​Both our intelligence agencies and the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee concluded beyond any doubt that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in order to help elect Donald Trump. Now, four years later and armed with more sophisticated digital weapons and the benefits of its 2016 experience, Russia is doing it again. Despite Donald Trump’s repudiation of our intelligence agencies and his continuing denials, America has been and continues to be attacked by Russia. Our Cold War enemy is deploying an array of state-of-the-art, high-tech hacking devices, trolls and bots against our American democracy with the intention of re-electing a president who is the best thing that ever happened to Vladimir Putin and his acolytes.
 
Russia’s Internet Research Agency, the culprit of 2016, has now been joined by a slew of additional state-run Russian troll factories in an all-out effort to corrupt and pervert the 2020 election and do whatever is necessary to steal it for Donald Trump.
 
Meanwhile, a passive, servile administration and its spineless congressional Republican accomplices turn a blind eye to what amounts to a declaration of war, intent on doing nothing about it so long as they benefit from it. So much for defending a 240-year old democracy that served us so well until a would-be despot came on the scene. Trump’s betrayal is two-fold: (1) he refuses to address our cyber vulnerabilities and protect us; and (2) he refuses to unleash our own very powerful cyber weapons against Russia in retaliation.
 
Richard Clarke, the U.S. National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counter-terrorism, who worked for both Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, has for years been advocating an aggressive stance toward this undeclared Russian war on the U.S. Trump has ignored this option because his own political and personal interests always prevail over our national interest.
 
Moreover, because running ads from Russian trolls is big money for Facebook and other social media platforms, don’t put your money on Mark Zuckerberg and his greed-obsessed ilk to protect us against this sabotage of our voting process. The Russians learned in 2016 that American social media would not stop them from creating fiction and promoting it as real. Another lesson they learned is how gullible Americans who get so much of their information from already dubious U.S. Internet sources are and how easily they can be influenced by lies. Almost four years of Trump has only locked that in even more.
 
So here we are less than 100 days from the most consequential presidential election in our history, prostrate before our enemies. Trump’s treasonous avoidance of any counter measures is allowed to continue without any check. The U.S. military’s Cyber Command is prevented from reacting while America is under attack, prohibited from responding by Trump, who dares not offend the Russians.
 
Must we wait for a new administration to go on offense and take the fight to the Russians? No. The leadership vacuum can be partially filled right now by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden. Biden should publicly warn Putin that if he continues to undermine our democracy, there will come a day when Trump is out of office and his policy of abject surrender will be reversed, replaced by a retaliatory policy of aggressive cyber offense. We have the capability to harm Russia’s fossil fuel delivery systems, its connectivity systems, its electrical grid and some of its military capabilities. Biden needs to make it clear that, as president, he will make Russia pay. Threatening Russia now is the only way to deter it from attacking us. It may not work because it is so very much in Putin’s interest to see Trump continue in office. Nevertheless, it is worth a try. Putin may not want to gamble on a Trump victory to save his country from the disruption a cyber-attack could cause.
 
Dick Hermann
July 31, 2020

Donald Trump comes out once again on the wrong side of history. This time his overt racism has him defending the confederate flag, the symbol of slavery and its Southern defenders who betrayed their country and caused the deaths of 600,000 Americans.
 
I have yet to speak to a fellow veteran who cares as much as draft dodger-cum-chicken hawk Trump about preserving the names of our nine military bases named after traitors to the United States plus one  named after a slave plantation (Fort Belvoir). His true disdain for the armed forces, which he covers up with bromides about “our great military” was starkly revealed when he told Fox interviewer Chris Wallace: “I don’t care what the military says” in response to Wallace’s question about the Pentagon’s support for changing base names.
 
Trump’s resistance to doing the right and decent thing—big surprise there—is premised on his frantic attempt to hold onto the white supremacist component of his base and agitate them sufficiently so that they won’t forget to cast their ballots for him in November.
 
Trump cannot roadblock this long-overdue righting of a grievous wrong. At best, he can merely delay it until a sane, sober, rational and competent president succeeds him. When that happens, here are a few suggestions for base names that meet the criterion in Army Regulation 1-33, which states that installations may be named after “deceased distinguished individuals.”

1. Fort Tubman—Everyone knows her heroic role in the Underground Railroad. Few people know that she led Union troops on raids in South Carolina during the Civil War
2. Fort Parker—General Ely Parker was a Native American (Seneca) and principal aide-de-camp to General Ulysses S. Grant in the Civil War. He is credited with drawing up the surrender terms that Robert E. Lee agreed to at Appomattox.
3. Fort Barton—Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross. Before that, she ministered to Union troops under fire at multiple civil war battles. At Antietam, she arrived on the battlefield and performed her work under withering fire before the Union medics arrived on the scene.
4. Fort Lincoln—Surely the father of the Emancipation Proclamation deserves a base named after him.
5. Fort Hale—Nathan Hale was a 20-year old American spy who was captured and hung by the British during the Revolutionary War. His last words: “I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” Aside: It would also make sense for Yale University, named after slave owner and trader Elihu Yale, to change its name to “Hale University” after this distinguished graduate whose statue is one of the first things to greet entering freshman when they arrive on campus.
6. Fort Truman—President Harry Truman ordered the integration of the armed forces and served with distinction in World War I as an artillery officer.
7. Fort Gavin—General James Gavin commanded the 82d Airborne Division in World War II, was a D-Day hero and worked to desegregate the military.
8. Fort Carney—William Harvey Carney was the first African-American soldier to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his Civil War heroics.
9. Fort Hays—Anna Mae Hays became the first female general in U.S. history. She led the Army Nurse Corps, successfully advocated for changes that paved the way for women to serve in the military, served in Burma, China and India during World War II and set up the first military hospital during the Korean War.
10. Fort Valesko—Joe Valesko was killed in action in Tay Ninh, Vietnam when he was 23 years old. Joe was awarded the Bronze Star, Silver Star and Purple Heart. He epitomized the highest ideals of his country. Joe was a friend of mine growing up.

 
There are, in addition to these, a large number of worthy candidates for replacement base names. We have suffered the insult of bases named for traitors long enough, as well as those who defend the Stars and Bars and treasonous confederate generals over our troops in harm’s way who fight even with bounties on their heads.
 
Dick Hermann
July 24, 2020

On February 27, 2020, the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB), the overnight intelligence report that aggregates the most important data received by our intelligence agencies over the past 24 hours, included information that the Russians were strongly suspected of putting bounties on the heads of American GIs fighting in Afghanistan. Taliban fighters were receiving payoffs from Vladimir Putin for killing our troops.
 
Now we are told that President Trump did not read that particular PDB. During his presidency, the PDB has become a caricature of its former self. Now it rarely exceeds a single page and, instead of text, largely consists of images.
 
While it is appalling that the president is uninterested in keeping up with intelligence that directly affects our national security, what is equally troubling is his inaction whenever Putin crops up. Instead of warning Putin off and imposing some pain through sanctions or other measures on Russia, Trump gets on the phone with him and supplicating as he always does, invites him to return to the G-7 fold.
 
Coincident with his latest Putin pandering, Trump announced that he wants to reduce America’s troop presence in Germany by one-third, yet another concession that his bosom Kremlin buddy can celebrate.
 
Even if Trump did not find out about the Russian bounties on our troops until the New York Times broke the story months later, he knows now. And he has done nothing. Even his normally servile Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, says this is a real threat to American troops, not the “hoax” that Trump claims.
 
Incentivizing the Taliban to kill American soldiers is a clear and present danger to the 8,600 troops currently deployed in Afghanistan. That this is going on as the U.S. engages in peace talks with the Taliban makes this even worse since clashes between the combatants have generally subsided during negotiations.
 
The president’s failure to protect our troops is a low point even for Trump. This is the worst abdication of the duties and responsibilities of a commander-in-chief in our long history. It amounts to a failing that fits within the Constitution’s Article 3, Section 3 definition of treason: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”
 
This latest Trump betrayal has quickly disappeared from the headlines, superseded by other outrages daily spewing forth from the White House:

• Stone Cold Reamery. Pardoning Roger Stone, a quid pro quo for his not rolling on Donald Trump during his trial, where an impartial jury convicted him of seven felonies, is one of the most criminally corrupt deed in U.S. presidential history.
• Threatening schools with a federal funds cut-off if they don’t reopen in the fall despite their valid concerns about spreading the virus.
• A proposed rule to make it more difficult to bring discrimination claims under the Fair Housing Act at the same time Americans are demanding racial justice.
• Rolling back 100 environmental regulations that keep Americans safe and healthy.
• Denying new Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program applications despite the recent Supreme Court ruling reinstating DACA.
• Trashing Dr. Anthony Fauci because he speaks truth to the public and to power.
• Continuing the happy talk and outright lies about the coronavirus crisis, where due to Trump’s woeful ineptitude, denial and erratic behavior, America leads the world in the number of cases and deaths by a country mile.

 
When Americans vote this November, we must remember that the president of the United States has not only failed to take action to minimize deaths from the virus, but also failed to protect our soldiers. For shame!
 
Dick Hermann
July 17, 2020

Congress decided that it has been working so hard that it needs a two-week July vacation in addition to the month-long vacation it has scheduled for all of August. They call it a “recess,” a word that for the rest of us went out of style in grade school. They won’t be back until mid-July, when Covid-19 deaths will approach 140,000.
​

• No matter that it has yet to legislate adequate relief for the unprecedented troubles besetting the nation.
• No matter that we are in the clutches of the gravest crisis in American history since the Civil War.
• No matter that the American people are suffering from a pandemic that is wreaking havoc with our healthcare system, our economy and our entire way of life while killing us at rates reminiscent of wartime.
• No matter that millions of Americans have lost jobs that will likely never come back.
• No matter that the education system is a shambles.
• No matter that the crisis has laid bare the racial, income, wealth, food, housing, employment and access inequalities that divide the haves from the have-nots.
• No matter that our mortal enemy put bounties on the killing of our troops and our leaders are doing nothing about it.
• No matter that we have sunk so low that the world now views us with pity, contempt and as a laughingstock (spiced with a small dose of schadenfreude).
• No matter that the new normal that will prevail once this calamity passes is not going to look like anything we have ever experienced.
• And no matter that the president of the United States has abandoned any semblance of responsible governing in favor of fanning the flames of racism, fear and hate.

 
Congressional sessions begin in January and end in December. In a typical year free of chaos, confusion and calamity, Congress actually meets only two-three days per week. The Constitution forbids either the Senate or the House to adjourn for more than three days without the permission of the other chamber. So, the question must be asked: why did Nancy Pelosi accede to Mitch McConnell’s request to go home on vacation when the country cries out for Congress to do much more to alleviate the pain Americans are suffering? If there was ever in our 240-year history a time when we need our legislators to stay in Washington and work on our behalf, it is now. This is even more the case when the president has abandoned all pretense of leading and governing.
 
During the run-up to World War II and throughout the war, another period when we were confronted with an existential crisis, Congress stayed in session year-round with only brief recesses. In 1942, it did not take any time off at all. Contrast that with 2020, when notwithstanding the largest number of coronavirus illnesses and deaths in the world by far, a devastated economy, millions of Americans hurting and in need of assistance, and a woefully incompetent president, Congress is scheduled to work only three of the next ten weeks.
 
Taken together, the absence of Congress and the president’s abdication of any responsibility for governing and protecting us means that, in effect, we presently have no national government. We are on the cusp of becoming a failed state.
 
Dick Hermann
July 10, 2020

​. . . on The Altar of Trump’s Re-election?
 
This is an easy calculation. We only have to compare two countries that took opposing paths to combatting the coronavirus.
 
Both the United States and South Korea identified their first confirmed cases of Covid-19 on January 21st. South Korea has one-fifth as many people as the U.S. It has experienced a total of 300 deaths thanks to the immediate effective steps it took to fight the pandemic. Had the U.S. taken the same rational steps in a timely manner, we could have only experienced a maximum of the same proportionate number of deaths—1,500—or five times as many as South Korea. It is possible that we would have suffered even fewer deaths because South Korea is far more densely populated (1,365 vs. 93 people per square mile, or almost 15 times’ greater density than the U.S.), which enables the virus to spread more easily and affect a larger number of people. Given our population density, it is probable that competent national leadership would have been able to limit our death count to well under 1,500.
 
Instead, we have 130,000 deaths (as of this writing) and counting. With only four percent of the world’s population, the U.S. accounts for 25 percent of Covid-19 cases (2.5 million+) and 25 percent of global deaths.
 
Do the math. That means that Trump’s failure of leadership has led to the avoidable death of at least 128,500 Americans who would still be alive had he just done his job.  President Moon Jae In of South Korea, a leader who listens to his professional health experts, did not: (1) ignore the pandemic; (2) do nothing for months, (3) hope it would magically disappear, (4) tout discredited miracle drugs, (5) advocate ingesting bleach, (6) propose injecting UV light into our bodies, (7) demand that governors “liberate” their states from mandatory lockdowns, (7) urge citizens to disregard his own administration’s safety guidelines, or (8) declare victory while death and destruction run riot.
 
Meanwhile, while the South Korean economy is bouncing back nicely, ours is a shambles from which it could take years to recover. What the South Koreans understood that Trump does not is that you have to defeat the virus in order for the economy to regain traction.
 
The United States should be the world leader when it comes to crisis management, especially when the crisis is international. Instead, we are the distant laggard among the developed nations. Forget about taking the lead in tackling a trans-border catastrophe. The rest of the world now regards America as a failed, pariah state. The European Union, poised to reopen its borders to international travel, expressly bans Americans from visiting because we might be viral super-spreaders.
 
What we have lost is incalculable.
 
Dick Hermann
July 3, 2020