Left & Right Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Jim Wilfong again sits in the left chair. He's a former Maine legislator and worked in Washington for three administrations in the SBA (Small Business Administration). We open with a question from the producer asking if we'd like to see the White House participate in hearings by the House Judiciary Committee on impeachment. Jim would, citing the House's constitutional power of oversight. I wouldn't, citing rules made by the Democrat Chairmen of two committees rigged against the president and his supporters and denying him due process rights. Jim contends the impeachment process is more political than judicial given that there's no jury of peers, and "Politics ain't beanbag," as Harry Truman said. That leads to a discussion of Harry Truman, his association with Irish gangsters out of Kansas City, among other things. Nonetheless, we both agree that Truman was a man of honor who respected rules, and that trust is the currency in virtually all dealings short of war. I contend that even Irish gangsters had rules which they strictly enforced. Then we discuss the erosion of trust, especially between citizens and government, and that the impeachment process is exacerbating that erosion. Jim says our situation in that light is analogous to the 1850s just prior to our civil war. I cite the red/blue map of the USA as being red in the interior and blue on the urban coasts. In a smaller way, more urban southern Maine is blue while the rest of Maine voted for Trump. Jim picks up on that. He believes the divide coincides with an economic divide, that poor, rural people tend to vote red and also join the military. The producer's second question of us asks if Trump was being childish when he abruptly left the NATO meeting after a video of other leaders ridiculing him surfaced. Neither Jim nor I saw the video or were aware of any impetuosity on the part of Trump. We discussed NATO and the changing nature of war today. Though NATO was formed to counteract a WWII-type invasion of Western Europe by the Soviet Union, few military experts expect any such wars now. Instead, they expect things like proxy wars such as we're seeing in the Middle East. Ideally, we both agree, use of diplomacy is best when backed up by threat of, or use of, economic sanctions as America is doing now with Russia, N. Korea, Iran, and others. It's most effective when backed up by the plausible threat of, and use of military force. In that context I cited a new book about Jeffrey Epstein which purports that he was an Israeli agent, among other things, and that he had a handler in Mossad. It also claimed that he was closely associated with Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. I recall a visit to Israel a decade ago and seeing evidence everywhere of that nation being in near-constant state of war. Citizens are hyper-vigilant and many walk around with AR-15 slung over their shoulders, including what looked like 15-year-old girls. They probably were older, but they looked very young. When French President Macron claimed NATO was brain-dead, we speculated about what he may have meant. Jim guesses that he thinks NATO is stuck in a Cold War strategy and needs to change. Jim ponders motivations for US involvement in Middle Eastern proxy wars and suggests it involves control of strategic resources, which puts us in competition with China. I point to a former NATO official who is now a retired admiral in the US and speculates that Russia should be wary of China's designs on Siberia. We touch on with several other issues but end with using the next show to examine changing definitions of left and right, the title of our show. What issues define left and right? We will research the question.