The Eighth Circle and Beyond

 

If you've read Dante's Divine Comedy, and specifically the first volume, Inferno, you know that Dante imagined Hell as an inverted cone divided into nine circles to which sinners were assigned for punishment. The circles grew smaller in diameter as one neared the lowest depths of Hell, and at each descending level the punishments of the damned souls grew worse according to the severity of their sins. At the ninth - lowest - level, Satan was imprisoned in ice for all eternity.

But it's the eighth circle I want to talk about today, because I think it's the circle that is uniquely suited for the present day.

Unlike the other circles of Hell, the eighth was divided into a number of subcircles for a particularly loathsome group of condemned sinners, lumped together under the general sin of fraud; it housed those condemned for sins like:

Flattery;

Political Corruption;

Hypocrisy;

Theft;

Fraudulent Rhetoric;

Divisiveness;

Falsification;

Pimping and Seducing; and,

Sorcery and False Prophecy.

All of these exist in our present-day political culture as they did in Dante's time; indeed, given the advances in banking, computer science, communications technology, and broader horizons of white-collar graft, they're probably even more widespread at every level of politics:

Flattery - have you listened to Der Furor's appointees constantly praising his genius? It's fawning obsequiousness at its most sickening.

 

Political Corruption - Senator Bob Menendez and Justice Clarence Thomas ... need I say more?

 

Hypocrisy - the correct spelling of this word is "M-i-t-c-h-M-c-C-o-n-n-e-l-l."

 

Theft - do we know what President Musk's techno-kiddies did when they took control of sensitive Treasury Department computer systems?

 

Fraudulent Rhetoric - all politicians lie, although their fraudulent rhetoric is usually focused on shading of the truth for advantage, rather than the blatant out-and-out falsehoods that are daily occurrences with Der Furor and his appointees. See "Falsification" below.

 

Divisiveness - the noisy and shameful fight over DEI encapsulates it perfectly.

 

Falsification - in his first administration alone, Der Furor was estimated to have told more than 30,000 falsehoods. During his campaign, the interregnum, and his first few weeks as president, he continues to have only the most tenuous of relationships with the truth. Because he gets away with it and dismisses any attempt to check his claims as "fake news," his acolytes have no trouble doing the same. Pinocchio would be proud.

 

Pimping and Seducing - particularly widespread during election years, when credulous voters are seduced with grand promises immediately forgotten or downplayed one the desired office has been attained.

 

Sorcery and False Prophecy - these are, of course, the bedrock upon which most conservative economic theories rest. False prophecy is particularly useful to bolster claims about the fantastic economic benefits of tariffs, and how quickly the prices of homes, gas, and groceries will come down in a rosily-painted future.

One last category of sin punished in the eighth circle is Simony (the abuse of power within the Church). While Dante was focusing on things like the venal sale of Church offices and blessings, one might also consider simony today to include the sexual abuse of children by priests and - beyond the Catholic Church - clerics and adherents of religions who incite violence against those who observe faiths or sects other than their own. The equivalent of simony in modern government would probably include things like nepotism, favoritism, and sexual misconduct.

A 1998 article in the satirical newspaper The Onion announced the expansion of Hell to squeeze in a new tenth circle - Corpadverticus, The Circle of Total Bastards - between levels eight and nine. The new circle was said to have become necessary because many new arrivals possessed souls far more evil than the original nine circles were equipped to handle, such as demographers, advertising executives, tobacco lobbyists, and corporate lawyers. A spokesdemon quoted in the article as representing Satan said these new arrivals represented "a wave of spiritual decay and horror the likes of which Hell has never before seen.” Of course, Der Furor and Elon Musk hadn't arrived on the scene yet.

The Eighth Circle definitely isn't big enough.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Will American Soldiers Follow Illegal Orders?

In the era of Der Furor, we find ourselves asking a lot of uncomfortable questions nobody ever thought would need to be asked, and the answers aren't very comforting.

We know now, courtesy of a severely compromised Supreme Court, that it is all but impossible for a President to be held legally liable for anything that might be construed to be within his Constitutionally-granted authority: 

" Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts."*

In earlier times, when our presidents were generally judicious and more or less morally upright, we seldom worried about what they might do with the awesome powers they held. Today, not so much.

The same holds true for their appointees and Congressional supporters. 

During the confirmation hearings for the execrable Pete Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense, Mr Hegseth was reminded that in June of 2020, Der Furor had directed former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper to shoot protesters in the legs during demonstrations in Washington, and that Mr Esper had refused to comply with the order. Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono asked Hegseth directly: “Would you carry out such an order from President Trump?”

Hegseth dodged and weaved and, in the end, would not say "no."

So, would American soldiers serving under such a Defense Secretary follow orders to shoot fellow Americans in the legs?

I have no doubt that, in today's fractured and morally ambiguous political climate, serving under a proudly authoritarian president and a compliant Secretary of Defense, some would. It's well known that the US Armed Forces have a significant number of members espousing extreme far-right ideologies, and it doesn't take much to imagine their reaction if ordered to shoot "radical leftists who hate America" and "libtards" by a President who has already wanted to do it and a Secretary of Defense willing to pass on the order without question.

In the war crimes trials that followed World War II, many Nazi soldiers and government functionaries tried to excuse their barbaric behavior by maintaining that they were simply doing their duty, following the orders of their military or political superiors. "I was only following orders" is the stereotyped plea of those seeking to avoid personal responsibility by blaming their superiors**, and it doesn't usually work, although it can sometimes argue for a lesser punishment for people further down the totem pole.

I don't know about you, but I would hesitate to trust that many soldiers in today's Army wouldn't shoot me if ordered to do so, and that has to be one of the most terrible legacies of Der Furor and his sadistic and twisted MAGA ideology.

Have a good day, and be careful when you exercise your First Amendment right "peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Nowadays, the only grievances that matter are those of Der Furor and his besotted followers.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo 

* Trump v United States, 23-939, July 1, 2024

** The "Superior Orders" defense argues that a person, whether civilian, military or police, should not be considered guilty of committing crimes if ordered to do so by a superior officer or official. It's also known as the "Nuremberg Defense."

Rites of Degradation

One of my favorite blogs, Miss Cellania, a while back posted a link to a very interesting article titled "Unmaking a Priest: The Rite of Degradation."

I was familiar with the term defrocking, which refers to the dismissal of a priest who has been found ... unpriestly. The official name for this process is "The Rite of Degradation," described by The Catholic Encyclopedia as "a canonical penalty by which an ecclesiastic is entirely and perpetually deprived of all office, benefice, dignity, and power conferred on him by ordination; and by a special ceremony is reduced to the state of a layman, losing the privileges of the clerical state and being given over to the secular arm." The Rite of Degradation is, in fact, a complex ritual designed to demonstrate that the priest being defrocked is being peeled like a canonical onion, visibly stripped of the layers of distinctive clothing that had marked him as a man of God.

Since I stopped going to church many years ago, I found the article to be of general rather than specifically religious interest, although it did remind me of the whole issue of ceremonies, rites, and rituals, which I find fascinating.

Religious rituals are probably the most common ones that we encounter on a daily basis, although there are many other sorts of ceremonies, some with religious overtones - such as last weekend's coronation ritual that formalized the rule of Britain's King Charles III. Military change-of-command ceremonies, weddings, presidential inaugurations, state visits, funerals, courtroom trials - all respond to a human need for stability and consistency in an unpredictable and chaotic world. Sex doesn't escape this need, either ... as the libertine Sir Stephen noted in the soft-core pornographic novel "Story of O," "I have a fondness for habits and ritual." And you may remember the old TV western series "Branded," which followed the adventures of a man unfairly (and in a graphic ceremony at the beginning of each episode) drummed out of the Army because of alleged cowardice.

But let's not talk about religion and sex and the Army for a moment ... let's talk about the unfortunate lack of a Rite of Degradation in the Constitution. 

As we go through the drawn-out agony of unpacking and - hopefully - punishing the crude venality and lawlessness of Der Furor and his administration, one wishes the founders had done better than establish  simple impeachment as the penalty for malfeasance in office. Article 1, Section 3, Clause 7 states that,

"Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law."

There's nothing about prison, drawing and quartering, exile, or the like. Of course, the Founders didn't want European-style royal punishments, so I guess that was to be expected. But it would have been nice if there'd been something more visible to underscore the seriousness of offenses against the public trust. We don't have presidential sashes to be stripped away, crowns to be removed from heads, or orbs and scepters to be ceremoniously broken, which rather limits the sort of satisfyingly ritualistic expulsion we can perform.

It would be nice if we had a Constitutionally-enshrined Rite of Degradation - a political ritual by which a President, Member of Congress, or appointed and confirmed federal official, is shown to be entirely and perpetually deprived of all office, benefits, dignity, and power conferred on them by election or appointment - that would not only remove malefactors from office, but graphically demonstrate the penalty for abusing the public trust. What form might that take?

A President or Vice President might be made to stand on the South Lawn of the White House while the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court uses a large hammer to smash a plaster replica of the appropriate seal of office before the Capitol Police escort them to the White House gates, usher them out, and close and lock the gates behind them.

Senators and Representatives might be made to stand in the well of their respective chamber while the judgement is read, after which their fellow members would all turn their backs before walking out, leaving the expellee alone in front of the C-SPAN cameras.

Justices of the Supreme Court could be forced to remove their robes on the front steps of the Supreme Court building, drop them to the ground, and walk across them as they leave the building for the last time.

Cabinet officers and other high-ranking appointees could be filmed carrying their personal effects out of their offices in cardboard boxes under police escort.

None of these will ever happen, of course, but it's nice to dream. Because, in my mind, there are few things worse than abuse of the public trust without consequence ... which is pretty much where we are today.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

What Would Dante Do?

If you're reading my blog, chances are that you've had an education that includes at least passing mention of Dante's Divine Comedy ... in particular, his visit to the pits of Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil, described in Inferno. Dante described Hell as a descending series of nine circles, each one dedicated to the eternal punishment of a particular sort of sinner and each set of sinners more loathsome than the last. At the very bottom of the pit of Hell was, of course, Satan, frozen waist-deep in ice for all eternity in the company of those guilty of the general sin of treachery. Dante's Hell is depicted in this diagram (click to embiggen it for easier reading): 

For purposes of this post, I'd like to call your attention to the eighth circle, almost all the way to the bottom of Hell. It is dedicated to the general sin of Fraud, and is divided into ten bolge, or "ditches," into which those guilty of various types of fraud are divided for punishment, depending on the perceived heinousness of their behavior. The ten bolge and the applicable punishments are:

• Panderers and Seducers, who are whipped by demons as they march in circles;
• Flatterers, who swim in human excrement;
• Simoniacs (sellers of religious favors or offices), who are buried head-first in holes while their exposed feet are burned); 
• Sorcerers and False Prophets, whose heads are twisted around so that they must walk backwards, blinded by their tears; 
• Barrators (corrupt politicians), who swim in pools of boiling pitch;
• Hypocrites, who stagger along wearing robes of gold lined with lead;
• Thieves, who are chased and bitten by snakes and lizards; 
• Evil Counsellors (not those who gave false advice, but those who used their position to advise others to engage in various types of fraud), who are wrapped in individual pillars of fire;
• Sowers of Discord, who are split from chin to groin by sword-wielding demons; and,
• Falsifiers, who suffer various torments based on the nature of their falsification.

I think that Dante's Eighth Circle is of particular salience today, given our current political and social conditions. The only change I would make is to replace the sin of simony (probably less an issue today than it was in Dante's time) with sanctimony, the act of being hypocritically pious or devout. Hypocrisy in the realm of religion is, I think, worse than ordinary hypocrisy, being more morally reprehensible. I could argue that it rates a lower bolgia than hypocrisy. 

The Eighth Circle is clearly the destination of many of those who dominate our religion and politics today. I would suggest that the various bolge might be the ultimate destinations of the persons indicated:

• Panderers and Seducers: Jeffrey Epstein is already there, keeping the lights on for the folks in his still-secret client book;
• Flatterers: Mike Pence, whose obsequious worship of Der Furor was sickeningly embarrassing and shameful;
• The Sanctimonious: Joel Osteen and other megachurch leaders. Oh, and Ron DeSantis, too; 
• Sorcerers and False Prophets: economists who still parrot the concept of "trickle-down" economics, and those who run for-profit churches;
• Barrator: Der Furor for sure, although he's also got a strong claim on a lot of other bolges; 
• Hypocrites: how much time do you have? Jim Jordan, Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, etm, etm;
• Thieves: most of the Republicans in the House could end up here, as they've certainly stolen their salaries by virtue of not doing anything to earn them. In the larger sense, pretty much every elected official who owes their election to vast tsunamis of untraceable money probably belong here as well, regardless of party;
• Evil Counsellors: Stephen Miller, Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, etm;
• Sowers of Discord: pretty much the entire staff of Fox News, OANN, and the like, as well as those politicians for whom the concept of loyal opposition is totally unknown;
• Falsifiers: make yourself comfortable, it'll take a while to run down this list. We'll just start with George Santos, Empty G, Lauren Boebert, Louie Gohmert.

The application of Dante's classification of sins and punishments to today's miscreants would be a lot more fun if it weren't so sad. If you have any other ideas for updates to the list of sins, or the appropriate punishments for them*, leave a comment.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* If you don't want to actually read Dante's Inferno, you can read a thorough overview here.

Crime and Punishment in America

As we sit and wait in dread for the results of tomorrow's election to be - hopefully - agreed upon, it's worth looking back and thinking about the character of the campaigning that led up to this point.

Republicans are running largely on three basic themes, none of which they offer any concrete proposals to address:

(1) Inflation is killing us all, and President Biden and the Democrats are responsible.

(2) American cities, particularly those with Democrats in power, are lawless, crime-ridden hellholes where fearful ("white Christian") citizens cower in fear for their lives while angry mobs of Antifa thugs rampage unchecked through the streets, burning and looting all in their path and exposing decent, law-abiding ("white Christian") citizens to the horrors of Critical Race Theory and economic fairness, all encouraged by President Biden and the Democrats.

And ...

(3) An enormous, unstoppable wave of destitute, disease-ridden, wild-eyed criminals, each carrying hundreds of pounds of fentanyl, bales of phony ballots, or both, is pouring over a border left wide open by President Biden and the Democrats.

All of these are idiotic arguments, untainted by evidence and targeted at people who respond only to visceral bumper-sticker messages. It's much easier to cuddle into the warm and comforting embrace of far-right scare media than to do any critical thinking or demand any actual evidence that these things are real.

I would call your attention to two wonderful things I wish every screaming GOP supporter would listen to:

First is a brilliant dissection of the responsibility for inflation, presented by the Politics Girl. I couldn't do a better job of pointing out that the Republican Emperor has no economic clothes.

Second is a very interesting look at actual crime statistics presented in an NPR broadcast report. You can listen to the report (it takes about seven minutes) or read a transcript here. One of the most interesting parts of the analysis is that what is reported as "crime" is based on a decision made nearly 100 years ago on what types of crimes would be reported and tracked by police. Today, however, much - perhaps most - of the most lucrative and socially damaging crime is being committed by criminals who will probably never be prosecuted or spend so much as a day in jail. Why? Because they are white, rich, can afford expensive lawyers, and are able to manipulate laws and government policies to make their crimes hard to prosecute. Plus, their "victimless" crimes (embezzlement, graft, theft of public property, blackmail, etc) fall outside the "Index One" crimes (murder, robbery, rape, aggravated assault, larceny, burglary, auto theft, and sometimes arson) that police and lawmakers formally track.

Of course, those are all crimes that are terrible and worthy of punishment, but they ignore a vast landscape of crime that is seldom seen, even more seldom charged, and still yet more seldom punished. The worst criminals, the ones who cause all of us the most economic and social damage, are laughing at the ones who deflect attention away from their crimes ...

And finally, no one doubts that there is an immigration crisis in this country. What is never actually admitted is that neither party has a particular interest in solving it. For Republicans, it's useful for whipping up their supporters' fear of the replacement of privileged, white, Christian Americans by terrible brown hordes. For Democrats, it's an opportunity to posture themselves as caring and righteous (not to mention that many of those immigrants tend to vote for Democrats). Neither side is willing to address the fundamental problem, which is that our immigration system is totally broken and out of sync with the actual economic and social needs of the country. Republicans refuse to consider any new immigration legislation that doesn't begin with sealing the borders and deporting the millions of illegal immigrants already here. Democrats refuse to consider any new legislation which doesn't address the problem of dealing with the millions of illegal immigrants already here by providing some pathway to eventual citizenship. And so nothing gets done. Nobody has a reasonable plan to address the problem. Except me, of course, but my proposal has been stored in the "Send Him an Earnest Letter, Then Ignore" file of every one of my elected officials.

And so the ass clownery goes on.

Tens of millions of us will go to the polls tomorrow and cast our votes on the basis of our fears, rather than our hopes. A Republican victory that seizes control of one or both houses of Congress will result in a government that does nothing except exact political revenge for perceived slights, the party having published no plans to address the problems they rail about. To the extent a Republican-dominated legislature does anything, it will benefit the GOP's wealthy and big-business supporters, not you and I.

Author Octavia E. Butler expressed it well in her novel "Parable of the Talents":

“Choose your leaders with wisdom and foresight.
To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears;
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool;
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen;
To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies;
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.”

Wisdom and foresight are what we need. Exercise them carefully when you vote tomorrow.

Have a good day. Choose wisely. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

It May Be "Legal," but Is It Right?

This is a question posed by Asha Rangappa, an associate dean at the Yale Law School and a former FBI agent, in a recent op-ed article in the Washington Post. In order to answer that question, Ms Rangappa turned to an individual with whom FBI agents are familiar.

Carla F. Bad isn't a real lady, but a mnemonic device to help FBI agents remember the elements they use to assess the suitability of persons for positions of public trust: Character, Associates, Reputation, Loyalty, Ability, Finances, Bias, Alcohol, and Drugs.

As Ms Rangappa writes about the technical question of whether or not Donald Trump and his associates have broken the law,

"... focusing on bright-line rules of criminality misses the point. The deeper question is whether members of Trump’s administration can uphold the trust that has been placed in them as stewards of the government they have been chosen to lead. On this front, the criminal code shouldn’t be the only yardstick. Even if Trump’s aides and family members have managed to toe the line of the law, the news out of the Russia investigation so far leaves little reason to have faith in their judgment."

Let's see how Ms Bad would assess Donald Trump ...

Character: The man is a congenital and unrepentant liar who doubles down on his untruths in the face of evidence to the contrary. His ability to evade censure for the most blatant lies is amazing.

Associates: Vladimir Putin. 'Nuf said.

Reputation: Golden with about 39% of the electorate; in the toilet with the other 61%. And he's not particularly well thought of in financial circles, either.

Loyalty: Demands it of subordinates, but isn't known for returning it.

Ability: During the presidential campaign, he memorably said that the United States was in terrible shape and "I alone can fix it." So far, I haven't seen anything fixed, Congress is a laughable circus bereft of presidential leadership and direction, and the international leadership of the United States has vanished.

Finances: Mr Trump has filed for bankruptcy six times, although in fairness, most involved his casino properties and happened during a period when the casino industry overall was struggling. He has been sued at least 60 times by individuals and businesses seeking payment for services provided to Trump and his properties, and has bragged that not paying taxes means he's "smart." Don't hold your breath waiting for his tax returns.

Bias: Mr Trump does not care for Mexicans or for men who have been prisoners of war*. He also does not want to have any "poor" people in positions of economic responsibility in his administration. In general, he is biased against "losers."

Alcohol: No problems - Mr Trump is reported to be a teetotaler.

Drugs: No reported problems. Although there have been unproven rumors of past drug use, the only drug Mr Trump is reported to be taking is finasteride, which is used to combat male-pattern baldness.

So, how do Mr Trump and Ms Bad get along?

Giving points for a lack of problems with alcohol or drugs, Mr Trump scores only Carla's first name and middle and last initials ... but given the evidence for them, it's bad enough.

Mr Trump may skate at the very edge of what's legal, but if he were a young person trying to get a security clearance, Ms Bad would probably argue against him on seven out of nine grounds.

And we've elected him president. What does that say about us?

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo


* Although he never ran the risk of becoming one, never having served in the armed forces.

"Rigging" Elections

The insanity of the 2016 presidential election will be over ... at least, the voting part will be over ... in just a few weeks, but the drama is likely to continue because GOP candidate Donald Trump is convinced that the only way he can lose is if the election is "rigged" and "stolen" from him. But at least he'll accept the results ... if he wins.

So, can a presidential election be rigged and stolen?

I suppose that it's theoretically possible, but the odds of it happening are infinitesimally small. Here's why ...

1. We do not have a single, centralized system of voting. Because of our federal structure, each of the 50 states manages voting in its own way. Consider the issue of equipment: some states use voting machines, but not all voting machines are of the same type (there are about 15 different manufacturers). Some voting machines provide a paper audit trail, and others don't. Some states use "direct recording electronic" devices which store votes in an electronic memory and may or may not provide a paper audit trail. Some states rely on paper ballots marked by hand and tabulated by optical scanners, and some use paper ballots which are counted by hand. Some use punch-card ballots (remember the infamous "hanging chads" in Florida in the 2000 election?). You can read more about the various kinds of voting systems here.

2. Since each state has its own voting processes and equipment, consider the infrastructure of people and expertise that would be needed to manipulate tens of thousands of voting machines across hundreds if not thousands of individual precincts.

3. There are urban legends about thousands of illegal immigrants and other unqualified and unregistered voters being bused from precinct to precinct to cast multiple votes. As far as I can tell, no one has ever actually positively identified such a large scale effort or identified or photographed a fraud bus.

4. Even assuming that everything above is true, can you imagine every one of the people involved keeping the secret?

5. If the election is said to be "rigged" in favor of Secretary Clinton and the Democrats, how does that square with the fact that elections are administered at the state level, and the majority of state governorships and legislators are controlled by the GOP? Check it out here.

6. Finally, considering that Congressional districts are gerrymandered beyond all bounds of reason and common sense in order to either maximize or minimize the impact of certain voting groups, it seems that any "rigging" has been done by those in both parties ... but mainly the GOP ... who have crafted the electoral map to their advantage. Want to fix "rigging?" Draw Congressional districts fairly. Check it out here.

This is what rigging is ...

Quit whining and cast your vote.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

No Pardon

The release of Oliver Stone's new film Snowden has become part of a groundswell of opinion holding that Edward Snowden - the man who stole millions of highly classified documents and released them to the world - should be pardoned and allowed to return to the United States from his refuge in Russia.

I most strongly disagree.

I have many reasons for considering Mr Snowden to be a despicable and hypocritical traitor to his country, and this article by Jack Goldsmith from the Lawfare blog sums them up better than I could: Why President Obama Won't, and Shouldn't, Pardon Snowden. It's a little long, but it's well worth your time to read, especially if you think Mr Snowden deserves to be pardoned for what he did.

One could argue, however weakly, that Mr Snowden performed a public service by exposing a program that could have had questionable legal underpinnings. However, he also exposed many other programs that were fully legal and approved by Congress - programs the loss of which gravely injured the Intelligence Community's ability to track our enemies and keep you and I safe. He would have you believe that he had no other option than to expose programs he believed - in his boundless wisdom - were illegal. In fact, members of the Intelligence Community have a robust and accessible oversight structure in which they can report suspected violations of the law. Anyone who has worked in this arena knows that his contention that he had no other options is ludicrous.

A pardon for Edward Snowden is a slap in the face of all those who toil anonymously in the intelligence world to keep us safe, who take their oaths seriously, and who understand that intelligence programs are kept secret not because they are illegal*, but because they are fragile and their exposure can undo years of work and millions of dollars of expenditure.

And by the way, Mr Snowden has chosen to take refuge in Russia ... and one might well ask whether he would have been pardoned by the government of Mr Putin for the same crimes he committed here at home. If you believe that, I can make you a good deal on a bridge.

No pardon for Edward Snowden. Ever. Let him enjoy his exile in a country that would certainly have imprisoned ... and very likely executed ... him had he done the same thing there.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* There is a widespread belief that anything marked "secret" is classified only because it is illegal, would embarrass the government, or covers up other malfeasance. Nobody seems to want to acknowledge that some things need to be kept secret for very good reasons.