Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

In college — this was in the late 1980s and early 1990s at the University of California, Berkeley — I used to be one of those smart-alecky young conservatives who would scoff at the notion of “white male privilege” and claim that anyone propagating such concepts was guilty of “political correctness.” As a Jewish refugee from the Soviet Union, I felt it was ridiculous to expect me to atone for the sins of slavery and segregation, to say nothing of the household drudgery and workplace discrimination suffered by women. I wasn’t racist or sexist. (Or so I thought.) I hadn’t discriminated against anyone. (Or so I thought.) My ancestors were not slave owners or lynchers; they were more likely victims of the pogroms.

I saw America as a land of opportunity, not a bastion of racism or sexism. I didn’t even think that I was a “white” person — the catchall category that has been extended to include everyone from a Mayflower descendant to a recently arrived illegal immigrant from Ireland. I was a newcomer to America who was eager to assimilate into this wondrous new society, and I saw its many merits while blinding myself to its dark side.

Well, live and learn. A quarter century is enough time to examine deeply held shibboleths and to see if they comport with reality. In my case, I have concluded that my beliefs were based more on faith than on a critical examination of the evidence. In the last few years, in particular, it has become impossible for me to deny the reality of discrimination, harassment, even violence that people of color and women continue to experience in modern-day America from a power structure that remains for the most part in the hands of straight, white males. People like me, in other words. Whether I realize it or not, I have benefitted from my skin color and my gender — and those of a different gender or sexuality or skin color have suffered because of it.

This sounds obvious, but it wasn’t clear to me until recently. I have had my consciousness raised. Seriously.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has undergone a bit of a makeover. It’s no longer actually meant to regulate the financial services industry as it pertains to the treatment of Main Street – it has been transformed into an advocacy for the banks, credit card issuers, insurance companies, mortgage originators and brokerage firms against what it sees as overzealous regulation and job-killing oversight.

...

The current GOP regime is not on the side of regular people; even its own people in the big, red flyover country. It’s on the side of the insurance companies and banks, thanks in part to Citizens United and the swamp on K Street that was supposedly being drained. No such thing is taking place. Protecting consumers of financial services, especially those most vulnerable due to financial illiteracy or socioeconomic pressures, ought to be a non-partisan issue.

But it’s not.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions retracted an Obama-era guidanceto state courts that was meant to end debtors’ prisons, which throw people who are too poor to pay fines into jail. This practice is blatantly unconstitutional, and the guidance had helped jump-start reform around the country. Its withdrawal is the latest sign that the federal government is retreating from protecting civil rights for the most vulnerable among us.

The Justice Department helped shine a light on the harms of fine and fees when it investigated Ferguson, Mo., three years ago after the killing of the teenager Michael Brown by a police officer. As one of the lawyers on that case, I saw firsthand the damage that the city had wrought on its black community.

Ferguson used its criminal justice system as a for-profit enterprise, extracting millions from its poorest citizens. Internal emails revealed the head of finance directing policing strategy to maximize revenue rather than ensure public safety. Officers told us they were pressured to issue as many tickets as possible.

Even the local judge was in on it, imposing penalties of $302 for jaywalking and $531 for allowing weeds to grow in one’s yard. He issued arrest warrants for residents who fell behind on payments — including a 67-year-old woman who had been fined for a trash-removal violation — without inquiring whether they even had the ability to pay the exorbitant amounts. The arrests resulted in new charges, more fees and the suspension of driver’s licenses. These burdens fell disproportionately on African-Americans.

At the time of our investigation, over 16,000 people had outstanding arrest warrants from Ferguson, a city of 21,000. Untold numbers found themselves perpetually in debt to the city and periodically confined to its jail.

These problems were not unique to Ferguson. A Georgia woman served eight months in custody past her sentence because she couldn’t pay a $705 fine. A veteran battling homelessness in Michigan lost his job when a judge jailed him for bringing only $25 rather than the required $50 first payment to court. A judge in Alabama told people too poor to pay that they could either give blood or go to jail.

In 2015, the Justice Department convened judges, legislators, advocates and affected people to discuss this problem and devise solutions. Participants repeatedly asked the Justice Department to clarify the legal rules that govern the enforcement of financial penalties and to support widespread reform.

And so we did. Relying on Supreme Court precedent from over 30 years ago, the 2016 guidance set out basic constitutional requirements: Do not imprison a person for nonpayment without first asking whether he or she can pay. Consider alternatives like community service. Do not condition access to a court hearing on payment of all outstanding debt.

The Justice Department also provided financial resources to the field. It invested in the efforts of a http://www.ncsc.org/Topics/Financial/Fines-Costs-and-Fees/Fines-and-Fees-Resource-Guide.aspx to develop best practices. And it created a $3 million grant program to support innovative, homegrown reforms in five states.

Along with private litigation and advocacy, these efforts have helped drive change around the country. Missouri limited the percent of city revenue that can come from fines and fees and announced court rules to guard against unlawful incarceration. California abolished fees for juveniles and stopped suspending the driver’s licenses of people with court debt. Louisiana passed a law requiring that judges consider a person’s financial circumstances before imposing fines and fees. Texas, where the court system’s administrative director said the guidance “was very helpful and very well received by the judges across the state,” issued new rules to prevent people from being jailed for their poverty. The American Bar Association endorsedthe Justice Department’s guidance, and the Conference of State Court Administrators cited it in a http://cosca.ncsc.org/~/media/Microsites/Files/COSCA/Policy%20Papers/End-of-Debtors-Prisons-2016.ashx on ending debtors’ prisons.

To justify reversing guidance that has had so much positive impact, Mr. Sessions asserts that such documents circumvent the executive branch’s rule-making process and impose novel legal obligations by fiat. Nonsense. The fines and fees guidance created no new legal rules. It discussed existing law and cited model approaches from local jurisdictions. The document also put state-level actors on notice that the department would take action to protect individual rights, whether by partnership or litigation.

Viewed in that light, the true intent of Mr. Sessions’s decision comes into focus. Sessions pulled 25 guidance documents last week. Sixteen of those involved civil rights protections — including 10 related to the Americans With Disabilities Act and one on the special harms that unlawful fine and fee practices can have for young people. Withdrawing these documents is consistent with the Trump administration’s hostility to civil rights in a host of other areas: abandoning oversight of police departments, reinterpreting anti-discrimination statutes to deny protection to L.G.B.T. individuals and switching sides in key voting rights cases.

The push to abolish debtors’ prisons will continue, as community advocates and local officials press on. It would be preferable, of course, for the federal government to fulfill its role as a leading protector of basic constitutional rights. Unfortunately, Mr. Sessions has made clear that under his leadership it will not.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The ascendance of Mr Trump — added to the growing power of China — has changed the political atmosphere around the world. There is such a thing as a global mood and the signals coming from Washington and Beijing are disquieting.

The Trump administration is sending the message that the US is no longer interested in making the case for democracy and clean government. Meanwhile, Xi Jinping’s China is increasingly confident in arguing for an authoritarian model that tolerates capitalism — but crushes civil society.

The indirect effects of those signals have stoked a crisis of liberal values that is visible in places as different as South Africa, Turkey and Brazil. These three countries are significant mid-ranking powers and members of the G20 group of leading nations. Each of them, in the recent past, looked like places where liberal and democratic values were advancing steadily.

Yet all of them are now struggling to maintain independent institutions that can fight corruption and check the power of political leaders. The roots of their separate crises are local and particular. But liberals in all three places feel that they are now swimming against the global tide.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Ralph Northam, a pediatric neurologist who was recently elected governor of Virginia, distinguished himself during the gubernatorial race by calling President Donald Trump a “narcissistic maniac.” Northam drew criticism for using medical diagnostic terminology to denounce a political figure, though he defended the terminology as “medically correct.”

The term isn’t medically correct — “maniac” has not been a medical term for well over a century — but Northam’s use of it in either medical or political contexts would not be considered unethical by his professional peers.

For psychiatrists, however, the situation is different, which is why many psychiatrists and other mental health professionals have refrained from speculating about Trump’s mental health. But in October, psychiatrist Bandy Lee published a collection of essays written largely by mental health professionals who believe that their training and expertise compel them to warn the public of the dangers they see in Trump’s psychology. The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President rejects the position of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) that psychiatrists should never offer diagnostic opinions about persons they have not personally examined. ...

I expect that the APA will denounce and dismiss this book and its authors, but I encourage others not to do so. Dangerous Case is unapologetically provocative and political, and the authors clearly take themselves to be contributing to the improvement of the community and the betterment of public health, as the AMA (and APA) principles of medical ethics direct. Dangerous Case will have supporters and detractors for good reasons — some political, some social, some psychiatric — that have much more to do with views of Trump’s mental health than with the Goldwater rule.

I believe that the APA, in the interest of promoting public health and safety, should encourage rather than silence the debate the book generates. And it should take caution not to enforce an annotation that undermines the overriding public health and safety mandate that applies to all physicians. Standards of professional ethics and professionalism change with time and circumstance, and psychiatry’s reaction to one misstep in 1964 should not entail another in 2017.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

LITTLE RED RUSSIAN BUTTON
https://claytoonz.com/2017/12/28/little-red-russian-button/

Aleksei Navalny is a Russian anticorruption activist. The guy has spent years criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin, and he planned to run for that job, which will be decided in March. Putin thought otherwise.

Navalny was convicted on a fraud case, which many believe was bogus. On Monday, the Kremlin barred him from running for president. He has called for a boycott of the election and now Putin’s spokesperson said he may face criminal charges for that act.

Putin has been in office for nearly 18 years, and now he’s seeking five more. He registered his candidacy for his reelection this week. His approval numbers are around 80 percent, but those are state-conducted polls, which never include Navalny’s name.

Navany’s name is also never mentioned on Russian television, unless he’s being charged or found guilty of something, like organizing political rallies.

Navalny isn’t much of a threat to Putin, but the Russian president isn’t take any chances in the authoritarian state he pretends is a democracy. Perhaps he’s afraid of U.S. hacking into this election or maybe he doesn’t trust the polls.

Putin has warned America not to meddle in this election. How ironic. The Kremlin considers the U.S. State Department’s criticism of Navalny’s exclusion as meddling.

Donald Trump probably envies this latest move by Vladimir. All he has here is intimidation, voter suppression, and gerrymandering. Trump buddies up with authoritarians in Turkey, China, the Philippines, but Putin is his hero.

While Russia continues to attack the U.S. by sending internet trolls to help Republicans and Trump TV to attack the FBI, Trump has yet to admit Russia hacked our election, and he’s failed to enact sanctions on Russia that Congress has passed.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump said if he was president then Hillary Clinton would be in jail. He’s spent nearly every day of his presidency, when he’s not playing golf, attacking Clinton, who he defeated and is now retired, and encourages his Attorney General to go after her. Sometimes he multitasks and criticizes Clinton while playing golf.

Instead of defending himself from an investigation by a Special Counsel, he hatches conspiracy theories against those conducing the investigation. He labels the FBI as “tainted.” Do you remember back when Republicans were the defenders of law enforcement? That went out the window with their patriotism and stance against Russia.

Trump calls news he doesn’t like “fake news,” and has called the American press enemies of the American people. He retweets Fox & Friends when he’s not retweeting racists videos from European hate groups.

Trump would love to ban select political opponents when (if) he runs for reelection in 2020.By “select,” I mean all of them. During the last campaign, he even said Clinton shouldn’t have been allowed to run. Trump dreams of ruling, not governing. He has yet to understand the difference.

Trump is not about America first. He, along with his sycophants and apparently the entire Republican Party, are about Trump first. It’s Putin second and then, America third…maybe.

We don’t need an authoritarian, a king, strongman, or a ruler. We need a democratically elected president. This is why the press, opponents to Trump, and even political cartoonists should keep putting Trump’s feet to the fire. All we have to do is call out the truth.

If we don’t, Trump will be throwing his political opponents to the alligators.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]