JACK BERNARD'S TRAVELS

Posted by jdbernard743

· May 30, 2017

Commander-in-Thief

There’s no other way to say it… I’m worn down and disheartened by what’s happening in Washington. I still believe that fairness, goodness, generosity, cooperation, and compassion are core values to most Americans, but when the President and his surrogates lie to us, when reporters are jailed (W. VA), body slammed (MT), or referred to as “enemies of the state” (POTUS) for simply asking questions, when Russia is praised and courted and NATO snubbed and denigrated, when legislation is crafted to harm the poor and enrich the wealthy it’s obvious that our core values are under siege. But keep reading… I have a theory.

Congress is deaf, dumb, and mute (as confused as we are), while the only three honorable men in the cabinet – McMaster, Mattis, and Kelly – are endangering their own reputations by defending the President’s boorish behavior at the NATO and G7 conferences in Europe.

You couldn’t make up the unfolding scenarios; there are elements of House of Cards, Scandal, The Americans and Homeland blended into the actions in Washington. Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright have both said that, try as they might, the imaginative writers at House of Cards can’t stay ahead of the real life plotlines at the White House. Russian interference in the election. Secret meetings with Russian intelligence officers. Clandestine meetings in the Seychelles. A meeting with the KGB-trained president of a sanctioned Russian bank. Group amnesia. Suspicions of money laundering in Cyprus. Racist leadership at the Department of Justice. A climate denier heading the Environmental Protection Agency. A rich woman with no public school experience in charge of the Department of Education. A doctor/Congressman linked to insider trading in healthcare stocks heading Health and Human Services. Connecting the dots is not a problem, they’ve bled together and become a stain. The strands of the rope are weaving themselves together. The noose is tightening, but we are still waiting for those tax returns from the Commander-in-Thief.

Inside the White House, chaos is the modus operandi. Nobody can keep Grumpy happy. Reince Priebus is trapped in the middle of the Kushner Bannon turf war. Kushner hates Bannon. Bannon thinks Kushner is a Democrat. Bannon is losing influence while his little toady, Stephen Miller, becomes a rising star. Sean Spicer is under siege because he can’t explain away The Donald’s gaffes, and Corey Lewandowski is on his way back to take on the role of attack dog.

I ask myself on a daily basis what I can do to raise awareness and redirect the vector back to American core values. The good news is that I think it will happen. Whether you call it a pendulum swing or return to sanity, change will happen and balance restored. Pundits are calling for impeachment. Treason is being mentioned. I think Trump is scared and Kushner has been outed for trying to create a back channel directly to Putin.

In the end we’re back at the beginning. This is about money. This is about a vast criminal enterprise designed to enrich the Trump and Kushner families. Follow the money. After the four Trump casino bankruptcies in the ‘90s, no one would loan Trump money. Enter the Russians. Don Jr. has bragged about the extent of Russian investment, but because Trump Sr. has withheld his tax returns we don’t have the details. Even if we had the returns it is likely that the source of funds would be hidden in shell companies, LLC’s, and other offshore entities. These investors will be unmasked by the FBI and Special Counsel but it will take time. It always does.

Jared Kushner is at the heart of the Trump/Russia scandal, and like his father-in-law before him, his greed has put him in financial hot water. The President’s 36-year-old son-in-law is no choir boy though he looks like one. His father, convicted of 18 felonies including tax evasion, tax fraud, and witness tampering spent two years in federal prison but built a successful family real estate empire that his son runs. Nevertheless, Jared’s 2007 purchase of 666 Fifth Avenue for $1.8 billion and the financial crisis of 2008 left him with a mountain of debt and constantly on the lookout for new money. Earlier this year a Chinese investor pulled out of a deal that would have made him whole. Kushner’s 666 problem is still there and he needs a bailout.

My theory is that Jared’s reckless approach to the Russian Ambassador and his attempt to open a secret encrypted “back channel” to President Putin was part of a plan to exchange sanctions for money. If the back channel had succeeded, the Trump and Kushner companies would have found a limitless source of capital in exchange for the lifting of Russian sanctions. The Trump/Kushner real estate empires would have the financing potential for worldwide expansion and Russian intrusion into former Soviet states would have gone unopposed. This is treason; a straight up quid pro quo – unlimited capital for the Trump/Kushner families and the release of sanctions for Vladimir Putin and his gang of thieves.

It isn’t clear whether a sitting president can be indicted, but it is clear that once removed from office criminal prosecution is possible. First comes impeachment, then comes the criminal prosecution. My best guess is that if the Special Counsel uncovers the truth and a successful Bill of Impeachment is brought, Trump, Kushner and their associates (Manafort, Flynn, Page, etc.) might end up on the pointy end of a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) prosecution. Eric Schneiderman, the New York Attorney General has mentioned the possibility, and Preet Bharara, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York that Trump fired was also working on a similar case against the Trump organization. Have you noticed that Trump has not returned to New York since the inauguration? Is he avoiding a confrontation with Schneiderman?

Welcome to Club Fed Riverside County California.

Baseball diamonds. Track. Athletic fields, and secure, subsidized housing. What more could a convicted felon want?

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Categories : Politics, Uncategorized, Work and Adventure

Posted by jdbernard743

· May 25, 2017

· No Comments

Gutless Wonders…

The political mysteries of the moment are:

Why did only half the eligible voters think our presidential election was worth turning out for?
How did such an ill-informed unfit candidate become President of the United States?
How did the Russians manage to meddle so effectively in our electoral process?
Why doesn’t a Republican Congress that distrusts or at the least feels ambivalent about its President fully embrace an investigation into his possible collusion with the Russians?

American democratic traditions and institutions are under attack. The vultures are circling. Why haven’t our elected officials come together to thwart the attack and bring the nation together?

Last week, after four months of Congressional foot dragging, during which we watched the President fire all of the nation’s serving US Attorneys, Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and FBI director James Comey, Deputy Attorney General Ron Rosenstein decided to take the investigation of criminal wrongdoing away from a partisan, gutless Congress and appointed an independent Special Council. Former FBI Director Robert Mueller’s charge is to look into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians in the 2016 election.

The undisputed Russian cyberattack was an act of war. It is inconceivable that an American president, notified by 17 intelligence agencies that a foreign power interfered in our election, would not counterattack with increased sanctions, countermeasures, and severed diplomatic relations. But… Donald Trump did not. In fact, he doubled down and invited the Russian Foreign Minister and Ambassador to the Oval Office along with a Russian television crew and excluded all American media. Is it any wonder this man is smiling?

America needs to know the truth. Did Trump and his campaigners collude with the Russians? Is he obstructing the investigation? What is he afraid of? What is he hiding? What is it that he doesn’t want us to see in his tax returns?

As Americans, we were raised to believe in a nation of laws and the rule of law. No one was to be above it. This President’s behavior is unacceptable – and so is Congress’s. The rule of law is in jeopardy. We need answers.

America has been through difficult periods since its birth. Revolution. Civil War. Scandals and hard times. I saw the effect of the Depression on my parents throughout their lives. As a child during WWII, I listened to daily reports of the war, the battle between democracy and fascism. I was around for the founding of Israel, the Korean War, the Vietnam war, the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK, the Nixon/Watergate scandal, the Clinton impeachment scandal, 9/11 and the rise of terrorism, the Arab Spring, the rabbit hole wars of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, and now the emergence of Donald J. Trump. Once again we’re in dangerous waters.

Without historical perspective it’s difficult to judge how perilous these times are. So far we’ve only seen smoke and political posturing; scary and dramatic but not dangerously so. Congress is in a stupefied neutered state. Nothing is getting done, because the courts have prevented implementation of the President’s most draconian executive orders. But the signs of peril are ominous.

The suspension of protocols and traditions, a President ignorant of history and American government, and the appointment of ideological advisors make it seem especially perilous. So far, a cabinet cadre of former military leaders has prevented him from impulsive acts of aggression though he has been tested by North Korea and Syria since taking office.

The election threw the nation into shock. Hopefully the appointment of a Special Counsel will clear a path for functional government. The Russian inquiry will take time. We won’t know the outcome for months or maybe even years. Russian interference should never have been a partisan issue. It’s not a Republican or a Democratic issue; it’s a national issue. All three branches of government should be aggressively pursuing the truth. Foreign interference is a criminal act. The Russians interfered with our electoral process and every American should know the truth about it – why did they do it, who was involved, were any Americans implicated, and why?

If the Trump organization was involved in collusion with the Russians prior to the election they should be punished. If Congress and the Special Counsel move forward with their investigations, use the tools of discovery, exercise due diligence, and arrive at a conclusion – whatever the outcome – I will be overjoyed to know that the system is healthy. If Trump is guilty, I want to see him do the perp-walk in an orange jumpsuit. I won’t be pleased with a Pence presidency, but I won’t be afraid of the future for my children and grandchildren.

Director Mueller’s appointment is an important step in cleansing the process. Though he’s conducting an independent bipartisan investigation, it doesn’t absolve Congress of its responsibility. The FBI, Senate, and House investigations will continue with their own mandates. They will need staff and resources so they can uncover the facts as they relate to their own scope of inquiry. I trust they will get them.

It’s not that difficult. The process is simple but the work will be hard:

Identify the problem (Russian interference and possible collusion)
Investigate the problem (Congress, Special Counsel, and the FBI)
Determine the facts (follow the money, check the paper trail, analyze surveillance, interrogate witnesses)
Arrive at a conclusion.

Was there collusion or simply outside interference? Take appropriate action. We need to know.

Categories : Film/Television, Politics, Travel, Uncategorized

Posted by jdbernard743

· May 12, 2017

· No Comments

Venus is Retrograde and Other Chaos Theories…

It’s often easier to see the flaws in others than to see our own, so I shouldn’t have been surprised to find I had given myself a pass on one of my own. I realize, despite the lip service I had paid it, that I had never really given gender equality the consideration it deserved. I didn’t have to. As an older white male, I had a regular seat at the table.

So, last week when President Trump was shown in the rose garden of the White House with a group of grinning, back-slapping, white men and a case of Bud Light to celebrate passage of the House of Representative’s newest Obamacare replacement it was a gut check and stunning throwback to an earlier time. That picture was worth a thousand words.

I was startled to see it, and it cast in stark relief the abrupt transition from the thoughtful, bright, compassionate multi-racial presidency of Barack Obama to the misogynistic, greedy, self-congratulating white one of Donald Trump. I’m not interested in re-litigating the election. It’s over… at least the election part is and until the fumble bums in Congress and the FBI get their acts together to peel back the feckless, treasonous behavior of the Trump team that part is history.

No doubt about it, Hillary Clinton was a flawed candidate but her absence has left a noticeable void. Something is missing, something we need for balance – strong women, smart women who can influence policy, capable women in positions of power, decisive women with perspective, and just maybe one in the White House.*

*(Footnote: Ivanka doesn’t count and neither do Melania’s conjugal visits.)

America should be embarrassed to have chosen an ignorant, inexperienced man over a smart, experienced woman. Venus must be retrograde.

_____

On Monday, Condoleezza Rice appeared as a guest on Morning Joe, the MSNBC political show to promote her new book, Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom.

The timing and subject matter were uncanny. Against the backdrop of a fumbling new administration, it was obvious that “the long road to freedom” had just gotten longer, but here was an experienced political operative who also happened to be a black woman, a former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, and a committed Republican. When asked by host, Joe Scarborough, “What do you think the most important quality a person can bring to the presidency,” this woman, who served two presidents, said without hesitation, “honesty.” They should have ended the interview right there. Oh, to know what she really thinks about Trump’s reckless disregard for the truth?

During the interview I couldn’t help but look back to earlier administrations where bright, patriotic women like Ms. Rice played important roles at the highest levels of government. Hillary Clinton did not succeed in breaking the glass ceiling to become our first woman president but she, Madelaine Albright, and Condoleezza all served America with distinction at the highest levels. It took almost 200 years for them to get there, but all three acted honorably and with dignity as our representatives on the global stage.

I don’t have a candidate in mind but I think it’s time we gave the nuclear codes to a woman. There’s too much testosterone in American government. Tomahawk missiles into Syria. Talk of war with a nuclear North Korea. More American troops to Afghanistan. As the old saying goes, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” It’s very male.

How is it that among developed countries America is one of the few that has never had a woman leader? From Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, and Indira Gandhi to Angela Merkel women have provided strong political leadership where they have been given the opportunity. What’s holding us back? I didn’t want Hillary but why is it we don’t have a deep bench of strong women leaders?

I wasn’t a fan of Dr. Rice’s when she was in government because of her association with the George Bush presidency. I questioned her attachment to such a flawed president but never doubted her intelligence and understanding of geopolitics. I wouldn’t hesitate to give her the job today. There is much to admire. In addition to her tenures as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, she’s a teacher, a writer, a Russian expert, and a fluent French and Russian speaker. On top of that, she’s an accomplished figure skater and classical pianist who loves football and once described being NFL Commissioner as her dream job. It’s hard to find a flaw. So…

Let’s say no to the old boys’ network. I grew up looking at America through rose colored glasses, proud and patriotic, insensitive to my own privilege but believing that elected officials did what was right for the majority of their constituents. I was naive, but I believed with John Stuart Mill and the Utilitarians that “The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.” I still believe that part and I don’t want to stop believing it. Let’s find some leaders who also believe it, and let’s make sure that we seek the wisdom of women when we do.

Categories : Books, Personal/Family, Politics, Uncategorized, Work and Adventure

Posted by jdbernard743

· May 5, 2017

· No Comments

The Flabby Truth…

Stop mourning – it’s a done deal, he’s our President
Stop being confused and bewildered – get over it and get to work
Stop looking for meaning, strategy, coherence – they’re missing
Stop reading his Tweets – it’s part of his shiny object gambit
Stop thinking he will change – he never has
Stop believing he will become presidential – he doesn’t know how
Stop thinking he’ll divest himself of conflicts – he’s too greedy
Stop thinking Congress will stop him – they’re gutless

NOW IT’S UP TO US!

Yes, I’ve been beating the drum against Trump’s ignorance, arrogance, bigotry, misogyny, and bluster since before the election. His faults were so obvious and well documented; he was an easy target. But, now he’s the Commander-in-Chief with the nuclear codes at his stubby little fingertips. We need to focus. It’s time to end this charade and call him out for trying to hijack our democracy. He and his feckless, reckless, clueless posse have put American democracy in peril. We now have an uninformed, unread, impulsive, petulant, narcissist as the 45th President of the United States. And, it’s not just America that’s concerned; his ignorance of world affairs is scaring other world leaders too.

It’s hard to know where to begin; there are so many entry points, but here are some of the things we know and he doesn’t:

We know the institutions and documents of American democracy were designed to insure the orderly administration of government business. They, and the rules that govern them, lay out a rat’s nest of bureaucratic twists and turns – intentional twists and turns designed to protect us from tyranny by the majority. President Trump doesn’t understand this or appreciate that these safeguards were what helped put him in office.

The Electoral College is just one example; Hillary Clinton, with 3 million more votes, would be President of the United States if a simple majority dictated the result. Instead, the founders devised a formula that would protect the citizens of smaller states from being overwhelmed by the larger ones. In this case, that formula made the decisive difference in who would be our President. He’ll never understand that.

We know, on the legislative side, that Mr. Trump dislikes the “archaic” rules of the US Senate, although it’s an archaic rule that gave him his seat in the Oval Office. If archaic rules work for him he likes them, if not they need to go. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made it clear today (5/3/2017) that he has no intention of abandoning the Senate’s “archaic” rules to facilitate Trump’s desire for simple majority rule. I hope he means it.

We also know that the President of the United States continues to enrich himself and his family at the expense of fellow Americans. One particularly egregious example is his continuing capacity as leaseholder of the Trump International Hotel in Washington DC. Not only is it conflict of interest, it is also a violation of GAO (Government Accounting Office) rules. Nevertheless, it continues and every day the hotel profits go directly to the Trump organization.

It is the same with Mar-a-Lago, the Florida club he refers to as his “winter White House.” This is a Trump-owned private club with a $200,000 annual membership fee where members have access to the President and his staff and whose profits flow that directly to the President’s bottom line. Between January 20 and April 16,2017 he flew to Mar-a-Lago seven times on Air Force One at an average cost of $3,000,000 per trip. American taxpayers paid every cent of the cost.

It is both illegal and immoral for President Trump to perpetuate the sham that he has disengaged from his business interests. His two sons are flying maniacally around the globe closing new deals for the Trump organization, while he packs the White House staff with family members who continue to promote their own brands and financial interests closely tied to his.

The American people have a right to know the extent of those business interests, and the only way we will ever know is if he releases his tax returns. Before Congress begins crafting anything like tax reform or tax cuts, Americans need to know how these reforms will affect the President’s own businesses. Will he benefit from the changes and to what extent? Where are his assets located? How were they financed? How much debt does he have and to whom? What are the sources of that debt? Can they be traced? Was any of the money laundered? Who are the individual creditors?

And finally, we know of Trump’s affection for despots and autocrats. It began with Putin, but with his Russian connections under scrutiny, he’s recently courted Korea’s Kim Jong Un, congratulated Turkey’s Recep Erdogan, met with Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and invited the self-proclaimed murderer Rodrigo Duderte of the Philippines to the White House. Political commentators are bewildered by these actions and unsure of their meaning. At the least, they point to a fascination with authoritarian government. Donald’s newest best friends have demonstrated that it’s easier to get things done if a free press is silenced and opponents are either murdered or in jail. It’s the way Putin, Kim Jong Un, Recep Erdogan, Rodrigo Duderte have governed. It’s not the American way, but Trump’s frustration makes their way seem even better.

When is Congress going to wake up and stop pretending the Emperor’s new clothes are legitimate? They’re not. This is the flabby truth. The statues are crude, but so is he. He’s a fraud and pretender whose actions are endangering the architecture of our democracy, the democracy our founders worked so diligently to give us. Let’s stop fooling ourselves. He’s not going away in the short term. We need to acknowledge the reality but find a way to block his self-dealing and his moves toward autocratic rule.

We know these things.

IT’S UP TO US NOW!

Categories : Aviation, Fashion/Lifestyle, Politics, Uncategorized

Posted by jdbernard743

· May 2, 2017

· 1 Comment

Trump and Turkey…

There’s a lot to like about Turkey. It’s exotic, mysterious, and diverse – beautiful blue water sailing on the southwestern coast where the Aegean and Mediterranean meet, ancient rock dwellings at Cappadocia, the broad expanse of the Anatolian plateau, and a blending of cultures where Europe and Asia meet at the Bosporus. (above).

Long before the Orient Express, Istanbul felt mysterious and unpredictable, as if a camel driver might be blocking the path of a Mercedes consular car around the next corner. I spent time there on my own and on layovers as a Pan Am pilot. I had a favorite smoke-filled café near the Golden Horn that served doner kebab for a couple of bucks and a tiny shop nearby where I bought pistachios and squishy dried figs carefully wrapped in brown paper by the owner. I loved Istanbul, the crowds and excitement, even the diesel fumes, a Eurasian jumble of mosques, churches, narrow winding streets, designer shops, shared taxis, noisy ferries, and hard bargaining rug merchants in the Grand Bazaar.

Maybe it’s that I’m getting older or maybe it’s my political paranoia, but in recent years Turkey has taken on an unstable air, and as much as I love off beat travel, I wonder how safe I would feel there today? I’m not sure, but I’m troubled by recent events.

Millions of refugees have overwhelmed services as they flee the carnage in neighboring Syria. Terror attacks at the Istanbul airport, Ankara, and a nightclub known to attract foreigners has cast a chill on tourism. Separatist Kurds have joined coalition forces in the fight against ISIS but have to defend themselves against attacks by their own government. And, last month President Erdogan consolidated power with a divisive referendum victory greatly expanding the powers and duration of his presidency.

Immediately following the April vote, President Trump phoned Erdogan to “congratulate” him on his victory, a victory not unlike his own – narrow and questionable. He was alone among western politicians making a call. Most of the world’s leaders saw the referendum as a victory for authoritarian rule and a defeat for popular democratic governance.

But, Donald Trump envies Erdogan. Maybe it’s his large hands… or maybe it’s simply envy for what he’s accomplished – silencing the press, crushing his opposition, jailing dissidents, shutting down TV channels, and enacting a series of laws to enhance his power.

Only this morning (May 1, 2017), Trump told a John Dickerson of CBS News that it was the “archaic” rules of the US Senate that were standing in the way of his administration’s legislative agenda. Those pesky rules, carefully crafted and designed by the founders to slow things down and keep autocratic-pretenders from ruling by executive decree. America is a government of “We the People” not “I the One.” Three branches of government. Checks and balances. A democratic republic.

_____

It’s easy to be critical at a distance. The United States has been particularly good at it – even hypocritical – blowing smoke about regional things they don’t understand. I’m upset about the track Turkey has opted to take, but up close and personal, sitting in the crosshairs of political, cultural, and military turmoil things look different. Since the days of Constantine, the Ottoman Empire, and during the secular democracy of Kemal Ataturk, Turkey has walked a tightrope between East and West, Europe and Asia, Christianity and Islam, war and peace.

Turkey is where Europe meets Asia. Bordering Syria on the south, Iraq, Iran, Armenia, and Georgia on the east, Greece and Bulgaria on the west, a stone’s throw from Lebanon and just across the Black Sea from Mother Russia, it is a strategic crossroads.

As Americans, we like to cling to our ideals of representative government, free and fair elections, and freedom of speech, but we don’t have a war on our southern border, religious and ethnic conflict internally, and a millions of refugees flooding into the country looking for a place to call home.

Erdogan is in a tough place but I’m troubled by the choices he’s made. Sitting on the far eastern edge of Europe, he courted membership in the European Union for years, and while it’s still on the table it’s generally regarded as a dead letter. As a member of NATO, his case for EU membership was strong, and in the beginning America championed Turkey’s inclusion, but for years Turkey flirted with military and authoritarian rule and it finally reached a tipping point under Erdogan. From 2003 – 2014 he served as Prime Minister, but it wasn’t until after he became President in 2014 and put down a coup d’état in the summer of 2016 that he began taking draconian measures against his rivals.

Since then, 140,000 Turks have been dismissed from their jobs in government and the public sector, 5000 dissidents have been jailed, and 1500 civil organizations were shut down. On Saturday (4/30/2017), 3,974 civil servants were fired from ministries, judicial bodies and medical clinics, 1000 other workers were detained, and 9000 were suspended because of alleged ties to an Islamic group founded by US-based cleric, Fethullah Gulen.* (NY Times, 5/1/2017). Access to Wikipedia was also blocked.**

These moves follow closely on the questionable passage of his power grabbing referendum that will allow him to continue in office until 2029. It’s the end of any semblance of democratic rule, a turn from representative government toward authoritarian rule – a troubling shift that coincides with movement in that direction across the globe. Russia, Syria, Hungary, Philippines, Georgia and the former Soviet republics, and growing segments of the population in France, Netherlands, and Germany are increasingly attracted by authoritarian politicians.

This 1965 picture shows me having dinner with a Turkish journalist friend who spent 3 months in jail for publishing a story criticizing the government. It’s clear that stifling dissent is not new in Turkey, but it has never been imposed on today’s scale.

** On lighter note, Erdogan’s purge also included blocking TV channels that carried “dating” shows. It sounds a lot like Trump’s unhappiness with Arnold Schwarzenegger on The Apprentice. If The Donald had his way he’d simply say, “Arnold you’ll never work in this town again.”

But that’s not how it works in America.

Categories : Aviation, Film/Television, Friendship, Personal/Family, Politics, Travel, Uncategorized, Work and Adventure