Category: National

You order your Starbucks coffee black, it must be to go.

Bada bing. Only it’s not funny.

What Starbucks surely knows is that it’s a hip, wi-fied gathering spot and pivot point. Theirs is a carefully cultivated community and neighborhood identity. People meet up, hang out, close deals, shoot the breeze. Overpriced lattes and mochas are means to an end for much of their customer base. And the formula works wonderfully.

But how much common sense does it take to make sure your managers aren’t so dumb and insensitive–and carriers of “unconscious bias”–that they wouldn’t be welcome as progressive, entrepreneurial customers? This is about common sense, common courtesy and, ultimately, enlightened self interest. Makes it seem as if that past Starbucks campaign to start a national “conversation” on race relations was more public relations than public policy.

Hardly helping on the Philadelphia incident were the police officers who didn’t need to handcuff and arrest two black guys who wanted to use a restroom while awaiting a white, would-be business partner. And the Philly police chief didn’t need to remind everybody that house negroes with authority remain part of the problem.

Sometimes you just want to write about anything other than this Administration. I’m sure you understand.

* Last summer, Secretary of Defense James Mattis looked refreshingly un-Trump like when he stated that the “The greatest gift the greatest generation left us was the rules-based postwar international order.” This spring Mattis looks more like the last man standing as John Bolton sets up shop as national security adviser.

*Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, just hours removed from his ouster last month, weighed in with a cautionary corollary: “Nothing is possible without allies and partners.” T Rex never sounded so stately; Too bad he never had Trump’s ear the way his hawkish successor, Mike Pompeo, now does.

* With all of the talk about Scott Pruitt’s ethical lapses–from pricey travels to cut-rate rental deals and that notably costly 24-7 security detail–it’s easy to forget there are far better reasons to want him fired as the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

How about hostility to scientific inquiry?  As in utter disdain for the link between climate change and the burning of fossil fuels. How about being a yes man for Trump’s blustery, campaign promise-keeping withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change? How about presiding over a critically-important department in “slow-motion train wreck” mode, to quote demoralized EPA insiders? How about avoiding inconvenient truths when they could undermine a presidential agenda that prioritizes fossil-fuel jobs over the costs to public health and, well, the planet?

There are plenty of reasons why Scott Pruitt should be sent packing from his lobbyist-arranged, Capitol Hill rental back to Oklahoma. Not unlike the occupant of the Oval Office, he’s bad for America–and the rest of the world.

* President Trump now says he doesn’t know why his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, had made that $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels. “You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen,” he said, in lieu of keeping a silence that sounded better than that comment. Trump also said he had no idea where Cohen, long known as Trump’s “fixer,” had gotten the money.

Obviously the White House is still in mid-Stormy spin. It comes with the territory–an unconscionably sleazy POTUS and a non-best-and-brightest, amateur-hour coterie of sycophantic advisers. Perhaps Cohen was making a refund for Trump University.

* We’re now hearing that “older, educated, white voters” are now shifting away from Trump and trending toward Democrats. I get “older” and “white” as political demographics that, alas, helped elect Trump. But didn’t “educated” used to imply something a bit more discerning?

As we know, support for tougher gun-control laws has been in the news and in the public-opinion ascent. A recent poll conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that approximately seven in 10 adults now favor stricter gun-control measures.  And that, we have been reminded by the AP, is the strongest level of such support since the AP first polled this question five years ago. It made for encouraging headlines. Progress.

Context, however, cannot be ignored.

This also means that in the aftermath of Parkland, Pulse, Las Vegas, Sandy Hook, et al, nearly a third of adults still, somehow, don’t favor stricter gun control measures. Overall, the poll also showed that 90 percent of Democrats and 50 percent of Republicans now favor stricter gun controls. Put another way, half the GOPsters still–STILL–don’t side with common sense and public safety. But still “progress,” to be sure.

* Who can forget that vicious rhetorical fusillade during the campaign that Donald Trump leveled against the George W. Bush Administration for its Mideast warmongering? Also, remember that no one was more hawkish than John Bolton, a key Bush adviser, who still, unconscionably, thinks the 2003 Iraqi invasion was the right call. And now he’s Trump’s national security adviser. And likely the last one to have his pre-tweet ear.

* Speaking of Bolton—John not Michael–sobering to recall that North Korea once called him “human scum” for his outspoken cynicism about NK motives. As a result, it vowed not to deal with him. But that was then and this is–not?

* Here’s a quote that really resonates at a time that Robert Mueller is going after the Trump Organization–and Trump has begun going after Mueller specifically. “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets.” That was Donald Trump Jr. in 2008.

* As we know, President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Trans Pacific Partnership. It was part of candidate Trump’s anti-globalization, pep-rally rhetoric. Count on it being back in the news.

Recall that Trump has underscored–appropriately–that China has been an intellectual-property outlier. Ironically, a key focus of the TPP is intellectual property rights, data security and privacy. An international forum to hold China accountable would seem relevant. So much for relevance.

* Trump, as we’ve seen for too long a time, is less about building than branding. Whether a business or a country. Beyond embarrassing.

The Dems will be picking up seats in the House this fall. This we know. It’s what the out-party typically does. But this time, for obvious Trump-and-policy-related reasons, even more so. Hopefully, at least two dozen seats will be turned. Momentum from Alabama, Virginia and Pennsylvania signal serious movement. Chances are better by the day for the House to turn blue. And the Senate, while more problematic on the numbers, should be in play too.

But there is also this stark reality. Recall how we all got here in the first place. An unhinged, unprepared, faux-populist, billionaire celebrity-scoundrel pandered to America’s lowest common denominator. With that approach and that appeal, all it took was for enough of the majority, non-Trump channelers to do–or undo–their part.

Post-Obama minority turnout dropped off, some more liberal Democratic factions couldn’t rally for the notably-flawed Clinton candidacy and a certain, embarrassingly uninformed and smoldering segment proved vulnerable to Russian bots. That Trump was an existential threat was, unconscionably, not a persuasive enough reason to vote for Clinton, who, even if lacking likeability, was manifestly qualified to lead this country and represent America to the rest of the world.

Momentum notwithstanding, turnout, however, can’t be assumed, and turnout, as we well know, is what it’s about, especially in off-year elections. If the Democratic Party can maintain the sense of outrage, urgency and moral insurrection it has been stoking, then the Dems will take back Congress and ultimately oust Trump–as well as many of those establishment Republicans who have treasonously chosen career over country.

David Jolly, the former GOP congressman from Pinellas County, pointed out the stark reality faced by Republicans in November. “Politics is about timing,” he underscored. “Four years ago I was elected in a district Obama won twice. … But watching Pennsylvania, this is not the year to re-enter politics.” And that’s from a high-profile, decidedly anti-Trump Republican.

It’s there to be had–recapturing the essence of the America we surely still are and a government representative of something other than white populism, xenophobia, protectionist economics, climate-change denials and improvisational foreign policy. We are surely still that America. Surely.

* “We do have a trade deficit with Canada, as we do with almost all countries (some of them massive).” That was Donald Trump–or was it “John Barron” calling a tabloid on behalf of his altered-ego boss?–doubling down after being outed for telling an incredulous PM Justin Trudeau that Canada actually had a trade surplus with the U.S. For what it’s worth around the Oval Orifice, the U.S. does run an overall trade surplus with Canada.

Fake news, anyone?

*There has been serious White House talk about convening a gathering–actually, more like a series of national debates–on climate change. It’s gotten pushback from White House Chief of Staff John Kelly. But were it to happen? How much more can global ridicule of the U.S. ratchet?

* At this point, we’re practically inured to high-decibel, public rhetoric. Even in this outrageously disturbing age of Trump. But what former CIA Director John Brennan tweeted the other day to Trump was as notably cringe worthy as it was alarmingly spot on. “When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. … But you will not destroy America…America will triumph over you.”

Those weren’t the words of a headline grabbing, political partisan. Those were the words–and visceral, homeland feelings–of a patriotic partisan.

* President Trump will head south of his proposed border wall and make his first visit to Latin America next month. He’ll be in Peru and Colombia. It will also be an ironic reminder that Peru, along with Chile and Mexico, are part of the Trans Pacific Partnership–but the U.S. is not.

* Trump is not a leader. He’s a boss. Big difference. The former empowers, inspires and weighs input of aides with expertise. The latter gathers loyalists. Knowledgeable A-Listers need not apply.

Florida was forced to do something. Horrific mass murders–and all the accompanying optics– mandate no less. So it did something. Being Florida, it did something less than it should have done. Yes, waiting periods, age limits and mental-health improvements help. But not nearly enough. The partisan political elephant in the room is still militarily armed for battle.

Ban assault weapons? No way. The sacrosanct Second Amendment, regardless of the late, conservatives’-revered Justice Scalia’s sensible take on real-world responsibilities, won’t permit it. Weapons of war–for non-warriors and faux warriors–are still legal and lionized by the Gunshine State’s usual suspects. Beyond frustrating, negligent and maddening.

Or ban assault weapon-enabling oversized magazines? As if.

Or how about mandated, all-inclusive background checks? Alas, that’s a rhetorical question.

Another affront to common sense, another assault on public safety, another outrage with cherry-picked, constitutional bullet points.

You’d think teachers and students would be a cause–and constituency–second to none. No surprise, however, they still ultimately rank behind the National Rifle Association and all the compromised pols who fear being primaried if they go too far. They fear that more than the next mass shooting expedited by an AR-15-type weapon more appropriate for Baghdad than Broward County.

Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson reined in the rage and summed up the Florida Legislature’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act. “This is a first step,” he noted tersely. “We must require universal background checks on the purchase of a gun and get these assault rifles off our streets. Until we’ve done that, we still have a lot of work to do.”

Until we’ve done that, Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods will continue to stake out the moral high ground of social conscience and societal responsibility that lawmakers disingenuously keep abdicating.

“Thoughts and prayers?” Let’s pray for better thoughts.