Donald Trump is destroying American exceptionalism after decades of being a "shining city on the hill"

Echo opinion published in Idaho Capital Sun newspaper by Jim Jones

Ever since the defeat of the Axis Powers in World War II, America has been admired around the world as a beacon of equality, freedom and opportunity. That admiration helped the United States become the world’s preeminent economic and military power over the last 80 years. While we have faced serious problems, like racial inequality, poverty and questionable wars, our elected representatives have usually been able to work together in an effort to address them. 

I fear that the era of America’s economic and moral dominance is now faltering and headed into a period of decline.

The so-called big, beautiful bill, which the U.S. House of Representatives passed on May 22, is a symptom of the decline. It will greatly benefit the wealthy, while denying medical care, food assistance and other social safety-net programs to those on the lower income scale. The bill would substantially increase income inequality in the country and likely necessitate a $500 billion cut in Medicare spending. It is unfathomable that U.S. Reps. Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson voted for the bill and that Gov. Brad Little strongly supported its passage. Unless the U.S. Senate stops the bill in its tracks, the states will have to increase their budgetary outlays or let their voters go without vital services.  

The national debt consequences of the bill are also of great concern. It should be remembered that Trump added $8.4 trillion to the national debt during his first term, more than any other U.S. president. His big, beautiful bill would add an additional $3.8 trillion to the debt, which would raise the debt from its current $36.2 trillion to a whopping $40 trillion. That is a very serious problem in itself, but made substantially worse by other destructive actions he has taken that will seriously hinder the nation’s ability to deal with that massive debt.

The U.S. lives wildly beyond its means by borrowing against the future. Instead of requiring wealthy corporations and individuals to pay their fair share of taxes, we simply finance the deficits by issuing government bonds.

Since the mid-1990s the GOP has forgotten that budget deficits can be prevented by raising adequate revenue. Thus, the national debt has ballooned from $5.6 trillion in 2000 to $36.2 trillion at the end of 2024.  About $8.5 trillion of the debt is held by foreign governments and investors.

Foreigners have helped finance our debt because the U.S. has been regarded as a steady, reliable trustworthy nation. Our dollar is the coin of the international realm, and our government bonds have always been seen as a safe, reliable investment, particularly in times of international economic turmoil.

Donald Trump has shaken the world order by dumping on our friends and allies, including those closest to us – Canada, Mexico, the European Union, Japan and Korea.

He has disregarded trading relationships that have made America the leader of the free world. Trump’s latest threat to impose 50% tariffs on European nations seems designed to drive away our steadiest, most-reliable trading partners and military allies. His erratic and self-defeating tariff actions have shown America to be an unreliable partner. Our friends and allies have started forging stronger trading relationships among themselves and with China, our chief international adversary. This will reverberate against U.S. economic and security interests well into the future.

The bond market has become increasingly edgy about Trump’s erratic behavior. Investors are concerned about the safety of U.S. bonds, as evidenced by an increasing interest rate on our nation’s bonded indebtedness. The big, beautiful bill promises to trigger a crisis in the bond market. A well-regarded economist has observed: “The U.S. government bond markets are already shaky, long-term interest rates are rising, and it seems that foreign investors are fleeing the United States.” It is inconceivable that such chaos in the economic foundation of our country could have occurred since January.

America has long been regarded as the moral beacon of the world. As President Ronald Reagan put it in his Farewell Address — “The shining city upon a hill.” That perception is no longer the case. A recent survey discloses that America’s worldwide popularity has suffered a collapse since January. China is now regarded more favorably than the United States. Trump is viewed more negatively (58%) than Vladimir Putin (49%) and Xi Jinping (31%). Those dismal numbers foretell a decline in America’s ability to sustain its position as the premier moral, economic and military power in the world.

Donald Trump's failed COVID-19 response has exacerbated the pandemic

Playing a dangerous whack-a-mole arcade game with the coronavirus has been a losing Trump plan.

Echo opinion published in the Idaho State Journal newspaper, by the columnist Jim Jones.  

America is being treated as an international COVID-19 pariah by much of the developed world. We can’t travel to Europe because of our raging COVID-19 infections. We are not allowed into Canada, and many local governments in Mexico do not want U.S. visitors. Why is our country being treated like a leper colony?

For months, the U.S. has had the most reported COVID-19 infections of any nation on Earth. No other country even comes close. On July 19, we reported 65,279 new COVID-19 cases among our 331 million people. That same day, 273 cases were reported in Germany, 218 in Italy, 726 in the UK, 339 across the border in Canada and 7,615 in Mexico. The European Union, with a population near 445 million, has been reporting around 6,000 cases per day for several weeks. All told, the U.S. had almost 30% of the reported world infections on July 19.

How could the U.S. be such a COVID-19 basket case? As I pointed out in an April 24 column, Donald Trump’s plan for the coronavirus was to dump that job on the nation’s governors so that he could avoid any blame if things went badly. He refused to develop a coordinated strategy for handling this serious national threat, claiming it was the governors’ jobs to conduct the necessary testing, tracing, staffing, equipping and preventive measures to stop the virus.

Trump virus- Donald Trump's colossal leadership failure has caused the COVID-19 to spread.

When I wrote that column, infections were out of hand in northeastern states. However, infections were then low in many other states, including Texas, Florida, Arizona, California and South Carolina. Now, the virus has abated in New York but is ravaging southern and western states. On July 19, Florida, Texas and California reported a combined total of 29,203 cases, each state’s cases exceeding those of the entire European Union.

The problem is that the coronavirus does not recognize state boundary lines. Americans travel around the country, carrying the virus with them. The Trump plan of foisting his responsibility onto the states has resulted in a whack-a-mole game of individual governors struggling to control the virus in their state just as it pops up in another.

If Trump had taken the reins right at the start, implemented a nationwide strategy and followed the advice of the scientists, we could have brought the virus under control, like the nations of the European Union. 

Instead, Trump’s COVID-19 response is the worst of any world leader. With Trump’s mole-whacking approach, we have about one-fourth of world deaths, a struggling economy that will take years to right itself and damage to our national image that will haunt us long into the future. The U.S. is no longer admired as the can-do country.

It will not get any better during the remainder of Trump's tenure. He has taken to undercutting Dr. Tony Fauci and the other epidemiologists, falsely claiming that the virus will magically disappear, forcing premature state openings, and dithering about the use of masks and other protective measures. 

Many more people will needlessly die, there will be turmoil about when and how to open schools and the economy will suffer additional catastrophic damage. The American people have it in their hands to stop this losing mole-whacking approach in November. 

Enough is enough.
Jim Jones served as an Army artillery officer in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969 and received an Army Commendation Medal for his work with an orphanage there. 

He served for eight years as Idaho Attorney General and was a justice on the Idaho Supreme Court for 12 years. He currently resides in Boise. His weekly columns can be found at JJCommonTater.com.

Jim Jones’ weekly columns can be found at JJCommonTater.com.

Mueller report 101- Russia made ongoing attempts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election

An echo Idahoan point of view by Columnist Jim Jones.

Opinion published in the Idaho Press

Russia was listening! Debate about what the Special Counsel Robert Mueller Report concluded, with regard to Russian interference in the 2016 election, has only intensified since May 29, when Mueller spoke to the nation. In his sphinx-like manner, the special counsel summarized what he had found, declining to go beyond the confines of his written report.

Mueller was unequivocal on one point--the Russians engaged in “multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election.” He began and ended his presentation with that stark warning, apparently confounded by the fact that the U.S. has not seriously mobilized to stop it from happening again in 2020. Normally, there would be an all-hands-on-deck effort to warn off the Russians, prepare strong counter measures, and harden our election systems, among other things, but these are not normal times.

Because Mueller declined to give his personal views on the report findings, all sides have stepped forward to give their particular slant. The Attorney General has repeatedly claimed that the report found no “collusion” between the Russians and the Trump campaign. That is absolutely correct but beside the point. On pages 2 and 180 of Volume One of his report, Mueller clearly states that he did not look into the question of whether there was collusion.

Mueller’s inquiry was concerned with whether the Trump campaign committed the crime of conspiracy, which he describes at page 181 as “an agreement to commit any substantive violation of federal criminal law — including foreign-influence and campaign-finance laws.”

The report details over 140 Russian contacts with the Trump campaign in pages 66-173 of Volume One, concluding that Russia made offers of assistance to the campaign and that the campaign was receptive to some of those offers. However, Mueller said on May 29, that “there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy.” At page 2 of the report he clarifies: “A statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts.” In other words, there was evidence of conspiracy, but not enough to support a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt.

Proving criminal conspiracy is no easy task because of the reasonable doubt standard. During my tenure as Idaho Attorney General in the 1980s, I spent many hours trying to pinpoint price-fixing among gasoline dealers. It generally requires either court-approved electronic surveillance or a credible inside source to make a try-able conspiracy case. A phone tap won’t help if the conduct is not on-going, and credible inside sources are hard to come by, as Paul Manafort clearly demonstrated.

I often explained to the public that it was not a price-fixing conspiracy for gas retailers to charge the same price all over town. It was only an unlawful conspiracy when there was an agreement to set prices. In the case of the 2016, election, there would have had to be strong proof of an agreement between Russian actors and the campaign in order to establish a conspiracy. Mueller implies that such evidence existed, but he apparently was unable to obtain enough documents or credible inside witnesses to prove it.

A preponderance of evidence exists to support the Trump campaign's 2016 collusion with the Russians. Nevertheless, we may never know whether the Russian interference helped Trump win the presidency. The President hinted in that direction when he tweeted on May 30 that, “I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected.” He later denied that Russia helped him get elected.

What we do know is that Russia gave the President substantial help in the 2016 election. Putin admitted in Helsinki that he wanted Trump to win. All honorable and patriotic presidential candidates should loudly and clearly tell the Russians and every other foreign country that the United States will not tolerate interference in our elections in 2020 or ever. Indeed, Idaho's Congressional delegation should demand severe consequences for those who try to pervert our democracy.

Jim Jones’ previous columns can be found at https://JJCommonTater.com.

Russia if you are listening - Donald Trump is still deaf to the Russia threat

Echo opinion published in the Idaho State Journal by columnist Jim Jones (In my opinion, Donald Trump's teenage crush on Vladimir Putin is unpatriotic and his behavior towards Russia's dictator is disgusting. I have already warned Russian bots, who are now reappearing on my Twitter feed, they will be "blocked" and reported to @Twitter)

Christopher A. Wray is the current Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

Opinion echo from Idaho:  Christopher Wray, the FBI director, warned on April 26 that Russian interference in the 2020 election presents a “significant counterintelligence threat.” His warning followed the Worldwide Threat Assessment issued by U.S. intelligence agencies in January.

The WTA predicted that in 2020, “Moscow may employ additional influence tool kits —such as spreading disinformation, conducting hack-and-leak operations or manipulating data — in a more targeted fashion to influence U.S. policy, actions and elections.” Wray characterized Russia’s malign cyber-warfare as “pretty much a 365-day-a-year threat.”

Despite Robert Mueller’s detailed and chilling report on the extent of Russian efforts to manipulate the 2016 election, President Trump remains unconvinced and unconcerned. He has not taken it upon himself to rally Americans against this serious threat, nor has he taken decisive punitive action against the aggressors.

Instead, Trump has either ignored or downplayed the malevolent Russian attack on our country. When the former Homeland Security Secretary tried to organize a coordinated defense of our 2020 election, she was discouraged by Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s chief of staff. Mulvaney reportedly told her that the Russian interference issue “wasn’t a great subject and should be kept below (Trump’s) level.

Trump’s son-in-law, apparently taking his cue from the top, blew off the Russian election attack as “a couple of Facebook ads (?!).” 

Trumpzi-in-law should read the 199 pages of Volume One of the Mueller Report, where (Jared) Kushner appears with some regularity. Mueller details a concerted Russian effort to influence the 2016 election by illegal hacking of computers, distribution of hacked documents, and sophisticated targeting of social media.

Some congressional Republicans have urged a much more muscular response to Putin’s aggression and have worked with Democrats to put a stop to it. The President has gone along grudgingly but nowhere near sufficiently. I fervently pray it is not because he hopes to once again benefit from Russian help.

Trump seems to think that acknowledging the wide-ranging nature of the Russian influence operation and its potential impact on the election result is a threat to his legitimacy in office.

Get over it, Trump! You won the electoral college vote and nobody is going to be able to dislodge you from office simply because of Putin’s handiwork. 

But, the Russian influence operation may have been sufficient to swing the election in your direction, or that could have been accomplished by Jim Comey’s blundering efforts, but it is water under the bridge.

What is critical at this juncture is to put the election behind and govern — protect the country from its enemies, rebuild our infrastructure, try to solve the growing income equality in the country, work to reform the immigration system, try to preserve the American dream, combat the existential threat of climate change and so much more.

The President reminds me of some clients I had during my 25 years of private law practice. Instead of moving forward with their lives, they insisted on re-litigating the past — dwelling upon past mistreatment and slights, rather than living to make a better life in the present and future. It is a losing strategy, both for that person and for those around the disgruntled person.

It’s high time to move past the 2016 election and focus on the future. Whether or not the election result was questionable, there is a future to deal with, problems to address, lives to productively live. A bruised presidential ego does not take priority over the security of the United States.

Jim Jones served as an Army artillery officer in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969 and received an Army Commendation Medal for his work with an orphanage there. He served for eight years as Idaho Attorney General and was a justice on the Idaho Supreme Court for 12 years. He currently resides in Boise.