Two
visitors from Nigeria are staying
with me temporarily while attending a GAO course here, perhaps their last
chance to do so during the Trump administration. Although, back home, they do
not cook, wash clothes, iron, or clean up, since both have wives and also
servants, now they are gamely trying their best, with some messiness in the
kitchen, but that’s improving. One man was going to put his woolen suit jacket
into the washing machine, but I stopped him in time! He also burned a pot of
rice, sending smoke throughout the house. I hope he won’t start that. I once
had a young woman from Italy staying with me who regularly burned rice at least
once a week. It’s kind of scary to have the house fill up with smoke.
While
the future of the Peace Corps is
threatened by the proposed slashing of the foreign aid budget, here is part of
a letter Va. Senator Tim Kaine wrote to a former volunteer asking about the
corps’ future. (The cost of supporting and protecting the Trump family seems to
exceed the cost of the entire Peace Corps.)
I understand the
value of serving abroad to help people in need. When I was in law school,
I decided to take a year off from my studies to work with Jesuit missionaries
in El Progreso, Honduras, where I taught young students carpentry and welding
skills. This experience taught me the importance of skills-based
training-both abroad and at home-and inspired me to pursue the issue of
expanding career and technical education in the U.S. Senate. In February
2015, I had the pleasure of returning to El Progreso and seeing the success and
expansion of the campus where I taught.
In March 2015, I
wrote a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee, urging full support for
the President’s 2016 budget request of $410 million for the Peace Corps.
I am glad that this budget request was included in a bipartisan agreement
by the House and Senate to fund operations of government for the remainder of
Fiscal Year 2016. In March 2016, I joined 29 of my colleagues in a letter
to the Senate Appropriations Committee, reiterating the need to continue strong
investments in the Peace Corps for Fiscal Year 2017. As a member of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I will continue to support a strong
diplomatic corps, including the Peace Corps.
#ProtectPeaceCorps just got a big boost as well. In a powerful
show of support for the Peace Corps from Congress, a record 175 House Members signed the Peace Corps Funding Dear Colleague Letter in support of level funding for the
agency for FY18.
A New York Times’ editorial questions the
wisdom of slashing any part of foreign aid:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/opinion/ignoring-diplomacys-past-and-its-future-promise.html?_r=0
Donald Trump and the Republican
leadership have
found out how hard it is to take away an entitlement once it is in place.
Trump’s boasts of his deal making prowess notwithstanding, he could not make
the healthcare deal, at least not yet. He didn’t even really try—did no
apparent homework—just found health care surprisingly complicated! How about
that? Basically, his main operational method is bluster and threat, not the careful
working out of details and the lining up of support. (Lyndon Johnson was the
champion of persuasive arm-twisting.) And since Trump has a notoriously short
attention span, he wasn’t willing (or able?) to put in the required effort. He
wanted to move on to something easier where he could tout success. Americans also
want easier health coverage, as well as less costly, and a number of them voted
for Trump based on his promises in that regard; it’s so much easier to promise on
the campaign trail than to deliver. Trump should realize that he is a minority
president, that most Americans did not vote for him (and many find him
repugnant), and that he needs to win them/us over, not just keep playing to his
shrinking base. If he fails to keep his promises, he will lose even more
support among the diehard faithful. It was instructive that a grumpy Donald
Trump decided he was not going to sign some pending executive orders because he
just didn’t feel like it. Sounds like being president is not as much fun as he
had imagined.
As far
as health care, the number of conceivable medical interventions is practically
infinite and none can deter decline and death forever. However, there are
certain basic interventions that Americans may or may not agree are necessary
in any health system. Of course, we now have a firm bloc of Republican
lawmakers who don’t think government has any role in health care (patient,
health thyself!) and even some who think that government itself (including them?)
is unnecessary and evil. So moving forward on any future health plan looks
murky. There are bipartisan fixes that could be made to Obamacare, but is anyone willing to stick out his/her neck to try
to make them happen?
For one
thing, there needs to be a moratorium on increases in compensation for US healthcare
workers, from physicians on up, since one reason our system is so costly is
that payment here is far above what the same professionals earn in other
developed countries. I remember when I worked at the American Occupational
Therapy Association that Canadian therapists flocked here because of the much
higher salaries. This problem could be better controlled under a single-payer,
government-sponsored system, which, no doubt, the health professions would
lobby against. However, the compensation problem, especially incentives for
highly paid surgeons to provide costly interventions, while important, is
secondary to the current threat to Obamacare and to government support of our
hybrid health delivery system. Would Republicans have us go back to just using
home remedies and paying doctors with chickens?
At the
same time, Trump is so quirky and unpredictable that he might get behind some actual
fixes to Obamacare with the help of moderate Republicans and some Democrats,
making it more operational and effective and getting us closer to universal
coverage. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but I’d like to hope that having
Ivanka in the White House might offer a moderating influence and maybe Jared as
well, a young man who is in way over his head but may also be more moderate than
Trump himself and his other advisers, except perhaps on the question of Israel?
That Bannon is off the National Security Council and that Kellyanne has not
been seen lately are positive developments.
Russian intervention may or may not have been the final
straw that made the catastrophic accident of the Trump presidency possible.
Trump’s margin was so thin in key Electoral College states, it probably did make
a difference, but we don’t live in that alternative universe. FBI chief Comey’s gratuitous
announcement of a further investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mails just days
before the election, based on the seizure of Anthony Weiner’s laptop, also
bears blame. Whatever factors contributed to the unfortunate outcome, we are
now stuck for the duration, however long that might be. Still, we do need to
combat further Russian interference and find out—even in the face of Republican
obstructionism--whether Putin holds a blackmail card against Trump for
supposedly cavorting with Russian prostitutes in 2013 (“I don’t even know
Putin,” The Donald has said since). That remains to be seen—or maybe will never
be seen. Trump’s evangelical supporters would not like to find out about
something like that, though Trump himself would dismiss it is as “fake news.” No
doubt, Vladimir Putin is rubbing his hands gleefully at the success of his plot,
well beyond his wildest dreams. US decline is in full swing.
Here is
a scathing editorial about Trump and his presidency in the LA Times. It hits the nail on the head (though he would certainly dismiss
it as a media conspiracy and “fake news.” ) https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/nothing-prepared-us-magnitude-trainwreck-163115116.html
Here is
a NY drug case involving a former Honduran president and possibly the current
one, running for reelection under controversial terms because a second
consecutive term has not been allowed before in Honduras.
Mexico is offering to consider asylum for
500 Cubans stuck at the border since President Obama announced the end of
“wet-foot/dry-foot.”
Sirley Avila, the Cuban woman whose hand was
severed and who suffered other serious injuries in May 2015 after objecting to
a local school closing, is now in a shelter near Miami, trying to get
assistance to move out. As stated on this blog, I just saw her in March. After
6 months in rehab, she had returned to Cuba, only to be harassed by State
Security (with lights and sirens) and threatened by her former attacker,
roaming free. Now, with documents that she says prove government complicity,
she is asking the Cuban government to recognize the crime against her and
provide compensation. As a result, her son, who has remained in Cuba caring for
her elderly mother and is also the father of two children, has been threatened
by an unknown individual if Sirley does not withdraw her demand. Sirley says
she is worried sick that her son will be killed, but she doesn’t think she
should withdraw her just demand under threat. As a mother who has lost a son
and a foster son, I told her to think carefully about going forward, as we both
know that as long as the current Cuban government is in power, it is not going
to recognize the crime against her, its own complicity, or pay any compensation.
If her son is killed, she may have a further cause to pursue, just as is being
done by family of the late Dama de Blanco Laura Pollan after her suspicious
death and by Oswaldo Paya’s daughter, Rosa Maria, after he was killed. But
whatever justice may eventually prevail in those cases (not any time soon), that
will be cold comfort, as those lost will not return and I can attest to the
difficulty of living after the death of a child—of any age—regardless of
subsequent successes.
Re Jamaica, a country within my Amnesty
International Caribbean volunteer orbit, see:
Together
we are stronger By
Shackelia Jackson, sister of Nakiea, killed by the Jamaican
police in 2014
Amnesty International has
issued a new Urgent
Action (UA) on behalf of Dr. Eduardo Cardet in Cuba following a national’s court decision
to sentence him to three years’ imprisonment for criticizing former Cuban
leader Fidel Castro.
Dr. Cardet is a prisoner
of conscience imprisoned
solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression and we are
therefore demanding his immediate and unconditional release.
Here’s another
Cuba UA: Four family members in prison since Fidel’s death, three on a hunger
strike. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr25/6001/2017/en/
However, the three
sibling hunger strikers were recently released conditionally to the hospital
and their mother remains under house arrest, so the matter is not resolved: http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/urgent-action-update-prisoner-of-conscience-siblings-released-cuba-ua-7617
I
attended a presentation at the EU
Delegation’s DC headquarters by Professor Martin Palous, on Cuba-Czech ties, including details of a meeting
between the late Cuban democracy advocate Oswaldo Paya and Vaclav Havel, which
included a film of a performance by Porno Para Ricardo (including reference to
piglet artist El Sexto) and appearances by Paya’s daughter Rosa Maria. As per
my Confessions book, I met Paya early
on, met his daughter after his death, and also describe the irreverent group
Porno Para Ricardo, which makes fun of the Castro brothers. Afterward, I gave a
copy of my book, plus some material on Sirley Avila, to Dr. Palous, since he
teaches a diplomacy class at Florida International University and his students would
be interested and also might be able to help Sirley.
As for South Sudan, those of us who have visited and been involved with
that beleaguered country, were thrilled by the overwhelming independence vote
that in 2011 led to the birth of a new nation. (I spent almost a month in South
Sudan in 2006.) But the (divided) leadership simply could not jettison its warlike
rebel and tribal mode of thinking, with each leader always seeking to win exclusive
advantages for his own side/tribe. That sort of mindset is typical of all
governing systems to an extent—our own included—but in South Sudan, already
ravished by years of war with the north, it has proved catastrophic.
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