Stephen Miller proves himself to be the Trump spokesperson who best channels Trump -- and Joe Scarborough will not be able to persuade Trump otherwise.

George W. Bush looked into the eyes of Donald Trump's buddy Vladimir Putin's eyes and saw a good soul.  John McCain looked into Putin's eyes and saw a "stone cold killer." 

This past weekend on television, I looked into Trump advisor and spokesperson Stephen Miller's eyes and saw Vladimir Putin. 

And I also saw Trump's mentor, Roy Cohn.  The Roy Cohn, who, at Miller's age, was Joe McCarthy's right-hand hatchet man, later became an amoral power broker in New York City.  So it is no surprise that Donald Trump (when also around the age Miller is now) sought out Cohn's help to navigate the intersection of business and politics in New York -- and it is no surprise that Cohn accepted Trump's request to be, in effect, Cohn's apprentice.   

So much for snark, although I think my point about Stephen Miller is well-taken.  

Yesterday, Shaun King of the New York Daily News wrote a scathing and accurate piece on  Stephen Miller. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/king-stephen-miller-latest-liar-bigot-team-trump-article-1.2971639  As King demonstrates, since middle school, when the young Stephen decided to reject all his non-white friends, Miller has been an unabashed right-wing bigot, and he has now parlayed his intensity into a important position in the Trump White House.  King's piece laid out the sordid history, which is now reflected in Miller's chilling, fascistic assertion that Trump "will not be questioned."
 Fortunately, King is not the only one pointing out the chilling implications of Miller’s rise.

In noting Miller's bizarre Sunday talk show performances last weekend, Joe Scarborough announced that "It is much worse than I ever thought"  (see first video linked here).  Very good, Joe.  Thanks for confirming the reality that should be plain to anyone paying attention.  Callum Borchers of the Washington Post writes that Scarborough now “is trying to use whatever influence he has over Donald Trump to change the president's mind about Stephen Miller."

Republican MSNBC host and supposed Trump whisperer Scarborough has been presenting himself as a person of influence, since Trump watches the MSNBC Morning Joe program and has, at times, been friendly to Scarborough.  I fear, however, that Scarborough's hope that he can be a positive influence on the President is unfounded. Trump is who he is. Indeed, by late Sunday morning, Trump tweeted  "Congratulations Stephen Miller- on representing me this morning on the various Sunday morning shows. Great job!"  In the mind of Donald Trump, a star has been born. 

Thus, I doubt that Scarborough will succeed in getting Trump to drop Miller. Increasingly, it is clear that Miller is precisely what Trump wants. As I snarkily noted at the beginning of this post, just look at Miller's face, which is reminiscent of Putin's. But more to the point, Miller is, like Roy Cohn, a forceful, lying, mean-spirited demagogue. Just about every Jewish parent's nightmare. Miller is also Trump's vision of a "winner."

Still, Scarborough tries to use the Trump display of portraits of President Andrew Jackson all over the White House to convince Trump that Miller is way off base, noting that Jackson recognized the authority of the judicial branch.  It is true that at one point in his presidency, Jackson opposed southern states' tariff nullification laws which threatened to destroy the Union, and in so doing proclaimed that Supreme Court decisions are the law of the land that must be followed. See this history of Jackson and judiciary from PBS.  Jackson asserted that respect for the judiciary because it was in his political interest to assert national primacy.  But that is not the reason for the Andrew Jackson symbolism in the White House.  Indeed, there is no reason to believe that the largely historically illiterate Trump is even aware of this slice of American history.

Rather, those portraits are most assuredly there because they symbolize (certainly in Steve Bannon's view of the sweep of history) Jackson's similarities with Trump:  Jackson, like Trump, was a rich man who won election with the personna of being a voice of the every-day white man and -- and this is most significant now --  Jackson’s reported response to Chief Justice John Marshall’s Supreme Court decision prohibiting the State of Georgia from seizing Cherokee Indian land:  “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”  The decision was not enforced, and the lands were seized.   Id.  (See also Walter Russell Mead's article from The American Interest in January 2016, describing the Jacksonian resurgence, whether most people were aware of the connection or not.) 

Scarborough, in trying to use Andrew Jackson to encourage Donald Trump to respect the role of the judiciary in the American constitutional system, is most likely an example of whistling past the graveyard. There is nothing in what we have seen of Trump that would lead is to think he would have respect for the judicial branch of government.

Nice try, Joe, but you will not hear a nice thing about the courts from Trump or Miller unless and until the courts become their puppets. 

Remember the Old Post Office Building Lease That Trump Violated the Moment He Took the Oath of Office?

Lost in the storm of Trump outrages is the fact that the lease he signed a couple of years ago to take over the Old Post Office Building for his Trump International Hotel included a provision barring elected officials from being parties to the lease. Of course, now he is an elected official.  Yet, he is still on the lease. 

The headline on this article from Government Executive -- "Chaffetz Pushes GSA for Answers on Trump's Old Post Office Lease" -- is not as reflective of a supposed newly-found sense of responsibility by the Chair of the House Oversight Committee as it might appear.  Rather, if you look at the time-line set forth in the Jason Chaffetz and Elijah Cummings letters (linked to the Government Executive report), it seems clear that Rep. Cummings is forcing the hands of both Rep. Chaffetz and GSA. 

Moreover, the key information does not come until the very end:

             "In response to a previous letter, [the General Services Administration] told Cummings      officials are assessing new information to determine if the leaseholder is in compliance with the agreement's terms and conditions.

            “'Once GSA has a full and complete understanding of the tenant’s structure, GSA will determined whether the tenant remains in compliance with the contract,'” acting GSA Associate Administrator Saul Japson said." 

This statement from Mr. Japson sounds like bureaucracy speak for, “We know we will have to take guidance from whoever President Trump puts in charge of GSA.”  Senate confirmation hearings on a new GSA head will be interesting.

Metro DC PFLAG on WPFW's Inside Out program

   




     This afternoon,  PFLAG Dad Phil Hicks and I were interviewed on Inside Out, an LGBT-themed radio program on WPFW FM, hosted by Maria Olsen.  The entire program may be heard here.  I serve as Metro DC PFLAG's Maryland Advocacy Chair, and Phil is my counterpart in Virginia.

     It was a pleasure working with Phil on the air.  We are different people, with different personalities, and our journey stories are different.  But we share love for our children, and a commitment to making life better for all children.  I hope our stories helped listeners know that they have a caring community of adults in the D.C. area, and that we have in the past, are in the present, and will in the future work to advance the human rights of LGBTQ people.

    At one point, the conversation turned to religion.  I observed that Leviticus (the chapter with a phrase that is used to justify condemnation of homosexuality) demands that anyone who shows disrepect for his parent shall be killed.  Not may, but shall.  (I just checked the precise language of Leviticus 20:9: "For every one that curseth his father or his motion shall be surely put to death."

 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/vayikra-leviticus-full-text).  Since I suspect no one would justify execution of children for cursing their parents, no one can truthfully say they are blblical literalists.  Rather, we have to use the common sense God gave us.

     One more note.  During the interview, I mentioned a recent New York Times article reporting incoming Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos's support of a gay married couple's petition to adopt a child and her work to make the women's restroom available to a transgender woman in a Republican Party call center.  I also noted that the excellent May 2016 Obama Administration guidelines  regarding transgender students are still on the Department of Education website -- and challenged Secretary DeVos to keep those guidelines.  Unlike the Trump appointees who have shown substantive hostility to LGBTQ people, Secretary DeVos clearly knows better.  Will she have the courage to stand up to Vice President Pence and the rest of the Family Research Council crew?  Or will she be a bystander to the efforts to roll back progress made over the last decade for the LGBTQ community?We shall see.   (FWIW, I agree with the 50 Senators who voted today NOT to confirm the DeVos nomination.  Her policies regarding public schools and private school vouchers on top of her ignorance of basic educational issues disqualify her, in my view, from being Secretary of Education. But since she is in the job, I hope what may be her only saving grace will shine through.)

Words of Dr. King should prepare us for the challenges ahead

As we face the challenges of the months and years ahead, it may be useful, on the day that Americans celebrate his life, to recall his wisdom.  Below are the readings from the Temple Emanuel MLK Shabbat Service last Friday night.  We have used these readings in the past, but they have particular resonance this year.

Martin Luther King is a towering figure of the 20^th Century. Not only did he lead the crusade for the non-violent dismantling of apartheid in our land, but his words and deeds inspired non-violent revolutions which led to successful democratic change in Eastern Europe, Asia, and South Africa. This evening we remember some of his words, as well as those of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, an important ally of Dr. King in the religious community: To quote our prayer book, "Let us learn in order to teach; let us learn in order to do."

In his famous 1963 Letter From the Birmingham Jail to the Clergymen of Birmingham, Dr. King expressed the sense of community that is so essential to a world made one:

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.

Rabbi Heschel similarly observed that the Civil Rights Movement "is God’s gift to America, the test of our integrity, a magnificent spiritual opportunity. . . . Religion is a demand, God is a challenge, speaking to us in the language of human situations. is within the realm of history that man is charged with God’s mission. . . . To be arrogant toward man is to be blasphemous toward God."

The following are all words from Dr. King:

THE WORLD HOUSE

         

"Some years ago a famous novelist died. Among his papers was found a list of suggested plots for future stories, the most prominently underscored being this one: 'A widely separated family inherits a house in which they have to live together.' This is the great new problem of mankind.  We have inherited a large house, a great 'world house' in which we have to live together -- black and while, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Moslem and Hindu -- a family unduly separated in ideas, culture and interest, who, because we can never again live apart, must learn somehow to live with each other in peace."

                          

"If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. 

"Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective. 

"Now the judgment of God is upon us, and we must either learn to live together as brothers or we are all going to perish together as fools."

                          

 UNDERSTANDING HATE AND FEAR

"Hate distorts the personality of the hater.  We usually think of what hate does [to] the individual hated or the groups hated.  But it is even more tragic, it is even more ruinous and injurious to the individual who hates. 

 "You just begin hating somebody, and you will begin to do irrational things.  You can't see straight when you hate.  You can't walk straight when you hate.  You can't stand upright.  Your vision is distorted.  There is nothing more tragic than to see an individual whose heart is filled with hate."      

"Envy, jealousy, a lack of self-confidence, a feeling of insecurity, and a haunting sense of inferiority are all rooted in fear. 

"We do not envy people and then fear them; first we fear them and subsequently become jealous of them.

"Is there a cure for these annoying fears that pervert our personal lives?

"Yes, a deep and abiding commitment to the way of love.  Perfect love casteth out fear.  Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear; only love can do that.  Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it.  Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.  Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it."

"One day, here in America, I hope that we will . . . become one big family of Americans.  Not white Americans, not black Americans, not Jewish or Gentile Americans, not Irish or Italian Americans, not Mexican Americans, not Puerto Rican Americans, but just Americans.  One big family of Americans.

"God somehow called America to do a special job for mankind and the world.  Never before in the history of the world have so many racial groups and so many national backgrounds assembled together in one nation.  And somehow if we can't solve the problem in American, the world can't solve the problem, because America is the world in miniature and the world is America writ large. 

"And God set us out with all of the opportunities.  He set us between two great oceans; made it possible for us to live with some of the great natural resources of the world.  And there he gave us through the minds of our forefathers a great creed:  'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'"

*************************************************************

In 1964, after the inspiring August 1963 March on Washington at which Dr. King delivered his "I Have A Dream" speech, but also in the wake of the 1963 deaths of President Kennedy and Pope John XXIII, Rabbi Heschel said:  "Our world, which is full of cynicism, frustration, and despair, received in 1963 a flash of inspiration; 1963 was a noble year, a triumph of conscience, a triumph of faith. It will depend upon us whether 1963 will remain a chapter in sacred history."

Dr. King was able to express to the American community not only the injustice of segregation, but the deeper ways in which it destroyed the social and moral fabric of all those involved in it. In his Letter From the Birmingham Jail to the Clergymen of Birmingham, Dr. King explained:

"All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority, and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. To use the words of Martin Buber, the great Jewish philosopher, segregation substitutes an ‘I-it’ relationship for the ‘I-thou relationship, and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. So segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, but it is morally wrong and sinful."

Just as legal segregation created divisions which were destructive of the human soul, so, to, are the divisions created by prejudice and fear.  Dr. King’s teachings were a way of stating the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam – humankind’s effort to repair the world. They are lessons for us all.

Let us learn in order to teach.

Let us learn in order to do.