What Would a Clinton or Trump Presidency Look Like?

With Clinton that’s easy to answer — it will very likely look a lot like the last Clinton presidency. Hillary was certainly an important advisor to Bill, and now Bill is for Hillary. Both are left of center Democrats with a love of policy detail and proven adherence to incremental progress.

While a few of Clinton’s 1990s policies had negative long term consequences, for the most part the presidency went very well. We balanced the budget, the economy did very well, there was a little progress on gay rights, and we won the only war we fought at the time, the Balkans, while suffering zero combat fatalities. Today, the Balkans are more-or-less democratic, more-or-less peaceful and are integrating into Europe, thank you very much.

Interestingly, the Clinton presidential years are the only time of my entire life when we weren’t at war. Before Clinton was the Cold War and less than a year after he left office we got Bush’s disastrous War on Terror — which might be expected from trying to go to war with a noun. It might have been better to declare war on al Qaeda.

A Trump presidency is harder to predict. Actually, impossible to predict. Figuring out what his policies really are is a little like trying to nail jello to the wall. Nothing stays put. Also, since he constantly changes his mind who knows what his policies will be come next January.

The worst case would be if he does what he usually says he’ll do: deport 11 million people, build an enormous wall thousands of miles long, buy a lot of military hardware of dubious utility fighting Daesh (the proper name for ISIS), and give enormous tax breaks to himself and his rich buddies (and smaller ones for the rest of us). This will, of course, send the deficit, which we’ve been bringing down for many years, through the roof. It will probably bankrupt us and Daesh will win.

There is one certainty: Trump is the perfect president from the Daesh perspective. The Daesh strategic goal is to ignite a war between the West and Islam. Trump’s endless anti-Muslim bombast is perfect recruitment material, driving Muslims into Daesh’s waiting arms. This will drive up US war fighting costs and contribute to what may be the last, and by far the biggest, Trump bankruptcy.

Why I think Hillary Clinton will likely make a very good President

She is wicked smart.

She works her a** off.

She knows her s*** backwards, forwards, upside down and inside out.

She is far more honest and truthful than Donal Trump (an admittedly low bar to jump over).

Her political views are very close to mine. We are both left of center liberal pragmatists.

This country, and much of the world, did very well in the 90s when she had the President's ear.

Why I think Hillary Clinton will likely make a very good President

She is wicked smart.

She works her a** off.

She knows her s*** backwards, forwards, upside down and inside out.

She is far more honest and truthful than Donal Trump (an admittedly low bar to jump over).

Her political views are very close to mine. We are both left of center liberal pragmatists.

This country, and much of the world, did very well in the 90s when she had the President's ear.

So speak out and VOTE!

Trump as a Bullshit Artist

I have watched the Donald on TV quite a bit, and the breadth and depth of his bullshit is truly astonishing. I would like to share three of my favorite Donald bullshitisms with you right now.

1. When Trump was the top dog Obama birther he said he sent investigators to Hawaii to look into Obama's birth place and they found "amazing things," truly amazing. Needless to say we never heard of this again because the Donald had nothing, and knew it. He just wanted to create the impression in your mind that Obama was not born in the U.S., and succeeded with a substantial fraction of the far right.

2. My second fav was the absolute and complete ban on Muslims entering the country. The Donald knows perfectly well that U.S. military on deployment would come home regardless of religion. He knows that Muslim U.S. citizens will come home when they please. He knows that he can't keep diplomats from North Africa, the Middle East, central Asia and other Muslim countries from coming to embassies and consulates all over the country. The Donald knows perfectly well that real terrorists trying to enter the country aren't going to advertise their religion, i.e., the whole concept is totally bullshit, but you have to admire the chutzpa.

3. I'll save my favorite for last: his secret plan to defeat ISIS. Just like Nixon's secret plan to win the Vietnam war there is no there there. Just to be clear, we lost the Vietnam war. The Donald, even though he says he gets his military expertise from watching TV shows, knows perfectly well that although the U.S. military could conquer the territory currently held by ISIS fairly easily, the real fight would start after the occupation and, as we found in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's not conquering but the aftermath that goes badly. Still, Trump got to stand in front of big crowds, thump his chest, and emit vast quantities of bullshit. How fun!

So there's a few of my favorites. Feel free to share them with your friends and add your own, I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding them. Just watch your TV.

Fear is a Losing Strategy

Around the country there is a movement to prevent any Syrian refugees from coming into the United States. The fear is that Daesh (a better, Arabic, name for ISIS, which they hate :-) may infiltrate the refugees as a way to get into the country, which could happen. Of course, the vast majority of the refugees are our natural allies. Many are, after all, fleeing Daesh.

So, in order to prevent some small number of Daesh fighters from possibly getting in, we hurt thousands of our allies. Not exactly brilliant, but it gets much worse.

What is the actual additional threat posed by the refugees?

Millions of people come through our airports, and some of them may well be Daesh fighters. It's a lot easier to get through airport security than the refugee screening process, which is pretty rigorous. After all, airports are how the 9/11 hijackers got in. Getting guns for commando attacks once in the US is certainly no problem.

Daesh also has direct access, through the internet, to almost everyone in the U.S., maybe 300 million people, and there is no question that their recruiting efforts are often successful, leading to home grown terrorists like the Boston marathon bombers.

The total additional threat posed by taking in refugees is miniscule. The vast majority of the threat comes from airports and the internet.

So, to inflict trivial problems on our enemies we hurt thousands of our friends and give Daesh yet another recruitment tool to go along with the presence of foreign forces, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

There is a fundamental military principle that is being ignored here. That principle is "Overwhelming Force at the Critical Point." The critical point in the war with Daesh and their ilk is our relationship with the people of the Arab world and the Muslim community. That is the only place the war can be won. Killing Daesh fighters is necessary, but not decisive. They can be easily replaced and even if Daesh were completely destroyed tomorrow, in a couple of years another similar organization would arise. You don't get rid of a weed by cutting it, you have to dig out the roots.

If we follow the leaders who are folding to fear of Daesh and abandoning our principles, honor, and natural allies will hurt us and lead to far more casualties than if we lived up to our national anthem and made America the "home of the brave."

Why you should vote for congressional Democrats

For the first two years of the Obama administration Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, although not with a fillibuster-proof majority. Consider just a bit of what happened in those two years:

• We turned economic free-fall into a growing economy. When Obama took office I bet that he could turn the economy around. I sold my foreign stock and bought American index funds. I have more than doubled my money. Unemployment is below 6%. We don't have everything we want, but things are a lot better.
• Universal health care became the law of the land. This happened during a brief moment of fillibuster-proof majority. So far, about 13 million more Americans now have health insurance. We have a ways to go, but it's a good start.
• Green energy received a big funding boost. Result: neighborhood roofs are sprouting solar panels, wind mills are going up around the country, we are nearly self sufficient in energy, our greenhouse emissions are down, and electric cars are hitting the road.
• Wall Street and the banks got a new set of regulations to live by. They are certainly tougher than we had before. Time will tell if they are tough enough.

For the last four years the Republicans have controlled the House and, not surprisingly, neither President Obama or anyone else can get any sort of progressive legislation through Congress.

Along the way a funny thing happened in California. The Democrats took over the whole government with a super majority. They could do anything they wanted. What they did was dig California out of a huge fiscal hole and balance the budget. Compare that with the cut-taxes-and-spend, borrow-against-tomorrow reality of the Republicans when they had control in the 2000s.

If we get a Democratic Congress we won't get everything we want, but we'll get some of it, which is a lot more than we'll get from the Republicans. Vote for congressional Democrats.

Leon Panetta has his head stuck straight up his ...

you know what. Why do I say this?

Panetta just published a book. I'm not going to comment on the book because I haven't read it. I have, however, heard Panetta be interviewed and I will comment about the interview. In particular, about Syrian chemical weapons. Panetta's story is very simple:

1. President Obama said Syrian use of chemical weapons would result in serious consequences.
2. Assad, Syria's embattled president, used chemical weapons.
3. Obama did not bomb Syria.

What makes Panetta a jerk is that he left out one teeny-weeny itsy-bitsy fact of enormous relevance. A more complete story goes like this:

1. President Obama said Syrian use of chemical weapons would result in serious consequences.
2. Assad, Syria's embattled president, used chemical weapons.
3. Threatened with bombing by Obama, Assad gave up his chemical weapons (at least the ones we know about).
4. Obama did not bomb Syria.

Given a choice between blowing up bits of Syria and getting rid of a dictator's chemical weapons America is clearly better off getting rid of the weapons. Duh.

It gets deeper though. Suppose we had bombed Assad severely enough to overthrow him. If the Assad regime went down what would happen to all those chemical weapons? The rebels would get them. Who are the strongest rebels? ISIS and other al Qaeda offshoots! Our mortal enemies. Next stop for those weapons, an American city near you.

What President Obama did with the Syrian chemical weapons crisis was brilliant. He got rid of the weapons without firing a shot. Those are weapons that can never be used by Assad or ISIS or anyone else. They are not coming to an American city near you. Oh, and by the way, taking down Assad is a lot safer now.

That's top notch leadership.