#fakeBarrLetter - does not exonerate Donald Trump

Donald Trump lies about his golf game and can't even admit to his height and weight. 

"They didn’t report any of those multiple offers by a hostile foreign power to the FBI."

Gene Lyons opinion echo published in the Biddeford Maine Journal Tribune:

So Trump says the Mueller report proves his innocence: “No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION.”

As usual, he’s making it up.

Nobody outside the Justice Department has seen the Mueller report yet. But even Attorney General William Barr’s four-page summary of the evidence regarding obstruction of justice specifically quotes its author: “(W)hile this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

The word “collusion” appears nowhere in Barr’s summary. He does write that “the Special Counsel did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign.”

Here’s something else they didn’t do: They didn’t report any of those multiple offers by a hostile foreign power to the FBI. That in itself constitutes a profound betrayal. Indeed, history records that Trump himself vociferously and repeatedly denied what U.S. intelligence agencies said was definitive evidence of Russian skullduggery. “It could be Russia … It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds,” the candidate claimed during one presidential debate. Trump’s strange obsequiousness toward Vladimir Putin continues to this day.

Trump's campaign knew all about Russian hacks of DNC emails; that much has been proven beyond a doubt. (Russia if you're listening!) At minimum, they sat on their hands. Reading between the lines of Barr’s summary, it’s clear that the Mueller report endorses the central finding of the intelligence community: The Russians actively worked to help Trump win the 2016 election. We should be asking ourselves why.

What did Russia hope to gain?

Conspiracy, of course, is a notoriously difficult crime to prove. It becomes almost impossible when one party to a corrupt bargain is beyond the law: that is, resides in Russia and isn’t being made available to investigators.

Which is not to say that a cunning rogue like Donald Trump was ever going to enter into a quid pro quo arrangement with the Russian government and leave fingerprints. It was always naive to think that he might. The president famously doesn’t write things down. These things are done with winks and nudges. What’s said and what’s not said.

A Kremlin intermediary offers “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Donald Jr. is dumb enough to write, “I love it,” and to take a meeting — the famous June 2016 session at Trump Tower with Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya — but Donald Sr. remains offstage. In the building, but not at the meeting.

What’s more, Veselnitskaya isn’t technically a member of the Russian government. Neither, however, has she visited the United States since her name first surfaced in The New York Times. Sure, the president helped Junior concoct a fake cover story, but it has never been a crime to lie to the press.

This too: Insufficient evidence to prove a criminal conspiracy isn’t the same as no evidence. As shrewdly as Attorney General Barr has played his hand so far, that’s worth keeping in mind. We’ll find out how Trump triumphalism looks after people have read the actual report, although the necessity of reading and thinking about a complex document with Sean Hannity screaming in our collective ears will certainly limit the Mueller report’s impact.

It’s also worth remembering that there are all sorts of dishonorable actions that aren’t crimes. For example, it’s not a crime for a man to have an affair with his sister-in-law, but it’s contemptible all the same. As Michael Kinsley once quipped, “The scandal isn’t what’s illegal; the scandal is what’s legal.”

I agree with The Atlantic’s Franklin Foer that the single most unsettling revelation of the entire investigation is the one that fixer Michael Cohen is going to prison for lying to Congress about: Trump Tower Moscow.

Trump himself repeatedly and shamelessly lied about the project throughout the presidential campaign, praising Vladimir Putin at every turn, and falsely claiming to have no business dealings whatsoever in Russia while standing to profit by hundreds of millions had it gone through.

But once again, Trump didn’t do it under oath, and it’s not a crime to lie to American voters. Even if by so doing he exposed himself to potential Russian blackmail. Had Trump not behaved himself, Putin could have pulled the plug on his presidential campaign in a heartbeat. Trump behaved.

Franklin Foer: “Trump’s motive for praising Putin appears to have been, in large part, commercial. With his relentless pursuit of Trump Tower Moscow, the Republican nominee for president had active commercial interests in Russia that he failed to disclose to the American people. … Trump ran his campaign as something of an infomercial, hoping to convince the Russians that he was a good partner. To enrich himself, Trump promised to realign American foreign policy.”

“Total EXONERATION,” the man says.

I don’t think so.

— Arkansas Times columnist Gene Lyons is a National Magazine Award winner.

Donald Trump - the cruel budget with broken promises

To say the budget is revolting and immoral would be a vast understatement.- Mel Gurtov

Moreover, the cruel Trump budget breaks his promise to protect Social Security and Medicare.

Donald Trump's cruel budget is another broken promise to Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries

Make no cuts to Medicare

“I’m not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid.”- Donald Trump

An echo opinion essay published in the Biddeford Maine Journal Tribune, by Mel Gurtov, a syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University.

Two things can be said with certainty about Donald Trump’s 2020 budget request: It is DOA, dead on arrival, in the House; and it is a political document, catering to his loyal supporters, rather than a serious fiscal statement.

What the budget request reveals is that Trump, left to his own devices, would further skewer the middle class and low-income groups, downgrade diplomacy and environmental protection, give the military more than it really wants or needs, and fulfill his obsession with a border wall. To say the budget is revolting and immoral would be a vast understatement. But it may (and should) give Democrats additional evidence of Trump’s unfitness to lead.

Below is a quick breakdown of the budget proposal. 

The Washington Post has a very good analysis March 13, and is the source for the figures below.

Proposed changes to funding in Trump’s budget

-31 percent Environmental Protection Agency
-24 percent State and USAID
-19 percent Transportation
-16 percent Housing and Urban Development
-15 percent Agriculture
-14 percent Interior
-12 percent Health and Human Services
-12 percent Education
-11 percent Energy
-10 percent Labor
-2 percent Justice
-2 percent NASA
-2 percent Treasury
+5 percent Defense
+7 percent Commerce
+7 percent Homeland Security
+8 percent Veterans Affairs

Key proposed additions

— Adds more than $33 billion to the Department of Defense budget, for a total of $718 billion, 57 percent of the proposed federal discretionary budget
— Allocates $8.6 billion to build sections of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, on top of the close to $7 billion Trump already announced in his national emergency declaration
— Sets aside $750 million to establish a paid parental leave program and $1 billion for a one-time fund to help underserved populations and encourage company investment in child-care
— Commits $291 million toward ending the spread of HIV in the United States within a decade, a promise Trump made in his State of the Union last month

Key proposed cut$

— Cuts $845 billion over the next 10 years from Medicare, the federal program that provides health insurance to older Americans
— Removes $241 billion from Medicaid, the health-care program for low-income Americans, over the next decade as part of an overhaul that shifts more power to states
— Slashes $220 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) over the next decade, with proposed reforms including mandatory work requirements and food box delivery service in lieu of cash benefits for low-income families
— Reductions to the federal student loan programs that total $207 billion in the next 10 years and include eliminating Public Service Loan Forgiveness and subsidized student loans.

Mel Gurtov, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University.

Teaching honesty in leadership: Donald Trump case study

Echo opinion by Win Laven: Dangerous White Lies published in the Biddeford Maine Journal Tribune newspaper.

When he started teaching at the university level, about 1,500 students ago, he had no idea that he'd ever have to dedicate class time to address honesty, wrote Laven.

Let's begin with plagiarism!  As all academics know, it's the word that will ruin a career.  It's analogous to cheating.

Some brief reminders on plagiarism, Melania Trump could use some help. In fact, her “Be Best” speech was stolen from Michelle Obama, some might think it was good for a couple laughs.

Over a short period of time, truth became quite an issue. What sense students make of a president who’d told 4,229 lies in the first 558 days of his presidency? What about his claims about “fake news?” Over and over Donald Trump cries out “FAKE NEWS” only for the story to be confirmed as true.

My job is not to be an oracle of truth, I don’t lie, but that only encourages the return to authority as truth; I try to give the tools for navigating the terrain of dishonesty, but I’ll admit it is getting harder.

“All politicians lie.”

Statements of universal political dishonesty are ubiquitous, but are they accurate? In class, students are expected to learn about ad hominem arguments, this is the fallacy of attacking a source instead of the claim, which is intended to inspire a false equivalence.

That Trump has lied at a pace without any comparison is not in and of itself proof that any particular statement is a lie, it is just good evidence for claiming him to be untrustworthy. 

Barack Obama lost some trust when he won the lie of the year distinction in 2013 for saying, “if you like your health care plan you can keep it.”

Claims must be judged on their merits, period. Not all lies are the same, and a university education is expected to provide students with the ability to evaluate claims. Clearly some politicians are more honest than others.

“It is just he said, she said…”

Trump’s recent nomination to the Supreme Court is a controversy, like many (maybe even most) of his decisions so it is not surprising that people have chosen sides. But many popular memes are simple not true. “He said, she said” is an effort to make an equivalence in testimony, and it is used to argue towards the point that if you’re going to believe testimony, then you must trust both testimonies equally.

The point could not be further from the truth. Testimony is evidence, and evidence is used to support or deny claims. Witness testimony is one of the most common types of evidence used, and there are many mitigating factors used in judging the veracity of its value as evidence. Evidence must always be weighed against a standard of judgment.

“Supporting Kavanaugh means you believe in innocent until proven guilty”
Students are very confused about standards of judgment. Despite the factual basis for standards of judgment—let me be clear here, class, the presumption of innocence relates to criminal law—the hearing for a Supreme Court Justice is not a criminal matter, it is a job interview.

The elevated standard—beyond reasonable doubt—is used in criminal cases because a person’s freedom or life is at stake. 

Other cases use different standards, like “preponderance of the evidence” or “clear and convincing.” The burden of proof is different out of utility, an employer does not need to “prove” you were smoking marijuana outside before the interview, they may pass on your application just for smelling the weed on you, even in a state where it has been legalized.

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” ― Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Senator Jeff Flake (Republican- Arizona) used this quote when he called out Trump’s dishonesty. He noted “alternative facts” and the assault on the free press among his criticisms. He was troubled by Trump’s naming of the press as “the enemy of the people.” 

Flake is credited with getting the Senate to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct in the Kavanaugh nomination, which may have been prompted by two women confronting him with their “my assault does matter” in an elevator.

But the fact is that the investigation was limited. The White House was allowed complete control over “facts,” they determined some allegations were not credible enough to be investigated. Fact: checks and balances were put in place on purpose.

Opinion: We should be scared that Trump has too much influence over appointing a judge who could possibly have a deciding vote in a case on his impeachment; the lies are destroying the country, and the US has become a complete laughing stock; the Russian troll farms were able to weaponize American ignorance and susceptibility to dishonesty—the lies have real consequences.

When will Americans become lifelong learners and begin to sift truth from lies competently?

Wim Laven, is a doctoral candidate in International Conflict Management at Kennesaw State University, in Georgia. He teaches courses in political science and conflict resolution, and is on the Governing Council of the International Peace Research Association.

Korean War Marine veteran writes about current Commander in Chief

https://www.journaltribune.com/articles/letters-to-the-editor/commander-in-chief/

Salute to Senator John McCain - (He's a hero. Current CIC is not!)

Echo letter to the editor of the Biddeford Maine Journal Tribune:

I’m an old U.S. Marine who proudly served this wonderful country of ours, during and after the Korean War, and if I were a young Marine today, and had to salute the present Commander-in-Chief, after doing so I would throw up my guts in disgust.

People that think there is nothing lower than whale doo-doo, well think again.

I, with a tear in my eye, salute Senator John McCain for his heroism, patriotism, and true grit.

Senator McCain, all your brother and sister veterans know you are at peace in heaven, for you served your hell on earth in the Hanoi Hilton.

R.I.P., our hero.
Semper Fi,

Toby Koles, Saco, Maine