EPA Puts Costs Ahead of Human Health

Despite the on-going chaos it is becoming apparent that there is a certain symmetry to the Trump administration's approach to governing. The latest example, the proposed rollback by the Environmental Protection Agency of mercury and particulate emission regulations that will surely increase the incidence of illness even as the administration and its allies in the states move to limit the availability of healthcare.(EPA Proposal Puts Costs Ahead of Gains In Human Health,  Dec.29, A15)

The vile nature and mercenary motive underlying these measures are evidenced by the identity of the players. EPA chief Andrew Wheeler's actions are hailed by  the client he formerly lobbied for (Robert Murray, Head of Murray Energy) while, tellingly, other energy companies which invested heavily to come into compliance oppose the rule changes. Meanwhile, the cuts in healthcare coverage are needed to fund the recent tax windfall for corporations and top earners.

President Trump's re-election slogan should read "Make America Sicker to Enrich the Wealthy".

Nationalism

David Brooks, in his column, "Yes, I'm an American Nationalist" (NYT 10/26/18, A25), declares that his love of country defines him. Though he applauds diversity and rejects "tribe against tribe", in his personal poll-taking he has found that only five percent of people feel most connected to humanity as a whole. Apparently, that justifies his enlightened nationalism.
I submit that Mr. Brooks takes a short-sighted view of nationalism. In reality, nations are but large tribes, however composed, whose self-interest historically and inevitably generated conflict. Yes, love of homeland is important in the present world configuration but, aspirationally, the goal should be one people, undivided and with a common interest in making life better for all.

The Sentencing of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn

 

In his initial sentencing memorandum Special Counsel Mueller praised Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, paid homage to his service, placed great value on his cooperation and recommended that he be spared a jail sentence. Implicit in this report was that Gen. Flynn had provided information likely to be highly damaging to President Trump. 

One would expect, therefore, that Mr. Trump and his acolytes would set about attacking the General and attempt to undercut his credibility.

But no, Mr. Trump recently began to heap praise upon Flynn and decry the unfair way in which he was tricked and trapped into admitting guilt for telling non-lies. Sean Hannity, Trump's advisor and mouthpiece on Fox News, has been promoting that same line but on steroids for the past two weeks. Gen. Flynn, according to Hannity, is a national hero who has been ruined by unscrupulous Deep-Staters who led him to plead guilty to a non-existent crime.

What is going on? Well perhaps we now know. Attorneys for Gen. Flynn have just filed their own pre-sentencing memo and, even though he is not likely to receive any jail time, Flynn has adopted the stratagem of claiming to be the victim of FBI misconduct (a claim soundly refuted by a response from Special Counsel).

So it would seem that Gen. Flynn has resumed his courtship of President Trump by undermining his own credibility and, thus, the value of his previously provided information. Presumably, he is again expecting (and perhaps has been promised) a presidential pardon as a reward for his eleventh hour turnabout. For this double-dealing he should be sent to jail. 

Alan Dershowitz. He's Back!

After a period of lowered profile, Prof. Alan Dershowitz has burst forth again as the go to liberal, legal pundit and favorite turncoat of Fox News and Sean Hannity. Having seemingly been shamed into quietude by the escalating misdeeds of President Trump and his administration, Prof. Dershowitz has re-emerged with even greater fervor to make a case for Mr. Trump's ongoing destruction of the rule of law and to denigrate the motives and methods of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

This time Prof. Dershowitz hardly attempts to cloak his tirades as the reservations of a concerned protector of civil liberties but, instead, echoes and amplifies the attacks of his friendly inquisitor, much to the obvious delight of Mr. Hannity.

Why has Prof. Dershowitz remounted his defense of Trump and his putdown of Mueller? Perhaps the sales of his book are lagging or maybe he is trying to find new friends to replace those he has alienated and lost

Appointment of Whitaker an Ethical Outrage

The firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the appointment of Matt Whitaker as his replacement has brought this nation to the threshold of a constitutional crisis.Mr. Whitaker has said publicly, on multiple occasions, that the Mueller investigation had crossed a redline and should be curtailed. He has also defended Donald Trump Jr. taking a meeting with Russians who offered to provide dirt about Hillary Clinton. Ethical standards would mandate that Mr. Whitaker recuse himself from any role in overseeing the Mueller investigation. That is not going to happen.
While Whitaker may be foreclosed by law from firing Mueller without good cause he is likely to claim falsely the existence of such cause. Alternatively, Whitaker will move to handcuff Mueller and insure that his anticipated findings never see the light of day.
The response to this unfolding outrage must be immediate and robust. The Congress must enact protective legislation. The soon to be chairs of the House Intelligence Committee (Rep. Adam Schiff) and the Judiciary Committee (Rep. Jerrold Nadler) should instruct Mueller to deliver his findings to their respective committees. They should also announce their intent to initiate investigations into the circumstances of the Whitaker appointment. Mueller must share his work product with the US Attorneys having jurisdiction of the subject matter of his investigation. Mueller should also immediately, if he has not already done so, request that Dep. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein grant him authority to share his findings with Congress.
Meanwhile, all respecters of the Constitution and adherents of the rule of law must take to the streets, en masse, to protest any attempt to subvert the critical work of the Special Counsel.

The FBI and Kavanaugh

It is now patently obvious that the supplemental background check performed by the FBI was a sham. The only uncertainty is why and the options for answering that are limited. Either the Bureau was straitjacketed by instructions received from Chairman Grassley and/or the White House or the agents were incompetent and/or ill-motivated. The failure to interview a majority of available witnesses or attempt to pinpoint the time and place of the assault is inexcusable. The scope of the inquiry was limited to corroboration of the attack and neglected to pursue evidence of excessive drinking or lying by Judge Kavanaugh.
Whatever the failings of the investigation, no rationale senator can ignore the blatant demonstration of Judge Kavanaugh's injudicious temperament and undisguised partisanship. As a horde of law professors have opined, Judge Kavanaugh is unfit to serve as a Justice of the Supreme Court

Standard of Proof in Kavanaugh Nomination

Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee have argued that evidence of Judge Brett Kavanaugh's misconduct is uncorroborated and fails to meet the test of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. As a prosecutor, many of the cases I tried involved only a single eyewitness, the victim. Even in the absence of other corroborating evidence, if the jury found that witness credible and accepted the accuracy of her identification of a perpetrator, the verdict was guilty even applying the high bar of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Judge Kavanaugh's bid to become a Justice of the Supreme Court must be gauged by his fitness to serve, a far lesser standard than the one applied in criminal trials. If Dr.Ford is believed, as the senators profess, and her testimony is, indeed, persuasive and credible, the Senate must reject Brett Kavanaugh. That conclusion is buttressed by the intemperate, blatantly partisan and unjudicial tenor of his response.

Tenuous Tenure of Rod Rosenstein

Sean Hannity and other rightwing talking heads  have strongly counseled President Trump not to fall into a Democratic trap by firing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein at this time. The apparent concern of these "counselors" is that the discharge of Mr. Rosenstein, in and of itself, would adversely affect Republican chances of holding the House in the midterm election.

While I agree that the object of this advice is to safeguard Republican election prospects, I believe that the underlying fear of Hannity and the others is that firing Rosenstein now would force the hand of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. His release of a  report prior to the November election, for fear that a Rosenstein replacement would likely kill the investigation and block publication of the report, would, undoubtedly damage Republican candidates.

Leaks About Rosenstein

The NY Times has broken a story that is likely to result in the firing of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and, thus, put at risk the completion of the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump and collusion between the Trump administration and Russia to affect the 2016 election.

The sources of the NY Times story apparently are persons within the Justice Department and/or the FBI among whose number, undoubtedly, are Trump supporters. I submit that those persons have used the NY Times to advance an agenda that includes discrediting and ending the Mueller probe. That inference is supported by recent predictions made on air by rightwing Fox commentators that Rosenstein would soon be in deep trouble.

The leaked information may well be true, that Rosenstein questioned the president's competence, raised the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment and considered recording his conversations with Trump. That does not justify its publication by the Times given the damage it likely will cause an investigation relied upon to expose the grave threat to our democracy and to hold accountable those responsible. Newspaper publishers in the past have distinguished themselves by refraining from printing news obviously harmful to national security. This was another such opportunity which, regrettably, has been lost.

How to Determine Whether Kavanaugh is Fit for Confirmation

A highly credentialed, professional woman has, reluctantly and out of a professed sense of civic duty, made serious allegations concerning the moral makeup and fitness for office of Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. Judge Kavanaugh has denied the accusation and multiple prior background checks have unearthed no evidence of wrongdoing. At least one senator, Hatch of Utah, has suggested that the accuser must be mistaken as to the identity of her assailant.

Many question how such a "he said, she said" issue can fairly be determined given the passage of time, the apparent absence of tangible evidence and the dearth of corroborating witnesses. In fact, it is not uncommon for investigators to confront this conundrum and there exists a standard protocol for attempting to arrive at the truth. The triers of fact must consider, among other factors, the following circumstances. 

Is the narrative of the victim credible, does it have the ring of truth? How well did the accuser know the accused? Whether a friend or a stranger obviously bears upon the victim's ability to recognize and identify the perpetrator. Was the condition of the young woman impaired in any way that might have affected her ability accurately to observe and remember? Does the accuser have any motive to be untruthful? Are there other persons who may have witnessed some part of the event and what do they recall? Do there exist any earlier accounts of the assault given by the accuser before it became politicized and were those accounts consistent with what is now alleged?

These are but a few of the avenues the senators should pursue in making the momentous judgment on whether to approve or reject the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh.

Pardons Off the Table Until After Investigation

In the guise of allaying the public's alarm, President Trump and his attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, have signaled potential "flippers" that they should keep their silence, secure in the knowledge that a pardon will be forthcoming before any jail term has to be served. Made to appear that the president and his team will not interfere in the Mueller investigation, the opposite is plainly their intent and their message is clear.

This maneuver is of a piece with the recently promoted notion that the firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions will be held in abeyance until after the November election, another signal that before Mueller can conclude his investigation a new Attorney General may fire him or, at least, handcuff his ability to enforce or report any findings of illegality.

Manafort Aide Attacked as Liar

As a retired judge who handled many criminal court trials, I am deeply disturbed by the behavior of federal judge T.S. Ellis III as he presides at the trial of Paul Manafort. His constant berating of the prosecutors might be excused as a function of an irascible personality, not a prized quality in a jurist, or as a by- product of his pursuit of a speedy trial.

However, Judge Ellis' interruptions of examination of witnesses and his own frequent questioning of witnesses, sometimes accompanied by remarks that suggest the judge's disbelief of the witness' credibility or his disapproval of the witness' behavior, constitute unacceptable and improper judicial demeanor. A trial judge must be sensitive to the influence his perceived views and behavior carry with jurors who often take the judge's apparent perspective as a guidepost for their own deliberations. A judge must not convey his private assessment of a case or a witness to the jurors who are the ultimate deciders of the facts.

I believe the prosecutors should request that Judge Ellis give a curative instruction to the jury advising that they must not draw any inferences or conclusions from the court's interpositions and assure the jurors that he does not have an opinion of the credibility of any witness nor of the guilt or innocence of the defendant.

Jay Sekulow's Bad Information

Now that it has been established that Donald Trump dictated the statement issued by his son, Donald Jr., falsely asserting that the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians was about adoptions, the president's lawyer, Jay Sekulow, says he had "bad information" when he made erroneous statements on behalf of the president denying any involvement by the president in the drafting of the false statement.

Mr. Sekulow has to know that any ethical attorney would first ask his client about the facts before issuing a statement on the client's behalf. So the conclusion is inevitable; one of four possibilities occurred. 1. Mr. Sekulow violated his ethical duty to question his client, or 2. his client lied to him, or 3. his client told him the truth and Mr. Sekulow lied to the public and the press and his client did not contradict him, or 4. perhaps most likely, Mr. Sekulow and Donald Trump conspired to put out a false statement. Under any of these options, Donald Trump is proven a liar and under all but one of the options, Mr. Sekulow merits the same condemnation.

Corporate Profits Soar as Wages Lag

Not surprisingly, as  the NYTimes has reported, corporate profits swell but laborers see no relief (7/14/18, A1). Even though there is a serious shortage of workers, which one would expect to result in higher wages, an increasing share of this country's wealth goes to investors and corporate executives while the pay and benefits of working people shrink.

Although several factors influence this trend, including automation and cheap foreign labor, the overriding reason for Labor's sorry lot is the decline in bargaining power represented by the ever diminishing size and power of labor unions. Unions, at their height, used the power of collective bargaining to end sweatshops and other abuses and gain living wages and benefits for a large swarth of our population. Now, unions are the victims of a "right to work" philosophy stealthily promoted by corporate interests and of the rulings of conservative courts which sanction laws and practices calculated to weaken or destroy unions.

Supreme Court Janus Ruling

When the Supreme Court, in Citizens United, opened the floodgates for corporate money to dominate American politics, the cop out was that unions also benefitted and would be free to counter corporate influence with their own large war chests. Now the court has wiped away even that illusory solace. In its latest ruling, Janus v. AFSCME, the court has struck the death knell of unions, at least in the public sector, by holding that non-union workers may not be required to pay their reduced share of the costs of the unions' core activities (especially collective bargaining) even though those workers get all the benefits won by the unions and their contributions may not be used to support the unions' political activities. 

The likely effect of this reversal of long-followed precedent by the court's slim conservative majority will be to cause unions to drastically shrink or even disappear, leaving the field of political funding to the corporate beneficiaries of Citizens United.

Fruit of the Poison Tree Scam

Opinion writers at the Wall Street Journal have invoked the legal doctrine known as the "fruit of the poisonous tree" to discredit the Mueller investigation. They argue that, because an FBI agent who was in on the initiation of a probe into collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign has been shown to have had a strong aversion to Donald Trump, the entire investigation, including the current version headed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, is tainted and any findings made or actions taken will be inadmissible and of no legal weight.
Patently, those editorial writers either failed to consult knowledgeable lawyers or received very bad legal advice. The fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine was created by courts to prevent and deter police and prosecutors from using evidence that would not have been discovered but for a seminal violation of an offender's constitutional rights.
Even if the investigation into Trump-Russia collusion originated from improper motives, a highly doubtful claim, the subsequent discovery of incriminating evidence by that investigation is, nevertheless, admissible provided it was not illegally obtained, i.e. did not flow from a violation of the defendant's Fourth Amendment rights.
Since the argument has no legal merit, it would seem to be part of an orchestrated campaign to politically undermine any findings that may be adverse to the Trump campaign.

Fruit of the Poison Tree Scam

Opinion writers at the Wall Street Journal have invoked the legal doctrine known as the "fruit of the poisonous tree" to discredit the Mueller investigation. They argue that, because an FBI agent who was in on the initiation of a probe into collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign has been shown to have had a strong aversion to Donald Trump, the entire investigation, including the current version headed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, is tainted and any findings made or actions taken will be inadmissible and of no legal weight.
Patently, those editorial writers either failed to consult knowledgeable lawyers or received very bad legal advice. The fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine was created by courts to prevent and deter police and prosecutors from using evidence that would not have been discovered but for a seminal violation of an offender's constitutional rights.
Even if the investigation into Trump-Russia collusion originated from improper motives, a highly doubtful claim, the subsequent discovery of incriminating evidence by that investigation is, nevertheless, admissible provided it was not illegally obtained, i.e. did not flow from a violation of the defendant's Fourth Amendment rights.
Since the argument has no legal merit, it would seem to be part of an orchestrated campaign to politically undermine any findings that may be adverse to the Trump campaign.

Rosenstein's Attempts to Appease President

It is widely believed that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has acceded to the demands of President Trump, to investigate the president's investigators, and of House Republicans, for disclosure of classified documents, in order to preserve his job and, thus, buy time for Special Counsel Robert Mueller to complete his inquiry. The expectation is that Mr. Mueller's findings will result in an indictment or report that will bring an end to the Trump presidency.

The concern is that by complying with those outrageous demands Mr. Rosenstein will have compromised the independence of the Justice Department and the sanctity of the investigative process. That outcome would damage bedrock principles of our democracy beyond repair.

This  Hobson's choice, between surrender or ouster, has been foisted upon Mr. Rosenstein by the cowardice or complicity of congressional Republicans.

Cutting Gun Crime in Chicago

The pro-gun lobby is fond of citing Chicago as a city with tough gun laws that, nevertheless, is awash in gun-related deaths. The message; tough gun control laws are ineffective. As the NYTimes reports (5/11/2018, A17) the Justice Department is using Chicago as a model in an effort to cut gun crime. A goal of that effort is to stem trafficking in firearms from other states, such as Arkansas, into Illinois. What this demonstrates is that tough gun laws in one city cannot be effective if many other cities in the country have lax rules and, thus, serve as open markets for weapons that are then funneled nation-wide into places with strict control.

The solution is obvious. Gun-related crimes can be reduced only if there is put in place a national policy that restricts the easy availability of guns everywhere in the nation.

Mueller's Questions for Trump

After reviewing the list of questions that Special Counsel Mueller purportedly wants to ask President Trump, as reported by the NYTimes, Sean Hannity castigated Mr.Mueller for delving into the thought process of the president. How, Mr. Hannity demanded to know, can one be criminally punished for what he is thinking?  Such inquiry is outrageous, said Hannity. What Mr. Hannity does not seem to realize, or chooses to ignore, is that a person's intent is almost always a required element of a crime. Thus, while President Trump may have been empowered to fire FBI Director James Comey, that action may constitute the crime of obstruction if it was corruptly motivated (i.e. intended to thwart an ongoing investigation).

One time-honored way, among several, to discern a person's intent is to ask him what he was thinking when he took the suspect action. Of course, given Mr. Trump's patent disregard for truth, Mr. Mueller would be well-advised to assess intent from what the president said to others about the reason for his action (eg, to the Russian ambassador and to Lester Holt of NBC) and by examining other relevant circumstances from which intent may be inferred.

House Committee Sham Report

Surprise, surprise! The Republican majority of the House Intelligence Committee, headed by that intrepid investigator Devon Nunes, has concluded its investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election by issuing a report which finds no evidence  that the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow.

To reach this warped result, the Republican committee members were required to ignore facts, curtail inquiry, leave key witnesses unexamined, essential documents unprocured and to leap from unwarranted assumptions to a foregone conclusion.

Presumably, this rush to rash judgment will not deter the real investigation being conducted by Special Counsel Mueller, an investigation likely to end with a very different outcome.

The Comey Memos

It is becoming more and more obvious that Republicans are being driven to distort the truth, whether to thwart the Russia investigation or to protect their own electoral prospects by providing a defense to Donald Trump. Three Republican House committee chairmen have issued a joint statement arguing that there has been no obstruction because Comey, in his memos, "never once mentioned ... whether he felt obstructed in his investigation". How Comey felt is of no legal significance. The test is what Trump intended and even if he failed to achieve his goal, of ending an FBI investigation, his direction may still constitute the crime of attempted obstruction.

In furtherance of this latest assault on truth Republicans are abetted by cable news commentator and presidential advisor Sean Hannity, who falsely claims that the Comey memos, at the time they were shared with a Comey friend, contained classified information. This inaccurate assertion is of a piece with Hannity's untruthful description of the Steele dossier as being filled with unverified lies authored by a foreign spy and based upon Russian propaganda. In fact, much of the dossier's content has been corroborated, and none of it has been disproven. It was compiled by an ex-intelligence officer of a close ally whose reliability has been established and whose sources in Russia, at great risk, provided information which was clearly not in the interests of Putin. To suggest that Comey misused the dossier further demonstrates the groundless nature of the attacks upon him.

The Charges Against McCabe

The Inspector-General of the FBI has made a criminal referral to the Justice Department apparently recommending that criminal charges be brought against former Acting Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe for making unauthorized disclosures to the press and then lying about it to the I.G. McCabe's alleged misconduct has been seized upon by the likes of Devon Nunes, Chair of the House Intelligence Committee and Sean Hannity of Fox News, both vociferous defenders of President Trump, as proof that the FBI's Russia investigation is a witch hunt and that McCabe is part of a cabal attempting to bring down the Trump presidency.

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the allegations of McCabe's misdeeds are true, what each of Mr. Nunes and Mr. Hannity should be required to answer is, who was hurt by McCabe's alleged transgressions, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump? The incontrovertible fact is that the information allegedly leaked by McCabe was damaging to Ms. Clinton and, thus, helpful to Mr. Trump. How in the world can this set of facts be spun to support the notion that the FBI is out to get Trump?

Alan Dershowitz Reborn

Alan Dershowitz was long regarded as a champion of civil liberties (he served on the board of the ACLU), as an outspoken advocate for victims of an oppressive criminal justice system and as a distinguished professor of law at Harvard University. While, at times, he espoused controversial, even outrageous, legal positions and his confrontational persona offended some, his sincerity and commitment to a just and evenhanded legal system was seldom questioned.

In recent days, however, a new model of Prof. Dershowitz has gradually evolved. This altered version began with small steps that seemed in keeping with his concern for rigorous implementation of constitutional protections even as his pronouncements, seemingly by coincidence, aided a beleaguered President Trump. Thus, Dershowitz authored an op-ed piece for this newspaper which cautioned against criminalizing political conduct and argued that the president could not be guilty of obstruction when he directed FBI Director Comey to discontinue the Flynn investigation. The learned professor's argument seems to have overlooked the recognized legal principle that actions motivated by an improper purpose, even though within the president's executive powers, may still constitute obstruction of justice.

In the service of promoting his new book,"Trumped Up", Dershowitz began to appear on the Fox cable network, which apparently welcomed the opportunity to enlist an icon of the Left in support of pro-Trump arguments. The more often he appears, particularly on the program hosted by Sean Hannity, the stronger and more strident the professor's pro Trump rhetoric becomes (though he appears to adjust his take and tone when on non-conservative channels). Unsurprisingly, President Trump, who reportedly gets most of his information by watching Fox News, has taken note of this unexpected source of legal support and Dershowitz was invited to dine at the White House.

Now Dershowitz appears regularly on the Hannity show and makes full-throated attacks upon President Trump's nemesis Special Counsel Robert Mueller and Deputy Attorney-General Rosenstein. While disclaiming any role as Trump's attorney he, nevertheless, offers advice apparently intended to guide the President's defense. Thus, he recently suggested that Trump should decline to be interviewed by Mueller and should invoke not the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination (which would be politically disastrous) but rather the Sixth Amendment's right to counsel. The professor's perplexing argument is that Trump could proclaim his desire to testify but assert that he is foreclosed from doing so by his attorneys' direction to abstain. Being bound by his attorneys' instructions Trump is somehow deprived of his right to counsel. This argument is not only legally baseless and illogical, it contravenes the well-established principle (which surely is known to the former Harvard professor) that the client has the ultimate and absolute right to decide whether to testify on his own behalf.

It is difficult to fathom why Professor Dershowitz has executed such a radical about-face at this stage of his long legal career. One can only speculate that he may be driven by a need for renewed public attention, an appetite whetted by the new-found adulation heaped by Fox News, a desire to promote the sale of his book or an identification with the Middle East policy of the Trump administration. In any event, for better or for worse, the new Alan Dershowitz has regained, for the moment, his place on the national stage.

Good Riddance Mr. Speaker

Christopher Buskirk, in his not-so-fond farewell to Speaker Paul Ryan (NYT April 13, A27), accurately details the many ways in which Mr. Ryan failed to deliver on his promises and to fulfill his purported potential as a financial policy wonk. Yes, he has left a mess but Mr. Buskirk's remedy is hardly a prescription for redemption. Instead, Mr. Buskirk perceives a need for new leadership that will be in step with the president and his agenda and which will resonate with "the intellectual and political reformation underway on the right".

There is nothing intellectual or reforming about the president's agenda. It is devoid of thought and rife with corruption. Indeed, Mr. Ryan's failings pale in comparison with the alternative chaos promoted by Mr. Buskirk as the saving solution.

Scott Pruitt and the EPA

So, according to today's front page (NYT Mar. 18), Scott Pruitt intends to use his position as head of the Environmental Protection Agency to run for president in 2024. What is also apparent is that Mr. Pruitt is using his post as a Trojan-horse assault upon the very agency he is charged with leading. Mr. Pruitt has every right to champion deregulation of environmental protections and oppose efforts to combat climate change, as he did when he was attorney-general of Oklahoma, but he should not be permitted to sandbag an agency created by law to accomplish just the opposite. His wholesale dismantling of scientifically-based programs and regulations and his harsh critique of his own agency is subversive and wholly at odds with the obligations of his office. 

That's what happens when you elect a president who puts a fox in charge of the henhouse.

President Trump and Gun Control

Two things became apparent during the "show and tell" gun conference President Trump conducted
today. First, he compulsively {and predictably) blames President Obama for lack of gun regulation,
ignoring that every attempt by his predecessor, to secure a sensible law, was blocked by an NRA-
dominated Republican majority in Congress. Now, only he, an action hero in his own mind, can bring
about true reform, however incremental.

Second, President Trump's insistence, that a potential shooter would not enter any school if he knew
he would be met by a hail of bullets from armed teachers, demonstrates his complete ignorance of the
psychological dynamics underlying these tragedies. The attacker invariably embarks on these
massacres fully believing and intending that he will be killed in the attempt. Indeed, the record shows
that most shooters commit suicide if they are not first gunned down. So arming school personnel is
hardly a deterrent.

A Better Way to Protect Mueller

Do Neal Katyal and Kenneth Starr really believe that the Mueller investigation can best be protected by shaming Donald Trump into agreeing to a "Bork-style" regulation by which he would agree not to exercise his constitutional powers to effect the discharge of the special prosecutor or limit his independence? Gentlemen, get real. President Trump gives proof every day that he is not in the least concerned that his actions demonstrate a guilty conscience and that there is much he wishes to keep hidden.

The only effective way to keep the Mueller investigation going (and it is our only defense to Russian cyber attacks given Trump's abdication of leadership), is for members of Congress, across party lines, to show the fortitude this crisis demands and make clear to the President that interference with Mueller's work will surely bring about his impeachment

Fix the FBI Don't Politicize It

In the guise of chiding President Trump, Professor John Yoo (yes, the same lawyer who, as a George W. Bush public official made the case justifying "enhanced interrogation", ie. torture), now gives cover to the unjustified forcing out of F.B.I. deputy director Andrew McCabe and the release of an apparently one-sided, hatchet-job memo prepared by the staff of the hopelessly conflicted Rep. Devin Nunes.

Prof. Yoo, in substance, applauds the "clearing out" of McCabe because of his wife's political involvement and gives credence to the notion that the use of information obtained from Russian sources by a recognized intelligence professional is, somehow, a "shocking collapse of standards" because it was financed by a political campaign. All of this would be OK, Prof. Yoo suggests, if only President Trump didn't muck it up by taunting McCabe and injecting a claim of conspiracy to eavesdrop by the Obama administration.

Ironically, Prof. Yoo's article invokes Machiavelli without seeming to recognize the Machiavellian nature of his own presentation.