Category Archives: Trump administration

Indonesian Islam.

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Back in the day, Seymour Martin Lipset wrote The First New Nation: The United States in Historical and Comparative Perspective (1963).  Like most of Lipset’s work, it was about several things at once.  For one thing, it was about the United States as the first colonial territory to gain its independence from a colonial overlord.  Therefore, American could serve as a model for all the Asian and African countries recently or about-to-be liberated from European empires.  For another thing, it was about the related issue of how to create a stable democracy.  (That’s what most of the leaders of new nations said that they wanted, although the historical record now suggests other ambitions.[1])  According to Lipset democracy is intimately connected with economic growth: “[t]he more well-to-do a nation, the greater the chances that it will sustain democracy.”  This idea lay behind both the Marshall Plan to aid Western European economic recovery after the Second World War and the First Gulf War (1990-1991).[2]

Time hasn’t fully born out Lipset’s ideas–so far.  China, for example, is an increasingly prosperous autocracy.  In many Muslim countries, oligarchies have gobbled up national wealth, while the vast majority of people have little opportunity.  More importantly, religious belief can outweigh political theory.  It isn’t clear that the beliefs of Islam are compatible with Western conceptions of democracy.  Traditional Islam rejects any separation of church and state, it rejects law derived from legislatures rather than the Word of Allah, and it rejects the very idea of nation-states in favor of the “umma” of all Believers.[3]  Moreover, Islam is socially conservative in ways that Western liberals find repugnant.  Women’s rights and gay rights antagonize social conservatives.

Indonesia provides an interesting case.  It is the most populous Muslim country in the world.[4]  Piled on top of religious conservatism are hostilities related to ethnic or religious minorities.[5]  The very small share of people with Chinese ancestry play an out-sized role in the economy and have long been the target of Muslim hostility.  Women’s rights and gay rights have a salience in Muslim concerns because of Indonesia’s popularity with Western tourists.

Like Turkey, Indonesia has a democratic system.  Can democratic politics can be used to impose an Islamist agenda?  In 2002, Jemaah Islamiya—an Islamist group linked to Al Qaeda—killed 200 people in bomb attacks on the Indonesian island of Bali.  Repression followed.  Recently, however, there have been both a mass mobilization of Muslims against the Christian governor of Jakarta and renewed terrorist attacks.  There is also legislation pending to criminalize public display of affection by gay people.

Will Southeast Asia become the next front in the war against radical Islamism?

[1] A friend insists that there is a scene from one of Ionesco’s plays in which a character says “We will drink wine under the willow trees.  AND YOU WILL BE MY SLAVES!”  I haven’t been able to run it down.

[2] It was a war for oil prices and oil markets, not a war for oil companies.  The historically-minded men and women behind the war were aware that the 1970s “oil shocks” had pitched the world close to the edge of depression and that the Great Depression of the Thirties had been the principal cause of the Second World War.  They didn’t want that to happen again.

[3] We’ll probably hear complaints that the University of Michigan Museum of Art is a sign of creeping Islamization.

[4] Indonesia’s population is 270 million.   87.2 percent Muslim, 9.9 percent Christian, 1.7 percent Hindu, and 0.7 percent Buddhist and 0.2 percent Confucian.

[5] Yaroslav Trofimov, “Islamist Shift Unsettles Indonesia’s Democracy,” WSJ, 29 June 2018.

Halloween on the Border 2.

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Entering the United States illegally is a crime, a misdemeanor on the first offense and a felony on any subsequent offense.[1]  The courts have held that people who enter the United States illegally are entitled to due process before they can be deported.[2]  The courts have also held that Congress may determine what constitutes due process.  In 1996 Congress passed the “Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.”  Among other provisions, this law allows illegal immigrants to be deported without any hearing, lawyer, or right of appeal.  This is called “expedited removal.”[3]

For their part, illegal immigrants can try to dodge expedited removal by claiming asylum.  To gain asylum, the immigrants must demonstrate a credible fear of persecution if they remain in their home country.  What constitutes “persecution” is itself contested.  Most of the people now showing up at the border are trying to escape endemic poverty, violent crime, and ineffective and corrupt government in Central American so-called countries.[4]  Liberals regard these conditions as legitimate grounds for claiming asylum; conservatives want to restrict asylum to the traditional definition of people fleeing political or religious persecution by national governments.

Different administrations have applied the law in different ways.  Although the 1996 law sets no geographic boundaries to where the law may be applied, the current policy has been to apply it to illegal immigrants found within 100 miles of the border and within two weeks after they entered the United States.[5]  Furthermore, the government can either treat illegal immigration as a civil matter or as a criminal matter.

The Obama administration largely treated illegal immigrants as a civil matter.  This allowed illegal immigrants to work through the process of the immigration courts, to be represented by a lawyer, to appeal decisions of immigration judges multiple times.  This could extend the time to deportation to a year or more.  While the civil procedures dragged on, the illegal immigrants were paroled, rather than detained in custody.

Recently, the Trump administration broke with the policy of the previous administration.  It adopted a policy of “zero tolerance” for illegal immigration and it chose to treat illegal immigration as a criminal, rather than civil, matter.  Thus, illegal immigrants, even when claiming asylum, were arrested.  The government is legally-obligated to separate children from arrested parents within 20 days of arrest, then to place them in a suitable child care facility or foster family.  During the Obama administration, all but one family detention facility were closed.  This had the unpleasant knock-on effect that has garnered so much attention.[6]

[1] “In the United States, the federal government generally considers a crime punishable with incarceration for one year or less to be a misdemeanor. All other crimes are considered felonies.”—Wikipedia.

[2] Katie Benner and Charlie Savage, “Migrants to the U.S. Are Entitled to Due Process, With Some Exceptions,” NYT, 26 June 2018.

[3] Which is like calling illegal immigrants “undocumented.”  See George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language.”

[4] Ryan Duee, “Migrants Risk U.S. Crackdown to Flee Crime and Poverty,” WSJ, 26 June 2018.

[5] Obviously, there is some wiggle room here for the government.  It can be pretty difficult for migrants to prove when they entered the country.

[6] On the background to the “Flores Settlement” case, see: https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/resource/flores-settlement-brief-history-and-next-steps

Public Opinion on Donald Trump.

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It has been a good six months for President Donald Trump.  He has transitioned from an insurgent Republican to the un-contested face of the party.  Public opinion polls suggests that his base represents about a third of the electorate.  Thus, a little over a quarter (27 percent) of Americans are proud to have Trump as president and think (29 percent) that Trump is “a good role model for children.”[1]  Just under a third (31 percent) approve his handling of the Russia investigation.[2]  Almost a third (32 percent) found Trump more credible than James Comey on Comey’s allegations.[3]  More than a third (36 percent) of all voters would vote for Trump over a Democrat.[4]  More than a third (37 percent) of Americans think that Trump is a better president than was Barack Obama.[5]  More than a third (37 percent) believe that Trump is competent to deal with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in a summit meeting.[6]  Half of Republicans don’t want another Republican candidate to stage a primary challenge to President Donald Trump in 2020.[7]  Two thirds (67 percent) of Republicans approve his handling of the Russia investigation.  Almost all (86 percent) Republicans approve his performance as president.[8]  It looks like Trump has a lock on re-nomination.

But could he be re-elected?  At least for the moment, Trump’s potential for re-election extends well beyond his narrow base.  Americans are pretty evenly divided—and on partisan lines–on some of Trump’s policies.  On policy toward Israel: 41 percent approve and 43 percent disapprove.  Some 80 percent of Republicans approve, while 72 percent of Democrats disapprove.[9]  On his suggestion to arm teachers: 44 percent approve and 50 percent disapprove.  Some 68 percent of Republicans approve and 74 percent of Democrats disapprove.[10]

Two thirds of Americans approved his decision to meet Kim Jong Un, despite misgivings about his abilities as a diplomat.[11]  Over half (52 percent) approve his management of the economy.[12]  Well over half (57 percent) of Americans believe that the country is on the right track.[13]  That is the highest figure since 2007.  In all these cases, his appeal extends beyond his core base and wins over some Democrats.  Whether that is true in a general election might well depend upon which Democrat gets the nomination.  No Hillary or Obama look-alike?

[1] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 9 February 2018, p. 17.  Almost three-quarters (72 percent) of Republicans think him a good role model.

[2] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 23 March 2018, p. 17.

[3] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 27 April 2018, p. 17.

[4] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 8 June 2018, p. 17.

[5] In a different poll, 21 percent ranked Obama as the worst president to serve since 1945.  “Poll Watch,” The Week, 23 March 2018, p. 17.

[6] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 11 May 2018, p. 17.

[7] On the other hand, 38 percent of Republicans do want someone to challenge Trump, which means that 12 percent aren’t sure.  There remains a hard core of “Never Trump” Republicans who remain unpersuaded as well as a good number of doubters.  John McCain will not run against Trump in a primary, but Jeff Flake might well run.

[8] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 6 April 2018, p. 17.

[9] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 25 May 2018, p. 17.  So 28 percent of Democrats either approve or aren’t sure.

[10] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 9 March 2018, p. 17.  So, 26 percent of Democrats either approve or aren’t sure.

[11] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 11 May 2018, p. 17.

[12] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 18 May 2018, p. 17.  A halt to new regulations and a big tax cut for those who shoulder a disproportionate share of the burden, especially business.

[13] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 18 May 2018, p. 17.

Chain Migration.

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From 1789 to 1808 the United States had a policy of unrestricted immigration; from 1808 to the 1920s the United States had a policy of unrestricted immigration for people of European origins; and from the 1920s to the 1960s the United States had a policy of restricted immigration that favored people from Northwestern Europe.[1]  These changes reflected struggles between economic necessity and national identity.

In 1960, 70 percent of immigrants came from Europe.[2]  Early in 1964, in a little noticed part of his campaign for a “Great Society,” President Lyndon B. Johnson proclaimed that “a nation that was built by immigrants of all lands can ask those who now seek admission “What can you do for our country?’  But we should not be asking ‘In what country were you born?’”  The election of a liberal Congress in November 1964 opened the flood-gates for a host of long-stalled reforms.[3]

A new immigration law compromised between the traditional policy that prioritized immigration from northwestern Europe and a new policy that prioritized candidates with skills and education needed by the United States.  Conservatives chose family re-unification as the device for defending the traditional sources of immigration.  The new “Immigration and Nationality Act” of 1965 capped annual immigration at about a million people and assigned about 80 percent of the slots to ‘family reunification” candidates, but only about 20 percent to “needed” candidates.  Moreover, eligible family members shifted from spouse and small children to add adult children, brothers and sisters, and parents.

What looked to be a resounding victory for conservatives turned out to be something else entirely.  While the Irish and Italians continued to migrate in droves from desperately broken societies, the rest of Europe dried up as a major source of migration to America.  Britain, France, and Germany were both short of labor themselves and building “social” states that offered steadily rising standards of living for most people.  Eastern Europe lay within the Soviet empire, from which few could escape.  As a result, the large share of family reunification slots increasingly flowed toward the previous minority sources of Asia, Latin America, and Africa.  By 2010, 90 percent of immigrants were from non-European sources.

Is there anything wrong with this approach?  From the economic point of view, there is—at least in some eyes and some ways.  On the one hand, traditionally, most immigrants came to America as young people seeking economic opportunity and political freedom.  They found a hard and demanding land that gave nothing away and insisted that immigrants assimilate to an “Anglo-Saxon” culture.  America ended up with lots of adaptable strivers.  An Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) study has reported that skill-based immigrants are more likely to be younger, better educated, more fluent in English, and quicker to get work than are the family-based immigrants.  Thus, American immigration policy misses the opportunity to fully enrich the country’s human capital.  On the other hand, a battle over limiting or reducing immigration is counter-productive for a country that is short of skilled labor and likely to suffer slower economic growth as a result.

So there is a case for immigration reform.  However, it should involve shifting (even reversing) the distribution of slots between “family” and “skill” immigrants.  Of course, even this solution dodges the question of whether the United States should be aggressively recruiting from countries with a dim future—like Taiwan.

[1] From 1808 the involuntary immigration of African slaves was restricted; from the 1880s Asian immigration to the West Coast was restricted; and from 1924 the immigration of people from southern and eastern Europe was restricted.

[2] Greg Ip, “Kinship Emerges as Immigration Flashpoint,” WSJ, 18 January 2018; Tom Gjelten, “The Curious History of ‘Chain Migration’,” WSJ, 20-21 January 2018

[3] See: Julian Zelizer, “The Fierce Urgency of Now.”  Greg Ip argues that Jonson saw immigrants as deserving the same right to equal treatment without regard to race that he wished to insure for American citizens.

Pakiban III.

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Pakistan never wanted anything to do with the American war on the Taliban.  An ideological congruence existed between the Taliban and powerful elements in Pakistan.  An Islamist regime gave Pakistan strategic depth to its east against India.  Afghan Islamists had been valuable allies in the war against the Soviets.  Pashtun values have a powerful appeal for some kinds of people, even if they aren’t Pashtuns.[1]

On the other hand, after 9/11, Americans were hot under the collar.  Richard Armitage flew into Pakistan and made Pervez Musharraf an offer he couldn’t refuse.[2]  But neither Armitage nor Musharraf supposed that the Americans would still be in Afghanistan 17 years later.  They were going to invade the country, kill Osama bin Laden and his merry men, and leave.  Yet, here we still are, with no clear purpose except to avoid defeat.  In the meantime, Pakistan’s policy has turned back to its original pole-star.  Moreover, it has sought alternatives to being bullied by the Americans.[3]

Pakistan sees India as its essential enemy.  Pakistan blames India for the dismemberment of greater Pakistan in the successful secession of East Pakistan/Bangladesh.[4]  The Pakis believe that India has been supporting a secessionist movement in Baluchistan.  Paki leaders have, for a long time, suspected that India would exploit conditions in Afghanistan as a way to put pressure on Pakistan.  In particular, Afghanistan has long argued that the existing Afghan-Pakistan border needs to be revised.   To this end, Pakistan has pursued closer relations with both China and Iran.  Since 2017, Pakistan has been trying to patch up its relationship with Russia.

So long as the United States remains in Afghanistan, it is subject to pressure from Pakistan.  The chief supply routes to American forces there run through Pakistan.  To this end, the Obama administration and the early Trump administration tried to rein-in India in Afghanistan.  They hoped to conciliate Pakistan and win its support against the Taliban.  At the same time, the United States has poured in financial and military aid, while soft-pedalling concerns about Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.  On the other hand, American troops and American drones have attacked Taliban forces in their Pakistani safe-havens.  This has enraged Pakistanis.  For example, in 2011, anti-American protests flashed across Pakistan.  These temporarily shut down supply routes to American forces in Afghanistan.

That approach has not worked.  In August 2017, the Trump administration called on India to do more in the fight in Afghanistan.  This guaranteed a bad reaction from Pakistan.

During the Clinton administration, the Taliban sheltered Al Qaeda from a combination of ideological congruence and Pashtun values.  The United States hesitated to attack Al Qaeda from a combination of prudence (not wanting to accidentally set off an Indo-Pakistan nuclear war) and incredulity (that a tiny movement could actually declare war on the United States, that the U.S. could kill the people responsible, and that Bill Clinton—a “dope-smoking draft dodger”–could be president).  While the Paki conditions still apply, none of the American ones do.  Get out.

[1] Compare https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bmDhfEtNh0 with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a16jACPxSig

[2] See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1zcuYLRbq0

[3] Yarioslav Trofimov, “”Pakistan’s Fears Fuel Afghan War,” WSJ, 25 August, 2017

[4] There is a lot of self-delusion in this view.

Steele, Steal, Stolen, or Given?

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Back when “President Donald Trump” was merely a twinkle in the eye of residents of the Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane,[1] a conservative organization/web-site hired Fusion GPS to dig up some dirt on Trump, help run him off the road in a hurry so that normal people could chase the Republican nomination.[2]  Well, that didn’t work.  When the Republicans packed it in, the Clinton campaign, through a lawyer “cut out,” took over.  Only at this point did GPS Fusion hire Christopher Steele to investigate Trump’s Russia connections.[3]

Steele is an accomplished former British intelligence officer.[4]  He once headed the Russian department of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI-6).  He contacted a couple of Russian sources: a “former top-level intelligence officer still active in the Kremlin” and a “senior Russian Foreign Ministry official.”[5]  They provided him with a bunch of dirt on Donald Trump for the Clinton campaign to use.  Here’s the thing to my ignorant eye.  Vladimir Putin doesn’t like people to do stuff without checking with him first.  No way to run an organization according to American best business practice literature.  Still, Putin seems to like this approach.[6]

In Steele’s words, Moscow “cultivated” Donald Trump “for at least five years” before the election of 2016.  Both Donald Trump and some of his aides[7] “showed full knowledge [of] and support [for]” the Russian leak through Wikipedia of the e-mails stolen from the Democrats.  For its part, Trump and his aides would “sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue” and ease up on sanctions against Russia.  Furthermore, Steele reported that the Russians have a it-would-embarrass-anyone-but-Donald-Trump video tape of Trump instructing Russian prostitutes to urinate on the bed of a Russian luxury hotel once used by the Obamas.

On 20 June 2016, Steele sent the first of his reports to Fusion GPS.  However, Steele was in a wee bit of a lather.  He also shared his reports with the EffaBeeEye and with journalists.  At the end of October 2016, Mother Jones ran an article reporting the existence of the “Steele dossier.”  This didn’t blunt Hillary Clinton’s drive for defeat.  Later, John McCain sent a copy of the dossier to the EffaBeeEye.[8]  Then BuzzFeed published the whole thing.

Common opinion holds that the Russians sought to harm Clinton’s chances of becoming president.  Often, journalists portray this hostility to Clinton as springing from a desire to favor Trump.  However, Putin had reason to hate Clinton, but he couldn’t just kill her.  He hates the United States, but can’t just nuke us.  So, vicious pragmatist that he is, he has settled for the next best thing.  He also trued to sink Trump as well.  “Like a rotten mackerel by moonlight, it shines and stinks.”—John Randolph.

[1] Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs (1988).

[2] Sounds like a good idea to me.  So long as Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio or Sideshow Bob doesn’t become president.

[3] Why target only the Russian connections of a businessman with multi-national operations?  Did GPS Fusion have prior knowledge of Russo-Trumpian skullduggery that allowed them to target this particular issue?  Or did they pursue multiple lines of inquiry and the Russian one is the first to hit pay dirt?

[4] “The Steele dossier,” The Week, 2 February 2018, p. 11.

[5] Wait, there are a couple of Russian officials who have been “sources” for a senior intelligence officer of an enemy state and they’re still walking around? Not buying 20-30 Big Macs to tide them over on the train-ride to Siberia?

[6] For example, see: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/23/here-are-ten-critics-of-vladimir-putin-who-died-violently-or-in-suspicious-ways/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ec13e0aab80b

[7] Steele names Paul Manafort, Carter Page, and Michael Cohen.

[8] Which would seem to have obtained a copy from Steele himself earlier on and was sitting on it.

Head on Collusion

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Adam Schiff says “collusion” and “conspiracy” are the same thing.  Apparently the law says different.  “Conspiracy” is “secret co-operation” of two more parties to commit a crime.  So, to prove a “conspiracy,” prosecutor Robert Mueller will need to show that the Trump campaign received something of “value” from the Russians.[1]  Those things of value might have included covertly-supplied (i.e. “laundered”) campaign contributions.   The “conspiracy” element also could include things like co-ordination of the release of the hacked Democratic National Committee (DNC) e-mails or guiding the Russian social media campaign.[2]

Beyond that, Mueller probably is trying to discover if an understanding existed in which the Russians helped candidate Donald Trump in return for a promise to pursue a policy more friendly to Russia by President if Donald Trump.  One key question appears to be whether anyone in the Trump campaign engaged in “intentional solicitation” for help or co-operation.

In July 2016, Trump publicly urged the Russians to “find” the 30,000 e-mails that Hillary Clinton had deleted from her personal e-mail server.  It seems clear from the story of George Papadopolous and from accounts of the June 2016 meeting between Russians and leaders of the Trump campaign (Donald Trump, Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort) that the Russians had claimed that they had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.[3]  In August 2016, Roger Stone, a Trump adviser, told someone that he had met with Julian Assange, of Wikileaks.  He predicted that DNC official John Podesta soon would be in for a hard time.  Is having knowledge of something the same as participating in a conspiracy?

Michael Flynn, briefly Trump’s national security adviser, discussed economic sanctions with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak, then lied about the discussions to Vice-President Pence.  Michael Cohen, one of Trump’s personal attorneys and commonly described as a “fixer,” is alleged to have lied about a visit to Prague to confer with Russians.  Did he lie under oath or only to journalists?

It has been reported that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told Trump in late April 2018 that he is a target neither of the Mueller investigation nor of the Michael Cohen investigation.[4]  Mueller has been at this for quite a while.  He has indicted George Papodopolous, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, and Michael Flynn, while Michael Cohen has had his home and offices searched.  Is it really possible that he has found no proof of a crime by the president?  Found no one who will “flip” on the president?  Found nothing worth knowing from anyone who is willing to “flip” under the pressure of transgressions unrelated to the campaign?  Or is he just biding his time?

Liberals countered by arguing that “the opera ain’t over till the fat lady sings”: Trump could still become a target at any moment.  Many of their hopes seem to rest on a charge of obstruction of justice related to the firing of FBI Director James Comey.  Comey’s evident loathing of the President he was charged to investigate and a failure by Mueller to discover proof of a “conspiracy” could under-cut the validity of an obstruction charge.  In the court of public opinion, if not in the law courts.

[1] It seems apparent that the “Steele dossier” came from the Russian intelligence service with the intention of helping Hillary Clinton.  So why isn’t the Clinton campaign also under investigation?

[2] “The collusion question,” The Week, 4 May 2018, p. 11.

[3] Clearly they did have some embarrassing materials.  These were released through Wikileaks in August 2016.  Did they have more and “even better” stuff that they held back to use as leverage if Clinton managed to win?

[4] “Giuliani seeks end to Russia probe,” The Week, 4 May 2018, p. 5.

“Bump Stocks.”

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The purchase of fully automatic weapons has been tightly restricted in the U.S. since the 1930s. Outlaws great and small used fully automatic weapons (machine guns and sub-machine guns) against rivals and against the police.[1]  The 1934 National Firearms Act narrowly restricted ownership of fully automatic weapons; a 1986 amendment prohibited most transfers or possession of automatic weapons, except those that had been manufactured and registered with the government in the past.[2]  It would appear that most privately-owned fully automatic weapons are in the possession of licensed gun-ranges.  You can go to a range, pay a daunting fee, and fire a fully automatic weapon at a paper target.  That’s enough for most gun-owners

Still, a small number of gun-owners yearned for the experience of firing a weapon on full-auto at a lower cost.  Then, some physically-disabled shooters wanted an adaptive technology that would allow them to enjoy one of their favorite pre-disability sports.  Admittedly, this is kind of a niche market.[3]  Numerous attempts to design retrofits for semi-automatic weapons failed.  Then, in 2008 or 2009, someone invented “bump stocks.”  The particular technology doesn’t seem to me to matter.  The effect does matter.  “Bump stocks” allowed shooters to “simulate” full automatic fire.[4]

In 2010, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (commonly ATF) considered whether they violated federal law by creating a new form of fully automatic weapons.  ATF concluded that they did not violate federal legal restrictions on automatic weapons.  They did not alter the internal firing mechanism.  They just exploited it to achieve the same effect as a full-auto weapon.  So, “bump stocks” were good to go.  This was two years before the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings.  In the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings, President Obama said he would “use whatever power this office holds” to prevent a new version of the massacre.  Alas, when he issued 23 Executive Orders in January 2013 to enhance gun-control, these did not include ordering ATF to revisit its approval of “bump stocks.”

Still, “bump stock”-modified weapons have problems.  First, they are Hell on accuracy.  Still if a sniper has 22,000 people penned inside a concert venue, s/he doesn’t need to be very accurate.  Anything within range can become a target.  Second, firing weapons designed to fire as semi-automatic on “simulated” full-auto generates more heat than the weapons are designed to handle.  They tend to jam.  So Stephen Paddock attached “bump stocks” to 12 of the rifles he brought to his room in the Mandalay Bay.[5]  It seems likely that he walked back and forth between the two windows he had broken whenever a weapon jammed, picking another off the bed on the way.

The obvious solution here is to revisit the 2010 ATF decision and declare “bump stocks” illegal.  That won’t do the casualties in Las Vegas any good, but it might help forestall mass shootings in the future.  Still, “mass shootings” as conventionally defined and long-guns (rifles and shotguns) account for a small share of the murders and suicides that still give America a high homicide rate.  Certainly, action on this front is needed.  It should not distract people from the much larger problem of hand-gun killings.  However, it will do just that.  For now.

[1] See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ-gYx7hXZg and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84Lo0iNy4bg

[2] Kind of like “legacy” admissions to Ivy League universities.  I don’t mean to suggest that they have equally harmful effects on American society.

[3] One Georgia gun-dealer judged that he had sold a couple in a couple of years.

[4] See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7DTjSla-O8

[5] At maybe $200 each, that cost his about $2,400.

What if Hillary Clinton had won?

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One can’t help but wonder what would be different if Hillary Clinton had won the Electoral College vote as well as the popular vote.  Some things are clear, others are hazy–to me anyway.

First, the Republicans would still hold the House and the Senate.  Nothing that President Clinton proposed would pass through Congress and nothing that the Republicans passed through Congress would be signed into law.  Thus, for at least two more years, we would be living with a continuation of the final six years of the Obama administration.  That is, President Clinton II would govern by executive orders and rule-changes by federal agencies.  These would be contested in the courts.

Second, the Republican Senate might well refuse to hold hearings on any Clinton nominee for the Supreme Court.  Thus, probably we would be living with a 4-4 deadlock on the Court.  The decisions of lower courts would be affirmed.  That would shift the judicial struggles to the nomination of judges to lower courts.

Third, both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton had repudiated the Asia Pacific trade deal before the election.  It would be just as dead under a Clinton administration as it is under a Trump administration.

Fourth, James Comey would have been dismissed as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  Congress would then have held hearings on this matter, including on whether this amounted to obstruction of justice.  (See: Benghazi hearings if you don’t think that this last contention is true.)

Fifth, there would be an investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.  This investigation would reveal—at the least—that the Russkies had hacked Democratic computers and the passed the fruits of this robbery to Wikileaks.  Moreover, the Russians would be revealed to have done a bunch of other things that may have monkeyed with the passions of voters.

Six, the Clinton campaign would have transitioned to government offices.  The results for American government would resemble those of the Clinton campaign itself.  According a New York Times review of the first account of the Clinton campaign organization, “It’s the story of a wildly dysfunctional and ‘spirit-crushing’ campaign that embraced a flawed strategy (based on flawed data) that failed, repeatedly, to correct course…In fact, the portrait of the Clinton campaign that emerges from these pages is that of a Titanic-like disaster: an epic fail made up of a series of perverse and often avoidable missteps by an out-of-touch candidate and her strife-ridden staff.”  These people would then have set out to manage the White House.  Then, what about Bill and Chelsea, and the Clinton Foundation, and Huma Abedin?

Seventh, Roy Moore would not have had the chance to defeat Luther Strange for a Senate seat from Alabama because Jeff Sessions would still be a sitting senator.

Eighth, the Clinton administration would be dealing with a series of long-developing, but now pullulating international crises: Iran’s nuclear weapons combined with its support for the Assad regime in Syria; North Korea’s nuclear threat; Russia’s intervention in a series of conflicts. European elections; and the Rohingya refugees.  So, a lot of ugly issues.

Ninth, the “exchanges” created by the Affordable Care Act (“ObamaCare”) were collapsing before the election.  Young people have declined to pay for their elders.  President Clinton would have had to seek a solution in league with a Republican Congress.  Under these circumstances, what would be the middle ground?

When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains.

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After the defeat of the Soviet Union and the withdrawal of its forces in 1989, Afghanistan collapsed into civil war.  From that appalling war the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist movement, emerged victorious.  Then the Taliban provided a home for Osama bin Laden.  Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda group then truck-bombed two American embassies in East Africa and attacked the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen.  The Clinton administration kinda-sorta wanted to do something about the problem.  However, Americans weren’t ramped-up for war at the time; the head of the CIA wasn’t sure that it was OK to kill foreign terrorists; Pakistan saw the Taliban as a useful client[1]; cruise missiles were problematic because flying them across Pakistan into Afghanistan might trigger a Paki-Indian nuclear war by mistake, so you had to tell the Pakis about the attacks and the Pakis told Bin Laden; the U.S. military despised Bill Clinton, so they didn’t work hard at providing the dough-head with options; and drones were just a twinkle in the eye of weapons designers.  So, the Americans did nothing effective.  Then came 9/11.[2]

Virtually none of the original conditions now apply.  Americans now are perfectly content to blow up suspected Islamist radicals; drones have advanced massively in number and capacities; no American regards either Afghanistan or the Pakistan’s “tribal regions” as a “No Go  Zone”; any thinking person regards Pakistan as an enemy state; and—as under Bill Clinton—the American military wants to limit the range of choices presented to the president.   Now Americans can strike at radical Islamists with a free hand.  Why not just say 2017 is not 2001?  What are we to do?  Why send troops?  Get.  Out.  Yet the recent war-plan announced by President Trump takes little account of these –perceived only by me?—realities.

Well, what about the blown-up Buddhist statues because radical Islamists object to the physical representation of deities (icons) and to polytheism?  What about the ban on televisions (for the same reason they blew up the Buddhist statues)?  What about the women in blue burkas falling down in the street because they can’t see where they’re going?  What about the “honor killings”?  What about the sodomized young boys because sometimes that how men with guns roll?  Sucks to be them.  But it sucks to be an American soldier.  Just one percent of Americans do military service. (Lots more put yellow ribbons on the trunks of cars and the tail-gates of pick-up trucks.  So, that’s a help, I’m realize.)  Even so, for whom and for what do we ask American soldiers to fight?  For oil companies?  For feminist ideals of how all women should be treated?  For hetero-normativity?  So we don’t have to say we lost a war?

Why aren’t people in the streets over this issue?  They were when I was a kid.[3]  Four decades later, the same generation appears indifferent to a war shrouded in puzzles.  (OK, some of them are exercised over transgender bathrooms and Confederate monuments.[4])  Where is Congress on the war?

Where does South Asia (Afghanistan, Pakistan, India) fit in America’s national security strategy?  Where does it rank in comparison to Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East?  What happens if we “lose” Afghanistan?  What would we get out of “winning” in Afghanistan?  What would constitute “winning”?  IDK.  I’m just one guy.

[1] They still do.

[2] See: The Report of the 9/11 Commission.

[3] Truth in packaging: I wasn’t one of them.  Never occurred to me.  OK, Seattle in the Seventies was a time machine: take you back to the world of Ward and June Cleever.  Really, it was just shy and contrarian me.

[4] Republicans hold the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court, and 34 state governorships.  It seems unlikely that these sorts of issues offer a path to a Democratic majority.