The Imperial Presidency of Donald The Mindless

In the early 1960's I sat at the UN to interview Mohamed Ali, the world boxing champion. Warming him to that interview in a UN Radio Studio, I humorously asked him: "Do you really think that you are the greatest?" With humility and a smile, his response was: "It is the world that says so!!"

The greats hardly ever describe themselves as such. Trump is an embarrassing exception. His call to "Make America Great Again" does not mean what it says. Its practical meaning is: "America shall be for whites only." All others are potentially un-American.

Never in the history of the cabinet meetings at the White House has there been one like that held by Trump in June. It was for the sole purpose of having himself being praised by members of his own cabinet. It was a disgusting show of servility. Cravenly submissive to the narcissist, egocentrism of Trump, they bathed him, one at a time, in adulating "thank you for the honor of serving under your leadership."

One of the most sickening behavioral traits of that mindless American President is his lashing at any critic. On May 13, he spoke at the commencement exercises of Liberty University, a bastion of religious evangelism. In that address, he said of criticism:

"Nothing is easier or more pathetic than being a critic, because they're people that can't get the job done."

Yet it is well established that the primary lesson of a liberal democracy is how to live with critics. It was the composer Jean Sibelius who quipped: "No one ever put up a statue of a critic." Egomaniacal Trump has his name on every building or a golf course he owns, leases, or has licensed his name to be stamped on it. This is typical of Trump's delusional mental disorder that is marked by infantile feelings of personal omnipotence and grandeur.

Trump's famous "I alone can fix it" could now be added to "I know more than the generals know." This is to appreciate the total nonsense of these irresponsible utterances revealing the gap between his empty words and their empty results.

His first baptism by fire was in Yemen where one of the seals was killed. But Trump blamed that mishap on the Pentagon.

Now finding it expedient to leave the generals face the blame for future mishaps, he has n ow ceded his central function as Commander In Chief to General Jim Mattis, his Defense Secretary.

It is now the Pentagon which would decide on a useless military surge in Afghanistan of 5000 more troops to be thrust in that unwinnable 16-years-old war. A war that rages on without any American arching strategy, and from which Obama had wisely begun to disengage as a gradual exit strategy.

Nonetheless, Trump focus on being not responsible for any bad outcome (his sole focus is on garnering ritualized flattery), shall not shield him from what The New York Times of June 16 has aptly characterized. The paper mocked Trump's self-absorbed tweet celebrating the 242nd birthday of the US army. Trump, the Tweeter-In-Chief has said: "Proud to be your commander-in-chief." This is the man who sought multiple deferments from military service. Thus the paper mocked his escapist decision to give General Mattis "the authority to determine troop levels in Afghanistan."

In the 1950's I witnessed as a UN staff member the Permanent Representative of Israel disparaging Saudi Arabia by a novel attack. He, in effect, said that the only UN member which is a family business is Saudi Arabia. Well, by that measurement of statehood, it would not be far fetched to apply it today to the Trump administration. But not as a State, but as a government. Trump's daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, partake of official meetings with visiting Heads of State.

The fact of that American family business masquerading as the apex of executive power in the US is more compounded by other factors outside of blood relations. The intertwining of family and State business, representing violations of both ethical and legal nature, has been tolerated by a supinely-submissive Republican controlled Congress. A collective exhibition of mutual and moral slackness.

With the accumulation of portfolios of vital national interest in the hands of Kushner, from government organization to Middle East peace, comes the issues of conflict of interest. Trump and his enablers have vouched for a legal impossibility: The President is immune from conflict of interest. By what legal standard? None, except by dictatorial fiat. As a mindless president, Trump has declared that he could run his world-flung business and the U.S. simultaneously.

From all indications, especially through the avalanche of executive orders, paraded before cameras as Trump jabs his pen on folders bearing his tower-like signature, Trump fancies the US a corporation. His cabinet is his corporate board, his angry look as a threatening menace.

In his hallucinatory state of mind, Trump believes that his signature moves programs forward. No major legislation has so far moved forward, especially in the areas of health care, tax reform, trade promotion and national security. Only in the matter of appointing a very conservative justice to the Supreme Court, deregulation to benefit Wall Street, and environmental degradation through exiting the Paris accord on climate change.

All are nearly negatives, which Trump counts as "fulfilling my promises to the American people." The outcome has been the federal judiciary issuing stays of the application of his bans, including the Muslim ban which he declares to be not a ban. This is while his acolytes claimed it to be a non-ban. But the courts took Trump's own words as evidence of unconstitutionality.

This is while we see the rise of states and cities declaring their own defiance of federal power regarding rounding up illegal immigrants. Their police departments shall not cooperate with federal authorities in the pursuit of unconstitutional measures.

The American Declaration of Independence unanimously approved by the 13 United States of America on July 4, 1776 includes several passages which in their totality constitute obstruction of justice when violated by the Executive. One of these refers to endeavoring "to prevent the population of these states," through "refusing to pass (laws) to encourage their migrations hither." Trump bans against Muslims and plans to build walls on the Mexican-American border should be taken by the judiciary into account with these passages in mind.

As to the Constitution, Article III, Section 3 states: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies giving them aid and comfort." 

President, Donald Trump, assisted by others like General Flynn, his former national security advisor, have by Trump's silence on Russia's interference in the 2016 elections, given eloquent evidence of culpability. Not one word of protest against Russia's cyber attack during the campaign and transition has issued from the mouth of that mindless president.

• His firing of FBI Director, James Comey, for investigating what Trump called "the Russia thing." By his own admission in a TV interview with Lester Holt, he provided the Russian investigation as the reason for that firing;
• During his testimony on June 8, 2017 before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the question of Trump's attempt to have Comey abandon the Flynn investigation was confirmed. An honest finger pointing to Trump's attempt at obstruction of justice;
• During that historic testimony, the former FBI Director called Trump's trail of statements by which that mindless president tried to put the onus of firing Comey on Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General: "Those were lies, plain and simple." For the first time ever has an American president been called "a liar," repeatedly before Congress by an officer of the U.S. ;
• Trump, by his professed anger at Comey's refusal to publicly disclose that the President was not personally under investigation, has made himself actually the target of investigation.
• The revelation that Trump has cajoled Comey to pledge "loyalty" to him could not but point to the bubble in which Trump exists as a pretended potentate. 
• Instead, Comey, being the then director of an independent law enforcement agency, promised only his "honesty." Not enough for Trump "the Predator in Chief." An apt characterization by the New York Times of June 9, 2017.
• The day following Comey's testimony, Trump accused the dismissed FBI Director of lying. At a rambling press conference in the White House Rose Garden, Trump, in the presence of Romania's President said: "Yesterday showed no collusion (with Russia), no obstruction." 
• Then he hinted that he had tapes of his conversations with Comey. Comey, in his testimony, said: "I hope there are tapes." Various challenges to Trump to produce these tapes have gone unheeded. Pure bluster!!
• The misdeeds committed by Trump's aides and close associates shall, under agency law, be regarded as amounting to impeachable offenses. Said Elizabeth Drew in her article in the New York Review of Books of June 22, 2017. "Mike Flynn, Trump's former campaign adviser and dismissed national security advisor is obviously a problem for the president." Her article is titled "Trump: The Presidency in Peril."
• No less than seven Trump associates have been linked to Russia including his own son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Kushner is now a subject of a criminal investigation. He is suspected of having discussed with Russia's Ambassador to the US a secret back channel using the Russian Embassy as a conduit. The purpose is to deny US Intelligence Services the possibility of tracking those channels. If such an infantile attempt at hiding secrets from the powerful American intelligence community (16 such organizations) is proven, it could amount to a charge of espionage.
• With Trump and his entire phalanx and Trump himself lawyering up, important Republican Senators, and even senior Cabinet officers (e.g. Defense Secretary Mattis), are beginning to distance themselves from that toxic president. 
• In a rare such example, Republican Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina presiding over the Intelligence Committee, asked Comey: "Do you have any doubts that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 elections?" Comey's response was a single lethal word: "None."

The list of examples of Trump digging deeper a hole for himself can go on and on. The appointment by Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein of Robert Mueller Special Counsel to investigate the components of the dark cloud surrounding this fake presidency is a turning point.

Trump's test balloon launched on June 13 by his friend, Christopher Ruddy, suggesting that Trump may fire Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, is either a phony attempt at intimidation, or a terrible misreading of the pulse of the American people. They will have to conclude that their president is a crook. That admission by Ruddy may also indicate that Trump uses and abuses his executive privilege which prevents the divulgence of private conversation with the president.

Loosening that rule is also a manifestation of Trump's mistaken belief that he is above the law. He, as the saying goes, could run, but can't hide. His attempt to protect Flynn, his chipping away at the elaborate American civil rights edifice, his feverish attempts to dismantle the Obama legacy including the opening to Cuba, and his calling the investigations in the Russian connection a "witch hunt" is a reminder of a concerned rat moving in all directions in the hope of escaping capture.

Donald: What is happening in the way of multiple investigations is not "a witch hunt." It is a hunt for the truth. And the only recognizable truth about your five months presidency is what your main strategist, Steve Bannon,  has admitted to: "The destruction of the administrative State."

That administrative State seems to be marching towards an inevitable goal: Putting an end to the charade of the presidency of a mindless president. 

Statistical fact checking shows that Trump has lied 500 times since June 2015. The most recent lie being his bluffing that his conversations with Jim Comey had been taped. Now under the pressure of a Congressional subpoena to force Trump to disgorge these tapes, he came out on June 22 admitting that there were no such tapes.

The implication of that forced divulgence from the American Liar-in-Chief is clear: He intentionally meant that lie for possibly these purposes: (a) to intimidate Comey into silence; (b) to distract public attention away from the Russian investigation; and/or (c) to heap scorn on law enforcement.

There is a new theory called "Mindfulness." It advocates knowing yourself as a means of constructive engagement. By that standard, Trump, through his utterances and actions, is entitled to the counter-theory: "Mindlessness." It advocates self-absorption combined with always being on the offensive.

Donald the Mindless has been, if not on the defensive, in a constant attacking mode: From "crooked Hillary," to "I have inherited a mess." From "That judge is Mexican," to "The intelligence services have failed." From "The Muslims hate us," to "China is ripping us off." From: "The Media is the enemy," to "I heard it from someone." 

The superlatives are his lexicon. His imperial presidency is not to "Make America Great Again." It is to "Make America Hate Again." Where are all the allies gone? Even Mexico and Canada are no more America's longest unarmed borders.

Note: New blog postings will resume on a weekly basis after my new book is ready for the press this Fall. Its title: "War on Jihadism By Ideology: The New Islamic Religious Revolution"

The New American Rebellion: Cities and States Against Trump

The man is out of control. "Make America Great Again" is his call. Its practical effect is "Make America the World's Pariah." Trump may be impeached before too long. His swagger in public maybe a mask of his fear of eventual humiliation. The appointment of a special prosecutor, Robert Mueller, to investigate the possibility of a Trump-Putin axis signals the ultimate check on a president gone rogue.

The recent straw straining the American camel's back is Trump's abandonment of the Paris global climate accord of 2015. Resorting to a junk misinterpretation of that 195 States voluntary accord on the reduction of fossil emission, Trump declared on June 1 at the White House that that agreement was an economic straight jacket. "I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris."

The rebuke of that isolationist move against combating global warming came fast and furious. Not only from heads of State, especially those who lead the "least developed countries;" but also from American business, corporate executives, climate activists, and American state governors and city mayors. A new American rebellion of cities and States against an erratic president is now afoot.

Led by former New York City mayor, Michael Bloomberg in the east, and Governor Brown of California in the west, the rebellion is a practical application of the Tenth Amendment of the US Constitution. It reads: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." 

From his campaign for the presidency (June 2015 to November 2016), it became clear that Trump is not conversant with the Constitution. A Muslim father of a US army officer killed in Afghanistan, Mr. Khan, angered by Trump's foolish call for a Muslim ban on entering the US, posed a challenge to Trump at the Democratic National Convention. Flourishing a copy of the American Constitution, Mr. Khan posed this historic challenge to Trump: "Have you ever even read the U.S. Constitution?"

The fact that the federal government in America is one of "enumerated" (limited) powers, has created for the states and cities which are in favor of the Paris climate accord the requisite space for this new check on Trump's "act of gratuitous destruction" (to quote Paul Krugman, a Nobel Laureate in economics).

This challenge by city mayors and state governors to Trump's headlong isolationism has been in the making since their opposition to Trump's executive orders for the deportation of "illegal immigrants." In one of the so-called "sanctuary cities," Mayor De Blasio of New York City led the charge. He instructs the New York Police Department not to cooperate with federal agents attempting to arrest persons who lacks documentary evidence for being in America.

In America, police departments (47000 in all) are not controlled by the federal government. They, as in the case of education, are subject to control only by cities (in the case of the police) or by community school boards (in the case of public education).

The spark that has further ignited the states and cities rebellion against Trump's "reckless climate decision," has been described by John Niles, the Director of the Carbon Institute of California, in these words: "Mr. Trump's decision is not only an arrogant abrogation of science and cooperation, but also defies logic. Ignoring the opportunities in clean innovation and relying on 18th century technologies is a mistaken bet to 'make American great again.'"

This new assertion of local power over federal power in America, is taking place against a series of Trumpist isolationist moves which have created voids now filled by China. Trump's avoidance of reaffirming US commitment to NATO, his abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, his reduction of the budgets of the State Department in favor of a 10% increase in the military budget, have alarmed an America whose leadership has, since 1945, been the mainstay of the postwar world order.

As of now, former New York City Mayor Bloomberg, together with 30 mayors, several governors, 80 university presidents, and more than 100 businesses, are now negotiating with the UN to formalize their contribution to the Paris climate deal. Declared Bloomberg: "We are going to do everything America would have done if it has stayed committed." It is incorrect to claim that such an initiative has no formal mechanism for entities that were not countries to be full parties to the Paris accord.

Although the UN is an inter-state system, its Charter, a World War II document dating back to 1945, declares in its preamble "We the peoples of the United Nations determined ... to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedoms." The cluster of US cities and states now rising against Trump in support of the climate accord endorsed by 195 States, falls in that category of legitimated UN participants. This is particularly so because such an American cluster includes states whose status under the US Constitution is regarded as "supreme."

Adding to that relevance to UN purposes is the continuous creation by the UN of new mechanisms to overcome the strictures imposed by the literal interpretation of the UN Charter. The most important examples are the creation of peace-keeping operations (there is no mention in the Charter of the term "peace-keeping"); the expansion of the authority of the UN Security Council to impose travel bans on individual citizens of sovereign States; and the avoidance of voting in the Security Council for fear of paralysis through the veto, by creating "presidential statements" to replace formal decisions.

Add to the above is that Mayor Bloomberg is a UN envoy on climate change. In that capacity of improvised American leadership outside of a White House going backward on international commitments, Bloomberg declared his approach to the UN was "a parallel pledge." Declared California's Governor, Jerry Brown: "If the President is going backward, we are going forward." California's economy is the 6th largest economy in the world.

In America, that fight has now shifted from the federal government to lower levels of government including academia and industry. This is a rebellion whose vanguards include Governor Jay Inslee of Washington State, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, and Governor Jerry Brown of California. All of them, democrats, have declared an alliance committed to upholding the Paris accord.

Now we have new European allies for the new American rebellion of cities and states against Trump. France's president, Emmanuel Macron welcomed that uprising in these words: "I want to say that they will find in France a second home... I can assure you that France will not give up the fight." And during her meeting in Berlin with India's prime minister, Narenda Modi, Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel pledged her support, and distanced the European Union from Trump. This is while she welcomed China's leadership in the global push for action on climate.

Under Trump, America is being transformed. Not in the way the Trumpists have hoped. But in the rise of new checks and balances not before used to chain a president who thinks that running a country is akin to running a company. As a country of laws, the system may yet force Trump out of the White House which he has recently dubbed "The People's House."

The U.S. Constitution begins with these words: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union ..." It now looks that the "more perfect Union" is in the making via this new cities and states rebellion.

NOTE: New blog postings will resume on a monthly basis after my new book is ready for the press this Fall. Its title: "The New Islamic Religious Revolution: Fundamentals of Islamic Law and Practice"