Mountain Views News, Sierra Madre Edition [Pasadena] Saturday, February 16, 2019

B3

OPINION

 Mountain Views News Saturday, February 16, 2019 


HAIL Hamilton

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Hail Hamilton


IGNORE THE WALL—IT’S A 
DISTRACTION! 

 Thirty-five day partial government shutdown; 800 
thousand federal workers either locked outed out 
or forced to work without pay. Another 1.2 million 
federal contract workers also suffering 35 days without 
a paycheck, as well as the contract employers preparing 
for bankruptcy. And not even a hint of an apology did President Trump offer 
in his unremarkable and unsurprising State of the Union Address, not even 
a hint, did he offered to the 2 million workers who had been forced to suffer 
using them as chips for more than a month so he could pursue “blackmailing” 
congress to fund his border wall. 

 All in an effort to save the nation from the violence at our border he himself 
created! Folks this is called disinformation psych-warfare. Only now it is being 
used used by the Trump administration against the American people, and it is 
becoming it has been going since at least as early as 2014, two years before the 
2016 Presidential Election, continued into the midterm and is still continuing 
today largely unchallenged.

 Americans, like Democrats, don’t want to the wall or pay for it. Most 
Republicans don’t want the wall either and also don’t want to pay for it, or they 
certainly would have when they controlled both houses of congress? Who’s 
left? Maybe some of Trump’s hardcore “alt-right” folks, like the ones we saw 
“goose-stepping” around with their Ku Klux Klan buddies beating up other 
folks“in Charlotte, N.C a while back. Maybe they can sell off some of the 
expensive guns and other WWII Hitler and NAZI paraphernalia to pony up 
the funds?

 Border land, locals claim, was “stolen” from them in 2005 by the Bush using 
government strong-arm tactics and eminent domaine to build border fencing. 
This was done, according to local attorneys, without proper legal process, and 
when the land owners discovered this fact they began to form groups to fight 
back to protect their property rights. They were becoming a cause celeb and 
creating problems for the Bush administration in Washington. Eventually 
Bush backed off, being content with what little land they had acquired and 
contented themselves build a few miles of fencing and repairing a whole lot 
more. 

 When Trump took there 654 miles of a a variety of barriers, mostly security-
type fencing. What was new the use of a variety of high tech surveillance 
equipment such as CCTV and drones equipped with infrared night vision 
optic, monitored motion censures intermittently placed on the border and 
along all know trails used by undocumented aliens entering the country. 

 What of that vast majority of undocumented aliens who enter the country 
at airports, or other ports of entry, with valid passports and visas, the decide 
they like it here, and to overstay their visa. Within days the have purchased 
forged documents—Social Security Card, Birth Certificate, and they’re off to 
get a driver’s license, bank account, credit card, get a job, to get an apartment?

 This all doesn’t even mention the significant engineering problems posed 
by constructing the kind of wall Trump wants to build, much less telling us 
how the $5.7 billion he had been demanding from congress before the 35 day 
government shutdown could ever come close to paying for it. Just look at a 
topographical map of the U.S.-Mexico border and it becomes clear why the 
real estimates of the wall’s cost is more like $30 to $50 billion, or MORE! 

 That’s right, BILLION with a “B”. This is a luxury boondoggle beyond the 
wildest dreams of the most connected “Neo-Con” lobbyist during the Bush 
presidency. Taken together with the outrageously huge tax cuts favoring the 
wealthy that Trump signed into law in December 2017, this additional bill 
is just more than the United States, with a $22 trillion national debt—that’s 
TRILLION with a “T”—can bit more afford to spend on what’s got to be largest 
boondoggle in our history. 

 To put our National Debt into perspective—According to a recent U.N. 
survey of the earth’s best astrologers and astrophysicists there are an estimated 
20 Billion stars in the entire Milky Way Galaxy. That means our National Debt 
is as slightly greater than 2000 times all the stars in our immediate Galactic 
neighborhood. 


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LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN

BLAIR Bess

JOHN L. Micek


IF TRUMP IS INNOCENT, WHY’S 
HE STILL HELPING RUSSIA?

Democrat and Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee 
recently announced that no direct evidence of a conspiracy between 
Russian intelligence operatives and Trump campaign officials has been 
uncovered by their investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 
presidential campaign. 

 Despite the president’s mistaken belief that he has been fully-exonerated 
(he hasn’t), the more pressing issue is whether he’ll finally accept the U.S. intelligence community’s 
well-documented conclusion that Russian operatives did everything in their power to shape American 
public opinion and exert influence over voters. 

 Based on newly-disclosed actions taken by his administration, it appears that he either doesn’t or 
(more likely) doesn’t want to. The Daily Beast reports that two teams of federal officials whose mandate 
was to fight foreign election interference are being dramatically downsized. This will leave the U.S. 
woefully unprepared to address election threats in 2020. Apparently, the president is quite pleased by 
the past work-product of his comrades in the Kremlin and expects them to deliver once more.

 The U.S. Intelligence Community’s Worldwide Threat Assessment, presented to Congress a few 
weeks ago, states “we anticipate that all our adversaries and strategic competitors will increasingly 
build and integrate cyber espionage, attack, and influence capabilities into their efforts to influence U.S. 
policies and advance their own national security interests.”

 That appears to be confirmed in reports from multiple media outlets detailing attempts to use 
Facebook and Twitter to launch disinformation campaigns. According to Politico, Twitter recently 
removed 2,617 “malicious accounts” that may have originated in Iran. Facebook announced that it 
had suspended 783 Iranian pages and accounts on its platforms, including Instagram, for “engaging in 
coordinated inauthentic behavior.” 

 Twitter has suspended 418 accounts that appear to emanate from Russia for mimicking behavior 
similar to that exhibited by the Internet Research Agency - the Russian troll farm responsible for many 
of the propaganda campaigns that raged during the 2016 election. It also took down 2,000 accounts 
located in Venezuela that have engaged in a “state-backed influence campaign targeting domestic 
audiences.”

 No reasonable (emphasis on reasonable) leader could possibly ignore ongoing assaults on the hearts 
and minds of the American people. Nor would he ignore the advice of his hand-picked intelligence 
chiefs. Yet, this leader does. Because his friends in the Motherland continue to employ cyber warfare as 
an ongoing offensive strategy, quite possibly designed to bolster his stranglehold on the White House. 
It should come as no surprise then that the Trump administration is taking steps to ensure that this 
barrage of disinformation continues to rain down on the American people unimpeded. 

 Not so within the Putin Regime. They’re very much afraid that outside forces will employ tactics like 
those used against, causing the Russian people to rise and challenge Putin’s leadership. 

 Legislation passed in 2015 by the Duma, the lower chamber in the Russian Parliament, requires 
that personal data of Russian citizens be stored on servers located in Russia. This should not by any 
means be construed as a measure designed to protect that country’s citizens. Instead, it is an attempt 
to circumvent external servers that power Facebook, Twitter and Google, allowing security officials 
to monitor dissident activities and deny the Russian people access to sites where the free-flow of 
information and speech might threaten those in control. 

 Officials at the highest levels of the Russian government and our own are in both instances taking 
steps to solidify their positions of power. In the case of Putin and company, attempts are being made to 
close the floodgates to information, while Team Trump is doing everything it can to leave them wide-
open.

 Clearly, the president fears that concerted efforts on the part of our intelligence community to 
prevent our adversaries from tampering with elections, sowing discord, and spreading disinformation 
might cause the Trumpian knot to unravel. And the legitimacy of his presidency to be called into 
question yet again.

 Whether Trump directly engaged or conspired with outside forces to corrupt the results of the 
2016 presidential election is still unclear. Results of both the Mueller investigation and a more vigorous 
investigation by the Democrat-controlled House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence may 
paint a more accurate picture once their work is finished. 

 Believing he has been vindicated by the Senate Intelligence Committee, President Trump 
continues to grow more emboldened. Which, to use one of his favorite expressions, is “sad.” And a 
mistake. Because his administration’s recent efforts to stymie future cyberattacks call into question 
whether there really is “No collusion.” And that will only cause government watchdogs to sniff around 
his administration more aggressively.

-

Copyright 2018 Blair Bess distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Blair Bess is an award-winning journalist and columnist. He can be reached at bbess@
soaggragated.com.

TRUMP MAKES PREDATORY 
LENDING GREAT AGAIN

Here’s another reminder that, when it comes to the Trump 
administration, it’s more important to watch what the White House 
does, rather than what it says.

 The payday lending industry scored a huge win this when the U.S. 
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed to weaken Obama-
administration rules governing an industry that makes its money by 
exploiting people in desperate financial straits.

 That’s pretty much the exact opposite of what the agency was created to do. But, hey, this is 
Donald Trump’s Washington.

 Payday loans, sometimes known as paycheck advances, are short-term loans that you have to 
repay by the time you get your next paycheck. As the online news site Mic.com reports, lenders 
charge prospective borrowers - who usually can’t get a loan anywhere else - a fee plus punitive 
interest.

Though they offer the lure of quick cash, the loans are really a debt trap.

 According to research by The Center for Responsible Lending, the APR offered by some 
payday lenders can range from a crushing 533 percent to 792 percent.

Those are rates only a loan shark could love.

 As The Washington Post reports, under the Obama-era rule, which was to take effect in 
August, lenders were supposed to make sure that borrowers could afford the loans they’re being 
offered. But as the Post notes, the latest proposals would lift that requirement and delay the rule’s 
implementation until 2020.

The industry had been lobbying officials to get the rule reversed. And when those efforts failed, 
they got to work on winning over new CFPB boss Kathy Kraninger, a Trump appointee who took 
office last December, the newspaper reported.

 If the Post’s reporting is any indication, the effort appears to have worked.

 “The bureau will evaluate the comments, weigh the evidence, and then make its decision,” 
Kraninger said in a statement released to the Post.

 If this effort pays off, it will be a huge win for payday lenders, who have ridiculously claimed 
they’d face financial ruin if they’re required to actually make sure people can afford the loans 
they’re taking out.

Among the real losers here, ironically, are those MAGA-hat wearing Trump loyalists in Rust Belt 
states who can least afford to afford the mafia-level interest rates.

 Last year, the industry tried to convince Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled House of 
Representatives to approve a bill that would have opened a massive loophole in the state’s very 
strong safeguards against predatory lending.

 The bill would have allowed payday lenders to pose as “loan brokers,” which would have 
allowed them to get around interest rate caps and charge unlimited fees to borrowers.

 Among those who would have been hit were the veterans that Trump professes to love so 
much and vows to protect during his hockey stadium rallies. Active-duty soldiers are already 
protected from such practices under a federal law that caps interest rates at 36 percent annually.

 The loan-broker bill never cleared a critical Pennsylvania House committee. And it died at the 
end of last year’s legislative session. But there’s every reason to expect the issue will be re-litigated 
during the new legislative session that started in January.

 And as the recent push at the federal level shows, the industry is tireless when it comes to 
trying to advance its interests.

 That’s bad news for consumers, one advocate says.

 “The CFPB is proposing to unwind the core part of its payday loan rule - that the lender 
must reasonably assess a borrower’s ability to repay before making a loan,” the bureau’s former 
director, Richard Cordray, posted on Twitter this week. “It’s a bad move that will hurt the hardest 
hit consumers. It should be - and will be - subject to a stiff legal challenge.”

 Some in the industry, however, believe the proposed rule change doesn’t go far enough, The 
Post reported. A top executive with one of the industry’s largest trade groups, The Community 
Financial Services Association of America, told The Post the rule should be repealed entirely.

 It’s eternally easy to get lost in Trump’s bluster - to be outraged by his latest bullying Tweet or 
bald-faced televised falsehoods.

 But it’s in the nuts-and-bolts of policymaking, in the White House’s ongoing efforts to 
undermine government institutions that the 45th president is doing the most damage.

 And, as ever, it’s those who are cheering the loudest for him that will end up suffering the most.

-

Copyright 2019 John L. Micek, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

An award-winning political journalist, John L. Micek is Editor-in-Chief of The Pennsylvania Capital-Star 
in Harrisburg, Pa. Email him at jmicek@penncapital-star.com and follow him on Twitter @ByJohnLMicek.

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