Os EUA no limiar de uma grande revolta do próprio Estado contra Trump (NYT)

Em livros, um autor anônimo argumenta que o "contrato" de Trump não deveria ser renovado em 2020. O mesmo autor argumentou que altos funcionários da administração Trump consideraram renunciaram em massa, para protestar contra as políticas equivocadas do presidente...
Esperemos que o façam antes das eleições...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

In ‘A Warning,’ Anonymous Author Makes Case Against Re-election
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/books/review/a-warning-anonymous-book-review-trump.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

In ‘A Warning,’ Anonymous Author Makes Case Against Re-election

By Jennifer Szalai

The New York Times, Nov. 7, 2019, 10:56 p.m. ET

The same writer who penned an Opinion essay in 2018 argues in a new book that the president’s contract shouldn’t be renewed.

Twelve Books

“Trust me”: It’s a tired cliché, a throwaway line, but when you first encounter it in “A Warning,” the new book by “Anonymous,” who is identified here only as “a senior Trump administration official,” it lands with a startling thud. Any revealing details have been explicitly and deliberately withheld to protect this person’s identity. Who is this “me” that we’re supposed to trust?

It’s a question that the anonymous author — who wrote an Op-Ed for The Timeslast year about resisting the president’s “more misguided impulses” — might have anticipated, given how much of the book is devoted to the necessity of “character” and to quoting dead presidents by name.

Not to mention this individual’s own conspicuous failures of judgment thus far. You don’t even have to take it from me; you can take it from Anonymous. “Many reasonable people voted for Trump because they love their country, wanted to shake up the establishment, and felt that the alternative was worse,” Anonymous writes. “I know you because I’ve felt the same way.” A mildly chastened Anonymous now seems to recognize, somewhat belatedly, that President Trump’s peddling of birtherism conspiracy theories and his boasts about grabbing women’s genitals might have constituted their own kind of warning — plausible evidence that Mr. Trump might not magically transform into the dignified statesman Anonymous so desperately wanted him to be.

Anonymous even admits that the thesis of the Op-Ed in The Times — the essay that led directly to the existence of this book, and was published just over a year ago — was “dead wrong” too.

Attempts by the “adults in the room” to impose some discipline on a frenzied (or nonexistent) decision-making process in the White House were “just a wet Band-Aid that wouldn’t hold together a gaping wound,” Anonymous writes. The members of the “Steady State” (the term “Deep State” clearly stings) have done everything they can, to no avail. Anonymous is passing the baton to “voters and their elected representatives” — only now the baton is a flaming stick of dynamite.

“A Warning,” then, is just that: a warning, for those who need it, that electing Mr. Trump to a second term would be courting disaster. “The president has failed to rise to the occasion in fulfilling his duties,” Anonymous intones.The book’s publisher and agents apparently referred to the manuscript as the “December Project,” though the publication date was moved up to this month when the House announced an impeachment inquiry.

“I realize that writing this while the president is still in office is an extraordinary step,”Anonymous says. In light of three years’ worth of resignations, tell-all books, reports about emoluments and sworn testimony about quid pro quos, this is a decidedly minimalist definition of “extraordinary.” How can a book that has been denuded of anything too specific do anything more than pale against a formal whistle-blower complaint?

It’s hard to look like a heroic truth teller by comparison, but Anonymous tries very hard, presenting anonymity as not just convenient but an ultimately selfless act, designed to force everyone to pay more attention to what this book says by deflecting attention away from the person who’s saying it. “Removing my identity from the equation deprives him of an opportunity to create a distraction,” Anonymous writes, referring to Mr. Trump’s compulsion for attacking his critics. “What will he do when there is no person to attack, only an idea?”

Anonymous has seen disturbing things. Anonymous has heard disturbing things. You, the reader, will already recognize most of what Anonymous has seen and heard as revealed in this book if you have been paying any attention to the news. Did you know that the president isn’t much of a reader? That he’s inordinately fond of autocrats? That “he stumbles, slurs, gets confused, is easily irritated, and has trouble synthesizing information”?

“A Warning,” Anonymous says, is intended for a “broad audience,” though to judge by the parade of bland, methodical arguments (Anonymous loves to qualify criticisms with a lawyerly “in fairness”), the ideal reader would seem to be an undecided voter who has lived in a cave for the past three years, and is irresistibly moved by quotations from Teddy Roosevelt and solemn invocations of Cicero.

Plenty of people have preemptively criticized this book as an opportunistic grift, though Anonymous has announced a plan to donate a portion of the royalties to “nonprofit organizations that focus on government accountability,” including the White House Correspondents’ Association. Besides, everything in the text of “A Warning” suggests a dyed-in-the-wool establishment Republican. There’s the typical talk about American exceptionalism and national security. There’s the eternal complaint that President Barack Obama was “out of touch with mainstream America.” There’s a wistful elegy for “our budget-balancing daydreams.” Yes, Anonymous is happy about the conservative judicial appointments, the deregulation, the tax cuts; what rankles is the “unbecoming” behavior, the “unseemly antics.”

A big tell comes early on, when Anonymous reveals what “the last straw” was. It wasn’t Mr. Trump’s response to the right-wing rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, when a white supremacist killed a woman and the president talked about “the violence on many sides.” It wasn’t even the administration’s separation of migrant families at the border. These examples might have left Anonymous appalled, but the truly unforgivable act was when Senator John McCain died last year and Mr. Trump tried to hoist the flag on the White House above half-staff: “President Trump, in unprecedented fashion, was determined to use his office to limit the nation’s recognition of John McCain’s legacy.”

Anonymous says that the president “deserves to be fired,” but that’s just the author indulging in a little rhetorical flourish; what Anonymous really means is that the president’s contract shouldn’t be renewed. Actively seeking to remove Mr. Trump from office, whether by invoking the 25th Amendment or pursuing impeachment proceedings, would be “bad” because “we can scarcely afford further disunion.” Mr. Trump, Anonymous says, should simply not be elected to a second term; only then can the country “undertake the arduous task of moral repair” and “restore the soul of its political system.” 

Anonymous declares that this “American spirit” was best exemplified by the bravery shown by the passengers on United Flight 93, who rushed the cockpit on 9/11. We’ve seen Flight 93 used as a conservative analogy before — by another anonymous author no less, writing under the pen name Publius Decius Mus, who argued before the 2016 presidential election that “a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto” and consequently that voting for Mr. Trump offered the only chance for the republic’s survival.

That the same violent tragedy has been deployed to argue one point and then, three years later, to argue its utter opposite is, to put it charitably, bizarre. But then Anonymous, a self-described “student of history,” doesn’t seem to register the discrepancy. Nor does Anonymous square the analogy with an episode mentioned in the opening pages of “A Warning” — of senior officials contemplating a replay of the Nixon administration’s so-called Saturday Night Massacre by resigning en masse. The idea of doing anything so bold was floated within the first two years of the Trump administration, and then abandoned.

Toward the end of the book, an earlier quote from Mr. Trump kept coming back to me, unbidden: “These are just words. A bunch of words. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Governo Trump, desmantelador - Anne Krueger

Project Syndicate, Praga – 21.8.2019

Trump’s War on Evidence

^{US President Donald Trump has made no secret of his disdain for experts and evidence-based policymaking. Yet by attempting to gut the US Census Bureau and two key agencies within the Department of Agriculture, he is undercutting the data-gathering institutions upon which broad sectors of the US economy rely.}

Anne O. Krueger

Washington, DC -  Decision-making based on evidence rather than superstition was a driving force behind the Industrial Revolution, and the collection of statistics has, accordingly, become a hallmark of the modern age. In the twenty-first century, businesses and governments alike are finding that data are more valuable than ever.

There are cases where data should be – and, indeed, are – collected by the private sector. But given their broad applications, many data sets are public goods, and thus should be gathered by governments. One of the factors behind America’s economic dominance is that the US government has long collected statistics that are universally regarded as trustworthy and impartial. These data have played an indispensable role in driving innovations in technology, medicine, social policy, and many other fields.

US President Donald Trump’s administration, however, seems to believe that experts and evidence are irrelevant. For example, it has starved the US Census Bureau of funds, precisely when the agency is in the process of conducting the decennial census, as mandated by the US Constitution. An internationally respected institution, the Census Bureau usually benefits from a sharp funding increase in the years leading up to the census (followed by a decrease in the years immediately thereafter). But under Trump, the agency’s budget has been held relatively flat, leaving it without the means to test different survey questions or various cost-saving techniques.

The census is far too valuable to receive such short shrift. US businesses rely on the data collected by the Census Bureau to make decisions about future output, hiring, and investments. The government itself needs accurate and comprehensive census data to forecast future revenues and the costs of major programs such as Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. And independent researchers and academics use census data to improve our understanding of political, economic, and social behavior.

Sadly, the Census Bureau is not the only victim of the Trump administration’s war on evidence. Others include two highly respected agencies within the Department of Agriculture (USDA): the Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture. In June, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced that both the ERS and NIFA will lose their independent status within the department and be relocated from Washington, DC, to Kansas City.

The administration’s attack on these agencies will have far-reaching implications for the US economy. Farmers rely on ERS data to assess crop prospects, international market conditions, weather patterns, and problems stemming from pollution, soil runoff, and other factors. And NIFA is a major funder of agricultural and environmental research at US land-grant universities. Taken together, these two agencies – along with competition between states – are a major reason why US farmers are among the most productive in the world. And given the ongoing disruptions to agricultural exports as a result of Trump’s trade war, the analyses these agencies provide are needed even more now.

Make no mistake: by relocating the ERS and NIFA, the Trump administration is effectively gutting both agencies. Around 500 staffers have been told that their jobs are moving to the Midwest this year. The administration’s rationale for this decision – that the relocation will bring ERS and NIFA staff closer to their clients – beggars belief. Agriculture and research are nationwide activities, and ERS/NIFA staffers must interact closely with others at the USDA and abroad to furnish the reliable data upon which so many American farmers rely.

Most of the ERS/NIFA staffers who have been told to relocate are career civil servants, scientists, and researchers with roots in the Washington, DC, area. Although they have mortgages, working spouses, children in schools, and friends there, they were given just 33 days to decide whether they would move or quit. So far, about two-thirds have chosen the latter option. And those who have said they will move still do not know exactly where the new offices will be located.

Obviously, this is no way to treat employees, let alone run a government. But, as with so much else the Trump administration does, mis-governance seems to be the point. No private company would even contemplate a move of such magnitude without having more concrete plans in place, for fear of mass attrition and inflicting lasting damage on the firm’s ability to function. One cannot help but suspect that the Trump administration’s intent is simply to destroy the two agencies.

According to a recent report by the USDA’s Inspector General, the administration’s plans violate the 2018 Consolidated Appropriations Act, because it has not obtained congressional budget approval to relocate the ERS and NIFA offices. Such legal questions will need to be resolved. But one hopes that, in the meantime, Trump will rethink and rescind a decision that will hurt American farmers even more than his trade war already has.

Anne O. Krueger, a former World Bank chief economist and former first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, is Senior Research Professor of International Economics at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Development, Stanford University.

An American diplomat resigns from the State Department - Chuck Park (WP)

I can no longer justify being a part of Trump’s ‘Complacent State.’ So I’m resigning.

Chuck Park

The Washington Post, August 8, 2019

Chuck Park’s resignation from the Foreign Service is effective Thursday. 

I was 26, newly married and more than a little idealistic when I set off for my first diplomatic assignment almost a decade ago as a member of the 157th class of commissioned U.S. Foreign Service officers.

According to a certain type of right-leaning conspiracy theorist, that would make me part of “The Deep State” — a shadowy government within the government that puts its own interests above the expressed wishes of the electorate. Adherents to this theory believe that thousands of federal workers like me are plotting furiously to subvert the Trump administration at every turn. Many on the left, too, hope that such a resistance is secretly working to save the nation from the worst impulses of President Trump.

They have it all wrong. Your federal bureaucracy under this president? Call it “The Complacent State” instead.

Like many in my cohort, I came into the government inspired by a president who convinced me there was still some truth to the gospel of American exceptionalism. A child of immigrants from South Korea, I also felt a duty to the society that welcomed my parents and allowed me and my siblings to thrive.

Over three tours abroad, I worked to spread what I believed were American values: freedom, fairness and tolerance. But more and more I found myself in a defensive stance, struggling to explain to foreign peoples the blatant contradictions at home.

In Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, I spoke of American openness and friendship at consulate events as my country carried out mass deportations and failed thousands of “dreamers.” I attended celebrations of Black History Month at our embassy in Lisbon as black communities in the United States demanded justice for Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray and the victims of the mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. And in Vancouver, I touted the strength of the United States’ democracy at the consulate’s 2016 election-night party as a man who campaigned on racism, misogyny and wild conspiracy theories became president-elect.

Since then, I have seen Trump assert the moral equivalence of violent white nationalists and those who oppose them, denigrate immigrants from “shithole countries” and separate children from their parents at the border, only to place them in squalid detention centers.

But almost three years since his election, what I have not seen is organized resistance from within. To the contrary, two senior Foreign Service officers admonished me for risking my career when I signed an internal dissent cable against the ban on travelers from several majority-Muslim countries in January 2017. Among my colleagues at the State Department, I have met neither the unsung hero nor the cunning villain of Deep State lore. If the resistance does exist, it should be clear by this point that it has failed.

[From the archive: State Department dissent memo: ‘We are better than this ban’]

Instead, I am part of the Complacent State.

The Complacent State sighs when the president blocks travel by Muslim immigrants; shakes its head when he defends Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman; averts its gaze from images of children in detention camps. Then it complies with orders.

Every day, we refuse visas based on administration priorities. We recite administration talking points on border security, immigration and trade. We plan travel itineraries, book meetings and literally hold doors open for the appointees who push Trump’s toxic agenda around the world.

So when I read a recent New York Times op-ed calling for the public shaming of the “midlevel functionaries who make the system run,” I squirmed in my seat. We rank-and-file, like the Justice Department lawyer who recently endured public scrutiny for defending the administration’s terrible treatment of detained children, don’t like to be called out. And when we are, we shrink behind a standard argument — that we are career officials serving nonpartisan institutions.

We should be named and shamed. But how should we respond? One thing I agree with the conspiracy theorists about: The Deep State, if it did exist, would be wrong. Ask to read the commission of any Foreign Service officer, and you’ll see that we are hired to serve “during the pleasure of the President of the United States.” That means we must serve this very partisan president.

Or else we should quit.

I’m ashamed of how long it took me to make this decision. My excuse might be disappointing, if familiar to many of my colleagues: I let career perks silence my conscience. I let free housing, the countdown to a pension and the prestige of representing a powerful nation overseas distract me from ideals that once seemed so clear to me. I can’t do that anymore.

My son, born in El Paso on the American side of that same Rio Grande where the bodies of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his daughter were discovered, in the same city where 22 people were just killed by a gunman whose purported “manifesto” echoed the inflammatory language of our president, turned 7 this month. I can no longer justify to him, or to myself, my complicity in the actions of this administration. That’s why I choose to resign.

Read more:

From the archive: Ruth Marcus: If you work for Trump, quit now

John D. Feeley: Why I could no longer serve this president

Edward Price: I didn’t think I’d ever leave the CIA. But because of Trump, I quit.

Marc Thiessen: To the anonymous New York Times op-ed writer: If you can’t serve honorably, don’t serve at all

Nikki Haley: When I challenge the president, I do it directly. My anonymous colleague should have, too.

A letter from 149 African Americans who served in the Obama administration: We are African Americans, we are patriots, and we refuse to sit idly by

[From the archive: I’m a scientist. I’m blowing the whistle on the Trump administration.]

Governo Bolsonaro facilita deportação de brasileiros dos EUA de Trump (O Globo)

Pessoalmente, considero uma vergonha que o governo Bolsonaro colabore com as medidas restritivas do governo Trump em relação aos brasileiros indocumentados nos Estados Unidos. Muitos deles esperam, com a intervenção de advogados, conseguir suspensão da expulsão, provando que estão trabalhando honestamente há muitos anos nos EUA.
Os consulados brasileiros nunca emitiram tais documentos de retorno ao Brasil sem o consentimento dos próprios brasileiros, geralmente quando não havia mais recurso possível.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Governo Bolsonaro facilita deportação de brasileiros dos EUA

Mudança começou a valer em junho; advogada critica tentativa de alinhamento com Trump, que apertou cerco aos 'sem papéis'

O Globo, 29/07/2019

https://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/governo-bolsonaro-facilita-deportacao-de-brasileiros-dos-eua-23839054

SÃO PAULO — O governo Jair Bolsonaro aceitou um pleito antigo dos americanos e facilitou a deportação de brasileiros que emigraram sem visto adequado aos Estados Unidos . Com o novo procedimento, baseado em parecer jurídico e adotado em junho, os consulados brasileiros poderão enviar ao governo americano documentos dos deportáveis à revelia. Embora a medida sirva, em um primeiro momento, para casos em que se esgotaram as chances legais de se permanecer nos EUA, especialistas acreditam que o novo mecanismo pode ser utilizado para casos de deportações expressas e tendem a afastar brasileiros dos consulados, por temerem a maior colaboração com autoridades americanas.

Até então, mesmo brasileiros sem papéis e com todo o processo imigratório nos EUA esgotado, tinham que pedir passaporte ou Autorização de Retorno de Brasileiro (ARB) para pegar um avião nos EUA e entrar no Brasil . Muitos preferiam seguir presos a voltar, alguns alegando até perseguição, e não assinavam o pedido dos documentos. Agora o governo brasileiro pode conceder atestados de nacionalidade, expedidos à revelia do preso. Como foi fechado um acordo com a Polícia Federal, este documento passou a ser aceito nos aeroportos brasileiros.

A Polícia Federal e o Itamaraty não atenderam ao pedido de entrevista. Por e-mail, o Ministério das Relações Exteriores disse que o atestado de nacionalidade é utilizado em situações excepcionais e que brasileiros que alegarem questões humanitárias não serão deportados contra a sua vontade. Fontes do Itamaraty afirmam que alguns brasileiros já começaram a ser deportados graças à mudança, que começou a valer em junho.

Segundo as fontes, que falaram ao GLOBO sob anonimato, o governo Bolsonaro atendeu a um pleito americano de anos — o Brasil temia que a medida pudesse afastar os brasileiros dos consulados nos EUA.

A decisão brasileira também aliviaria os custos americanos de prisão. Com a atual política de Washington de cerco aos “sem papéis”, as detenções para imigrantes estão superlotadas e os custos têm crescido. Assim, o governo americano tem tentado acelerar os casos de deportação e ampliado as possibilidades de “deportações sumárias”, onde os imigrantes que acabaram de entrar nos EUA sequer precisam passar por um processo judicial.

A advogada brasileira Renata Castro, especializada em imigração na Flórida, alerta que, embora a medida tenha sido até então utilizada para casos em que o processo migratório explorou todos os recursos, com o tempo poderá ser usada em novas brechas pelos americanos. Ela ressalta que não é segredo que o governo de Donald Trump quer acelerar as deportações sumárias.

— A forma como o atual governo tem se relacionado com os EUA e a falta histórica de estratégias do governo em alianças internacionais indica que esta certidão pode ter seu uso ampliado no futuro, em casos de deportações sumárias, sem o devido processo legal — disse. — O Brasil sempre foi muito passivo em auxiliar os brasileiros no exterior, e agora busca um alinhamento muito forte com o governo de Trump.

Outros países também possuem atestados e certidões iguais ao que o Brasil passou a adotar. Mas em geral possuem, segundo diplomatas ouvidos pelo GLOBO, uma postura de maior defesa de seus cidadãos. O México , por exemplo, chega a pagar advogados de imigração para encarcerados nos EUA por questões migratórias — com a fiança, eles continuam nos EUA, trabalham e, invariavelmente, enviam dinheiro para a família no México. Até a Guatemalaconseguiu impedir o plano americano para que seus cidadãos que buscam asilo no país esperem pela concessão da permissão em seu país de origem. Assim, podem esperar em solo americano enquanto os processos são analisados.

Castro afirma que esta deve ser a primeira de novas medidas brasileiras que podem prejudicar a vida do imigrante nos EUA. Com a atual política de aproximação entre os dois governos, ela espera mais parcerias no compartilhamento de informações entre os países e auxílio para avaliação sobre a concessão ou não de asilos a brasileiros. A advogada lembra que no último ano só foram concedidos 26 asilos a brasileiros, de um total de 1.546 pedidos analisados.

Comunidade com medo

O temor de que a maior aproximação entre os governos leve a prejuízos a imigrantes sem papéis nos EUA cresce na comunidade brasileira. A indicação do deputado federal Eduardo Bolsonaro (PSL-SP) ao posto de embaixador em Washington amplia esse cenário. Em março, o filho do presidente disse que os imigrantes brasileiros ilegais nos EUA são uma “vergonha” para o país.

— Vemos toda a comunidade com muito medo das políticas migratórias de Trump e o atual governo brasileiro, com sua aproximação a Washington, piora as coisas. Muitos se sentem abandonados — afirmou Natalicia Tracy, diretora do Centro do Trabalhador Brasileiro em Boston.

“Caso a situação seja classificada como de natureza humanitária, os consulados deverão desconsiderar a expedição de atestado de nacionalidade. Sendo assim, não cabe falar em recusa por questão humanitária, já que eventual identificação de razões humanitárias é realizada a priori”, informou o ministério.

Entretanto O GLOBO revelou, há dois meses, o caso de Paul Fernando Schreiner, de 36 anos, que foi deportado após ter vivido 31 anos no país , pelo fato de seus pais adotivos não terem regularizado sua situação quando foi levado ao estado de Nebraska.

Em e-mail enviado ao GLOBO, o Itamaraty informa que o atestado já é utilizado em países como Austrália e Japão : “Os atestados de nacionalidade não constituem objeto de solicitação de outros Estados. Trata-se de obrigação do Estado brasileiro, como já se referiu acima, de oferecer marco legal seguro a seus nacionais deportados”.