There is something significant about the Trump phenomena

When Donald Trump first announced for president, most observers (including myself) though he would be a flash in the pan – a week-long media event and then gone.  When he made his first outrageous statement (I can’t even remember what it was, there have been so many) most observers (including myself) figured he had shot himself in the foot, and would soon be gone.  Well, we were all wrong.  It is months later, many, many outrageous statements later, and Trump is not only leading in the polls, but is widening the lead over the past few weeks.

Taken in isolation, it would be easy to assume there is a small base of Republicans who just live on another planet.  But look at the context.  The nominal democratic dynastic shoo-in, Hillary Clinton, is losing ground steadily to outright Socialist Bernie Sanders, and some polls suggest that if Vice President Biden runs, she would lose ground to him as well.  On the Republican side, look at who the runners-up are behind Trump -  not the establishment figures like Jeb Bush or Scott Walker or Marco Rubio, who were supposed to be the contenders – it is Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon.

There is a significant message here – It’s Washington outsiders who are leading or gaining in the polls, on both the Democratic and Republican side, not establishment Washington insiders.  And why might that be?

Well, among the outrageous and incorrect and plain made-up-on-the-spot statements that Trump spouts every week there is a lot of truth, a lot of things we all know but don’t often say. Maybe he is getting the support because, in his crude and uncontrolled and egotistical way, he is saying what no professional politician will admit – that the emperor has no clothes.

·         Everyone knows, but few say, that politicians from the president on down are bought and paid for by special interest groups, corporations, unions.  When a super-PAC puts half a billion dollars behind a candidate, who but a naïve fool would not think that they expect something significant in return when she/he wins?

·         Everyone knows, but few say, that Washington insiders get special treatment and are for the most part above the law. When I did classified work, if I had mishandled classified material like Hillary Clinton (who is still getting a pass from the media), or like General and CIA Director David Patraeus (who got a lenient plea bargain), or like CIA Director John Deutch (who got a Presidential pardon), I would have been in the slammer so quickly and for so long.

·         Everyone knows, but few say, that Washington insiders are not accountable. How many heads have rolled because of the IRS’s baised treatment of Republican political action committees before the last election?  How many heads have rolled since The Office of Personnel and Management managed to lose the entire files of everyone investigated for a security clearance since 2000, and lose them apparently to Chinese hackers?  How many heads rolled when the Government ObamaCare websites first went up so disastrously?  How many heads do you expect to roll because Hillary Clinton was allowed to use a personal server (likely not very secure), in her home, to store and pass government and diplomatic messages of potentially damaging information?

·         Everyone knows, but few say, that politicians are in it for their careers, and for their pocketbooks, not for the nation or even for their supporters. (If I hear another politician prating on about “serving the People”, I’m going to throw up!) Most of Congress gets re-elected every year, unless they really goof up or they die. And both parties have made sure that happens in the House by outrageous gerrymandering of districts. Note how many in Congress are pretty rich. Notice that when they leave office they go into lucrative jobs in corporations or as K-street lobbyists for the very people for whom they used to do favors (Or, if they are Clintons, they get $750,000 speaking fees for an hour speech from a group negotiating with the State Department – headed by Hillary - for a lucrative deal)

·         Everyone knows, but few say, that our Government is really, really f**ked up (pardon the language, but it seems to require that level of expression to truly capture the state of affairs). OPM can’t even keep some of nation’s most sensitive data (files from security clearance investigations) safe. (They didn’t even discover they had been hacked until a vendor came in to demonstrate some security software and discovered it)   The Air Force makes a $25 BILLION dollar error in calculating the probable cost of its new bomber. A guy like Edward Snowden  - only a low-level contractor, not even a government employee - can download millions of classified files and send them off anywhere he likes – and isn’t even caught (he had to announce that he had done it before anyone noticed).  The list goes on and on, with new examples added every single day.

So perhaps when outsiders begin to speak up, even if they are as outrageous as Donald Trump or as left-wing as Bernie Sanders or as unconventional as Ben Carson, they are tapping into something fundamental about the America electorate.  The electorate as a whole isn’t particularly smart, and is easily beguiled by specious arguments and red herrings and populist promises that can never be fulfilled, but they are smart enough, Republican and Democratic alike, to know that the Washington insiders these days  are pretty inept at most things they try except getting re-elected and getting rich.

Barack Obama got to be president on the basis of soaring oratory and a promise to make Washington work better. Well, we got the oratory - almost 8 years worth of it thus far - but we didn’t get better government (though we certainly got more government). So perhaps it is not surprising that outsiders in both parties are doing so much better that the talking heads on TV  would have predicted.

There is an interesting dynamic at play here. It started, or at least perhaps first became noticeable, with the rise of the Tea Party groups.  I suspect the anomalies thus far in this election are part of the same mass movement and largely independent of political parties.  The electorate is uneasy, unhappy, even perhaps increasingly enraged, at Washington insiders. The issues are many and different depending on one’s political stance, but the uneasiness is general, across all parties, and may well develop into something politically significant. Especially since the emergence of social media has dramatically changed the electoral landscape.

Racial bias...

Commentators, puzzling about Donald Trump’s continued popularity, have begun to speculate that it is his candor that is winning converts – yes, he often says dumb, incorrect, even outrageous things, but what you see is (apparently) what you get – a real Donald, warts and all.  Compared to weasel-wording, spin-doctored , TV-groomed, PAC-purchased politicians, he is a refreshing change for many.

Along the same lines as telling it like it is, politically incorrect or not, let me point out an obvious fact that no one seems to want to address for fear of being racist – there is rampant black racism as well as white racism. Let the police shoot a black man these days  – even an armed one – and there will be riots and protests and stern words from the President, and all the usual black civil rights leaders will show up to berate the white community.

But let a black man shoot a white TV reporter and white cameraman n Virginia, on air, and you hear hardly a peep from the black community.  Let a black man in Houston approach a white sheriff’s deputy filling his gas tank at a gas station and shoot him, execution style from behind, and repeatedly, and not a single one of the prominent (and loud) civil rights leaders has a word to say about it.

Looks like pretty obvious racial bias here………

Is the Iran agreement reasonable?

The worry many people (including myself) have had about the Iranian nuclear deal is that the American administration was too eager to get a deal, and gave away the farm in order to get an agreement. The revelation tonight by the Associated Press that, via a secret agreement (not the only one either, apparently, because it is labeled  "Separate Agreement II" -- what is "Separate Agreement I", one wonders?) between Iran and the IAEA, Iran will be allowed to inspect the Parchin nuclear site (suspected of having been used for nuclear weapons work)  WITH ITS OWN IRANIAN INSPECTORS!!!!!!  In other words, no foreign inspectors will be allowed to see the site.  Is that real verification? I think not.

Apparently this nuclear agreement, or at least key parts of it, actually depends on Iran doing its own verification! And if the president trusts that, then I have a bridge to sell him as well.......

What other quiet "side agreements" are there in this deal?

Until now I was more or less convinced that this deal was, if not great, at least acceptable.  But  apparently we haven't really seen all of the deal, and what is hidden may well be unacceptable. 

It will be interesting to see how the administration and its spin doctors try to handle this revelation.

Donald Trump's appeal

Watching clips from last night's Republican debate (I didn't waste my time watching the whole thing live) I guess I can begin to see why Donald Trump has some appeal. He is a loudmouthed blowhard, but at least he is an AUTHENTIC loudmouthed blowhard. He says what he thinks, straight out, dumb or not, politically incorrect or not. It's a little refreshing.

 In comparison, everyone else looks like they are reading from scripts prepared ever so carefully by committees of spin doctors and focus groups to be sure to appeal to a base and not offend campaign sponsors. Everyone else seemed to be simply pasting together well-worn campaign slogans that we are all tired of hearing (especially since we know they really don't mean them).

It is, perhaps, a measure of how weak the Republican field really is that a substance-free blowhard like Donald Trump could dominate the stage in this debate.  Of course, there is rampant speculation that he entered the race deliberately to split the Republican party and give Hillary a clear run at the Presidency.  The fact that he is close person friends with the Clintons, and that Bill Clinton called him a few weeks before he announced and encouraged him to run, feeds this speculation.

I certainly wouldn't vote for the Donald, but his presence in this campaign may finally move a few of the others to abandon their carefully-scripted speeches and tell us what they really think. No, I don't expect Hillary to do that, but with luck one of two of the Republican contenders might pick up on the clue.

What a miserable field!

So far the upcoming presidential election is shaping up to be a really miserable choice.

On the Democratic side we have Hillary Clinton as the “inevitable” contender, despite a succession of illegal or barely legal activities that stretch back to her husband’s administration.  Does anyone still remember the Rose Law Firm records of her billings that conveniently “disappeared” from the law firm files , only to eventually be found in the White House family quarters (and revealing that she double-billed many of her clients)? And then most recently we find that as Secretary of  State she kept her emails on a private server in her home (despite the security issues) , and conveniently “erased” all  the “personal” (ie- incriminating) emails before she released the rest to the Congressional Committee investigating this issue (shades of Nixon’s 18-minute gap?).  In between is a whole string of questionable actions which the press is conveniently ignoring for the moment.  This is hardly the person I would pick to lead this nation.

Then there is Joe Biden possibly entering the race.  Despite his tendency to repeatedly say the wrong thing at the wrong time, which made him a joke through most of Obama’s terms, compared to Hillary he actually looks better, which is pathetic.

And finally we have Bernie Sanders, a died-in-the-wool old fashion Socialist, eager to turn the US into a European-style centrally-planned, centrally-managed cradle-to-grave nannystate, despite the fact that Europe recently has been showing us just how economically unsustainable such a state is.

On the Republican side we have (currently) 17 contenders, of whom only one (Senator Lindsey Graham, who is no more than a blip in the polls at the moment) accepts the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is real, and largely caused by human activities. So the other 16 are either (a) scientific ignoramuses, (b) dumb as dirt, or (c) simple opportunists who know perfectly well that the evidence is overwhelming, but hold their position simply as matter of getting votes from the far-right base and/or mollifying the energy companies that contribute to their campaigns.  None of these options recommends them as potential presidents of this nation.

Then there is the undeniable fact that Republicans these days seem to have forgotten that this nation was founded on the principle of separation of church and state, and individual freedom, and want to inflict on everyone their own, often quite parochial and  narrow-minded, religious and moral constraints.

And it boggles the mind that Donald Trump, a wildly-narcissistic, ego-driven, publicity-seeking clown if there ever was one, is well ahead in recent polls of Republican voters. It suggests that a lot of Republican voters are also dumb as dirt, or at least that the rest of the field is so thoroughly unappealing that “the Donald” looks reasonable by comparison, which is also pathetic.

Perhaps things will change over the next few months and someone, either among this crowd or a new face entering late, will look more appealing.  But the choice thus far is pretty disappointing. I am no fan of President Obama’s administration, but most of these clowns, Democratic and Republican alike, based on what I have seen thus far, would likely make his administration look good by comparison.

The Iranian Nuclear Deal – the technical aspects

As is usually the case in Washington, there is the actual reality and there is a political reality, and often they are miles apart.  The political reality about the Iranian nuclear agreement is that the right opposes it on principle and the left is trying hard not to get burned by supporting something that may eventually fall apart.

But if one talks to nuclear proliferation experts (I happen to know a couple) the general consensus is that the inspection regime in the agreement, if followed, would make it pretty hard for Iran to hide a significant nuclear program.  IAEA inspectors have 7/24 access to all declared nuclear sites in Iran (sites we already know about) and a process to inspect any suspicious undeclared site with a maximum of 24 days notice.  Now 24 days may seem like a lot of time to clean up any illegal work before an inspection, but it isn’t that easy with nuclear materials – they almost always leave traces that can be detected with today’s technology. And the process to re-impose UN sanctions if Iran violates the agreement is cleverly crafted so that Russia and China can’t block it in the UN Security Council.

So from a technical perspective, the Iranian deal looks acceptable. No system is perfect, and no doubt Iran can find ways to cheat a little around the edges if it wants to, but it looks like it would be very hard (not impossible, but very, very hard) for them to mount the sort of major effort required to build a working nuclear weapon without the inspectors noticing it months ahead of time.

Nevertheless, emotions are high on this issue, both among politicians and among many in the voting public, so the fact that the technical experts are relatively satisfied with the deal probably will have little effect on the raucous public debate that is beginning.

The Iranian nuclear deal

Against all odds we seem to have a proposed deal with Iran to limit their nuclear ambitions. Since any deal would have had to have the (probably grudging) approval of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, it probably means that Iran’s hard liners won’t be able to kill it. And while Republicans seem to be lining up to oppose the deal, I assume President Obama can corral enough Democrats to (probably reluctantly) uphold any veto.  So no doubt we will end up with this deal.

It certainly isn’t a good deal, because it leaves most of Iran’s nuclear facilities intact, except for disabling their heavy water reactor at Arak that could have been used to produce plutonium for weapons.  But it may be an adequate deal if (and only if):

1. the Iranians allow the IAEA inspection system to work as it should, and

2. the Western powers have the political will to put sanctions back into effect if Iran violates the terms of the agreement.

I doubt that this agreement will lead to any early thaw between Iran and the Western powers.  Indeed, Khameni may feel it necessary to let his hard liners have victories in other areas to sooth their opposition to this deal. And no doubt much of the flood of new money from unfrozen Iranian assets and new Iranian oil sales will be used to stir up more trouble elsewhere in the Middle East. 

On the other hand, the flood of new Iranian oil on the market will probably depress the price of oil yet more, and cause Russia’s President Putin more headaches. 

Only time will tell whether this was a naive effort, or a worthwhile diplomatic victory. It's too early yet to judge.