investigation. Fox News talking head and conspiracy theorist Joe diGenova is added to the legal team. Oops, no diGenova after all. A conflict of interest issue.
• National Security Adviser, General H.R. McMaster is relieved of command by Trump. Fox News pundit and war hawk John Bolton assumes the position. Another cable TV cabinet appointment. 
• New spending bill allocates little money for and imposes restrictions on The Wall.
• Trump now wants the military to fund The Wall. No word whether he means the US military or the Mexican military.
• Trump reverses full ban on transgenders in the military. Another flip-flop. 
• A federal judge has ruled that the D.C. and Maryland attorneys general have legal standing to sue President Trump for allegedly violating the Constitution’s ban on receiving “emoluments” from foreign governments and U.S. states.
• More Russian links disclosed by Mueller's team. Paul Manafort and Rick Gates links with Konstantin Kilimnik, a suspected former Russian intelligence officer.
• President Trump fires his Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin. Another member of the administration gone.
• The administration expels 60 Russian diplomats and closes the Seattle consulate. Russia responds by expelling 60 of our diplomats and closing our St. Petersburg consulate. 

wjh

Winning - February 2018

More in the continuing saga of Trump's and the GOP's winning ways in February 2018. A partial list:

• Trump allows the release of the "Nunes" memo over the objections of the FBI and Justice Department over security issues. This further undermines our trust of the government law enforcement agencies.
• Trump finds it necessary to lie about the size of his SOTU TV audience. He says it was the highest number ever. It was actually sixth largest. Not even close.
• Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) wanted ‘illegal aliens’ including Dreamers arrested at the State of the Union. That likely won’t help the GOP with Latinos.
• Trump refuses to implement Russian sanctions passed by Congress. The law passed by veto-proof bipartisan majorities. The vote was 419-3 in the House and 48-2 in the Senate. His bromance with Putin continues.
• The RNC has decided to keep the money donated by Steve Wynn who resigned as RNC Finance chair over sexual misconduct allegations. Once again they make the moral choice. 
• The Supreme Court refuses to delay Pennsylvania court ruling that Republican illegally gerrymandered Congressional districts must be redrawn immediately.
• The White House has withdrawn its controversial nominee to head the Council on Environmental Quality, Kathleen Hartnett White. Another completely unqualified nominee.
• Trump incorrectly says the UK's National Health Service is broke and not working. Brit's strongly disagree. 
• Trump calls the Congressional Democrats who didn't clap and stand during his SOTU speech un-American and treasonous. Disagreement is not treason. 
• On 2/5/18, the Dow dropped 1,175 points, the largest point drop in history. Another record for Trump but he failed to tweet or take credit for it. 
• 2/7 - Rob Porter, who served as the White House staff secretary, resigns following allegations by his two ex-wives of physical and emotional abuse. Another of the best and brightest bites the dust. 
• The FBI shoots down the White House timeline on the Porter security clearance issues. 
• 2/9, White House aide David Sorensen resigns over domestic abuse allegations.
• Associate Attorney General, Rachel Brand, resigns after only nine months on the job.
• Thomas Brunell has withdrawn as a candidate for deputy director of the Census Bureau. He wrote the book Redistricting and Representation: Why Competitive Elections Are Bad for America. Really?
• Trump's infrastructure plan thinks $200 billion in federal spending will result in $1.5 trillion in overall spending. This is the definition of "new math" or is it "voodoo economics"?
• 2/14 - Michael Cohen, a Trump personal attorney, admits that he paid Stormy Daniels $130K. Why?
• Another Trump affair and coverup comes to light. This time with former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal.
• 2/16 - Despite Trump's continual denial of Russian interference in our elections, the Department of Justice files an indictment against 13 Russians and three Russian organizations. 
• Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt comes under fire for excessive travel expenses. Are you seeing a pattern among Trump cabinet members?
• Alex van der Zwaan, a lawyer who worked with Manafort and Gates, has been charged with making false statements.
• Mueller files an additional 22 count indictment against Manafort and Gates. New charges include tax fraud.
• 2/23 - Rick Gates, former deputy to Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, pleads guilty to conspiracy and lying to the FBI.
• The Supreme Court rejects the Trump administration request to hear the Dreamers case currently in lower courts.
• A new $31K dining room set for HUD Secretary Ben Carson's office. This while HUD's budget is being cut. 
• 2/27 - Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, has his security clearance downgraded from top secret to secret.
• Hope Hicks, White House communications director, resigns. The fourth person to hold that position in Trump's administration. 

wjh

SOTU 2018 TV Ratings

... and other fairy tales.

Trump tweeted on February 1st - "Thank you for all of the nice compliments and reviews on the State of the Union speech. 45.6 million people watched, the highest number in history. @FoxNews beat every other Network, for the first time ever, with 11.7 million people tuning in. Delivered from the heart!"

For once, he actually got the raw numbers close to right. Unfortunately, he completely blew the ranking. According to the math I learned, 6th place does not count as the "highest number". We have seen this dyslexia on Trump's part before. When he looks at two or more numbers, whichever number is attributed to him is the largest, most, best, etc. When he looks at the numbers 68, 53, 51.7, 48, 45.8, and 45.6 it is obvious that 45.6 is the highest.

Let's say the Neilson rating service made a slight error. Then maybe you could make a case that Trump could leap ahead of Clinton's 1994 numbers. He would then be in 5th place, still not quite 1st. Trump would need way more than even those three million illegal voters to get past Bush's 2002 or 2003 ratings. He'd need about 16½ million more viewers.

Why does Trump consistently lie about things that can be easily checked? In a White House "clarification", they stated that Trump was referring to cable news network viewers. Yet, he used the 45.6 million total TV viewer number in his tweet. This just amounts to the normal White House spin and damage control. It is a fulltime job for several people. 

The 45.6 viewers were spread over 12 networks. Fox News did have the highest viewership during the speech. Congratulations to them. The next highest rated networks were NBC (7.1 million) and CBS (7 million). You can see all the ratings in the PolitiFact article.

It seems only right that Trump would vastly exaggerate the ratings of a speech that was full of lies and misrepresentations. Guess you can't teach an old dog new tricks, it's in his DNA.

wjh

Fact checking the State of the Union 2018

Subtitled: If Trump is talking, he is lying.

1. “Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs, including 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing alone.” Since election day? Since when do president-elects create jobs. The real number is 1.8 million since the inauguration. The slowest job growth since 2010.
2. “After years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages.” Actually, wage increases in 2017 were the lowest in the last five years.
3. “African American unemployment stands at the lowest rate ever recorded, and Hispanic American unemployment has also reached the lowest levels in history.”  This is actually true, but during the 2016 campaign, Trump continually said the unemployment statistics from the Bureau of Labor were false. Now he embraces them. The unemployment rate has been declining since 2010.
4.   “Unemployment claims have hit a 45-year low.” Actually, it was a six week low. Although unemployment numbers are good overall.
5. “The stock market has smashed one record after another, gaining $8 trillion in value. That is great news for Americans’ 401(k), retirement, pension and college savings accounts.” Again, that is a number since the election, not the inauguration. Still, good news. In fact, the US stock market is lagging behind the global markets and the 2017 percent increase (25.5%) is lower than the 2009 increase (33.3%), Obama's first year in office. Remember, if you take credit for the market increases, you also have to own the decreases. The market was down the day of the SOTU.
6. “Just as I promised the American people from this podium 11 months ago, we enacted the biggest tax cuts and reform in American history.”  It's actually the 8th largest tax cut. Reagan holds the record and two Obama tax cuts were larger.
7. “Our massive tax cuts provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses.” The tax cut does help the middle class until the cuts expire. Most of the cuts benefit the rich and large businesses.
8. “We slashed the business tax rate from 35 percent all the way down to 21 percent, so American companies can compete and win against anyone in the world. These changes alone are estimated to increase average family income by more than $4,000.” Independent economists claim the numbers don't add up. A $4K increase per family would be more than all the corporate taxes collected. Estimates are more like $1,600 per average household. That's pretty good, why lie and inflate the number?
9. “We have ended the war on American energy — and we have ended the war on beautiful clean coal. We are now an exporter of energy to the world.” First, there is no such thing as "clean coal" and certainly not "beautiful clean coal". What he did do is repeal the Clean Power Plan. We have always exported energy, but we are not a "net" exporter of energy. 
10. “Many car companies are now building and expanding plants in the United States — something we have not seen for decades. Chrysler is moving a major plant from Mexico to Michigan.” Fiat Chrysler planned that new plant before the 2016 election.
11. “The third pillar ends the visa lottery — a program that randomly hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit or the safety of our people.” This "lottery" is administered by our State Department, not the foreign countries. Applicants must have at least a high school diploma or equivalent or two years work experience. They are vetted and given medical tests.
12. “The fourth and final pillar protects the nuclear family by ending chain migration. Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives.”  Only citizens can bring in more than spouses and unmarried children. Even at that, these are not automatic immigration visas. There are currently about four million on the waiting list.
13. “In recent weeks, two terrorist attacks in New York were made possible by the visa lottery and chain migration. In the age of terrorism, these programs present risks we can no longer afford.”  Technically correct. Two immigrant terrorists out of the thousands who have come into the country via these programs are statistically insignificant. 
14. “We are proud that we do more than any other country to help the needy, the struggling and the underprivileged all over the world.” True in total dollars but as a percentage of GDP, the US ranks 22nd out of 29 wealthy countries. 

There were also a few things that Trump failed to mention. Approximately ⅓ of Puerto Rico is still without power and FEMA is ending emergency supply shipments. He also didn't mention that all those Carrier jobs he "saved" are now going to Mexico after all. Russia is still trying to influence our elections.  

To Trump's credit, he stayed on script and boringly read the teleprompter. He also clapped at his own statements. He promised bipartisan cooperation. Let's see how that works out.

wjh