What Will It Take To Get Trump To Resign?

Why would he quit?  For the same sort of reasons Sarah Palin quit - it was too much work, too much hassle, and not enough compensation.  And trouble was ahead if she didn't.   Let's look at the pros and the cons.


Pros

• Gets lots of attention
• Foreign governments hoping to get deals from the US, patronize his businesses and approve his businesses' applications for permits and trademarks, etc.  
• Gets to be President of the US.  

Cons

• Can't get people do do what he wants them to do. (Health care, immigration, the wall, etc.)  At his company he didn't need approval for everything and if people didn't meekly do his bidding, he could fire them. If other organizations got in the way he could bribe them or sue them.  
• Everything he's doing is under scrutiny - from the media, from Congress, from Mueller's investigation, and various states and others.  
• He's stuck in DC and when he leaves he gets criticized for spending money for secret service. 
• Everyone is telling him what to do and how to do it.  He must hate that as we can see when he quickly goes off script.  For example somebody got him to read the Afghanistan speech which was so out of character  - "Can't we all just get along?" And the next night he's not getting along with anybody - ripping the press, Congress, protestors, etc.  
• His family is being investigated
• His businesses aren't being attended to properly 

I'm sure everyone can find things to add to each category.

But my point is, it didn't seem like he really wanted to be president from the beginning.  He just wanted to get lots of attention.  And now that he IS president, 'Nobody knew health care could be so complicated.'  And now, instead of getting out of Afghanistan, he's sending more troops.  And Mexico's not paying for the wall, and they won't even pretend they are for publicity sake.  And the Israelis and Palestinians haven't signed a peace deal yet.

He's not even talking to Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, who should be a staunch ally.


I suspect that all he needs now is a face-saving way to resign.  Here are some possibilities.

• A serious health issue - something that can go away after a respectable amount of 'treatment', but gives him a way to step down so as 'not to hold up the nation's business.'
• Some family crisis - someone else seriously ill,  or some major situation that he needs to attend to.  Maybe Trump properties around the world being attacked by terrorists, but then he might feel he can't give in to terrorists by stepping down, so that probably won't work
• A hugely lucrative job offer, or maybe he can be offered the ceremonial title of King that wouldn't require him to do more than preside at a few events per year

As you can see, I'm running out of ideas here.  There aren't many good reasons for someone to quit being president.  You can't be offered a more prestigious job (at least not before Trump became president), and people don't become president for the money.  

There'd be conditions if he resigned.  He'd want to have all investigations shut down and immunity from prosecution on anything.  I think the immunity could only cover things that happened before he left the presidency.   Immunity for his family too I'm sure.    I don't know that he'd want a Presidential library since it doesn't appear he reads anything longer than a tweet.  Maybe a Presidential Video Arcade.  

On the other hand, I'm not sure we wouldn't be better off waiting for the investigations to run their course and to see if impeachment hearings are warranted.  We'd learn much more about what he's hiding and I don't think the concessions are worth his leaving.  We'd just get Pence instead who would look much more presidential, but would do the same terrible things without tweeting what he was thinking and doing.  We're better off with a terrible president who acts terribly.  We've had plenty of terrible presidents who covered it up well.  

Moose Musings And Shiny New Bike Trail.

I figured it wasn't raining and the ground, while damp, wasn't splashy wet, so it was time to get on the bike before it started raining again.  Almost to the tunnel under Elmore, there was a moose in the path.

This is not an uncommon situation on the Anchorage bike paths.  This one saw me and kept moving into the brush.  But I wasn't sure if there was another one nearby.  It got about 15 feet off the trail and I decided that it was more interested in eating than chasing cyclists, so I went on by.

Further on I got to Campbell Airstrip Road and discovered the new bike path was completed.  There had been short stretches of bike path - a little on the east side for maybe half a mile up from Tudor and then a ways up more on the left side.  But like the road itself, it was in bad condition.  Earlier in the summer when I biked up here I saw them working on the road and what looked like a new bike path.  But since mid-July I had stuff to do downtown, so that took care of most of my biking and I realized I hadn't been up this way for about six weeks.

Well, now there's a spanking new bike trail, separated from the road.  As I enjoyed the crack and bump free trail, I also thought about why I sort of liked riding on the road.  This road dead ends and doesn't have a lot of traffic.  There are some trail heads, and after a few miles through the woods, there is a scattering of houses.  This is also bear country in the summer.  They like the salmon that come up Campbell Creek.  I have never seen a bear here, but this is their territory.  And this has been the summer of bears in Anchorage.  I've never seen so many people carrying bear spray on hikes and even on the bike trails in the middle of town.  So being on the road means that if I encounter a bear, there should be a car coming by within a couple of minutes.  But now much of the trail can't be seen from the road easily.

As I was thinking about all this I did encounter this cat, still clearing debris on the side of the trail

The new trail is done, pretty much.  They're still working on the road.  They both go just about to the bridge before the Campbell Airstrip Trailhead.  Here's a picture as I came back.  I was on the little bit of the old bike trail that's left.

The new trail ends where the saw horses are on the other side of the bridge.

So, as I was biking back home, I thought about whether the moose would still be in the area.  I also thought about the guy I heard on KSKA's New Arrivals program this morning.  He'd been in Anchorage about a month and he has a degree in assisting the blind.  Too bad my friend Lynne moved out of town last fall.  He sounds like he'd be a good resource.  But he mentioned seeing his first moose and swallowing a scream.

My experience is that most urban moose are used to humans as long as we act predictably.  We can pass by them pretty close - 5-10 feet even - if we stay on the trail, or the road, and just keep going in the direction we're headed.  The only time I've seen a moose charge someone was when a small crowd of people stopped on the bike trail and started getting closer to the moose to take pictures.  She did a fake charge and scared the hell out of them - one was a friend of mine who wouldn't listen to my pleas to get back.   (You reading this Doug?)

I'd recommend a much greater distance than five feet, but there have been plenty of times when I was running or biking and didn't see the moose as much as felt its presence as I was going by and then saw it as I turned my head.  It would just keep on eating.  Last winter I shoveled the driveway in the early morning darkness and when I got to the bottom and turned around, there were two moose eating the Mountain Ash tree just a few feet from the driveway.  I pulled back and let them wander off, before I went back up the driveway.

And earlier this summer I passed a mom and two calves.  The mother was right on the edge of the path, but by the time I saw her, it was too late to stop and there wasn't any other way to go, so I just rolled on by.

So I was thinking all this as I came out of the tunnel near where I'd seen the moose earlier and there it was again on the trail.

This time, there was an easy detour that would get me back onto the trail just beyond where the moose was and I took it.  [Well, it was available the first time too, but I would have had to backtrack and the moose was calmly eating far enough off the trail anyway.]

And as I kept riding, I kept thinking about moose and bikes, and I suddenly realized that there was another moose about five feet to my left as I rode past.  The moose didn't even wiggle its ears as I went by.  I didn't stop to take a picture of that one.

Press Release: Alaska's 'Independent' Gov Walker and Lt. Gov Mallott File To Run Again

 I get a fair number of press releases, but I'd don't normally put them up here, but this one is a good example of what the media get from people who want some media attention.   And it's interesting news - particularly for people outside of Alaska.  

Last time round, Walker was running as an independent and Mallott was running as a Democrat.  They both saw from the poll numbers, that if they continued that way, the incumbent governor, Sean Parnell, who came into office when Sarah Palin resigned, would win.  So they paired up and ran as a team and won.  A lesson for others trying to figure out how to win in a red state if you aren't red.  And

a lesson in bi-partisan ship at its finest.  And in 2016, the Democrats got control of the state house, which meant that the Republicans couldn't do whatever they wanted.  But there are still big struggles over budgeting with declining oil revenue and the Senate steadfastly opposes an income tax to make up for the lost oil money.

The picture is from my first post of their 2014 media conference to announce their partnership.

Here's a link to my second post of the media conference they held in 2014 to announce their joint campaign when I'd had time to edit and upload the video of each of them.

So here's today's press release:

"Bill Walker and Byron Mallott File for Reelection

On Monday, August 21, 2017, Bill Walker and Byron Mallott filed for reelection at the Division of Elections in Juneau, Alaska for the offices of governor and lieutenant governor, respectively. The incumbents once again filed as non-partisan candidates, commonly referred to as "independent". A lifelong Republican, Walker changed his affiliation to non-partisan in 2014. Mallott will maintain his affiliation as a Democrat. Their administration is currently the only independent administration in the United States.
Bill Walker and Byron Mallott are lifelong Alaskans born into the Territory of Alaska. Each served as mayors of their communities as young leaders in their twenties. Walker worked as a carpenter, teamster and laborer during the construction of the TransAlaska Pipeline. He was a businessman and oil and gas and municipal attorney prior to becoming governor.

Walker said of seeking reelection: "Serving as governor for the people and state I love has been the honor of a lifetime. This is a job that requires the kind of hard work and tough decision making I have always faced. Byron Mallott and I have refused to put off the difficult decisions because doing so would jeopardize future generations. We believe that independent leadership that relentlessly puts Alaska's priorities first is critical to finishing the work we have started to stabilize and build Alaska."

Byron Mallott has worked for or with almost every governor since Statehood. He has served as the Executive Director of the Alaska Permanent Fund and as the President of the Alaska Federation of Natives.
"The prosperity of our people and our state depends on putting the needs of Alaska above personal aspirations, and politically comfortable decisions," Mallott noted. "This is how Governor Walker and I have led the state.  Alaska's path to a strong future hangs on the decisions made in the next four years."

In order to appear on the November 2018 general election ballot, each candidate will gather 3,213 signatures.  The candidates will run separate campaigns until the collected signatures are submitted on August 21, 2018 - the date of the primary election. As separate candidates, they can participate in shared campaign activities so long as each candidate shares an equal cost of the activity and files a shared campaign activity form with the Alaska Public Offices Commission."

I'd note that if I do put up a press release, or parts of one, I always let you know what I'm doing.  You might check what other news sources say about this and see if they tell you where the news comes from and how much they repeat verbatim.

Comparative History Lessons

Enough has been said about whether statues are erected as history lessons or to honor people who protected collective values.  I don't think it's hard to see through the rhetoric of those discussions.

But I'd like to share this tidbit about comparative history teaching, from South AfricanTrevor Noah's Born A Crime.

"In Germany, no child finishes high school without learning about the Holocaust.  Not just the facts of it but the how and the why and the gravity of it - what it means.  As a result, Germans grow up appropriately aware and apologetic.  British schools treat colonialism the same way, to an extent.  Their children are taught the history of the empire with a kind of disclaimer hanging over the whole thing.  “Well, that  was shameful, now wasn’t it?” 

In South Africa, the atrocities of apartheid have never been taught that way.  We weren’t taught judgment or shame.  We were taught history the way it’s taught in America.  In America, the history of racism is taught like this:  “There was slavery and then there was Jim Crow and then there was Martin Luther King Jr. and now it’s done.”  It was the same for us.  “Apartheid was bad.  Nelson Mandela was freed.  Let’s move on.”  Facts, but not many, and never the emotional or moral dimension."

For those who need more clarification on how the US has treated slavery and its aftermath, I refer you to some posts I made on the book White Rage.
Part I   Looks at how the Supreme Court essentially nullified the rights blacks had won with the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th and 14th Amendments.
Part II  follows up with a list of court decisions and their practical implications,  and
Part III, which looks at more modern times - the great migration of blacks from the South, Brown v. Board of Education and its aftermath, and up to today with our Attorney General who was born in Selma, Alabama in time to be embroiled on the white side of the civil rights movement.

Nice To Be Back Online - ACS, The Good And The Not So Good

There was no internet yesterday morning when I got up.  The wifi worked, but there was not internet.

I called ACS (Alaska Communications) and B had me unplug and plug and reset and nothing worked.  

• That's all I can do, I'll set up a problem ticket (or whatever he called it) and they'll check it from here. If they can't fix it, someone will come to your house?
• Today?
• Probably not, we're really busy now.  

Not today (it was Friday) didn't sound good, but I'm supposed to be a resilient person.  I can go to the library to use the internet.  And less time online is good.  

After a couple of hours I called in.  The voicemail actually identified that I had a problem ticket and sent me to S.  She explained that I was on the list, but that they were busy.  

Had they done the internal check or not?  Yes, and someone had to come to the house.  Today?  Probably not.  Do they come over the weekend?  I don't think so.  

Much better if you click to enlarge and focus

After I explained that I'd been waiting around and no one had called to tell me the status, she apologized.  

So I went to the library, sat in the parking lot and checked my email and put up yesterday's post.   Visited a friend, walked to the bridge from the Prospect Heights trailhead,  went to dinner at Thai Kitchen, and went to a Reflection service at Temple Beth Sholom where we heard from a number of speakers - someone from the FBI, from the governor's office, a Presbyterian pastor, a local assembly member (Forrest Dunbar), and a Muslim doctor, all reflecting on Charlottesville and Anchorage.  There was some food and discussion.  A positive and encouraging way to move forward.  

So this morning, when I was doing some yoga stretching - I should be doing these several times a week, but even once every ten days or so is better than nothing - there was a knock on the door.  The ACS man wanted to check the connection.  He was there maybe 20 minutes before he knocked again.  He checked the modem and decided we needed a new one.  He got it all set up, called in to reset the modem name and password, and I was back, connected to the new modem.

But no connection to the internet.  D was good.  I had told him I was told no one worked on the weekend and he smiled and said, us old guys still do.  But it wouldn't work.  He said he would have to go back to the office and fix it from there.  A bunch of calls later, tweaking this and that, and I'm now back on line.  

Since I wasn't expecting any help until at least Monday, I'm happy to be reconnected.  Everyone was polite enough, they just didn't know much.  But D wasn't going to let go of my case until things were working again,  

So now I've got a bunch of things to do that I have been pushed to the side while the internet connection got fixed.  But it did get fixed.  

Here's a picture of a monk's hood from yesterday's hike - one of my favorite Alaskan flowers  Such a beautiful shape and color.  

  

She Stands By Her Man - Both of Them

So Axios had a couple of posts up yesterday, one after the other.

The first was about Sen. McConnell and Trump feuding.  They show McConnell's tweet supporting Sen. Flake's reelection a few hours after Trump tweeted his support for Flake's opponent in the Republican primary.  Then they go on to explain why it matters.

McConnell, who was reportedly livid with the way the president handled the violence in Charlottesville, has been engaged in an ongoing feud with Trump following the president's series of tweets criticizing the Majority Leader's performance. McConnell's latest statement in support of Flake only adds fuel to the fire.

Their earlier post which was the immediately before the McConnell piece was titled :

"White House calls it quits on Infrastructure Council"

Screenshot from Axios

And had this picture:


The woman on the right is Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation, who probably could use the political support of an Infrastructure Committee.  But more than that, she's also Mitch McConnell's wife.

What I didn't know until I googled Elaine Chao to double check her position in the Trump administration, was that after this press conference, she was asked about Trump's tweets that criticize her husband.  Her answer:

"I stand by my man - both of them."

NPR Adopts Simplistic "Good People"/"Bad People" Dichotomy

The use of terms like 'good guys' and 'bad guys' in political discourse has increased over the years.  That oversimplification of terms is reminiscent of Hollywood's white and black cowboy hats and the religious dichotomy of good and evil.  

Life isn't that simple.  First of all, people are either good or bad.  Most are a mix of morally positive and negative behaviors.  In Born A Crime, Trevor Noah writes about his step-father Abel who gets nasty when he's drunk.  

"The Abel who was likable and charming never went away.  He had a drinking problem, but he was a nice guy.  We had a family.  Growing up in a home of abuse, you struggle with the notion that you can love a person you hate, or hate a person you love.  It's a strange feeling.  You want to live in a world where someone is good or bad, where you either hate them or love them, but that's not how people are."

Lots of intercommunications experts (for example) tell people to talk about behaviors rather than to talk about their character.

So it's depressing to hear hear this sort of language on NPR, where they like to think of themselves as having a somewhat higher standard of reporting.  Their code of ethics talks about their guiding principles:

"Our journalism is as accurate, fair and complete as possible. Our journalists conduct their work with honesty and respect, and they strive to be both independent and impartial in their efforts. Our methods are transparent and we will be accountable for all we do."

Those principles include Impartiality:

"We have opinions, like all people. But the public deserves factual reporting and informed analysis without our opinions influencing what they hear or see. So we strive to report and produce stories that transcend our biases and treat all views fairly. We aggressively challenge our own perspectives and pursue a diverse range of others, aiming always to present the truth as completely as we can tell it."

Yes NPR too slips into the simplistic and dichotomous thinking of 'good people' and 'bad people' too.
[An abbreviated excerpt from the audio interview.]

Rachel Martin:  The president said there were good people on both sides, did you see them?
UVA Professor  and 'presidential historian' Michele Hemmer:  The people who came on behalf of the white nationalists were not good people. . .  Among the counter protesters there were plenty of good people, but not among the white nationalists.  

I realize they were working off of things Trump said.  (Though I could find 'very fine people' in his recent discussion rather than 'good people.')  But rather than fall into the trap of adopting this good/bad dichotomy themselves, it would be better to step back and point out how simplistic and misleading it is.  Thinking about Trevor's step-father, I'm wondering about the 'plenty of good people' among the counter protesters.  Are they good because they are against racism?  Are they being labeled 'good people' because of what they are doing on that day?  Do any of them get drunk and beat their spouses and children?  Would that disqualify them form being 'good people'?

Not only are they simplifying human complexity, they are also dropping their impartiality to make a judgment call about the morality of the marchers and counter-marchers.  Not about the morality of their actions, but whether they are 'good' or 'bad' people.

What I want to know is why these men have adopted white supremacy as their guiding principle.  Do they believe it?  Do they do this simply because it makes others angry?  Do they feel so isolated and unloved in their lives that espousing white supremacy is a way to justify why people don't like them?   Not only is that a much more nuanced way of thinking about the neo-nazi marchers, but it's the only way we, as a society, can start to figure out how to locate people who are vulnerable to this path and how to rescue them before they swallow this poison.

OK, I know these terms are a short hand.  Radio news formats allow a limited amount of time to tell the story.  But the more we use this short hand, the more we also think it.  And as soon as we put someone in the 'bad person' category, we're less concerned about what happens to them.  That's why we allow terrible things to happen in prisons.  It also inoculates 'good people' from harm when they do terrible things.

Who's The Average Person?

A letter in Tuesday's Alaska Dispatch News says:

"I refer to the phenomenon of the disappearance of affordable homes.  The average person is no longer able to afford a home."

The US Census Bureau data says that 60% of people in Anchorage lived in owner occupied homes between 2011 and 2015.

The same Census chart shows the median household income in Anchorage for that same period was $78,326.  (I'd note that median is the number in the very middle from highest to lowest.  There should be as many people above the median as below it.  It's not an average where a small number of very rich people could offset a lot of very poor people to have a misleading 'average income'.)

The per capita income was $36,920.  They define that to be the mean income of every man, woman, and child.  So, this number is the 'average' and is not the 'middle' number.  Obviously, adults earn a lot more than do children, though in Alaska, Permanent Fund Dividend checks mean the average child here probably earns more than they do in other states.

I'm guessing the letter writer thinks of herself (and maybe the people she knows) as 'average persons.'  But the way I read this, the average person is the typical person, the one that is like most of the others.  So 60% living in owner owned homes means to me that the average person can afford a house.  I realize that the people in the homes include children and spouses.  And if we simple look at adults, the percent living in owner occupied homes is probably lower.  But more than half of all people in Anchorage, during that recent time period, did live in owner occupied housing.

The same chart listed 8.7% of people in Anchorage as living in poverty.

This is not to say that working for a living is what it used to be.  It's not.  It used to be pretty easy - if you were white and male - to earn a good living, live decently, and afford things like buying a house. But a lot of people who start off with very little - many immigrant families for example - are willing to work very hard, live frugally, and save money to buy a home.  A lot of people who grew up comfortably seem not willing to give up the life style they've grown up with, but aren't earning enough money to maintain that lifestyle.  It's a shock when they find that not only aren't they keeping up, they are falling into debt.

Part of the problem is that more and more of the income of businesses is going to the higher levels of management and less and less is going to the workers.  Statista.com offers this chart comparing the US gap to other countries:

Click on Chart to enlarge and focus or go to Statista

And here's a Seattle Times article on the subject.  The subtitle of the article is:

"The average CEO earned 20 times the average worker pay in 1965. Now S&P 500 CEOs make 335 times the pay of their average employee."

 So while it appears to me that 'the average person' in Anchorage can afford to buy a house (or at least lives in an owner occupied house) it's also true that the hefty PFD cut Alaskans got will impact the 'average Alaskan' worker much more than it will the oil and other large corporate executives.

Worth Noting - Redistricting, Court Info, Teaching Tolerance, Trees and Crime

Redistricting News Today:  Federal court invalidates part of Texas congressional map

Free Law has put up 1.8 million free opinions from PACER.  What's PACER you ask.  From PACER's website:

"The PACER Case Locator is a national index for U.S. district, bankruptcy, and appellate courts. A subset of information from each case is transferred to the PACER Case Locator server each night.
The system serves as a locator index for PACER. You may conduct nationwide searches to determine whether or not a party is involved in federal litigation."

Teaching Tolerance has lots of resources for educators.

Do trees lower crime?  That's the claim a Chicago group is making after mapping tree density in 284 municipalities in the Chicago area.  My reaction was 'whoa, that's correlation, not causation.'  My take would be it's the other way around:  Where there's less crime, people plant more trees.  Where people have more money they have bigger lots, more trees and more park area.  And where there are already lots of trees, the property values are higher, and wealthier people buy the land.  But the article expected people like me:

"Of course, skeptics might argue that this sort of data is only correlation, rather than causation. Underserved communities have high crime and fewer trees—not high crime in part due to fewer trees. So to support their claims, CRTI compiled all the benefits that trees provide, with citations for the various studies backing up the claims. One of those studies suggests that trees 'may deter crime both by increasing informal surveillance and by mitigating some of the psychological precursors to violence.'”

Yes, I've posted about the psychological benefits of trees, but I'm still skeptical.  Trees may, to a certain extent 'sooth' a community, but I'm still guessing that there's an economic correlation between low income and fewer trees and that the economic factor is the bigger driver of crime.  I would guess that Anchorage has a pretty high level of trees per people and a fair amount of crime.  And much crime happens where trees give cover for the homeless who commit crimes in the greenbelt areas.  But it's interesting research.  And I'd love to be wrong on this.

Anchorage Jury Sides With Firefighter Against Municipality of Anchorage

Thursday afternoon, August 12, 2017 an Anchorage jury found that the Municipality of Anchorage caused harm to firefighter Jeff Graham by violating the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.  They also found that the MOA caused harm to Jeff Graham by violating the implied promise of good faith and fair dealing in the Collective Bargaining Agreement.   The case stems from AFD promotional exams that Graham complained were biased and unfair.

The plaintiff’s economics expert had put the damages at $1.7 million.  The MOA’s expert had put the damages at $200,000.  The jury’s award was closer to the latter - a little over three times the MOA estimate and about one-third of the plaintiff’s estimate.  

The trial began on July 17 and the jury began deliberations on Tuesday August 10.