2nd Clinton v Trump debate

Sound familiar?

Trump says if he were elected president, he would instruct the Attorney General of the United States to appoint a Special Prosecutor to go after Hillary Clinton.  There are, at least, two problems with Trump's remarks:
1; it shows an utter lack of understanding of the separation of powers between the branches of government, and
2; Trump believes he can use the Justice Department and Special Prosecutors to go after people for one reason or another.

-  Its a sad sad situation, and its getting more absurd  -

The second of three scheduled presidential debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the standard bearers of the Democrat and Republican Parties, respectively, will take place under yet another growing storm.

Surprise, surprise, Donald Trump has to confront a decade old recording of him engaged in good old boy locker room, country club, segregated fraternity house and board room-like demeaning chatter concerning women.

Romney, Ryan, Bush, Pence and a myriad of others have been quick to denounce Trump.  Few ethnic Americans can but find their condemnations rather incredulous, knowing that these same holy men have to a man engaged in the same debasing chatter themselves, either directed towards women, ethnic Americans, or non-US citizens. 

Pence, for example, in relation to Obama's immigration executive order.

Any day, women who encountered Ryan during his college days could come forward with rather revealing stories about Ryan, Romney will have to ask Tagg why he did not stand up straight and true when he witnessed such behavior by Senator Portman's son at Washington Court House.  Or did he believe it was okay for Portman's son to man handle a female reporter by grabbing her roughly by her arm to pull her between me and Tagg to stop me from interviewing him.  Campaign officials have had to resign for such actions. 

So all the honorable men have come forward to condemn Trump.  Okay, fair enough, after all these same honorable men were just as quick to denounce a Sony executive, a Tennessee Congressman's aid, and the racist emails of the Ferguson Police Department.  Or did they not?

But the stage has been set for the Town Meeting style presidential debate to descend into discussions about Trump's temperament, and his less than noble frat house bravado about fame and sexual conquest. 

While the great issues of our day, Aleppo, the war between India and Pakistan, Americans of African origin being slaughtered daily, the failure of trickle down globalization economics, lack of investment in our cities, the demise of our infrastructure, continue to go unaddressed.

Police shootings:

Over the last two years hundreds of police officers and millions of dollars have been spent by local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to determine ways of defusing confrontations between members of the public and the police.

One result of this exhaustive work has been to illustrate that the use of lethal force is almost never necessary.

Canadian TV has covered this story with several specials, while few US stations have aired the results of the USA based study.

One aspect of the two year study was that there is a correlation between successful outcome, that is, resolution without the use of lethal force, and the time spent on defusing the confrontation.  It will not go unnoticed that in most cases of fatal police shootings the police have used their weapons rather quickly. 

Which begs the question, what is the hurry?

The police must keep their weapons holstered, and start to defuse the situation.

Another line is starting to emerge in fatal police shootings incidences. 

And it relates to what the office was doing on the call previous to the fatal shooting, that is, the nature of the circumstances of the police being called out, seems to have a carryover effect to the fatal shooting incidence.  The more violent the previous call, the more likely an officer is to use lethal force in a subsequent confrontation.

A cool off period is called for. 

And the cool off time after a violent or disturbing confrontation must be verified.  It is suggested that the series of questions resembling the concussion protocol in professional football should be implemented and employed after every violent confrontation between a police officer and the public.  And that officer does not respond to another call until the series of questions has been recorded, logged and a minimum period of time has passed.  Then and only then is that officer allowed to return to duty.  The cool off protocol can be done over the phone or through the secure police car based communication system.  But it must be done, and that officer does not respond to another call until cleared to do so.


Aleppo (a failure of US efforts) and growing tension between India and Pakistan

In the days leading up to the 20th of September 2016, the Government of Turkey in association with the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) and other agencies moved a large convoy of humanitarian assistance to the Turkish Syrian border near the besieged city of Aleppo.  Turkish officials announced their intention to unilaterally move the much needed supplies to Aleppo, if necessary.

In response, the Syrian government stated that the delivery of humanitarian within its territory involves two main ingredients, logistics and permissions.  And, without the express agreement of the Syrian government, neither Turkey nor any other national, bilateral, multilateral or international entity had right to move the assistance convoy into Syria and on to Aleppo.  The Syrian government, the statement concluded, would respond to any unilateral action to the contrary with resolve.

Although details are unclear, but shortly after the aid delivery to Aleppo standoff, a column of Syrian military personnel and equipment was attacked in an air raid with the loss of several scores of Syrian soldiers as well as injuries totaling more than a hundred.  The US immediately denied having carried out the attack, and went on to state that if it had, it would have been the result of a horrible mistake.

At the same time some US military advisers are suggesting that the US should not be so quick to deny involvement in the attack, but should actually own it.

The logic, according to the military advisers, was simply that if it was the intention to deliver the much needed assistance to Aleppo, after the direct attack on the Syrian military with the loss of so many lives and with so many injuries, the Syrian Army would back off preventing the Turkish organized aid convoy to cross the border into Syria and move the aid convoy on to Aleppo, for fear of the scale of the reprisal  by US forces.

Secretary of State John Kerry, UN political appointee Ambassador Samantha Powers and through her I.C.R.C. officials were brought into the inner circle, and the Turkish government were all advised of the plan and they all bought into it.

On the night of the 19th or in the wee hours of the 20th of September 2016 the aid convoy crossed the Turkish Syrian border, without the permission of the Syrian Government and approached Aleppo, where the convoy was attacked and destroyed with the loss of several scores of lives and as many again injured.

The gambit had failed, miserably.

The Russian ambassador to the UN confronts Samantha Powers with the above rendering of events, and she walks out on her counterpart, holds a press conference where she is obviously under a great deal of stress and in response to questions from the press throws what is best described as a temper tantrum.  As if, that would cleanse her bloody hands.

India and Pakistan are slipping into an all out confrontation and neither Kerry nor Powers are up to the challenge.  The dragon, China, is amassing troops in the 25% of the Kashmir it occupies and is poised to act if either India or Pakistan tip the scales from a tit for tat skirmish to a sustained battle.  The bear is awake and also ready to do whatever is necessary to prevent war between India and Pakistan.

We have been here before (1962), but this time there is no JFK in the White House and Kerry lacks the stature of a John Kenneth Galbraith.


Trump claims to have thirty to forty admirals and generals that have endorsed his campaign, and Clinton proposes an intelligence surge to combat Islamic radicalism emanating within the USA.

Perhaps, it is a result of the use of such over-the-top language, which more often than not employs rather simplistic descriptions of the lives of Americans of African origin in the United States from either the Clinton and Trump camps that has reduced the ability to judge whether Clinton or Trump's has an understanding of contemporary African American life beyond what they have expressed to date, which can only be described as simplistic to the point of senselessness. 

Trump, characteristically, only identifies one economic class of Americans of African origin, specifically those who, according to Trump, are at risk of being shot when they walk down the streets of their neighborhoods.  Those same neighborhoods Trump also describes as having the worst schools and the highest rates of unemployment.  Chicago has been Trump's favorite theme in this regard, and Giuliani's stop and frisk New York is held out as a panacea of an identified problem's, a lack of law and order, solution.

Since, Truman integrated the Armed Forces of the United States, there have been factions within both of our standing armies, who like Eisenhower, continue to believe that integration was not in the best interest of the US Army, that is to say the best interest of the United States.  Eisenhower to demonstrate his displeasure with Truman over army integration, refused to enter the White House for the traditional tea handover ceremony after his inauguration, until Truman and his wife had physically vacated the White House.

What does that group of Admirals and Generals that have endorsed Trump have in common?  For the most part they have been officers within the military hierarchy which have sought actively to reverse the trend that saw a steady rise in the advancement of Americans of African origin within the ranks of the military (Colin Powell), to a situation where today there are less ranking Americans of African origin within the officer ranks of the US military as the Obama administration is ending, than there were when the Obama presidency began nearly eight years ago.

A close look at the names of the highest ranking of Trump's military supporters identifies a number who knew of the existence and activities of the FEAR (Forever Enduring Always Ready) militia group. 

FEAR is not the only ultra-right-wing racist group of serving military personnel operating within the US Army at such places as Fort Stewart (training ground for the Army's 3rd Infantry Division).  One group of FEAR members stationed at Fort Stewart recently went on trial, charged with the capital offense of treason, for among other things plotting the assassination of the Commander-in-Chief, President Obama.

But Trump would not know anything about this fact.

An illiberal cannot protect the United States, because their bigotry blinds them to the very threat it is necessary to bring to light.  So you take a highly discriminatory group of FBI, police, and other anti-terrorism agents and they cannot see that their friends and family members that are part of the right-wing extremist groups that dot the USA are as much of a problem as Islamic radicalism.  The fight against extremism is an all out affair, and yet those responsible for addressing the threat cannot bring themselves to pursue those who suggest that all ethnic peoples in the USA present a threat to this nation.  They buy into to the non-meritorious hiring policies of the agencies which purport to represent the defense of this great country, but they do not represent what is the best that this nation can put forth.  In fact, they represent the ancient evils which are being brought to our shores by those who do not share in the American creed - with malice towards none and charity for all.

 .  .  .   and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power
by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside     . . .  JFK 1961

Read it before you vote this election, you children will thank you forever!