What's More Important: What You Call It, or What You Want It to Do?

RANT ALERT! 

You've been warned ...

Instead of advancing an agenda that actually addresses the problems of everyday Americans, Der Furor - master of misdirection and diversion that he is - has resorted to the language of fear to spin up his followers, who generally lack the knowledge to understand that they're being played. Specifically, Der Furor invokes the terrifying specters of communism and socialism in an attempt to equate his liberal opposition to  discredited economic systems. American liberals, on the other hand, fed up with the inability of the traditional Democratic party to address their concerns and turned off by the rage and incipient fascism of the GOP, play into Der Furor's tiny linguistic hands by embracing something called democratic socialism.

Oh, for gawd's sake, people, stop using scary labels! Don't talk about what you want to call your system of government - think about what you want it to do. Think about what you want your government to spend your hard-earned money on, not about what some clueless blowhard with an agenda wants you to think.

For my part, this is what I think a good government that actually cares about its citizens would do:

1. Provide for the common defense. Just like it says in the preamble to the Constitution. It's a hard world and we need powerful armed forces to protect us from external threats. But these forces shouldn't be used to attack other countries that do not pose a direct threat to us (Venezuela and Iran) or threaten allies that don't give us what we want (Greenland belongs to Denmark, and Canada is a proud and independent nation and a good friend). We need a competent Department of Defense again, run by someone who knows what he (or she) is doing.

2. Promote the general welfare. Once again, just like it says in the preamble to the Constitution. In my opinion, "promoting the general welfare" means things like:

a. Taxpayer-funded, single-payer medical care for all citizens. The United States has some of the finest medical facilities and personnel in the world ... and most of it is beyond the ability of most people to pay. I believe that a single-payer, taxpayer-funded national system, buttressed by strong safeguards against fraud and abuse, is the only rational alternative to the bizarre hodgepodge of profit-based, insurance-driven providers too many of us can't afford. Keep supplemental plans for those who want to pay extra for them, but make sure that everyone is covered without the extra expense.

b. Taxpayer-funded free public education through attendance at a trade school or two years of college. Our educational system was once the model to which other nations aspired ... no longer.

3. Restore faith and confidence in an honest, competent, transparent government based on free and fair elections and a professional civil service independent of the whims of an individual leader or party. Don't you think it's odd that we never had a problem with our elections until Der Furor couldn't accept that he lost one? At a minimum ...

a. Stop the wealthy from buying government offices and processes. The Supreme Court has, with a long series of decisions not based on reality or fairness, made our government offices at all levels available not to the best candidates, but to those willing and able to spend enough money to buy them. The amount of money spent by parties, political action committees, special interest groups, and individual candidates for office is utterly obscene, and would be far better spent on health care, public education, infrastructure, and any number of other beneficial things.

 

b. Reinstate all Inspectors General at Federal Agencies and let them do their jobs. Der Furor fired many of them for various reasons; bring them back and let them find the fraud, waste, and abuse we're told exists everywhere.

c. Enforce ethical standards for all Federal employees, including the President and Supreme Court justices. I thought that in this country, nobody was above the law*. Silly me.

 

d. Conduct a full audit of the Department of Defense (not War). We spend uncounted billions of dollars on our military, at the expense of many other valuable programs, and yet DoD has failed comprehensive audits of its programs for eight years in a row. We deserve to know that our tax dollars are being wisely and legally spent**.

 

e. Get rid of the abominable "Schedule F" designation that undermines the professional Civil Service. Our Civil Service is meant to be a professional, merit-based system that serves the best interests of the American people, not the whims of the administration of the moment.

4. Ensure civil liberties and provide equal justice under the law for every citizen, regardless of wealth or station. Our dream of "equal justice under law" is a joke - the quality of justice one gets is dependent upon one's ability to afford the best lawyers ... and is greatly affected by one's skin color.

a. Guarantee the fundamental freedoms outlined in the Constitution: speech, press, assembly, redress of grievances, religious belief (or not). Today's Justice Department no longer deserves its name, being interested not in equal justice, but in ensuring that Der Furor's enemies suffer his vengeance for real or imagined slights. Civil rights are not protected, only favored speech is considered worthy of protection, and the "Christian" religion is preferred and protected over all others, contrary to the clear wording of the Constitution.

5. Have a taxation system that looks like it was designed on purpose.

a. Ensure every individual and business is required to pay appropriate taxes, and that those taxes are based based on the ability to pay. It's hardly fair that a teacher, a housekeeper, or a trash collector pays more in taxes (proportionally) than a billionaire or a gigantic corporation.

 

b. Use taxes to pay for government operations and services to the American people - not as a vehicle for social engineering, political favors, or helping businesses be more profitable. 

6. Have a rational immigration policy that balances our tradition of welcoming immigrants with the needs of employers and legitimate national security concerns.

a. We need a professional, legally sound, dependable, and competent Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Ban the wearing of masks, insist on uniforms and proper identification, get rid of the heavy, military-style weapons, and weed out violent and incompetent personnel.

 

That'll do for a start. What do you think? Leave a comment.

Have a good day. More rants thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* Except, of course, Der Furor and his family and businesses, who get a freedom from taxation that you will never see.

** This does not include testosterone screening, changing the department's name without Congressional approval, and silly, AI-generated advertising videos.

Notes on "Seven Brutal Realities of Government"

I ran across this interesting, if cynical, meme the other day - 

I think there are a few good points there, but I think also that there is a bit more to be said about each point:

 

1. Power Attracts Power-Hungry People: Politics draws those who crave control, not those who crave service.

Bilbo's Take: I think this is true at the national, but not necessarily at the state and local level. Most people I've known who are local, city, and state level officials have a genuine interest in their communities and actively believe their positions carry an obligation to serve. Likewise members of the House of Representatives, at least until they ascend to positions of power ... after that, you get the Mike Johnsons.

2. Promises Cost Nothing, Delivery Costs Everything: During elections, they promise the world. In office, excuses are free.

Bilbo's Take: It's always been this way, depending upon the level of government. At the state governor and below levels, it's much easier for the voters to see the immediate, day-to-day evidence of your ability to deliver on your promises. At the national level, promises are cheap and the excuses and scapegoats for failure plentiful. I personally think that service as an elected state governor is one of the best training grounds for a presidential candidate ... it doesn't guarantee national-level competence, but it's a start.

3. You're Not The Customer, You're The Product: Your attention, your data, and your vote are what they trade on.

Bilbo's Take: No argument, here. There's a lot of money to be made by selling you digitally to the highest bidder.

4. Bureaucracy Protects Itself, Not You: Systems are designed to preserve their own existence, not to solve your problems.

Bilbo's Take: This is true, as far as it goes. The vast responsibilities of modern government require a huge administrative structure. Depending on your political leanings, this can be the dreaded "administrative state" staffed by "faceless bureaucrats," or it can be the noble "Civil Service" staffed by "civil servants." Regardless of how you view it, bureaucracy takes on a life of its own, and even the very smallest and most obscure office has its own constituency that will fight to protect its little slice of the bureaucratic pie while carrying out the responsibilities for which it was created.

5. Corruption Isn't Always Illegal: Favors, influence, and insider deals often do more damage than crimes.

Bilbo's Take: Don Vito Corleone said in "The Godfather," "A lawyer with a briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns." If you want to loot the treasury and use the government to enrich yourself and your cronies, it's easier, safer, and more profitable to bankroll the election of senators and representatives who will pass the laws you want, and judges who will decide issues in your favor. Nowadays, the Supreme Court is your best friend, having completely gutted all limits on campaign financing that might have limited the ability of the ultra-wealthy and corporations to buy the government they want.

6. They Divide You To Control You: The easier you are to divide, the easier you are to distract and manipulate.

Bilbo's Take: The division between Republican and Democrat is bad enough, but the relentless efforts by Der Furor and his hard-core MAGA followers to paint Democrats as "communists," "socialists," "radical left lunatics," "America-hating scum," and other insults du jour are the ultimate in despicable mislabeling, distraction, and manipulation. If all that energy was channeled into useful legislative action instead of childish distraction, we'd be a lot better off.

7. The Truth Threatens Power: Questioning the narrative is the fastest way to be labeled, ignored, or silenced.

Bilbo's Take: This is as true now as ever it was. The easiest way to demonstrate it is the vehemence with which Der Furor and his acolytes rage against even the most gentle pushback against their preferred talking points, much less fact-checkers armed with actual hard evidence. 

Well, that's my two cents about the seven-point meme on the brutal realities of government. I'd be interested in your takes - leave a comment.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Talismanic Incantations, Updated

Just shy of eight years ago, in July of 2017, I wrote a post called "Talismanic Incantations." The theme of the post was that there are certain words and phrases that, when used in legal and political discussions, were the equivalent of the magic words we used to believe in when we were children. The title of the post came from a marvelous line in the 9th Circuit Court's decision in the case "State of Hawaii v. Donald Trump, John Kelly, and Rex Tillerson," which struck down Der Furor's proposed ban on travel to the US from six majority Muslim nations:

"National Security is not a 'talismanic incantation' that, once invoked, can support any and all exercise of executive power under §1182(f)."

Sadly, National Security has, in fact, become a talismanic incantation, as it invokes protection and deflects accountability for government agencies which exceed their lawful authority on the most tenuous of grounds. And it led me to suggest a number of talismanic incantations useful to justify all manner of otherwise objectionable actions, among them:

Freedom - the quintessential American incantation, generally combined with the type of freedom desired;

 

Religious Freedom - invoked only when one's own religion is inconvenienced;

 

Choice - applies only to the option desired by the person delivering the incantation; its use does not imply that others should enjoy the same equality of choice;

 

Fake News - casts doubt on spells invoked by others with which one does not agree;

 

Keep and Bear Arms - invokes the mystical power of guns, but must be accompanied by the frenzied waving of a firearm;

 

Job-Killing - counters economic spells one cannot counter with statistics or logic;

 

Government Overreach - counters spells which invoke powers not aligned with one's political philosophy;

 

Obstructionist - damages an opponent's image by characterizing them as unable to cast spells of their own, able only to interfere with spells cast by others; and,

 

Racist and Sexist - employed when no other spell works, they have no particular power other than to cast aspersions on spells cast by one's opponents.

 That was in 2017. In 2025, several new talismanic incantations have entered the language:

National Emergency - this is probably the most powerful incantation after National Security, because its use allows the invocation of all sorts of other incantations of legally and constitutionally questionable authority;

Fraud, Waste, and Abuse - a very powerful incantation which invokes the ability, without the need for specific evidence, to make large sections of government vanish; 

 

Anti-Semitic - similar to the previous list's Racist and Sexist, equates criticism of the government of Israel to hatred of the Jewish people as a whole, thereby deflecting legitimate criticism of legally and morally questionable actions*; 

 

Open Borders - shifts blame for Congress's failure for decades to legislatively address the full range of immigration reform issues to illegal immigrants**; and,

 

DEI - a catchall incantation useful for stifling debate in situations where no other incantation works. 

A DOGE employee demonstrates the proper invocation

of the "Fraud, Waste, and Abuse" incantation.

There are also a few talismanic incantations that ordinary citizens can use without special training, among them:

Vote - an incantation, either written or verbal, which can, when cast in sufficient numbers, make undesirable officeholders disappear; 

Call - a verbal incantation used to impart knowledge of one's concerns to an elected official or a member of their staff and inform them of the likelihood of losing one's support if those concerns are ignored; 

Write - an incantation delivered in written form to impart knowledge of one's concerns to an elected official and, like Call, inform them of the likelihood of losing one's support if those concerns are ignored; and, 

Demonstrate - an incantation usually delivered by groups of individuals to remind elected officials of their duty or to call their attention to some undesirable condition.

The last four cost little and help to make your voice heard. And you don't need a magic wand ... only a telephone and writing materials.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* I know I'll take heat for this one from those who will claim (wrongly) that I am equating the actions of Israel to those of Hamas. Both sides claim the absolute right of vengeance for the misdeeds of the other. All I can do is remind them of the old adage that taking an eye for an eye only leaves everyone blind.

** Useful scapegoats who, after all, can't vote.

The Fantasy of the Unitary Executive

When the Founders sat down in 1789 to prepare a constitution for the new nation they'd just created, they had a number of basic ideas on how its government should function. One of them was that, having just achieved independence from the rule of a powerful king, they wanted a head of government strong enough to provide the requisite leadership, but constrained enough to prevent leadership from becoming tyranny. Their solution was the creation of a three-branch government in which the division of responsibilities and ability of each branch to check the others would provide a system which, while cumbersome, would protect the liberties that could be denied by an all-powerful ruler. The three branches of government described in the Constitution were, of course,

The Executive, responsible for carrying out the laws;

The Legislative, responsible for creating the laws; and,

The Judicial, responsible for interpreting the laws as needed.

The Constitution (Article II, Section 1) states that "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America," but it does not spell out in much detail what that "executive power" means ... and that brings us to the conservative fever dream of the "Unitary Executive."

According to the Unitary Executive theory, the President - as the only national-level officer of government elected by (and thus answerable to) the entire nation - has sole and unquestioned authority over the entire Executive Branch of the government. The idea is that the people elected the President to implement the agenda on which he or she ran, and the President thus needs absolute control over the entire Executive Branch (not to mention a whip hand over Congress) in order to put that agenda into place. 

The Unitary Executive theory meets political reality when presidents want to fire the heads of independent agencies established by Congress they view as insufficiently dedicated to implementing their agendas. Or when a President declares that a particular Cabinet office (for instance, the Department of Education) or independent, Congressionally-established agency (such as the US Agency for International Development) should be eliminated. Or when a President seeks to eliminate opposition to their agenda by directing the Department of Justice to investigate or prosecute their opponents. Can they do that? Many conservative thinkers insist that the President, as a Unitary Executive, can, and the current heavily conservative Supreme Court says "yes," at least in some cases. 

One needs to ask what the difference is between a Unitary Executive and the sort of king we fought the Revolutionary War to shake off. If there's a difference, I don't see it.

I realize that my opinion counts for less than nothing in the age of Der Furor, but if you ask me, the name of this theory is wrong ... it's not a Unitary Executive, but a Urinary Executive - a president who gets to happily pee on the Constitution and on We the People, as Der Furor is doing every day.

Have a good day, and remember that Americans don't believe in kings. Or didn't before now.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

What Did That Declaration Say, Again?

If you're one of those old enough to remember when we used to learn about actual history, rather than history as interpreted through the filter of MAGA fever dreams, you may recall a document known as The Declaration of Independence. 

This document, written and signed in 1776, detailed the reasons why the American colonies sought independence from a tyrannical king. Here are some of the king's actions cited as reasons for demanding independence ... along with a few present-day observations:

"... cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world." Including remote islands inhabited only by penguins?

"... imposing taxes on us without our consent." Tariffs, anyone? Regardless of what Der Furor would like to have you believe, a tariff is a tax that isn't paid by some foreign government, but by you, the consumer.

"... depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Jury trial." Summarily rounding up and deporting illegal immigrants or accused criminals without providing evidence or allowing the accused their Constitutional rights.

"... transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences." Deporting prisoners to El Salvador and refusing to bring them back, even when it admits the rendition was in error.

"... obstruct(ing) the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers." I suppose this also includes ignoring inconvenient laws and legal decisions with which Der Furor does not agree.

"... erect(ing) a multitude of New Offices, and sen(ding) hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance." (if this isn't a definition of the so-called "Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)," I don't know what is.

"... combin(ing) with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws." I guess this includes working with the president of El Salvador to establish prisons there for US citizens who incur Der Furor's wrath.

I wonder what the signers of the Declaration of Independence would make of Der Furor's aggressively imperial view of the presidency as a kingship free of interference from the great unwashed and their elected representatives. I expect they're turning in their graves.

Have a good day. Watch what's going on carefully, and know that time is running out to save our  representative democracy.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

What President Musk and Der Furor Can Safely Eliminate

President Musk, citing the illusory "overwhelming mandate"* given to Der Furor in the election, has been taking a chainsaw to the federal government, his unsupervised and unqualified flunkies slashing positions at will without any apparent thought to the impact of those cuts. As an example, the administration last week was frantically trying to re-hire some 200 persons fired from the Department of Energy ... after learning that their positions were responsible for the security of our nuclear weapons stockpile. Ruthless cuts to the Federal Aviation Agency are likely to undermine air travel safety and may have contributed to the recent rash of deadly aircraft accidents. Other cuts and tariff impositions will likely slam farmers (mainly in red states of the midwest) who depend on federal loans and exports (largely via the now-defunct USAID) for their livelihood, and gut support to schools in low-income and rural areas that depend on government grants to compensate for low local tax revenue to support education.

These are examples of what I like to call "DOGE's Law of Mission Accomplishment: anything is possible when you don't know what you're doing."

There are, however, a lot of positions across the government that can now safely be cut: the jobs of those who handle the calls from our allies. There won't be very many of those calls to answer in the future, now that JD Vance, in an astounding display of crude, bullying behavior and diplomatic ineptitude that did credit to his boss, demeaned and insulted our closest allies at last week's Munich Security Conference. 

After needlessly alienating both Canada and Mexico, the administration has shown that it's approach to the world is not "America First," but "America Only," and that it is uninterested in mutual benefit - only crass, one-sided advantage that ignores the legitimate concerns of our closest allies.

Of course, a counterargument can be made that those call receivers could be kept busy answering calls from the autocrats and despots whose approval Der Furor craves ... but since such callers are probably on Der Furor's speed-dial already, he won't need any administrative or technical assistance or, for that matter, advice from Cabinet departments already neutered, an obedient Congress, and courts he is already primed to ignore.

The popular acronym nowadays is FAFO - [Mess] Around and Find Out ... and Americans who voted for an agenda they didn't fully understand are slowly finding out. 

Have a good day, and do what you can to preserve what little competent and effective government we have left. You'd better be planning to vote in the 2026 midterms ... assuming annoying things like free and fair elections are still here.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* It needs to be repeated - often - that there was NO "overwhelming mandate" for Der Furor. In fact, he won a bare majority of the popular vote: 77,303,573 (49.8%), as opposed to the 75,019,257 (48.3%) won by Kamala Harris. This is hardly an "overwhelming mandate," although Der Furor and his supporters like to claim it is. 

"Engineered Incompetence"

The parade of confirmation hearings for Cabinet positions and other senior positions in Der Furor's administration continues apace, and - as usual with such hearings - has produced more sound than light.

There was, however, one particularly interesting hearing - that for Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth. It provided a prime example of what historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat describes as engineered incompetence. As she writes in her article "Pete Hegseth and the Autocratic Strategy of Engineered Incompetence," 

"Authoritarian states abound with examples of engineered incompetence, when leaders appoint individuals to Cabinet positions who lack the skill-set and high-level connections needed to succeed. This makes those individuals more dependent on the leader and creates more space for the leader’s powerful cronies to influence the institution to their own benefit ..."

No one should denigrate Mr Hegseth's military service, particularly at a time when Americans once again have elected a president who avoided military service himself*, and has described those who've lost their lives or suffered injury in combat as "suckers and losers." But we should all understand what Mr Hegseth's service actually was: yes, he has experience leading troops in combat, and rose to the rank of Major before leaving active duty for the reserves in 2014. Majors, however, generally command battalions of soldiers (300-1,000 troops), or serve as staff officers without command responsibility in larger organizations. 

As was pointed out (by Democratic senators) during his hearing, command and management at Mr Hegseth's level, while admirable, falls somewhat short of the experience needed to manage the Department of Defense, with its 3 million military and civilian personnel and $850 billion budget. Why might a president nominate a person with such limited experience for such a massive job?

Senators of both parties conducting Mr Hegseth's confirmation hearing did neither the nation nor Mr Hegseth any favors. Democrats spent too much time on issues of drunkenness and marital infidelity, while Republicans spent too much time thundering about the horrors of DEI. No one - with the partial exception of Senator Tammy Duckworth - asked difficult questions about management, strategy, and Mr Hegseth's qualifications to be the senior civilian defense advisor to the president.

There are, indeed, management issues at the Department of Defense and each of the services which need attention. There are serious issues of grand strategy, acquisition management, and resource allocation that need to be addressed. But are such weighty and massive issues best handled by a young former military officer of limited experience at lower levels of command and management ... whether he has dust on his boots or not?

No, they aren't. Unless the president is less interested in competent management and command experience than he is in engineering incompetence in the position ... filling it with someone who will not have the moral or professional authority and gravitas to tell him what he needs to know, rather than what he wants to know (or not know). 

Der Furor tried the same move with his nomination of the execrable Matt Gaetz for Attorney General; fortunately, that was such a ludicrous nomination that he had to quickly back off and nominate Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi instead**. While Ms Bondi has at least reasonable qualifications for the position, her sycophantic adoration of Der Furor and refusal to provide direct and honest answers to legitimate questions about her independence tar her nomination with the stench of engineered incompetence.

And can we forget the utterly insane nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, to be Secretary of Health and Human Services? No reasonable argument can possibly be made for his completely meritless nomination, other than to engineer incompetence in a critical organization that has already been damaged by ludicrous conspiracy theories, misinformation, disinformation, and disregard for proven science.

We're in for a long four years of engineered incompetence. One hopes at least that we can begin clawing reality back in the 2026 midterms, before the damage has become irreversible.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* The flags and memes showing a heavily-muscled, heavily-armed Rambo-style Furor are so utterly laughable ...

** Which leads one to wonder whether Gaetz was just a decoy to provide an easier confirmation path for Bondi.

Der Furor, Take Two

At noon today, Der Furor will take the oath of office as President of the United States for the second time; he is only the second president in our history to be elected to two non-consecutive terms (the other was, as you surely know by now, Grover Cleveland).

I am dreading his second term more than I did the first, for many reasons. He is a miserable human being. He is bombastic, amoral, self-centered, greedy, and focused more on personal loyalty in his minions than in their competence to fulfill their duties of office. His idea of presidential gravitas is to use demeaning schoolyard nicknames for his opponents and critics. His towering ego makes him easily manipulable by friends and enemies alike. His approach to every issue and problem is purely transactional, answering the essential question "what's in it for me?" He prides himself on disdain for norms of presidential behavior and is, as presidential historian Douglas Brinkley once commented, "just a bull carrying his own china shop with him when­ever he travels the world.” Finally, because he will head an administration informed by the experiences of his first regime and supercharged by the work of conservative organizations exemplified by Project 2025 ... which he disowned during the campaign but has happily moved to implement now that he's been elected.

In short, Der Furor is ready to be a terrible president for the second time.

But having said that, there are some positions he has espoused (often out of convenience rather than conviction) that make sense and that I could support (in principle, if not in execution).

First, Der Furor is correct that we have a problem of unregulated and uncontrolled immigration. His approach to the problem is, however, ludicrously simplistic, unworkable, and ignores the fundamental problem of outdated and inadequate immigration law. Building a "big, beautiful wall" will not keep out those anxious to enter the country ... it didn't work for the East German government in Berlin* and it won't work here. Rounding up and deporting millions of illegal/"undocumented" aliens in massive sweeps is both unconstitutional (for various reasons) and detrimental to the economy (he seems to think that American citizens are lining up to take the difficult, low-wage, service and agricultural jobs now largely being filled by those he would deport). At the same time, he appears anxious to support his billionaire tech supporters by offering more "H-1B" visas for the high-tech workers they need. He has not said a word about taking legislative action to fix the issues with our immigration system that have created the situation he now rails about ... you may recall that he directed his minions in Congress to kill the bipartisan border security bill that gave conservative Republicans almost everything they asked for. I have, myself, offered a detailed plan to fix our immigration system, which has been graciously accepted and then ignored by my elected representatives for years. 

Second, our tax system is a mess and needs to look as if someone designed it for sound economic reasons. Der Furor's answer is to cut taxes for the very wealthiest Americans and for big businesses, on the long-discredited assumption that they will invest all that saved money in actions that boost the economy, resulting in lower prices and other benefits that will eventually "trickle down" to the poorest Americans**. In his confirmation hearing, Der Furor's Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent said that the "single most important economic issue" was extending tax cuts for the wealthy and businesses. I think that even a lot of the underinformed people who voted for Der Furor would have a hard time swallowing that. Tax laws should address the needs of the lower and middle classes as well as the top 1%.

Third, looking to the larger economy, I think we definitely need to have some changes made, although the sort of changes that would most benefit average Americans would be opposed by big business in our current market economy. For instance, Mr Bessent (who we met in the previous paragraph) also said in his hearing that he saw no need to increase the national minimum wage ... which has remained unchanged at the national level at $7.25/hour since 2009, 16 years. Prices for food staples, basic medical care, and essential medicines are squeezing the lower and middle class, but I have yet to see any sort of plan that adequately addresses them ... there's no magic wand to wave that will fulfill feel-good but difficult to achieve campaign promises like: "Starting on Day One, we will end inflation and make America affordable again;" "Groceries, cars – everything. We're going to get the prices down;" "... we're going down and getting gasoline below $2 a gallon;" and "We will eliminate regulations that drive up housing costs, with the goal of cutting the cost of a new home in half."

Finally, some reform of our Civil Service is needed, although the horrendous "Schedule F" plan which would replace professional, merit-based government employees with ones loyal to Der Furor, regardless of merit, is hardly the answer. When I worked in the Pentagon as a military officer, I (very) occasionally  supervised or dealt with government civilians who were utterly worthless in their positions, but were all but impossible to fire, even for cause. Junking the merit-based Civil Service in favor of presidential loyalists is not the answer ... improved personnel management regulations that make it easier to remove non-performing employees is needed. 

Those will do for starters. In summary, I could get behind some changes and improvements in our government, but Der Furor and his extreme conservative, wealthy, and religious supporters are hardly the ones to provide what we need.

What do you think?

Have a good day. Hope for the best but plan for the worst.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* I served in West Berlin while The Wall was still up, so I think I can speak with some authority on this.

** As Will Rogers once said, "The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover didn't know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellow's hands."

Johnny Carson on Democracy (Repeat)

While going through old blog files, I found this post that I first published in October of 2013. I'm reposting it today (with a few very minor edits) because it's as timely now as it ever was ...

One of the shrill comments that has been echoing down the corridors of argument during the present manufactured government crisis is that we don't live in a democracy, but in a constitutional republic. While this is undoubtedly true, it's pointless for purposes of extracting us from the swamp in which our elected reprehensives have mired us. But it does give me a hook to find a little humor in the current tsunami of embarrassing government ineptitude.

I dug back into my humor files and found the transcript of a monologue on democracy delivered by the late, great Johnny Carson back in 1991.

I looked for a video of it on YouTube, but couldn't find anything other than the scrolling text with accompanying music ... I'd give a lot to see Carson actually delivering this again, because no one has ever been able to match his delivery ...

"What Democracy Means to Me"

by Johnny Carson

"To me, democracy means placing trust in the little guy, giving the  fruits of nationhood to those who built the nation. Democracy means  anyone can grow up to be president, and anyone who doesn't grow up can  be vice president.

"Democracy is people of all races, colors, and creeds united by a single dream: to get rich and move to the suburbs away from people of all races, colors, and creeds. Democracy is having time set aside to worship - 18 years if you're Jim Bakker.

"Democracy is buying a big house you can't afford with money you don't have to impress people you wish were dead. And, unlike communism, democracy does not mean having just one ineffective political party; it means having two ineffective political parties.

"Democracy means freedom of sexual choice between any two consenting adults; Utopia means freedom of choice between three or more consenting adults. But I digress.

"Democracy is welcoming people from other lands, and giving them something to hold onto -- usually a mop or a leaf blower. It means that with proper timing and scrupulous bookkeeping, anyone can die owing the government a huge amount of money.

"Democracy means a thriving heartland with rolling fields of Alfalfa, Buckwheat, Spanky, and Wheezer*. Democracy means our elected officials bow to the will of the people, but more often they bow to the big butts of campaign contributors.

"Yes, democracy means fighting every day for what you deserve, and fighting even harder to keep other weaker people from getting what they deserve. Democracy means never having the Secret Police show up at your door. Of course, it also means never having the cable guy show up at your door, either. It's a tradeoff. Democracy means free television**, not good television, but free.

"Democracy is being able to pick up the phone and, within a minute, be talking to anyone in the country, and, within two minutes, be interrupted by call waiting.

"Democracy means no taxation without representation, and god knows, we've just about had the hell represented out of us. It means the freedom to bear arms so you can blow the "o" out of any rural stop sign you want.

"And finally, democracy is the eagle on the back of a dollar bill, with 13 arrows in one claw, 13 leaves on a branch, 13 tail feathers, and 13 stars over its head - this signifies that when the white man came to this country, it was bad luck for the Indians, bad luck for the trees, bad luck for the wildlife, and lights out for the American eagle.

"I thank you."

I miss Johnny Carson.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* The reference is to the characters on the old "Our Gang/The Little Rascals" film series. I'm dating myself by knowing that.

** This hasn't aged very well, judging from the size of my cable TV bill.

The Shirky Principle, Revisited

Being a retired guy with plenty of time on my hands, I've been working on transferring the handwritten record of my 5,128 blog posts (currently occupying four spiral-bound notebooks) into a searchable Excel spreadsheet to help me more easily find specific posts. It's been a worthwhile exercise, if for no other reason than I've been reminded of all the fascinating things I've learned and written about over the years*. 

One of those fascinating topics comes from back in 2016: The Shirky Principle: “Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.” 

My post on the Shirky Principle was pretty prescient, given Congress's ongoing and self-inflicted border-crisis wound.

That there's an immigration crisis at our southern border is beyond doubt ... people are fleeing north in record numbers in search of a better life. The United States has always been seen as a land of relative safety and opportunity by people fleeing poor economic and political conditions in their home countries, and the current situation in much of the world is such that the US of A looks better than ever. In all the screaming and handwringing over the situation, though, we tend to lose sight of the fact that there is not a single American citizen (other than indigenous Native Americans) who is not descended from an immigrant to these shores, whether legal or illegal. Nobody wants to admit that, but it's true.

The cause of the crisis, though, really doesn't have anything to do with numbers or motivations, but with our outdated and totally inadequate laws and policies governing immigration and citizenship. You may recall, if you paid attention during your civics classes, that Congress is responsible for drafting laws ... which brings me back to the The Shirky Principle.

We have totally inadequate immigration laws and policies because they present a politically useful weapon, and neither party is willing to disarm. Last week, Republican members of Congress took a theatrically useless "fact-finding" trip to the southern border, where they were able to gain valuable Faux News airtime to berate the Biden Administration for not doing enough to hermetically seal the border. 

Congressional Republicans demand that the President take the actions they want by executive order ... which, of course, allows them to avoid getting their fingerprints on them, and blame Mr Biden if the situation doesn't immediately and magically improve. They insist that their proposed legislation (HR-2) is the only solution to the crisis, is absolutely not negotiable, and must be implemented exactly as written**. 

Texas GOP Representative Troy Nehls said the quite part out loud when he recently said, 

“Let me tell you, I’m not willing to do too damn much right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden’s approval rating ... I will not help the Democrats try to improve this man’s dismal approval ratings. I’m not going to do it. Why would I?”

Mr Nehls added that "[Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer has had HR 2 on his desk since July. And he did nothing with it." 

My way or the highway seems like an odd way to secure support for important legislation.

Granted, the Democrats had their chances to reform the immigration mess when they were in power, but at least they had the grace not to be so angrily blatant about it.

When the solution is less important than the ability to use the problem to score political points, we see the Shirky Principle in action.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* Well, fascinating to me, anyhow.

** Making it the legislative equivalent of the Bible or the Koran.

Simplifying the Government

Say what you will about Der Furor (and I have), his reelection in 2024, although it would be an utter catastrophe for the nation and the world by almost any measure, could have one potentially positive result - the most radical simplification of the structure and function of the federal government since 1789.

Conservatives and Libertarians constantly rail about the size and power of the federal government, and it is, indeed, a huge and sprawling organization, as shown in this chart (click to embiggen):

For all his faults (and they are many, legendary, and well-documented), Der Furor's gaseous bloviations offer a vision of a streamlined federal government. Pictured below is a diagram of the updated government led by a resurgent Furor ...

Well, it certainly is a simplified structure, far more satisfying to those who seek a leader who offers simple answers to complicated questions. It would not, however, save any money, because history clearly shows that Der Furor has no problem using the powers of the presidency to enrich himself, his family, and his cronies. This is what's known as an oligarchy, the best current example of which is Russia under Tsar Vladimir I ... a system openly supported by today's GOP.

Have a good day. Think hard about what a government under a malignant and vindictive narcissist would look like and how you'd fare under it before you cast your vote next November*.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* Voting rights not guaranteed in GOP-dominated states.

Rationally Redrawing Voting Districts

Because I prefer to come up with actual ideas rather than just screaming about problems like many others do (yes, GOP, I'm looking at you), I spend a lot of time thinking about how to solve problems. My plans may not be perfect, but at least I'm putting some thought into them, which is more than I can say for the Republican party. For example, I've gone through several iterations of my plan to reform our badly-broken immigration system - you can read the most recent version of the plan here in case you haven't seen it. The latest problem I've been thinking a lot about is how to draw fair, rational, and truly competitive Congressional districts, a process supposedly now underway across the country as districts are redrawn in response to the 2020 Census.

As you know, the Constitution requires a census every ten years* to serve as the basis for apportioning seats in the House of Representatives. As we speak, states are using the 2020 Census data to to redistribute the 435 House seats in response to population changes. Some states gained seats because of population growth (Texas, Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina, and Oregon), others lost seats because of declines in population (California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia), and virtually every state saw changes in the internal distribution of its population, even if it didn't gain or lose enough population to change its total number of representatives.

The Constitution allows each state to determine how it draws the boundaries of its Congressional districts, and because there are no federal standards to govern the process, most states allow the dominant political party to draw the boundaries as it sees fit, generally with an eye to maximum political advantage, in a process that has become known as "gerrymandering." Both of the major US political parties engage in this distasteful practice, although the recent GOP focus on winning races at the state level has given it a marked advantage in the process, resulting in electoral maps that allow Republicans to win seats even when they lose the overall popular vote.

Districts which have been "gerrymandered" for political advantage never result in true representation, as they are designed to create politically "safe" seats, not to represent the actual social and economic interests of the residents. One of the most egregious examples of politically-driven gerrymandering is Maryland's District 3 ...

How would I approach the drawing of truly fair and representative districts? I tried to get the chance earlier this year when I applied to be a member of the Virginia Redistricting Commission. I was not selected (obviously the selection process was rigged), but I had already developed the ideas I would have brought to the table had I had the opportunity. Here are the broad guidelines I would have advocated, using figures for Virginia as an example**:

1. Begin with the census-established population of the state (for Virginia in the 2020 Census, this is 8,631,393).

2. Divide this population figure by the number of Congressional districts determined by the Census (for Virginia, this number is 11). This gives us a nominal population per Congressional district of 784,672.

3. Determine the number of major defined political entities (i.e., counties/parishes or equivalent independent cities) within the state (Virginia has 95 counties and 38 independent cities which are considered county-equivalents for census purposes, for a total of 133).

4. Using the Census data, determine the actual population of each of those major political entities.

5. Divide the number of county/county-equivalents by the number of Congressional districts. In the case of Virginia, this yields a result of 12.1. This would mean that an ideal district would include 12 (we're rounding off, here) counties or county-equivalents.

6. Beginning with the smallest county or county-equivalent, begin aggregating those entities along their legal boundaries with adjacent entities until the population of each of the 11 aggregate Congressional districts comes as close as possible to the nominal population of 784,672. 

7. To ensure that each aggregate district contains - to the greatest extent possible - a population with similar economic and racial makeup, require each incorporated portion to border on at least two others in the same or an immediately adjacent group. This would help to eliminate wildly bizarre, snake-shaped districts designed to achieve political party dominance, rather than representation of shared local economic and social interests.

6. When an existing county or county-equivalent must be subdivided to achieve the required numerical balance, require each division to be made along the established boundaries of the next lower division (i.e., township, borough, defined neighborhood, etc). 

7. Continue aggregating districts in this manner until the population of each new district is as close as possible to the figure derived in Step 2.

I understand that this is not a perfect solution. For one thing, it does not account for federal laws (to the extent they remain viable***) that protect minority representation. Nevertheless, by requiring voting districts to be based on existing legal boundaries, it eliminates deliberate distortions designed to limit the representation and electoral power of minorities. 

Some might argue that the aggregation of less-populated rural areas, which tend to vote Republican, with areas of larger population which might be more liberal, would dilute the representation of conservative voters. I don't think this is especially persuasive, because it would make the new districts more competitive and encourage both liberal and conservative voters to turn out and support their desired candidates. And by relying on existing legal boundaries, it avoids the extreme division-between-houses-within-a-neighborhood gerrymandering we see today.

Given today's hyperpartisan, I'm-right-and-you're-a-communist-go-to-hell environment, it will be extremely difficult to come up with a rational Congressional districting scheme that will satisfy all sides. Nevertheless, I believe my system is as close as we're likely to come. What do you think? Leave a comment with your ideas, and we'll pursue this in future posts.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3.

** The figures for population and number of counties/county equivalents used can be found on the Census Bureau website at https://www.census.gov/library/stories/state-by-state/virginia-population-change-between-census-decade.html.

*** Thank you, Supreme Court.

Of Minimums and Minorities

There are two things that seem to me to be of surpassing importance in looking at our political situation: the fight over the minimum wage, and the specter of minority rule.

The current push to increase the minimum wage from $7.25/hour to $15/hour is understandable, as are the arguments on both sides of the issue. In a capitalist society like ours, profits are the most important thing - every aspect of a business is geared toward maximizing profits while minimizing costs. It's obvious that a business owner focused on minimizing costs would rather pay an employee $7.25/hr rather than $15/hour. In addition to this, the argument is often made that the wage paid should reflect the capabilities required of the worker and the degree of responsibility inherent in the job. As the argument goes, the pay scale of the janitor who sweeps the floor and the CEO who makes multi-million-dollar decisions affecting the whole company need to reflect the reality of their positions in the corporate food chain.  

But it's equally clear that in most localities around the country, a full-time employee earning $7.25/hour simply can't make ends meet. That individual cannot pay the rent on a simple two-bedroom apartment, much less buy food, own a car, pay for medical insurance, take a vacation, etc. So, from the perspective of the worker trying to survive, a higher wage is crucial.

Irresistible force, meet immovable object.

Nobody could seriously argue that the CEO should not be paid more than the janitor. But simple fairness and common sense indicate that the janitor ought to be paid a wage that allows him (or her) to afford to live, not merely survive. The CEO doesn't need three homes on two continents, but the janitor needs to put food on the table, stay healthy, and get the children educated. The issue is one of economic and social fairness, not of pure profit.

The fight over the minimum wage illustrates another ongoing issue, which is the growing specter of minority rule in the United States.

Despite the fact that most progressive policies (a living wage, affordable health care, and a basic social safety net, for example) are wildly popular with large majorities of the working-level population, the conservative senators and representatives those people elect are dead-set against them. How does this make sense?

It's been noted over and over again that the conservative members of Congress as a group represent tens of millions of citizens fewer than their more progressive colleagues, and yet they continue to oppose legislation that is supported by the people they represent. In the Senate, for instance, routine use of the filibuster serves to block legislation that is popular with voters, but is opposed by the monied interests who pay for election campaigns. The conservative tail is wagging the progressive dog, while howling that the progressive dog is failing to be "bipartisan" ... which, in the telling, means failing to roll over and accept the positions of those who advocate positions their constituents do not support.  

This is crazy.

I don't know what the answer is. Well, actually, I do. The answer is for each side to recognize the fundamental interests of the other and cooperate seriously in search of a realistic accommodation. Unfortunately, this requires common sense, compassion, and a willingness to abandon political dogma and the use of simplistic bumper-sticker slogans ("socialism," "death panels," "own the libs," etc) in place of rational thought. Sadly, I don't see that happening any time soon.

I think that if the filibuster is eliminated and more progressive policies are enacted, the voting population will be able to see what works and what doesn't. They will see the difference between government by popular and people-oriented policies and government by fear and the unyielding support of profits over workers.

It's time to give sanity a chance.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Yes, You Can. But Should You?

One of my Mother's favorite maxims was: "Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it."

I think about that a lot lately, usually when the news announces that Donald Trump has done some questionable thing because the president has the authority to (fill in the action du jour). Want to override the advice of intelligence and security professionals and demand that your children get top secret security clearances? The president has the authority to grant security clearances*. Want to launch missiles at (insert country here)? According to the War Powers Resolution, the president has the authority to commit forces without a Constitutionally-mandated Congressional declaration of war**. Want to build a wall that Congress won't support? The president has the authority to bypass Congress by declaring a national emergency***.

It doesn't just apply to Mr Trump, either. Upset at election reform legislation passed by the House of Representatives? Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was able to prevent it from having Senate action because I get to decide what we vote on. Angry because you can't get Congress to do anything? President Obama had a phone and a pen.

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it, as Mom would have said. Or, in the words of Dan Carlin, imagine that power in the hands of someone you hate.

Food for thought, for those of us still thinking nowadays.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* 50 USC §3341 specifies the process for granting security clearances, but as far as I can see it only gives the president the authority to designate agencies to grant clearances. It does not grant the president the power to grant clearances on his own, although this may be considered a derivative of his other powers ... I'm not enough of a legal eagle to decide.

** Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to raise and support an army and to declare war. The last time there was a formal declaration of war was in 1942, when Congress declared war on the Axis allies of Germany, Italy, and Japan.

*** 50USC §1631:  "Declaration of national emergency by Executive order; authority; publication in Federal Register; transmittal to Congress. When the President declares a national emergency, no powers or authorities made available by statute for use in the event of an emergency shall be exercised unless and until the President specifies the provisions of law under which he proposes that he, or other officers will act. Such specification may be made either in the declaration of a national emergency, or by one or more contemporaneous or subsequent Executive orders published in the Federal Register and transmitted to the Congress."

Of Governments and Problems

One of the touchstones of conservative Republican dogma is summed up in the famous quote from Saint Ronald Reagan: “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

Although the full quote, heard in context, was a response to the poor economic conditions of the late 1970's and early 1980's, and Reagan's belief that misguided government policies were responsible for those conditions, only part of his comment is remembered and has been adopted as dogma by the Cut Government/Eliminate Regulations/Slash Taxes Right:

"government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

I think the recent Petulant Trump Shutdown™ of parts of the federal government showed pretty clearly that the government, for good or ill, is an essential part of our lives, and that recklessly closing it down causes vast damage to the nation. Consider that the preamble to the Constitution - the document piously invoked by elected officials who seldom seem to have actually read and comprehended it - states that the Constitution was "ordained and established" to

"...establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty..."

So, how well did the Petulant Trump Shutdown™ align with the intent of the Constitution? Let's see ...

1. "Establish Justice." Federal courts nearly ran out of money. Guards in dangerous federal prisons were forced to work without pay*.  

2. "Insure domestic Tranquility." There was no tranquility for the families of furloughed federal workers, federal workers forced to work without pay, federal contractors (who, unlike federal workers, are unlikely to be paid after the standoff), and millions of business owners whose livelihood depends upon the business provided by government workers.

3. "Provide for the common defence." TSA workers, responsible for securing our air travel against criminal and terroristic threats, were forced to work without pay. Members of the Coast Guard - the men and women who rescue those in danger at sea, and our first line of defense against drugs imported by sea - were forced to work without pay. Border Patrol agents - who defend the Trump Sacred Borders against vast, surging armies of illegal immigrants, drug smugglers, and vicious gangs that drag helpless, duct-taped women across the border and into sex slavery** - were forced to work without pay. FBI agents - who protect us from organized crime, espionage, and terrorism and who are unfairly and stupidly maligned and undercut at every opportunity by Trump and his loyalists and enablers, were forced to work without pay.

4. "Promote the general Welfare." It would be difficult to argue that the "general welfare" was promoted by the Petulant Trump Shutdown™ that cost the nation an estimated $11 billion - of which an estimated $3 billion is irretrievably lost. 

5. "Secure the Blessings of Liberty." I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anything secured by the Petulant Trump Shutdown™ ... except the reputation of an administration stacked with billionaires as being out of touch with the experiences and needs of average Americans.

If the Petulant Trump Shutdown™ proved anything, it proved that government is an essential part of modern America, and that it needs to work and work well. I don't like paying taxes any more than anyone else, but I appreciate that the taxes I pay ensure my air travel is safe, that my food and medicine are wholesome and safe, and that criminals are pursued, arrested, and punished***.

If, in mid-February, we endure a second Petulant Trump Shutdown™, the lesson will be that the problem is not the government, but a childish and incompetent president and his enablers who all need to be replaced by people willing to rise to the challenge of actually governing. One can only hope that Congress ... which has hitherto shown a complete lack of spine ... will rise to the occasion and do its Constitutionally-mandated job.

But I'm not holding my breath, and neither should you.

Have a good day. Expect better. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* "Forced to work without pay" is what we used to call "slavery."

** Just ask Trump. And consider where he may have gotten the story.

*** Unless, of course, they are wealthy and well-connected and able to hire the very best lawyers.

Leadership by Adjective

The Oxford English Dictionary defines leadership as "The action of leading a group of people or an organization; the state or position of being a leader." There are many different types and theories of leadership, among them Laissez-Faire, Autocratic, Leadership by Example, Participative, Transactional, Situational, and Transformational ... you can look up the details of all of them (and many others) on the Internet*. Nowadays, there's a new style of leadership, one that I call Leadership by Adjective, and its primary practitioner is Donald Trump.

When you lead by adjective, as Mr Trump does, you don't set the example and provide guidelines for your people to follow, you simply tell them how wonderful things are going to be. A leader by adjective is a winner, and the results of his leadership will be magnificent, huge, amazing, big-league**, tremendous, and terrific. On the other hand, his political opponents are losers and morons - they're stupid, weak, lightweight, low-energy, and out of control. Evidence is immaterial - what's important is that the adjectives are repeated frequently, loudly, and with total conviction.

Leadership by Adjective is wildly successful because it does not require the followers to think - only to believe. The boss absolutely knows what he's doing, because he says so, and things are going to be great!.

Personally, I think Leadership by Adjective is a despicable con job on a credulous electorate. I believe in six essential rules of leadership I tried to follow over a 23-year career as an Air Force officer:

Treat people as you would want to be treated (it's hard to beat The Golden Rule);

Praise in public, criticize in private (and never criticize on social media);

Listen carefully, and make decisions based on the best advice and information available (facts matter);

Don't ask anything of your people that you wouldn't do yourself;

Be fair; and,

Be loyal to your people*** if you want them to be loyal to you (you need to give it to get it).

How well did I perform as a leader? I like to think I did pretty well but, of course, I'm biased. In any case, though, I think I did a lot better - albeit on a smaller stage - than the current occupant of the White House, whose practice of Leadership by Adjective is widely approved ... and that's pretty depressing.

Have a good day. Forget the adjectives and adverbs ... stick to the verbs. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Here, for instance.

** Or "bigly," as it's usually pronounced.

*** And it helps when you're the president to remember that "your people" means all of the American people ... not just your screaming base.

UPDATE - Here are the latest standings in the Ass Clown of the Year balloting:

1st Place: The GOP Congressional Majority
2nd Place: Hillary Clinton
3rd Place: Donald Trump
4th Place: The Democratic Party
5th Place: Sarah Huckabee Sanders

You still have time to vote - balloting ends at 11:59 PM on December 31st. Let your voice be heard!

B.