Preserving American Values

9/29

Trump came out with a new plan for ending the Gaza War and a transition afterwards.  The plan, which would require Hamas to free the hostages immediately and disarm, would end the war immediately and foresees Israel troop remaining on the perimeter of Gaza for the foreseeable future. The plan gives Netanyahu everything he could want; the plan talks about peaceful coexistence between the Israelis and Palestinians, but makes only the merest mention of moving towards a Palestinian state at some point in the future to be determined.  It does provide for humanitarian aid and the reconstruction of Gaza.  And it provides for Gazan’s being able to remain there or leave and return. Supervision of Gaza would be by an “apolitical” group of Palestinians until such time as the Palestinian Authority reform is accomplished.  There would also be an international body, chaired by Trump, to oversee the whole process. The plan totally ignores the plan put forward by the Saudi-French peace proposal.  

Trump met with the Democratic Senate and House leaders ahead of the looming government shutdown.  Since they wouldn’t back down from their demand that Trump restore cuts to Medicaid that would threaten the health care of millions of Americans on Obamacare, the talks ended poorly.  He later posted a deepfake AI video mocking and insulting Schumer and Jeffries.

9/30

In addressing the gathering of ALL top U.S. generals and admirals, Trump said that he recommended to his Secretary of Defense/War that “we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”  What a bizarre and inappropriate thought from several perspectives.  First, military men are trained in the art of war; what they are experiencing in these’ dangerous” cities is far from “war” and could never provide the training they need.  Second, the public is supposed to be policed by a civilian police force; using military—whether it be the National Guard or soldiers from one of the services—has long been held to be in appropriate unless requested by local officials.  One reason for this is that in the civilian world, we have the important concept of due process; in the military world of fighting, there is no such thing; you basically do what you have to do—within the rules of warfare—in order to win.

10/1

Today Trump and his head of the Office of Management and Budget withheld billions of dollars in allocated funds for various projects (mostly connected with climate change) as well as infrastructure projects for New York City as part of his reaction to the government shutdown.  Interestingly, this money mostly benefited Democratic run states or cities.  It was his way of punishing Democrats, pursuing his anti-climate change perspective, and putting pressure on Democrats to cave in and accept the Republicans’ short-gap spending bill to extend funding through November.

10/2

Trump wrote on social media that he would be determining which of the “Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political scam,” will be subjected to job cuts because of the shutdown.  These are government agencies, having nothing to do with the Democratic Party, but Trump refers to them as Democrat Agencies because they further liberal issues such as climate change and equal opportunity.  He will not acknowledge that the government has a responsibility to protect the public good and secure the rights of all people to the pursuit of happiness.

10/3

Trump told Congress that he has determined that the U.S. is in an armed conflict, i.e. war, with drug cartels, so that his instructions to the military to strike at boats in the Caribbean, killing all 17 on board, become justified as an action in war, rather than murder.  While the President can initiate military action, he must go to Congress to declare war as only Congress has that power under the Constitution.  One more instance of Trump ignoring the separation of powers that the Founding Fathers put in the Constitution,

10/4

Trump in another effort to limit academic freedom in universities, offered universities a deal.  Agree to a list of demands, like limiting international students, using a strict definition of gender, and protecting conservative voices, and get a leg up on grants, potentially beating out the competition for billions in federal funds.  Now that Trump feels he has captured the working class into the conservative fold, he is trying to weaken the impact that an education institution might have in the development of someone’s mind as a liberal.

This will be the last scorecard. It is a deadening process and I find does not add much to the discussion of Trump’s violations of American core principles or the interests of the people.