DUMBCON Update

Today is Tuesday, April 1st, April Fool's Day. Thus, it is an appropriate day to reassess the National Stupidity Condition - the DUMBCON.

We last raised the DUMBCON in February of this year, when I determined that the prevailing level was insufficient to account for the astounding level of stupidity in modern America. Indeed, the level had risen so sharply that I had to reach back to a version of the scale with enough levels to accommodate it, AND to raise the level by not one, but two steps. But now, things are even more stupid. To name just a few instances:

The Secretary of Defense, National Security Advisor, Director of National Intelligence, CIA Director, Secretary of the Treasury (?). and other administration officials traded sensitive operational military information on a commercial messaging app, not realizing that they had also invited a reporter to be a member of the group.

PINO Der Furor, descending to new levels of pettiness, issued a new royal decree executive order pompously titled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History," in which he accused the Smithsonian Institution of "[conducting] a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth" and of "improper ideology;"

Der Furor also issued another royal decree executive order, "Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections," which places new restrictions and limitations on voting rights; 

In a calculated provocation and insult to the governments and populations of Denmark and Greenland, "Vice President" Vance and his wife, uninvited, visited a US Space Force facility in Greenland, where Mr Vance doubled down on US aims to take over Greenland, while soft-peddling previous administration threats to absorb it by force if necessary; and,

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly allowed his wife, an executive producer at Fox News with no known security clearances or need to know, to attend multiple high-level meetings with foreign military officials where sensitive national security information was discussed.

I don't think I could make a better argument that it's time to reset the DUMBCON than this administration makes for itself every day. When I last set the level, I deliberately left room for subsequent adjustment ... and now it's time.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, I am raising the DUMBCON Level to

DUMBCON MINUS FOUR

("Time to Get Ready for That One-Way Mars Mission")

You will note that this version of the DUMBCON index has ten levels. When I first created the system, I never imagined that I might need more than the five levels that mirror the military's DEFCON system ... much less ten levels. I have no idea where we go from here.

And we're only two months into this administration.

Have a good day, and remember the time when we complained about a government that, whether you agreed with it or not, was not actively criminal, unconstitutional, amoral, incompetent, and hell-bent on undoing almost 250 years of our experiment with self-governing democracy. We'll be a long time getting the country back, if it's even possible.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo