The 1956 science fiction classic Forbidden Planet projects the plot of Shakespeare's Tempest into outer space, and makes that brilliant plot accessible to all of us. A young Leslie Nielsen leads a rescue expedition to a distant planet only to find the sole survivors of the previous mission unwilling to accept their help and unable to explain the deaths of the rest of their party. Walter Pidgeon plays the scientist father engrossed in the study of the Krell--the extinct super-race that once inhabited the forbidden planet. We learn this super-race had invented technology that magnified their mental capacity, enabling them to reach unimaginable technological achievements. Eventually, we learn that the same technology that propelled them to great achievement ultimately destroyed the Krell. Only the dying words of one of Nielsen's crew gives the critical insight: Krell technology not only magnified their positive mental capability, but also their negative, violent emotions as well. 

     Hopefully, you have a sense of deja vu when you consider the amazing advances that have accompanied the advent of the information age. Without a doubt, information technology has greatly accelerated the technological achievement of the human race. In just the last 50 years, we have gone from putting the first humans on the moon to mass marketing cell phones that give almost all of us more computing power than the Apollo 11 space ship. Starting around 20 years ago, we began producing more bytes of information every few days than was produced in the entire history of human kind previously. Advances in medicine, artificial intelligence, transportation and communications propel our human species at a dizzying pace. Yet, for all of the power of our technology, we seem helpless to stop the destructive side of our technology. No where is this more true than in the realm of social media, where we seem to have lost our ability to treat each other civilly, to disagree without letting our differences fuel hatred and division, and to tell the difference between truth and deception.
 
     I will resist the temptation to call for some mechanism to curb the evil effects of our technology. The lesson is all too clear. From Shakespeare to Forbidden Planet, the solution to the challenges of power are not to be found in magic or in the next technological leap forward.  The basic challenge is to balance the things that seem to drive us toward the seductive illusion of and ever-more-powerful independent individualism with the irresistable force of our nature as social animals. 

     They say the largest organism on the planet is either the pando "forest of one tree" in Utah or the Armillaria ostoyae fungus in Oregon. The forest seems to consist of over 47,000 individual aspen trees, but in fact shares one massive underground root system. Similarly, the so-called humongous fungus in Oregon is connected mostly under the surface of the ground--its visible manifestations appear to be discrete individual clusters of mushrooms that bloom in the autumn. In both cases, the appearance of individuals is an illusion, and we can confirm the connection that exists beneath the surface. In both cases, however, the health of the organism as a whole depends on protecting the health of the connective tissue.

     In the case of our species, I think it is perfectly reasonable to note that the sense we have of our individual existence is largely an illusion--the "roots" that connect us are our thoughts, and we have never been more connected as a species than we are today. The challenge is in the fact that thoughts and the media through which we share them are not physical, and can just as easily spread poison as nutrition. It is up to each of us to tend to the portion of the root system that we touch: to be respectful, kind, honest, and to demand the same from those around us. Ultimately, we are indeed affected by and connected to our fellow creatures. It is less important to be right or to win as an individual than it is to support the growth of the community you inhabit.

This month marks the two-hundred-thirty-second anniversary of the signing of our United States Constitution. The Constitution was drafted and signed in Philadelphia, in the same building where the Declaration of Independence was signed. George Washington was one of the delegates to the convention that produced the Constitution, and he was elected President of  the convention, which convened on May 25th, 1787 and adjourned on September 17th of that year.

Here is the excerpt from the first edition of Accountability Citizenship in which I discuss the United States Constitution:

Our republic is founded on a Constitution. That Constitution was developed after a group of dissatisfied colonists--subjects of the British Empire--declared their independence from Great Britain and fought a war to win their independence at great risk to themselves and to their families. The colonists were dissatisfied because they believed the British government was abusing its power, treating them unjustly, and not responding to their needs. The first effort to structure a unified government for the new United States was based on something known as the Articles of Confederation, and it was a failure. Generally, historians agree the Articles of Confederation did not provide the central government with sufficient powers to administer the basic functions of a viable government. The Constitution was developed in 1787 to address the shortcomings of the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution is not perfect, either--it has been amended twenty-seven times. The first ten amendments were adopted in 1791 and are collectively known as the Bill of Rights. (Accountability Citizenship, xlibris, 2013, pp. 46-7)

Google's icon for the past several days has linked to a video commemorating the Apollo 11 mission that put the first people on the moon on July 20th, 1969.  Mike Collins, the crew member who remained in orbit while Armstrong and Aldrin descended to the surface, narrates this terrific summary of an amazing accomplishment. I remember my mom and dad getting my sister and I out of bed to come watch the landing live. There is nothing we cannot do when we work together! Click to watch the video.

I am a bit of a Star Trek nerd. I've watched every episode of the original series, the "Next Generation" series, and all of the movies. I like the franchise because, like all good fiction, it weaves some powerful messages about common aspects of the human condition into its very uncommon settings. If you pay attention, there are some good lessons to be found in the adventures of the starship Enterprise and its crew. One of my favorite episodes of all is "The Day of the Dove", which aired the first week in November, 1968.

For those of you who didn't live that time, let me provide a bit of historical context.  The Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union (Russia) was at its height, with both sides armed to the teeth with enough nuclear, chemical and conventional weapons to destroy the world many times over.  Proxy "hot wars" were being fought in places like Africa and South America. The Vietnam War was at its height.  At home, the Civil Rights Act was just a few years old, and the conflict between the federal government's enforcement of the new law and some state and local efforts to resist it was one source of violence in American cities.  Just a year earlier, during the "long hot summer of 1967" racial violence had led to so much violence in Detroit that the government deployed the 82d Airborne Division and the National Guard to help restore order.  There was also conflict between those who were protesting against the war in Vietnam and those who insisted we had to support our military. In a span of just over two months 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis (April 4) and Bobby Kennedy (the Democratic nominee for the 1968 presidential election) was assassinated in Los Angeles (June 6). The episode of Star Trek I am referencing in this blog aired 4 days before the 1968 presidential election.

If I were to summarize the lesson of "The Day of the Dove", I would say it is simply that hate and violence warp our ability to accurately perceive facts and reality, and that cycles of violence are "vicious cycles" where negative behaviors can reinforce each other and perpetuate--even magnify--the cycle. I'm attaching a link to the youtube trailer for this episode.  I wish everyone in our country would take 45 minutes and watch the whole episode (you can download it from Amazon and probably other places as well).  I wish everyone would familiarize themselves with the history of this turbulent time in America.  Spoiler alert: the crew of the Enterprise join forces with their arch-enemies, the Klingons, to defeat a hate monster.  They do it by recognizing that hate blinds us, and that we can overcome it if we work to find common ground. 

​We have a lot of common ground in America.  Things are nowhere near as bad today as they were in November, 1968.  But we have to make an effort to celebrate the goodness in our country and what we have in common, even as we work through our disagreements over how to make it even better.  We have to focus on facts rather than on blind loyalty to this faction or that faction. Beware of any group that tries to prevent you from seeking common ground and understanding with others. Any others. Even the Klingons.

Live long and prosper!

At West Point, they spent a lot of time teaching us about duty.  One of the ways they did that was by having us memorize something called Worth's Battalion Orders, which goes like this: 

"But an officer on duty knows no one. To be partial is to dishonor both himself and the object of his ill-advised favor. What will be thought of him who exacts of his friends that which disgraces him? Look at him who winks at and overlooks offenses in one, which he causes to be punished in another, and contrast him with the inflexible Soldier who does his duty faithfully, notwithstanding it occasionally wars with his private feelings. The conduct of one will be venerated and emulated; the other detested as a satire upon Soldiership and Honor.”
–Brevet Major William Jenkins Worth

Robert Mueller nailed it.  Well done, sir.

Respect and Gratitude. 

In this blog, I make five points in bold text that are my conclusions from the report, with extracted quotations from the report that support my five points.  Then I provide the link to the report so you can, if you wish, read enough of it to come to your own conclusions.  Here's the survey (five easy questions!).

I think all Americans should read the redacted Mueller report, or at least the executive summaries, or at least my excerpts from the executive summaries. I am sorry for those of you who feel I am calling you "bad people" if you do not or will not read the report. I believe it is important for our republic for citizens to care enough to inform themselves when 45 percent of Americans believe we should impeach the President. It's go time.  If you have ever said "thank you for your service" to a veteran, or opined piously on the sacrifice of our fallen on Memorial Day, then I would tell you this is the part of the story where you get to do your part, to put a little something on the altar of our republic. I don't want to tell you what to think. I share with you my conclusions, and the excerpts that support them, below. There is a link to the National Public Radio (NPR) site where you can get the redacted report for yourself.  Inform yourself.

Point 1.  Mueller states he was guided by DOJ policy that you can’t charge a sitting president:

Volume II, p. 1 “We determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has  issued an opinion finding that ‘the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions’ in violation of ‘the constitutional separation of powers.’ Given the role of the Special Counsel as an attorney in the Department of Justice and the framework of the Special Counsel regulations, see 28 U.S.C. Section 515; 28 C.F.R. Section 600.7 (a), this office accepted OLC’s legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising prosecutorial jurisdiction.”

Point 2:  Russia interfered in the election effectively to help Trump and hurt Clinton. Senior Trump campaign members knew about the Russian efforts.  Mueller could not or would not establish that there was an agreement in place regarding cooperation between the campaign and Russia.  There is evidence to that effect, but Mueller concluded it was insufficient (perhaps because of Point 1, he felt Congress should make that call with decision whether or not to impeach?—Congress should hear from Mueller on this point):

Volume 1, pp 1-2 “As set forth in detail in this report, the Special Counsel’s investigation established that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election principally through two operations. First, a Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Second, a Russian intelligence service conducted computer-intrusion operations against entities, employees, and volunteers working on the Clinton Campaign and then released stolen documents. The investigation also identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign. Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

Point 3: Mueller never says there was no collusion.  He says collusion is not a legal term so he applies the higher legal standard associated with conspiracy (“coordination”) and his “understanding” that proof of an agreement is needed to establish that coordination occurred:

Volume 1, pp. 1-2: “In evaluating whether evidence about collective action of multiple individuals constituted a crime, we applied the framework of conspiracy law, not the concept of ‘collusion.’ “

“…collusion is not a specific offense… found in the United States Code…. For those reasons, the Office’s focus in analyzing questions of joint criminal liability was on conspiracy as defined in federal law. In connection with that analysis, we addressed the factual question whether members of the Trump Campaign ‘coordinated’… with Russian election interference activities…. We understood coordination to require an agreement… between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference. That requires more than the two parties taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other’s actions or interests. We applied the term in that sense when stating in the report that the investigation did not establish that the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

Point 4: Mueller is pretty clearly punting this (appropriately in my view) to the Congress for decision.
“A statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts.”

Point 5: The President knows he is guilty.  He understands Point 4. That is why he is refusing to comply with subpoenas and trying to block further congressional investigation.

Volume II, p. 78: “On May 17, 2017, Acting Attorney General Rosenstein appointed Robert S. Mueller, III as Special Counsel and authorized him to conduct the Russia investigation and matters that arose from the investigation. The President learned of the Special Counsel’s appointment from Sessions, who was with the President, Hunt, and McGahn conducting interviews for a new FBI Director. Sessions stepped out of the Oval Office to take a call from Rosenstein, who told him about the Special Counsel appointment, and Sessions then returned to inform the President of the news. According to notes written by Hunt, when Sessions told the President that a Special Counsel had been appointed, the President slumped back in his chair and said, ‘Oh, my God. This is terrible  This is the end of my Presidency. I’m f*ck*d.’”

Here is a link to the Mueller Report provided by NPR (National Public Radio):    https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=5955997-Muellerreport

Take the survey.  You can also read the report.

Please click on this link to take a short and anonymous survey on border security and immigration reform: 

​5 Questions on Border Security and Immigration Reform

Specifically, the Members of Congress who failed us were those who put their party loyalty in front of their oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.  S.744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, passed the Senate by a roll-call vote of 68-32. The bill authorized a doubling of the size of the Border Patrol, directed the Secretary of Homeland Security to prepare a comprehensive strategy on border security, and funded the barriers (walls, fences, and whatever was required in the strategy) necessary for the implementation of that strategy.  The bill also provided a much-needed overhaul of immigration laws.  And on top of all that, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office  "scored" the bill as reducing the federal debt by more than $100 million.

Why would any Member of Congress vote against that bill?  In fact, as shown in the attached copy of the Senate's roll-call vote, 32 Republican senators voted against S.744, including Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah. But the traitor who really sold us all out was former House Speaker John Boehner.  Facing a split among Republican Members of the House that could have passed the legislation and sent it to President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner used the power of his office to prevent the bill from ever coming up for a vote in the House.  He told journalists that, not only would the House not vote on the bill, but they would not even meet with the Senate to try for a compromise.

Contrary to what President Trump likes to claim, it was the Republicans who stopped the last, best proposal to significantly enhance border security.  And they did it with a procedural maneuver that, arguably, blocked a bill representing the will of a majority of Americans that would otherwise have become a law.

If you think that one party is always right and the other is always wrong, you should reconsider the facts. Blindly supporting one political party is certainly not the best thing for our country. None of us should follow that policy. And we most certainly should not tolerate Members of Congress who cannot put their loyalty to our country ahead of their loyalty to party.  It's time to get people like Mitch McConnell and Mike Lee out of Congress.

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