Dakota Beacon

There’s an awful lot going on.  A lot of it should be discussed and we should have opinions aired on quite a few topics.  Some of them seem small when compared with the violent conflicts and existential threats we see around the world - massive violent crime in our cities, war and peace in the Middle East, an unresolved near nuclear level war simmering at the Russian border, riots throughout Europe, our economy teetering again.  But sometimes really important things look small - precedents are set, damage is done quietly while our attention is transfixed elsewhere.  We are looking at the expectation of a Communist, Islamist mayor of New York City.  We have incredible scandals in Minnesota.   Ilhan Omar is being challenged again in the House.  Canadians are becoming angry with our border policies (which could wreak havoc with our local economy).

It might seem that a remodeling of the White House doesn’t merit our attention right now.  Trouble is, whenever other things settle down, the precedents have been set and irreversible damage has been done.

I have been critical of Trump’s accepting the gifts of Qatari princes (whoever they are) - specifically a “big, beautiful plane”  which was delivered to him this summer.   “Why should anyone object to this?” he asked with mock innocence.  Well, of course there was a lot wrong with this.  Was it a gift to the United States?  If so, then what are we all obligated with?  Was it a gift to the President himself?  If so, then he would not be allowed to keep it.  The President obviously can’t be accepting gifts from foreign princes or kings.  Or governments.  It is quite obvious why.  

Why should we object?  Because accepting gifts from foreign countries or leaders of foreign countries is never without strings.  Some of us have just been waiting for the other shoe to drop here.  Well, finally it did.  The Qatari government now owns an air base in Idaho.  That’s right.  Supposedly it’s a sort of “loan”, but IN PERPETUITY.  In other words, a trade for the plane (and whatever else we don’t know about yet - FOR whatever else we don’t know about yet).  And that’s what you get when the leader of the free world is nothing more than a wheeler-dealer, a maker of bargains by trade.    Qatar, by the way, is not one of the so-called “enlightened” Muslim nations either.  Even though it postures as such, Qatar has been providing aid to Hamas, to the Muslim Brotherhood and to al-Qaeda as well as support for extremist groups in Syria and Libya.   A guy like Donald Trump looks at  a map of the Middle East and sees big, beautiful real estate, probably including luxury golf courses and accommodations.  Maybe casinos.  Maybe showgirls.  But the map of the Middle East is more of a tinder box, full of seething unrest, terrorist hives, extremist thinking.  Making friends with any of these nations should be done very gingerly, and with respect for the implications and for the unintended consequences.  When we bring an official Qatari government presence into the heart of America and give them an air base, we might learn more about unintended consequences.  In fact, this whole scheme looks so bad we can hardly excuse Trump’s foolishness as such but must begin to question either his capacity for rational thought or his morals.

Which brings us to another little story that has captured about five intense moments of the public’s attention span.  The knocking down of the East Wing of the White House.  For those who have never been there, the East Wing was historically the more “public” part of the White House.  It was destroyed in order to clear the way for another real estate development a la Trump, namely his “Big, Beautiful Ballroom”.  Gee, one wonders.  Trump has more or less the grace of a rhinoceros in heat when he moves (we tend to give him credit for not falling UP the stairs as his predecessor did, but we shouldn’t).  These must be some fabulous balls he’s thinking up.  The East Wing was adequate for even Hollywood celebrations.  Should we be so focused on throwing parties right now?  The President of the United States was perfectly represented in our history by Calvin Coolidge.  This Prince of Egypt image is not in keeping with a republic at all.  This is his homage to himself.  But not to worry!  YOU won’t be paying for it (at least not in taxes).  Trump has it all arranged - he’s doing it with PRIVATE FUNDS.  How private?  Will the public have full disclosure as to exactly who put how much money into this boondoggle that we don’t need or want and at the expense of perhaps our most historic building, forever compromising its historic integrity (not to mention aesthetics)?  I, for one, want to know exactly.  Because while some of us are busy celebrating the end of Pfizer commercials on top of the six o’clock news, and their consequent weighting of that “news” we get, now we might wonder what kind of favoritism or other emoluments might be forthcoming for those private donors.  There would have to be some reward on offer.  Why else would anyone feel so compelled to want to take down an historic building in order to have this ballroom?  It’s not exactly one of those urgent humanitarian issues people usually sacrifice for.  

We need to draw a line.  Trump thinks no laws apply to him - in this his detractors are correct.  This is one of the reasons why I personally resented his presence on the Republican ticket.  We should never have to vote for a Democrat in order to keep someone like Trump out of the White House.  He has delusions of grandeur, but his delusions are stealing from the rest of us.  He might have the impression that HE owns the White House.  He doesn’t.  He is a brief tenant there, that is all.  He might think he owns Idaho.  He doesn’t own that either.  He is making gifts of things and demolishing things that are not his to give or to demolish.  

When we permit a public official - any public official, whether the town dogcatcher or the President of the United States, whether a billionaire or a guy whose going to have to live on his Social Security if he lives long enough - to accept “gifts”, whether it is money to build a new Taj Mahal and stick it onto the side of the White House or a Big Beautiful Plane from a foreign nation, this is deep corruption.  Fools thought they were voting against corruption when they cast their ballots for Trump.  I had no such illusion.  I knew what he was when I was forced to vote for him, is, and will always be - a wheeler-dealer, a bully and pretty much a kind of thief.  An ego without much else to go with it.  

We need to enact some more laws (I hate like hell to say it) to forbid without exception, the receipt of any gifts to the President or even to the Office of the President, from private entities, commercial entities or foreign entities of any kind, including governments.  This is just common sense and our Founding Fathers would have been so aware of this that they thought it unnecessary to write it down.  You don’t take gifts.  Not if you are serving in a public office.  

The reason is so crystal clear that we shouldn’t have to put it in writing.  But they did not count on a circus act occupying the office of the President of the United States.  They had George Washington in mind, not Crusty the Clown.  Now things are obviously different.  We find now that we DID need this and we DO need it.  

We don’t know yet what will be the consequences of taking these presents from foreign or mysterious benefactors.  We should not be doing this because in the first place, we are not beggars or a nation in need of help from the likes of Qatar (or Pfizer, et al).  But we cannot allow these kinds of under-the-table secret deals by a man temporarily representing us as the President.  We cannot let someone like this obligate all of us nor to cloud the integrity of that already besmirched office.  We didn’t like Obama doing deals with Iran.  We all sure complained about Bill Clinton’s deals with the Chinese.  And we should.  But we can’t now exempt the master of chicanery from scrutiny and censure when required.

These kinds of acts undermine America.  It makes us vulnerable.  Now we have a base for a foreign nation with a history of instability and a current policy of funding and protecting terrorist organizations now setting up shop in Idaho.  Did we need this?  Did we really need the plane that badly?  Really??Do we now need this obscenity of a “ballroom” for a guy who wouldn’t know a good dance band if there were onie, or a tango from a polka.

Instead of planting his standard on the high ground he is back to his usual wallowing among the dingiest crowds.  I remember his excuse for having donated lavishly to the Democrat candidates (before he ran as a Republican).  He said it was the only way to do business in New York.  You just pay the mob or the Democrat Party, whoever you need to.  He put $100 grand into Hillary’s foundation just to bribe her to his cheesy, expensive wedding.  She got the money and attended.  Deals got made.  Cheap deals for unworthy causes.  Now he’s just doing it with public property and using his office to do it.  It needs to stop.

I recall the outrage many patriots felt when Obama decided he needed to demolish the boyhood home of Ronald Reagan in order to plant his official “presidential library” on that spot.  At least he was not holding office at the time.  If Trump wants to make deals with foreign potentates AFTER he leaves office, fine.  Let him see how much sway he commands then.  Let him buy and sell privately.  But there is no place in our Constitution and no place in our government or public policy for this kind of bargaining.  He has no right to use Idaho or the obvious grift of the construction of a ballroom to make his deals.