Coming Home to Roost

It looks like I've got some chickens that are coming home to roost. Problem is, my chicken coop is already full. I asked Adair if he would take them.
"I'm full up too, Fred. Let's check with Rich."
Colonel Rich is USAF retired. Roamed the world in his military career, last served in Iraq, but came home to Birmingham to retire. He never made General but says he's overcome the nightmares.
"Sorry, guys," Rich tells us. "I made a vow that if I got out of Baghdad alive I'd never have chickens again."
So what am I going to do? Sometimes you can't run away anymore and it's time to face the music. When the going gets tough, the tough get going, to coin a phrase.

What I Remember

What I remember and what really happened get more and more uncertain in my mind. What the heck. I'm going with what I remember.

We Are All What?

In his inaugural address in 1801, President Jefferson famously said, "We are all republicans---we are all federalists." Historians will always wonder exactly what he meant and how serious he was, but I take him seriously that it was in some way an attempt from Jefferson to heal the bitter feuds of the 1790's.  
If a president today said, "We are all Republicans---we are all Democrats," I would be one of the first to laugh derisively. Not going to happen.

What Then?

Eventually Trump will run out of cronies to appoint to office to wreck the government and defend him. What then?

The Verdict

I wake up from a scary dream. I'm in a courtroom on trial for what I don't know and the verdict is being handed down. A judge's voice says, "Has the jury reached a verdict?" (The judge looks like the brother of Edward G. Robinson) The jury foreman, Truman Capote, says in an effete voice, "Yes, we have, your honor." The bailiff walks over to receive the verdict. The bailiff is Barney Fife. He looks at me, smirks, and says, "You should have nipped it in the bud." I look at my lawyer, Ben Matlock, and he has a panic stricken look on his face. Truman says, "We find the defendant, Fred Hudson, not guilty by reason of temporary insanity."
i think, "For once my temporary insanity did me some good." You never know when it will come in handy.

Trumpism

How Trumpism has come to define the Republican Party

Using legislation and unilateral actions, the president seems to have overtaken his party’s previously understood values, from a willingness to flout free-trade principles and fiscal austerity to a seeming abdication of the U.S.'s role as a global voice for democratic values. “I would argue that Trump is more a reflection of where the voters are today,” said a former campaign adviser.

-From the Washington Post

Marching

They're marching for ALL of our lives. YOU may be the next victim of senseless gun violence.

I Like Ike

Okay, I like Ike. Who doesn't like Ike? I have vague memories politically of the 50's having been born in 1949. We survived Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). We survived McCarthy and John Foster Dulles and got the '57 Civil Rights Bill though I'm not sure how much credit Ike deserves. Wasn't it Ike who said don't get involved in a land war in Asia? But didn't he also talk about the dominoes falling in SE Asia, a pretext of getting involved in Vietnam? It took some prodding, but President Eisenhower finally did the right thing in Little Rock in '57. He ended the Korean War by threatening the blow up the whole Korean Peninsula with nukes though I'm guessing that unlike with our current incumbent, everyone felt pretty safe with Eisenhower in charge. The man had nerve and at least a little bit of moxie. So sure, I like Ike. Even if unlike Stevenson he liked to read Western novels.

About Ike

The Republican President who really made America great

By William I. Hitchcock 

Updated 5:39 PM ET, Wed March 21, 2018 

What Trump thinks about his predecessors 01:48

William I. Hitchcock is the author of "The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s" (Simon and Schuster). He teaches history at the University of Virginia. The views expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN)The Trump presidency is a study in chaos: improvisational, reactive, and unpredictable. Policy priorities change daily, and so, it seems, does the personnel. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and chief economic adviser Gary Cohn are just the most recent of some two dozensenior officials who have been kicked to the curb after brief stints in the Trump administration. 

William I. Hitchcock 

President Trump thinks unpredictability is good. "I like conflict," Trump has said. Bitter arguments between White House advisers help him make decisions. "There is no Chaos," he tweeted on March 6, "only great Energy!" But his style cuts out his closest advisers and deprives him of their advice. 

His startling agreement to meet with North Korean strongman Kim Jong Un was not run through the State Department. Gary Cohn quit when he learned of Trump's decision to slap tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Trump likes to keep everyone guessing -- even his own staff.

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Warning Signs Were Missed

Could the worst terrorist attack in modern history have been prevented? Explore the lead-up and the aftermath of 9/11 in this interactive story.

There is an alternative model to such chaos, one that illustrates that even in the absence of political experience, leadership is more valuable than bluster or gamesmanship. In the 1950s, Dwight Eisenhower led what was arguably the most disciplined presidency of the postwar years. Like Trump, Ike had never run for office before he became a Republican candidate for president. But he came into the White House with immense leadership experience, having led the allied forces that defeated Hitler in Europe from 1942 to 1945. He brought a disciplined mindset into the White House that reflected that military background. 

Trump: "Everybody wants to work in the White House" 05:06

How does Ike's disciplined approach stack up against Trump's chaos theory? Ike's discipline made midcentury America into a global powerhouse. Trump's chaos threatens to leave it weakened and adrift.

Unlike the Trump administration, Eisenhower picked a team of seasoned professionals, and stuck with them. John Foster Dulles served as secretary of state for seven years; his brother, Allen Dulles, ran the CIA throughout Eisenhower's presidency. Eisenhower had only three national security advisers and two secretaries of the treasury in eight years. James Hagerty, the press secretary, was on the job for every day of the Eisenhower administration; Trump has gone through four communications directors so far. 

D-Day: By the numbers01:40

Continuity in personnel allowed Eisenhower to deliver a consistent political message. The press, the Congress, and the public understood exactly what Eisenhower's priorities were: to protect the homeland by building up the military power of the United States, to control government spending, and to invest in infrastructure. At various times, Donald Trump has asserted that he shares similar goals, but he has little to show for those priorities so far. By contrast, Eisenhower's discipline got results. 

Eisenhower's first priority as President was to prepare the nation for a long-haul struggle with the Soviets in the global Cold War. That meant building up the nation's military strength. In the Eisenhower years, the United States expanded the Air Force's fleet of long-range bomber aircraft and spurred a dramatic technological revolution in missile technology. The Atlas and Titan rockets that became operational in the Eisenhower years could send nuclear warheads to strike an enemy almost anywhere in the world. By 1960, the Polaris missile could be launched by submarines cruising beneath the world's oceans. New technologies like the U-2 spy plane and the Corona spy satellite gave the United States a huge intelligence edge over the Russians.

There's one part of America that Trump really can make great again

These investments in defense cost money. In the Eisenhower years, the United States spent about 10% of its GDP each year on the military -- a higher percentage than any peacetime administration ever (in 2016, according to the World Bank, the US spent 3.3% of GDP). But because of Eisenhower's strict control over the federal purse, these measures did not break the bank. In fact, Eisenhower balanced three budgets in his eight years in office and came close on five others. Ike insisted that the Cold War must be waged in a manner that avoided big deficits or spurred inflation. He stated this as a principle from the start of his presidency and never wavered.

Like Trump, Eisenhower also wanted to improve the nation's infrastructure. He knew the network of highways running across the country was inadequate for a growing superpower. But who would pay for it? Eisenhower created the Highway Trust Fund, which was supplied by taxes on gasoline, diesel oil, tires, trucks, buses and trailers. The highways, 40,000 miles of them, would be built without any federal budget appropriations. On June 29, 1956, the President signed the Interstate Highway Act into law, in a bold stroke that spurred the growth of the American economy for the rest of the century. 

Being Donald Trump: a president living in his own fantasy world 

Eisenhower got results by using the levers of government well. On security matters, he ran everything through his National Security Council, which he personally chaired during its weekly meetings. In the Cabinet, he invited debate but stuck to his main principles: balanced budgets alongside investments in infrastructure and defense.

Trump's brand of chaos yields no such results. Indeed, as a governing strategy, it takes a toll. Sudden moves on trade policy create dramatic swings in the markets. Improvisation in foreign policy alienates key allies. And the constant outflow of fired staffers deters talented people from working in the White House. And yet, Trump has said how much he admires Eisenhower, who was the President of much of his boyhood. 

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Eisenhower proved the point: a president succeeds when he builds a competent team, sticks to a clear agenda, and delivers on his promises. Discipline in the White House, not chaos, is what made America great.

Cornerstone Speech of the Confederacy

Emerging Civil War

10 hrs · 

On March 21, 1861, Alexander Stephens, the new Vice President of the Confederate States of America, gave a speech in Savannah in his native state of Georgia. The speech has gone down in history at the "Cornerstone Speech" for this passage:

"The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution of African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution... Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth." 

So according to the Vice President of the Confederacy, slavery was both the cause of the "late rupture and present revolution" against the United States AND the "cornerstone" of the Confederate government and constitution.

The Role of Fox News

Dan Rather

27 mins · 

The role of Fox News in shaping, inciting, provoking, and manipulating our current political environment will be the topic of many a future historian's study. As President Trump basks in an alternate reality, he has been both abetted and encouraged by Fox News. He makes rash policy pronouncements based on what he hears on the network and Fox's prime time stars do his bidding in gaslighting America. 

The result is real damage to our democracy. That is not only my judgement or that of the so-called media elite who continue to insist we live in a world of facts and reason and truth. It's the conclusion of one of Fox News' own stars - longtime guest on the network Ralph Peters. A retired Army lieutenant colonel and author Peters was one of those reliable voices who railed against President Obama during the time of his tenure in office - even using such derogatory language that he was suspended from Fox News for a two weeks.

But apparently Mr. Peters has had enough. And in a blistering email to colleagues he quit the network, writing in one spection:

"Four decades ago, I took an oath as a newly commissioned officer. I swore to "support and defend the Constitution," and that oath did not expire when I took off my uniform. Today, I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers. Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed.

In my view, Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration. When prime-time hosts--who have never served our country in any capacity--dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community (in which I served) and, not least, a model public servant and genuine war hero such as Robert Mueller--all the while scaremongering with lurid warnings of "deep-state" machinations-- I cannot be part of the same organization, even at a remove. To me, Fox News is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit."

The entire email and its greater context are worth reading in full. I am sharing the link from Buzzfeed News, which broke the story in the comments section below.

I Doubt It

Chauncey Devega

4 mins · 

There are thousands of monuments to the secessionist traitors of the Confederacy (which transformed into today's Republican Party) and very few to the at least 5,000 black Americans who were lynched by white mobs or the estimated 50,000 black Americans who were killed following the Civil War by white terrorist guerrilla groups as well as via "ethnic cleansing" and racial pogroms.

Maybe Donald Trump will make a visit and pay his proper respects. Somehow I doubt it....