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The Screaming Moderate

Does Brexit apply here?

6/27/2016

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Brexit is the new word we’re all learning now that Great Britain has voted to remove itself from the European Union, and world financial markets are dizzy from the reaction.

Watching and reading the stories the last few days, one reaction stood out to me as to its effect on the United States. It’s not that the vote in Great Britain is foreboding for the U.S. There are sufficient differences in our voters that it isn’t necessarily predictive. Sure there’s the immigration issue that is similar here. Sure there is anger at the “establishments” in both countries. But the voters over there are not as diverse as voters in America and we elect presidents based on the Electoral College, not a national vote. So while there is a message in the vote "over there" it isn't that there is a trend and Trump will win here.

The  reaction from average voters that struck me: Some said on being interviewed after the somewhat surprising result to “leave” that had they known “leave” would win, they would have voted to “remain” because, really, they were mad and really wanted to just send a message that things needed adjustment, not really withdraw from the EU.

There’s a lot of that feeling, I think, among Donald Trump voters: They don’t like the status quo and he’s certainly not the status quo, so we’ll vote for him to send a message. When you read the polls, many of his supporters don’t believe he’ll build a wall, or ban Muslims, or do many of the nutty things he says. But they want to send a message.

If I could add a message to Hillary or Gary Johnson’s arsenal it would be this: Message received!!

And be sincere about that.

That's being done on the Democratic side when it comes to Bernie Sanders. Hillary has not only moved more to the left but clearly is courting his voters by sending the message – even including Elizabeth Warren on her vice presidential list – that she heard you, so join her.

Well, hear the Trump voters too. They have a point, many of them, that they have been left behind or left to hang out to dry because Washington doesn’t work. Because they aren’t being trained for the jobs of the new, or current, economy. That political correctness is nice but not to the exclusion of common sense.

Many of the “leave” voters in Great Britain now not only have buyers’ remorse, but have second, third and sixth thoughts about what they thought was “merely” a protest vote that instead is sending the world economy into palpitations over what the future holds and, likely, changing their country dramatically economically and in its global role.

So, let’s say “message received” to those voters here and try to avoid a similar “game changing” move that we’ll all regret later.


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Goodbye Corey, hello...who?

6/21/2016

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PictureHe even smile(d) like Donald
Donald Trump fired his sycophant, I mean campaign manager, and everyone thinks this might mark the “pivot” for Donald Trump to all of a sudden stop being Donald Trump and become, well, Donald Trump. Oy.

If we believe, and by “we” I mean all the pundits who’ve been talking ad infinitum to us about what’s really going on in the campaign, then Donald Trump now will become “presidential” and less stupid in his ideas and behavior. Even though we’ve all watched as he flies by the seat of his pants at the podium and, basically, makes up his own policies, and other “facts,” on the fly. So Corey Lewandowski leaving shouldn’t make a whit of difference. 

Where him leaving could make a slight difference is in the relationships between the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee, the Trump campaign and donors, and the Trump campaign and (some) reporters.  Maybe they actually can build an organization, get some money in the door, and not tick off reporters. Thought it’s a bit late in the game to achieve all that.

Personally, I think this campaign has always been about what Donald Trump wants and will ever remain thus. So even if Lewandowski’s leaving buys a couple of weeks respite as Trump builds his campaign and relationships that will end quickly. As Trump would say, “believe me.” And, by the way, will voters buy a new Donald Trump? A less offensive and more moderately fashioned Donald Trump? Have we all become that cynical?

I don’t know whether Trump ever really wanted to be president – “some people” say he didn’t – but he’s stuck with it now. He either wins the election – and is flummoxed about how to be an effective president and live a lesser life style than he’s accustomed to – or he loses the election, and becomes the worst thing you can be in Trump World, a LOSER.

He loses either way seems to me. But at least the country wins with one of those options.


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Some believe that Donald Trump...

6/13/2016

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To Donald Trump,

I just read where you said that President Obama either doesn’t get it when it comes to the senseless murders of dozens of men and women yesterday in Orlando or he “doesn’t want to get it.” You clearly are intimating maybe he sympathizes with terrorists who are Muslims because he is a Muslim. You say, as usual, you aren’t necessarily saying that but “some people believe it.” That’s been one of your favorite ways to set up a straw man from an arm’s length – you aren’t saying it but “some” are.

Well, Mr. Trump, some people believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Some people believe there’s a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Some people believe most anything.

And, some people think you are a blithering idiot.

Count me in that category. There, I said it – I didn’t blame what I believe on others. I believe you are a blithering idiot. If you believe President Obama sympathizes with terrorists because he is a Muslim then just come out and say it.

You’re the one running for President so I’d prefer to hear what you believe rather than what these unidentified “some” believe. Stop being a cynical idiot (yes, many adjectives work with the word idiot) and tell us what you believe, Mr. Trump, because after a year of you running in the Republican primaries, I still have no idea what you believe other than building a wall between us and Mexico, banning Muslims from the United States, blowing up our alliances around the world, giving those who hate us nuclear weapons and starting a trade war that would sink our economy, much as I read that “some believe” you sank various of your companies and stockholders, but you still came out making a lot of money.

Some believe you have no morals or ethics because of that. Oh, sorry, make that I believe it, because I believe that you have made a lot of money (though not as much as you claim) in your life but much of it came while believers in you lost their investments, just as those suckers who signed up for your Trump University.

I know you believe the sum and substance of Sunday’s bloodbath is that you were right about terrorism in this country, I know this because you tweeted it and that seems to be how you prefer to communicate with the American people, in 140 characters. But I didn’t really fully digest that comment by you because I was horrified – still am and always will be, I suspect – at the bloodbath that killed at least 49 men and women.

I still can hear that mother in my head who was screaming for her lost son who presumably was killed by that American gunman. Yes, Mr. Idiot, that was an American who did the shooting. Oh, right, he had Afghan parents. I forgot. Therefore he is a first generation American who you say was a terrorist but, based on what we know so far, I’d say at best he was a wannabe terrorist. He was a wife beater who wanted to be known. Salt of the earth kind a guy.

So, Mr. Trump, quit making stuff up, claiming “some are saying it” and tell us what you believe. And then please provide an inkling of truth when you accuse the President of the United States of being a terrorist sympathizer.

You (censored) idiot.


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66 -- A hump age

6/9/2016

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Today is my 66th birthday. To quote most everyone I know as we mark the passing of time, “how did THAT happen?”

I have one daughter in her 40s, and one knocking on the door, and another waiting outside that door. I have six grandchildren, two of whom recently celebrated their 21st birthdays, two of whom recently celebrated their 3rd birthday. (I have range. Or my kids do anyway).

I am retired for a couple of years now, something I aspired to but never thought I’d achieve. I am happily married for nearly a dozen years to a woman I knew in college but hadn’t seen for nearly 30 years.

I have been on Medicare for a year and am about to go on Social Security.

I, thankfully, have good health. Though, in a sign of the aging process, I am having cataract surgery later this month, and I won’t mention those two kidney stones in the last year (but even with those I was lucky. No pain with either. Cross your fingers if a third is on its way.)

It really ain’t so bad.

But it is 66, just like that show 100 years ago with two guys tooling around the country in a Corvette. (Sorry to those of a certain -- younger - age. You won't get the reference.)

66 also is a number with other significance. Did you know, for example, 66:
  • is a semi-perfect number, being a multiple of a perfect number?
  • is the atomic number of dysprosium, a lanthanide?
  • is the total number of chapters in the Bible book of Isaiah?
  • is the retired jersey number of linebacker Ray Nitschkie of the Green Bay Packers?

But enough of my Wikipedia prowess.

To me 66 is one of those milestone years. I never was concerned about the “0’s”. You know, 20, 30, 40 etc. Those birthdays never bothered me much. For me, it was the “5’s” –25, 35, 45, etc. Those seemed to me to be going over the hump. Call them my Hump Years.

So, 66 is a big number to me. I don’t feel old. I still think I’m that 25-year-old guy I see when I look in the mirror (allow me my fantasies, please, I’m 66). When grey hairs fall on the sheet during my haircut, I ask the barber if she is shedding (even though she’s in her 30s, at most) because I don’t see grey hair on my head when I look in the mirror and it has to be coming from somewhere.

I’ve had a terrific career. I have kids who’ve turned out well and grandchildren who are on their own journeys. And I get to watch. That’s cool.

I’ve made some very good friends, some of whom I've had since have since grammar school and high school, and close friends I made far later in life. I’m very fortunate.

But, it also is 66, which means I can begin to see 70 on the horizon.

70 is one of those “0” years that is a biggie. By then I will have passed my 50th high school reunion – 50! Not sure we’ll have one, pretty sure I’d go. Last time I went to a reunion of childhood friends (just a few years ago), I couldn’t believe how all of them had changed so much. And I hadn’t.  (Please, again, allow me my fantasies. I’m 66.)

But at my 50th reunion I’ll see, I hope, fellows who were on the basketball team. Tall athletic, talented guys who almost won the state championship and who will all be 68 years old, like me. I kind of doubt we’ll play a pick-up game, although maybe they've slowed down enough that I can finally keep up with them. And I’ll see all those cute girls I never thought I had a chance with. And, probably still wouldn't.

And I’m looking forward to it all.

It’s far better than the alternative.


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It isn't over when it's over

6/8/2016

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It’s over. Or, just beginning.

We have our two major party candidates: the first female major party candidate in history, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump.

Trump, who has criticized anyone who ever used a teleprompter for, in effect, reading other people’s words, took to the teleprompter last night and, except for the times he went off prompter, read other peoples’ words and was even scarier than when he riffs on his own. Why? Because he sounded almost like a normal candidate – scripted and on message. Someone to take, perish the thought, seriously.

If Trump sticks to a teleprompter, he would increase his chances of winning in November by a lot as he now tries to coax undecided voters to his side. But I think we can count on him to only use the prompter when necessary to stop Donald from being Donald.

Back to the historic news. Mrs. Clinton is the first female who will be nominated as a major party candidate for President. To quote the Vice President over an earlier historic moment, this is a big f-ing deal. It’s probably a bigger deal, though, to my generation than it is to the millennial generation which is kind of saying, OK, she’s a she ... next?

I don’t know the politics of overly playing the female card, as Trump calls it. Personally, I didn’t like the video played before her speech last night. I thought it was poorly produced and too self-congratulatory. I assume her political advisors said this was a good thing to do, thus it was done. Plus, it did provide a moment to celebrate the moment. Just as the country did eight years ago when Barack Obama become the first African-American nominee for a major party. But that moment could have been celebrated just by Hillary coming on stage.

Other than her constant nodding her head in agreement with herself as she speaks, I think Mrs. Clinton is finally finding her voice for this election … good timing. But, if Trump sticks to listening to other people and using a prompter more often, he may be finding a better zone.

Let’s not pass over Bernie Sanders who ran a surprisingly successful campaign. He raised a lot of money from a lot of people who didn’t give hundreds of thousands of dollars individually. He had a message. Imagine if he were a messenger more acceptable to the majority of Democrats? Imagine too if he toned down some of his proposals, because most voters know that he could never pay for the things he promised.  If he had more reasonable proposals and was less the angry uncle at holiday dinner, we might not be celebrating the first female candidate today.

Bernie heads back to D.C. this week and will meet with President Obama tomorrow. My guess is he’ll finish his primary campaign with the D.C. voting next week, as he’s promised his supporters, and then magnanimously endorse Mrs. Clinton, if not before, and not take his campaign to the convention as he also promised. He’s already gotten concessions from her because he moved her left in the campaign and he’ll get more in the platform the party adopts, not that platforms matter for more than the moments they are debated and adopted. But it is time to close ranks.

Sanders deserves a big kudos for running the second most surprising campaign of the cycle. Second, of course, to Donald Trump’s.

I’m not sure Trump is a racist, but he says racist things. He definitely is an opportunistic racist, as CNN pundit Van Jones put it last night. He knows he solidifies support among a certain cohort of voters when he says those things, so he says them. This makes him, unlike his claims to the opposite, as cynical a politician as anyone else.

Trump also promised, maybe as early as Monday, a speech about the Clintons and all the controversies and scandals they have been connected to over the years. Even with a teleprompter, this will be quite a speech as Trump has been preparing for it all his life. A time to be critical and nasty and holier than thou -- his strengths -- and get national coverage for it.

He better stop a little short of where he was last night because he can’t prove much of what he said last night beyond what the media has uncovered over the years and what conspiracy theorists have written books about. For example, he hasn't proven "she should be in jail." He likely will have no new proof of anything and these scandals have all been vetted previously, with the exception of the still pending email issue.

If he has no new news/evidence, he will once again solidify the support he already has but I doubt will move undecided voters into his November column.

Eventually, Mrs. Clinton likely will have to release some texts of her paid speeches over the last couple of years to demonstrate transparency and use that as a time to call, again, for Trump to release his taxes, as every presidential candidate has done for years.

I’m guessing there is far less damning in her speeches than there is in his tax returns, so that’s a winning strategy for her.

Let’s take a day or two, though, to celebrate the first female nominee for president and then batten down the hatches for the general election campaign from Hell.


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No contest in this bout

6/5/2016

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Today’s front page of the Washington Post could not present a starker pair of stories aimed at two of the best known names in the country. And one of those names stood head and shoulders above the other.

Nearly half the front page was dedicated to two stories headlined “The Greatest Of All Time” and about Muhammad Ali, the most recognizable man in the world at one time who died the other day. The bottom half had two stories about Donald Trump, questioning his ethics in selling a “university” to “students” who paid thousands of dollars to never get a diploma and for being loudly critical of a federal judge for, in Trump’s twisted world, being “Mexican” and thus prejudiced against Trump in that case.

For all the diminishing moments of this campaign for Trump, this had to be the most diminishing. To be on front pages all across America where voters can compare his legacy to Ali’s.

 Ali was a sports icon, the best at what he did and not bashful to brag about it. More importantly, though, he had a set of principles he lived by that, when it came to choosing between being the Heavyweight Champion of the World and standing by his religious and moral beliefs, chose the road less taken. He lost his title and was branded a draft dodger for four years.

That road has never been taken by Trump, who brags about everything even though he has little to back up his braggadocio. And who doesn’t seem to have any principles.

All Ali ever sold was himself. But he was the personification of truth in advertising. He said he was the greatest, and he was. At 22 he was the world heavyweight champion after learning to box 10 years earlier because his bike had been stolen and he wanted to be prepared. He predicted the rounds his opponents would fall, and he delivered. He said he was the prettiest and damned if he wasn’t.

Trump sells his name. “Trump” is a brand that has represented luxury and high spending, an appeal to wealthy and faux wealthy folks who want to pretend they are getting the best. And Trump pretends to give it to them. Emphasis on the word “pretend.”

Ali had beliefs, strong beliefs. He became what then was called a Black Muslim, a religion little understood or known at the time, which was a time when African Americans weren’t really understood by White America either.

Into that breach walked Ali, who changed from his “slave name” of ‘Cassius Clay’ and was not bashful about explaining why. Next, he refused to be drafted into the Viet Nam war because he was a pacifist. Some at the time thought his conversion to Islam was just a cover to avoid the draft. But it wasn’t. He “ha(d) nothing against those Viet Cong,” he said and the rights the troops were fighting for weren’t rights that he thought were being given to him or other minorities. So what really were we fighting for?

And he accepted his punishment for that stand, which included being stripped of his boxing title. But he won a Supreme Court appeal, a court that included 9 white men who didn’t demonstrate racial prejudice in that case. Are you listening Mr. Trump?? No racial prejudice. They did their jobs with objectivity and allegiance to the law of the land.

Ali was his bravest and most honest though after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, a progressive disorder of the nervous system that creates tremors, and limits  movement and the ability to speak. Read that again – physical movement and speech – the two primary strengths Ali had when he was younger. The two things he was best known for – his unmatched boxing ability and his unmatched outspokenness.  The best boxer and probably the best talker of his generation. Both abilities being ripped from him.

And he faced that horrible disease with bravery and with class. He stood and lit the Olympic flame, suffering publicly from tremors as he stood at attention, proud to be where he was and demonstrating to the world his bravery and class. But also serving as a symbol of America – this loudmouthed black protestor standing and lighting the Olympic flame in front of the world. A beacon of what America is all about – freedom to succeed and freedom to be who you are.

It isn’t even fair to raise Donald Trump’s name in the same sentence as Muhammad Ali, but the power of the juxtaposition of those stores today struck me as a statement on our country – who we really are versus what Trump would lead us to be.

One, a man who would bar Muslims from this country, who criticizes an American federal judge as a “Mexican” and who would deport 11 million people form this country.

The other a man who projected strength, class and principle throughout his life.
No contest in that match-up.

RIP, Champ. You already are missed.


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'Deflector' Donald strikes again

6/1/2016

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Donald Trump’s attack on the media yesterday was ridiculous and done, ironically, for the cameras the media owns so that America’s voters could salivate over his “macho” personality in his attacks against journalists whose popularity ranks somewhere just above lawyers and businesspeople.

Macho is in quotes because he is not Macho Man. He is a coward who won’t answer the questions those reporters had because to answer them would be to admit he is a fraud. Therefore, he deflects.

His performance also had to be embarrassing to his endorsers. Chris Collins, R-NY, the first House member to endorse Trump, was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on CNN shortly after Trump’s press conference. It was an awkward interview.

Collins tried to sidestep Blitzer’s questions, such as when Wolf asked him about Trump University and the presumed nominee's attacks on the judge presiding in the fraud case against Trump. Collins said he knew nothing about that and Wolf should ask Trump. Pressed again, Collins, beginning to melt into his seat, said, “Well, Wolf, I would not be making those kinds of accusations (the type Trump made). I don’t know the details of what prompted Mr. Trump to basically lay into the judge. I really – I would say, no, I would not be calling a judge out like that. But I’m not Mr. Trump and that’s a question to ask him.”

I can only imagine Collins telling his staff after the interview, “don’t ever put me in that situation again.” Well, Mr. Collins, you put yourself in that situation by endorsing a blowhard with no boundaries and no class like Trump.

In a moment of honesty during the press conference Trump admitted that the nasty man we all saw in that press conference is the same nasty man we will see if he’s elected to the Oval Office. Trump has no respect for the press and, more importantly, he has no respect for the Constitution, if he’s even read it. From what we know, he wants to change the Constitution to make it less protective of free speech and a free press and he seems not to respect the separation of powers among the three branches of our government.

Instead of responding to questions about the money he raised for veterans, which is why HE called the press conference, he verbally assaulted the media. He also continued his assault on the judge who is hearing a case involving alleged fraud against his defunct Trump University. Not only does he call that judge unfair, he spits out that the judge is also a suspected “Mexican!” That judge is a U.S.-.born citizen. I don’t know his heritage and, frankly, don’t care what it is. He is me and you, an American.

When Trump attacks a U.S. citizen in such a personal way, he attacks us all. When he attacks a judge, he is showing lack of respect for the separation of powers and, by the way, for his sister who is a federal judge. But she can speak for herself. On the other hand, she likely won’t because she does respect the separation of powers, is my guess.

Each day Trump demonstrates he does not have the temperament to be President. He throws tantrums when he’s treated “badly,” to use his word. Na na na na – “my daddy was richer than yours.” Well, my friend, Presidents are treated with respect by the media but with tough questions too. It’s their job to ask the tough questions. It would be your job to answer those questions or not, if you choose. But to attack the press and thus avoid responding to their questions, well, Mr. Macho Man, you are a coward. And not just because you call our captured warriors cowards, thus not respecting the job they do to protect your fancy houses and your ability to make money, but because you won’t answer a “tough” question from a reporter. Tough guy.

Trump uses these attacks on constituencies -- be they ethnic constituencies or gender constituencies or, now, even occupational constituencies -- to avoid answering the question he was asked. Call him  Deflector Donald.

What we saw in that press conference is what we’ll get if he’s elected. He made that clear. I want to believe that if he does keep up this type of behavior even those who endorsed him early will begin to back away, as Collins did yesterday. I said I “want to believe” because in this year, I don’t know what to believe.

 

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    B. Jay Cooper

    B. Jay is a former deputy White House press secretary to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He also headed the communications offices at the Republican National Committee, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Yale University. He is a former reporter and is the retired deputy managing director of APCO Worldwide's Washington, D.C., office.
    He is the father of three daughters and grandfather of five boys and one girl. He lives in Marion, Mass.

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