Tom Friedman and the United American Emirate

So how should we characterize the Trump administration?  We have competing models: the fascist coup, the rule of oligarch criminals, the Putin puppet.  Each has its merits.  Here’s another one I like, set out by Tom Friedman in his New York Times op-ed: “Trump’s United American Emirate.”

Friedman:  “Merkel is just the first major leader to say out loud what every American ally is now realizing: America is under new management. ‘Who is America today?’ is the first question I’ve been asked on each stop through New Zealand, Australia and South Korea. My answer: We’re not the U.S.A. anymore. We’re the new U.A.E.: the United American Emirate.

We have an emir. His name is Donald. We have a crown prince. His name is Jared. We have a crown princess. Her name is Ivanka. We have a consultative council (Congress) that rubber-stamps whatever the emir wants. And like any good monarchy, our ruling family sees no conflict of interest between its personal businesses and those of the state.”

Further on:

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay no price, bear no burden, meet no hardship, support no friend, oppose no foe to assure the success of liberty — unless we’re paid in advance. And we take cash, checks, gold, Visa, American Express, Bitcoin and memberships in Mar-a-Lago.

 The Trump doctrine is very simple: There are just four threats in the world: terrorists who will kill us, immigrants who will rape us or take our jobs, importers and exporters who will take our industries — and North Korea. Threats to democracy, free trade, the environment and human rights are no longer on our menu. Therefore, no matter how unsavory you are as a foreign leader, you can be the United American Emirate’s best friend if you:

1.) Pay us by buying our weapons. I warn you, though, Saudi Arabia has set the bar very high, starting at $110 billion.

2.) Pay us in higher defense spending for NATO — not to deter Russia, which is using cyberwarfare to disrupt every democratic election it can, but to deter “terrorism,” something that tanks and planes are useless against.

 3.) Pay us in trade concessions. And it doesn’t matter how lame those concessions are. All that matters is that Emir Trump can claim “concessions.” See the recent “trade concessions” to Trump from China. (Pay no attention to that laughter from Beijing.)

4.) Pay us by freeing any U.S. citizen you arrested on trumped-up charges to annoy Barack Obama and to intimidate human rights activists. See Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s release of a U.S.-Egyptian charity worker, Aya Hijazi, who was working with homeless children.

5.) Pay us by grossly flattering our emir about how much of an improvement he is over Obama. See President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines and Bibi Netanyahu of Israel.

6.) Be Russia, and you pay nothing.”

Yeah, Tom is getting a little snarky – how could you not – and I’m not even sure I got the best parts.  Read his whole op-ed.  Personally, I’m still wondering about that orb and the red flashes coming from the White House window.  Surely Trump found one of the palantirs and is even now enslaved by the Dark Lord.

Anthrax Anyone? Trump’s Proposal to Close the Biodefense Lab

 

 

bacillus anthracis

 

Today, it was reported that Trump will withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement on climate change, just as he twittered the made-up word “covfefe” to keep the internet entertained.  As I’ve noted before, Trump conducts a full scale attack 24/7 on civility and common sense.  Inevitably, to focus on one horror is to neglect another.  This is as he intends and necessarily dilutes the opposition that confronts him.  Where indeed do we focus?  On the evidence being gathered by Mike Farb (see @mikefarb1 on twitter) that Russian and Right-Wing cyber attacks on voting machines flipped the electoral results in key states?  Or on Kushner’s secret communications with the Russians – espionage and treason by anyone’s reasoned standards?  On Trump’s effort to deprive millions of health care?  On the attack on public education and on the press?  All the while, in very concrete ways that do not get the attention of the national media – Trump and Bannon are carrying out a campaign to dismantle the federal infrastructure, a campaign that reaches down into our states and cities.

Here’s an example, from the Frederick News Post in Frederick, Maryland, editorializing in A travesty and a tragedy on the Trump budget proposal to close the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center that was created after the 9/11 anthrax attacks to allow rapid response to bio-chemical attacks.  From the editorial:

“Since 2010, Frederick has been home to the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC) lab at Ft. Detrick. The lab has attracted some of the most brilliant scientists in the country and the world, who are all working every day to protect this country from all manner of biology-involved crime and from a bioterror attack.”

“…The federal government decided to build the lab after the anthrax attacks of 2001, when dozens of smaller labs around the country had to work for years to help investigate those crimes. Now, the Ft. Detrick lab can analyze such evidence in hours or days.

The scientists at the lab handle some of the world’s most dangerous agents, including Ebola and anthrax, and conduct research on pathogens for which no vaccine or treatment exists, according to its website. About 180 people work in the facility, with $21 million in annual salary and benefits and $4.5 million in annual subcontracting spending. The contract for the lab is estimated to be worth $480 million over 10 years.”

“…if this lab were to close and its staff to be dispersed — the nation would lose a scientific treasure that would be difficult if not impossible to replace. These scientists, the best and the brightest in their fields, are giving the nation hard facts about the dangers posed by biological threat agents and plausible terrorist attacks.”

The Trump proposal to close the Biodefense Lab is par for the course for the Trump administration with its war on science and education.  But as the anthrax scare showed, biological attacks are favored by the very terrorists from whom we have the most to fear and they can be carried out without conventional weapons or access to protected infrastructure.  I can’t think of a proposal that would set our population more at risk than to eliminate the biodefense programs that provide the necessary analysis and response.  Just when you think Trump can’t go lower, he lowers the bar and surprises us all.