Treason?

Mr. Trump has apparently stepped across the line into treason.  Many observers have noted serious wrongdoing,  a few so far have even used the word “treason”. 

Mr. Trump has weakened the western alliance for Mr. Putin by denigrating the allies at every turn (the G-7 meeting in Canada,  the NATO summit in Brussels,  his visit to the UK,  etc),  and imposing unnecessary tariffs,  trying to start trade wars with them. 

Soviet Russia and now Putin’s Russia has been trying to weaken our alliance unsuccessfully for over 7 decades.  Mr. Trump has done it for them in only a year and a half. 

At the Helsinki summit news conference,  Mr. Trump then gut-punched his own intelligence community to stick up for Putin.  He defended Putin against reporters’ questions.  The smirk on Putin's face was evident.

At the same news conference,  Mr. Trump then tried to blame poor relations with Russia on Mueller's investigation.  He so obviously still believes the fiction that Mueller's investigation is solely just a witch hunt against him.  It is not. 

Mueller’s investigation began before Mr. Trump became President,  and its charter was to find out what exactly happened regarding election meddling,  how they did it,  who exactly did it,  and did they have any help on the US side?   Exactly as it should be. 

The “collusion” thing is but a small piece of that investigation,  dealing with the “did they have any help on the US side?” question.    That’s no witch hunt,  that’s quite a proper question to investigate. 

Billions have seen this play out on live television the last couple of weeks.  Weakening the western alliance for Putin’s Russia is at the very least “providing aid and comfort to the enemy”,  as one of the two Constitutional definitions of treason has it.  Only two witnesses are required.

The House of Representatives brings the charges as Articles of Impeachment.  The Senate then tries the case,  with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presiding,  not the Vice President.  It takes a 2/3 majority to convict.  That is what the Constitution says.

It is now urgent for the House and Senate to deal with this apparent treason.  If they do not deal with this fairly quickly,  they are complicit in it,  by any possible reasonable standard.  And you,  the American people,  must hold them accountable at election time.  This is way more important than any conceivable party politics. 

Update 7-19-18:  Notwithstanding the various quite pathetic walk-backs of what Trump said in Helsinki and afterwards,  it is quite clear what he said and meant in Helsinki,  and to the allies in the month preceding.  If that combination is not treason of the “aid and comfort” type,  it is perilously close,  and merits severe corrective action. 

There is no question that the House and Senate need to deal with this,  and quickly,  and it appears that the majority of Americans are aware of this.  The fate of the western alliance that has kept the world more-or-less at peace for 70 years is at stake.  But what I see are politicians mostly scrambling to give misbehaving Trump another “pass” for their own political advantage,  instead of doing their sworn duty for the American people.  They are thus complicit in Trump’s treason,  in my opinion.

At this point,  all I can recommend is voting for “the other guy”,  no matter who it is,  in every election from 2018 onward.  I don’t see how we could do any worse.  We might do a lot better.  This is way beyond any party politics in its seriousness,  which is exactly why who the “other guy” is,  does not matter.  Just replace the whole misbehaving lot!

Update 8-24-18:  I did contact my representative and senators about this issue,  among 3 total issues,  asking how they might decide,  if the impeachment issue comes to a head.  All I received was stock form-letters that never addressed any of the issues I raised.  So my recommendation to "replace the whole misbehaving lot" stands. 

I cannot abide public servants who value political party advantage above the good of the people they swore to serve.  As far as I am concerned,  they,  and all like them,  are therefore complicit in Trump's treason,  by doing nothing about it.

Following this debacle on the news,  I see the treason issue has retreated into obscurity relative to other charges of corruption and election-law violations.  I am very disappointed to see that. 

In particular,  the most prominent public figure to use any form of the word "treason" was John Brennan.  Trump revoked his security clearance for voicing that observation,  and the news organizations reported this,  but have since let Trump get away unscathed for this pathetic abuse of power.  For shame!

Yet my observations above still stand,  even if ignored now by the news media and the public.  Mr. Trump has damaged our alliances by publicly insulting our allies and starting trade wars with them. 

The only beneficiaries of this are our adversaries,  primarily Putin's Russia.  This is something that Putin's Russia,  and before it Soviet Russia,  tried and failed to do for 7 decades.  Mr. Trump did this for them in less than 2 years. 

If that is not treason of the "aid and comfort to the enemy" type,  then what is? 

Even if it is not,  it is most definitely perilously close to that type of treason,  and that certainly qualifies as a "high crime and misdemeanor",  more than worthy of impeachment. 

So,  why is this not being considered by the public and the news media as possible grounds for impeachment?  It is right under everybody's nose!

Wake up,  America,  before it is too late!

Immigration Politics and the Nazification of America

This article appeared in essentially its submitted form,  in the Waco Tribune-Herald,  on Saturday,  July 7,  2018.  It takes on the immigration and refugee problems,  which are but one piece of a larger pattern that I see as the gradual nazification of America.  That is a path to our destruction as a nation.

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The Immigration Problem 

There are really three separate parts to the general immigrant problem:  temporary guest workers,  refugees (asylum),  and undocumented children (DACA).  These are all quite different.  There is no one-size-fits-all thing to do about them,  no matter how inconvenient that might be for politics.

Temporary Guest Workers:

There two categories here, termed “skilled” and “unskilled” workers.  Skilled workers (and families) get H2 visas,  and there aren’t very many of these.  This category is not a worry for our purposes here.

Unskilled workers also divide into “agricultural” and “other”.  The agricultural workers and their families get H1A visas,  and are also known as “migrant farm workers”.  The “other” get H1B visas,  and many of these also bring their families. 

Most of these “other” are in construction work,  and more recently lawn care and many other unskilled jobs.  The quota for H1A and H1B visas is not strictly enforced (there being some exceptions granted once the cap is reached),  but generally speaking,  there are only something like 100,000 to 150,000 of these in any given year.  The term of the visa is only a year.  The idea behind them is “seasonal work”.

The size of the labor market these people fill is a big chunk of the number of undocumented aliens in the US:  something like 10 or 12 million people.  Assuming an immigrant family is two adults and 4 kids,  and that both adults work,  that’s at least about 3-4 million jobs they fill.  Fewer kids,  more jobs.

The market demand is thus quite out-of-line with the legal supply:  3-4 million jobs to fill,  versus 100,000 to 150,000 guest worker visas available,  in any given year.  These people have to eat,  so they will come to the US for that work,  they have no other feasible choice. 

They will come legally if possible,  illegal if not,  precisely because they have no real choice.  These numbers say most will have to come illegally,  as forced by the unrealistically low quotas.

This has been going on for many decades.  No one should be in the least surprised by this!  For those same many decades,  congresses and administrations,  one after another,  have failed us on this issue.

Because these workers are largely illegal,  it is easy to extort hard work out of them for really crummy pay.  That is definitely unethical,  if not illegal,  abuse.  If these workers were legal,  pay in those jobs would likely be higher,  and some Americans might even want some of those jobs. 

As it is,  most Americans do not want those jobs at all,  precisely because the work is hard,  the conditions very bad,  and the pay really lousy.

The common-sense “fix” is easy:  raise the visa quotas to be in-line with the size of the labor market these workers serve.  This will cost you a few more government workers to process and manage the visas,  but as guest worker pay improves,  you will need to supply less welfare support to their families.   The size of this population may drop some,  over time,  as more Americans take some of those jobs.

Demonizing for political purposes this population of guest workers,  mostly from Mexico,  is nothing but racism masquerading as national security or public safety,  there can be no doubt about that.  The statistics prove there are actually fewer real criminals among this population,  than among Americans at large.  That eliminates the only “excuse”.

Fixing this problem properly is the “right thing to do”,  and it is actually a moral imperative.  Hold your representation accountable:  it is their job to fix this,  and they have not.  And there is no defendable excuse for that lack.

Refugees (asylum):

This is a different problem,  and a different (much smaller) population of people.  These are mostly people from a handful of failed-state Central American countries,  who are fleeing for their very lives.  The types and kinds of violence vary,  but the effect is the same:  certain death.

Under our laws and policies as they have been until very recently,  every such refugee has the right to come to our border and ask for asylum.  They have the right to have an immigration judge decide their case in a timely fashion.  Since there is no one to ask on the Mexican side,  they have the implied right to step over our border and ask an official on the American side.

It is easy enough to tell who the bona fide refugees really are.  A child will cling to its real parent,  but will have to be restrained by any bad actor using that child as a means of disguise.  A nursing mother is no smuggler,  trafficker,  or gang member.  Many of these people may have been brought here by such,  but they are not such.  (The same is true of illegal guest workers.)

This does require a real,  mature,  experienced human being to decide properly,  not some underpaid dropout with nothing but a rule book to follow by rote. 

Recently,  we have seen an unfolding crisis on our border with an unconscionable change in policy. 

Policy now criminalizes any non-citizen stepping over the border for any purpose.  Thus these people were arrested for prosecution and their children taken from them.  This was explicitly stated by some in the administration to be a deterrent to other border crossers,  including future refugees seeking asylum.

A court has recently ordered these children be reunited with their parents.  The government’s obvious difficulties tracing where these kids actually are,  speaks directly to the intended harsh policy:  there never was any original intention to reunite anybody.  Instead,  children were to be taken and essentially interned or fostered-out,  and the adults summarily deported.  The President has as much as said so.

I have to point out this evil for what it actually is:  abusing refugees,  particularly children,  for nothing but political gain.  The second House immigration bill that recently failed has exactly that political gain embedded in it:  getting Democrats to agree to fund the border wall that we really do not need,  using both DACA and these interned children as bait.  Even the moderate Republicans backed away from this evil,  which is why it failed by a large margin.  And evil it is,  to ruin lives for political gain.

You fix this by not criminalizing stepping across the border to ask for asylum.  The demand is higher of late,  so you simply put more immigration judges in place to still get this done in a timely fashion.  That actually greatly reduces detention housing costs while the cases are considered.  And,  you quit putting conditions on the kind of violence we will accept as a justification:  death is just death.  That certainty is what those people fled in the first place,  in spite of the dangers along the way.

Since both laws and policies require change,  this is something that both congress and the administration must do,  no one else can.  Hold them accountable:  there is an election this fall! 

Undocumented Children (DACA):

These are the children brought here illegally,  mostly by illegal guest workers.  These children had no choice.  They fell into a sort-of unaddressed limbo in our immigration policies and laws.  Congress after congress,  and president after president, failed to deal with this.  The previous President tried a stopgap measure.  The current President is undoing that,  and is using this issue as part of the bait to get what he wants politically. 

The statistics show that the vast majority of these kids have well-assimilated into America,  getting educated,  getting jobs.  They have become exactly what we like to see in our citizenry.  There needs to be a way to make citizens of people like that,  and currently there is not one.  That is what you fix.

It starts with some sort of interview or hearing to weed out the bad actors,  but we have to ensure that this process cannot be abused the way the asylum process recently has been.  That’s the short-term solution.  It requires actions from both congress and the administration,  and only you (at the ballot box) can hold them accountable for it.

The long-term solution depends upon properly solving the other two problems:  temporary guest workers,  and refugees seeking asylum.  Solve those properly,  and the undocumented child (DACA) problem naturally goes away,  in about a generation.  At that point,  your only remaining illegals really will be the smugglers,  traffickers,  and gang members.

How to Get These Done

Step 1.  No matter which party you favor,  ditch the politics!  Don’t fall for the propaganda from either side (and it is loud and voluminous)!  Find out the facts for yourself.  Use your logic and your knowledge of people to figure out what the truth really is,  which is always one whale-of-a-lot more complicated than some idiotic political sound-bite slogan.  If you really do this,  I think you will reach conclusions fairly similar to mine.

Step 2. Decide what you want done about these problems.  I think that if you really honestly did step 1,  you will pretty much generate the same to-do list that I did. 

Step 3. Communicate what you want done,  and why,  to your representation in Congress and in the White House.  In that communication,  let them know that you are watching for outcomes,  and that you will hold them accountable.  The addresses are well known,  and obtainable on the internet.  You can now contact them by email,  but a paper letter sent by surface mail is still more impressive.

Step 4. Actually hold them accountable at election time!  If they cannot be statesmen and do the people’s business instead of politics-as-usual,  they are just not someone you want to hold the offices,  so try somebody else.  Simple as that. 

The next election is this November.

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These immigration/refugee issues are just one piece of the ongoing nazification of America.  There is also the leader-who-can-do-no-wrong cult.  And there is chronic and widespread government lying about what is being done and why.   The means and details are different than 1930's Germany,  but the overall strategies and outcomes are exactly the same.

First,  there is the in-group/out-group thing to inflame passionate support.  Groups are selected for scapegoating,  then demonization,  then abuse,  then elimination.  Same pattern as Nazi Germany,  only the details are different:  for immigrants,  separations and deportations instead of gas chambers and ovens.  Note also what is being said about political opponents.  This is quite widespread.

Second,  there is the leader-who-can-do-no-wrong cult,  which historically always leads to dictatorship.  Followers support him rabidly,  despite all facts,  and all the evident harm he brings them.  Exact same pattern as Nazi Germany.  Only the details are different,  and not by very much. 

Examples include tariffs in a trade war that will destroy heartland businesses,  a huge increase in the national debt to “finance” a tax cut that is 90+% for the super-rich,  and borderline treason by a leader who cozies up to vicious dictators like Putin and Kim Jong Un,  while insulting the leaders of our allies,  and damaging those alliance relationships. 

That is something Soviet Russia,  and now Putin’s Russia,  has tried to do without success for 70+ years:  weaken the Western Alliances.  Think “aid and comfort to the enemy”,  as one of two Constitutional definitions of treason has it.

Third,  there is constant lying by officials and staff,  although we don't call them "ministers of propaganda".  No effective difference there at all to Nazi Germany.  You can believe essentially nothing the government says.  That is EXACTLY what happened after 1933 in Germany.

If we continue down this path,  America will end up doing very great evils,  and will eventually be destroyed for it,  as was Nazi Germany.  It's the same path,  leading to the same ugly place.  Only the details are different.  And not by so very much.

My fellow citizens,  wake up!  See this evil for what it really is!  Rise up and make things different!  The Declaration of Independence says explicitly that we really can do this.  The Second Amendment to the Constitution gives you the means to make your uprising credible,  if all else fails. 

But start at the ballot box this November!  Vote for ANY alternative to this evil!  You could hardly do worse,  if you did only that.  Changing the government at the ballot box is much preferred over armed revolution,  if only because there is less mess to clean up afterwards. 

Your personal party preferences and personal ideologies have little to do with this.  Stopping the evil of nazification is far more important than any other consideration.  Simple as that. 

You all have been warned!!!!  On your heads be it,  if you do nothing!

Typical Texas Signs

Warning signs typical of Texas,  where you are expected to have at least a little bit of common sense:

I actually have one like this in my shop,  in two copies:

But I like this one even better: