As the title of this entry says - You can't make this shit up! We have an admiral in charge of US Navy intelligence who has not been able to see military secrets for years. Politics and institutional inertia has made it impossible to replace someone in his position, as a replacement must be confirmed by the Senate ....And the GOP isn't approving any of Obama's nominees these days.
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I'm a person who says that the larger the organization, the more inefficient it becomes. There are positions that must be filled - not because the person does that much real work, but is there to be nominally in charge of things. In short, this position is the interface between the political side of the organization and the side that is responsible for the day to day operation of the organization.
In the case of the Admiral mentioned in the article, he is under suspicion because of a corruption investigation involving a foreign defense contractor and Navy personnel. The Navy had to suspend his access to classified material, but no one would expect that he wouldn't be cleared or indicted over two years later. So the Navy has had to have a Kafkaesque situation of having this man perform the administrative responsibilities of his job, but have subordinates and colleagues perform ALL the tasks requiring classified information.
Given that we have deadlock between the Executive and Legislative branches of government, there is virtually no chance that we could get a replacement nominated by the President and approved by the Senate in today's toxic environment. So, we have a situation where politics is getting in the way of the Navy doing its job in keeping this country safe.
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What could we do to prevent situations like this from happening? First, we could have a process developed where certain backup personnel would already be nominated and approved in advance to take over these responsibility while the person nominally in charge is indisposed. We already have a constitutional amendment which provides for the temporary disability of a president, and who is in power and able to act when he or she is unable to perform his or her duties. Why not do the same thing for many of these critical positions?
This doesn't address the underlying problem - Political Gridlock. We are electing leaders in the Executive and Legislative branches who check and balance each others' actions. We are afraid of either party doing anything, so we do not let them do anything. Neither political party is trustworthy. The success of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in the 2016 POTUS election cycle is a reflection of the public's disgust for the two political parties who promise the world to their bases, but do not deliver anything - except to the plutocrats who fund their political campaigns.
How can we change this situation? To me, people have to stop "drinking the toxic Kool-Aid." When Ted Cruz's father, Raphael, says that Obamacare is a plot to bring ISIS terrorists over to the US as Doctors, why aren't the GOP loyalists shouting this lunatic down? (One could have had many of the same criticisms of leftist extremists, but they have been mostly muted and ignored by the press during this election cycle.) That's because the political elite in the party no longer have much power to keep things in line. They gave a seat at the table to extremists, and the extremists have since been allowed to bully everyone into submission.
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We have to stop giving the Wingnuts power, and force both political parties to again represent the center. When only one party represents the political center, we run a major risk that our political system will fail totally. It happened in Central Europe in the 1930's. Can we risk having it happen here?
I have no problems with "Honest Conservatives". People like William Buckley more than had my respect. Their views were well thought out, and yet, were flexible enough to reflect the realities of the current day. But most important, people like Buckley had a certain form of integrity - unlike today's crop of wingnut politicians.
Early in this campaign, I felt like Carly Fiorina had a good chance of being in the top tier of GOP politicians running for president. She was not the kind of person I'd have wanted in charge of our country, because if she were to run this country like the business she once ran, we'd have thrown her out of office in the middle of her term.
Recently, I had the misfortune of hearing about Fiorina's latest gaffe. Children who were touring an Iowa Botanical Garden as part of a class tour made it into the background of Fiorina's anti-abortion event. Although the first amendment to the US Constitution protects speech, who protects the children from being used as political pawns? Their parents did not authorize the use of their children's images in Fiorina's political event. Who was looking out for the children?
If I felt that Fiorina had some qualifications to be president before, I have none now. She has no respect for anyone but herself. She does not make sure that she has the right to use others for her own purposes - and when she uses children without permission, she crosses over an ethical line as well of one of taste....
Thankfully, at the time I wrote this, Trump is in the GOP lead and not Fiorina....
Bernie Sanders - the "Independent" senator from Vermont who caucuses with the Democrats. The big question for many is - Is his candidacy for real, or is he, like Elizabeth Warren from the sides, trying to pull Hillary Clinton to the left?
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There is one key element in play that benefits both Sanders and the Democratic party. By running on the Democratic ticket, he prevents a three way race (GOP Wingnut, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders as an independent) that would give the presidency to the GOP. Since Bernie plays nice with the Democrats (look at his debates with Hillary for example), the Democrats are more than happy to let him play in their sandbox. Even if he loses to Hillary, he has done his job - keeping the Democratic contender for the office of the president from going too far to the right to win votes.
However, Bernie's candidacy throws a monkey wrench into the expected coronation of Hillary Clinton as the Democratic Party's candidate. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is an avowed Hillary supporter, and has gamed the Democratic Party debate schedule to prevent Bernie from getting name recognition. And yet, he may just yet win both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. Can you imagine if Hillary is doomed to lose before the real campaign starts?
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As I see it, the important differences between Hillary's platform and Bernie's platform focuses on two areas: Regulation of the Banking Industry and Healthcare. Hillary has said that Wall Street needs greater regulation, but falls short of a restoration of Glass-Steagall. She is also pragmatic, and says that any attempt to change the healthcare system, Obamacare, with a Republican congress might make things worse. On the other hand Bernie says that restoring Glass-Steagall and Medicare for All is absolutely needed.
Bernie has yet to issue a detailed plan on how America can afford "Medicare for All", but his logic does make sense. A recent estimate from people unconnected with Bernie's campaign estimates that the average family savings under his plan would roughly be between $500-$1,800/year. Given the GOP and its willingness to repeal Obamacare, does Bernie really think that he could implement his plan?
However, I think that the reregulation of Wall Street is possible, as even the wingnuts of the GOP right wing hate the banking industry. But could Bernie unite enough people to dislodge some of Wall Street's corrupting influence on Washington politics? I'm not so sure of this.
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In the past, I have noted that both Sanders' and Trump's candidacies have been propelled by the same fuel - the ruling elite of both parties has betrayed the public, and that public is mad as hell and won't take it any more. At this point of time, I still predict a November election with Trump and Sanders being their parties' candidates. And it will be very interesting.
But the big question is - Does Bernie have a real chance to win? And if so, will the Democrats (other than Debbie Wasserman Schultz) try to scuttle him before he wins too many delegates?
In fairness, I shouldn't have chosen this unflattering picture of Chris Christie. But his personality is so ugly, that I felt I needed to show the man in a harsh light.
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I'll start off by saying a good thing about this candidate - he does have a good position on drug addiction, The man believes in treatment and not prisons. There is some good that one can say about the man - especially after seeing this video. (Note: This link points to an article containing the video clip.) Unfortunately, the man is willing to sacrifice the interests of his own state, flip flopping his own positions to further his political ambition and that includes the medical care these addicts need, while placing the blame elsewhere.
That alone should be enough to disqualify him from higher office. But Bridgegate shows that the man's style encouraged a group of staffers to exact political vengeance on a a small time politician (and his town), causing interstate traffic to grind to a halt, and possibly causing a person to die because the ambulance couldn't get the person to the hospital quick enough due to the traffic jam. If Christie knew of this beforehand, he is guilty of misuse of power to further his political goals. And if he didn't know of this, he is an incompetent manager who is not fit to run this country.
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Sadly, people like Christie because of his "angry" style. I say, look beyond the style, and you'll see something disgusting inside - and very scary.....
When I first planned to write this week's entry, my original topic choice was Saudi Arabia's decision to cut diplomatic ties with Iran following riots sparked by the Saudi execution of a Shiite cleric. (This may be covered in a future entry.) While reading the Sunday newspaper, a better topic came to mind: the economics of dismantling part of the US Military-Industrial complex.
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In a recent NY Times opinion page article, the author discusses how the Death Star may have been a project that was too big to fail, and how the rebellion may not have been well received because of the economic chaos that ensued after its destruction. Given how much of our economy depends on the military to keep it afloat, do we suffer from the same problem that the fictional galactic empire may have suffered with?
Let's say that we use a reported figure of $718,000,000,000 for current US Military spending and attempt to cut that in half, and spend $359,000,000,000 on domestic projects such as rebuilding our roads, providing health care, educating people and shoring up Social Security. What would happen if the budget were cut quickly, without a proper transition?
First, what would happen to the displaced top secret technology workers? How would they find employment? What fields would they work in? This is not a spurious question. The US had to address this concern at the end of the Cold War. Yet, our "defense" spending is higher than ever. The USSR had even greater problems, as it lost the Cold War and had no plan to reintegrate the displaced workers into a civilian economy. In fact, the "West" was more than willing to pay displaced Soviet scientists NOT to sell their services to a rogue country. Can you imagine what costs would exist for transitioning some of these workers to the civilian economy?
Next, America operates in a much more transparent economic environment than most countries. How would we use the newly freed funds? (Approximately $1,200 per US Citizen.) In theory, that could pay much of the cost for giving every citizen subsidized health insurance. But that money would be just as needed for education, infrastructure renewal, etc.... How would the funds be divided? And if an equitable division could be arranged, then where would we get the new, trained, skilled workers? It might make sense to do a gradual transition, if only to train the workers we need in the fields we plan to staff with new workers.
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We must preserve our old skill sets. Although we do not need to build new B-52 bombers, they must be maintained. (Note: Planned replacements for these old workhorses have been built, but still do not have the ruggedness of this "ancient" plane. We may actually need to build replacements, albeit fitted with modern technology at some point in the future.) But, how do we preserve the skills to make nuclear weapons? What about germ and chemical warfare? We can't afford to be blind sided by some rogue state that decides to use these weapons - we must know how to deploy them and to defend ourselves against them. Moving forward is a bitch. But forgetting the lessons of our past is even worse. It saddened me when many Americans looked at China's putting a man in space as old news - a "been there, done that" attitude. They are doing it with NEW technology. We have forgotten how to do it with OLD technology. And the workers who built that technology for us are dying off without proper replacements....
So we need to keep part of the Military-Industrial complex in place, no matter what peace advocates want. The only to have peace (and I cite Sun Tsu) is to be prepared for war well enough so that others will avoid battle with you. How might this peace be obtained?
First, we need to get the Military-Industrial complex into making civilian goods again. Instead of making limited use "Mil-Spec" electronics, they should develop trusted civilian sources for ruggedized technology - and use that for new military uses. Instead of using 30 year old chip design, make sure that backward compatible design (with both hardware and software) be incorporated into all Military electronics, so that upgrades can be cost effective. However, this is only one area of improvement. We must resist the idea of over designing products. Yes, we want to keep our troops safe. But are $350,000,000 fighter jets the answer, when cheaper solutions can be found? Why should fighter jets be all-purpose? There is no good reason that the Air Force and Navy must have compatible jets - they just need to have as many interchangeable "off the shelf" parts as humanly possible, so that customization for each service can be done as cheaply as possible.
Next, we must provide for the threats of the 21st century. And many of them will be electronic. We need to protect our businesses from foreign hacking, and we do a piss poor job of that. Luckily, our businesses do a better job (from what I can tell) protecting themselves than our government does. Heck, when North Korea has the implicit protection/cooperation of China to hack our systems, then we have problems. (See: Bureau 121 - Shenyang China.) What is our government doing to protect us? Not that much - it is focused on keeping the old military technology alive. If we are to make this transition, we also need to provide more profitable opportunities for businesses in the Military-Industrial complex, and this is an area that will help American civilians and the profits of the Military-Industrial complex.
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Hopefully, whoever we elect on Election Day 2016 will be wise enough to see this opportunity to make America strong again. We no longer need to be "Great". But we do need to take care of our own needs as a society, and not just the needs of one sector of that society....
I have never been a fan of Hillary Clinton. She is and always will be a Machiavel, but this is not a bad characteristic for someone running for the office of president. Instead, it is a potential risk if she wins the election, because one can't be sure of what will guide her when in office - save for self interest.
Strong leaders tend to be Machiavels to some degree or another. One has to be enough of a psychopath (no moral judgement here) to sacrifice one group of supporters for a "greater good" - and Hillary has proven herself capable of doing that. But she has a habit of snatching defeat out of the claws of victory, by underrating the power of her opposition. When her husband was president, she couldn't get healthcare reform done. Like her husband, she was a lightning rod for the opposition's political lightning strikes. And in the 2008 election cycle, she underrated Barack Obama - to her regret.
She is a very intelligent lady, and is very pragmatic. Yet, she put her foot in her mouth by agitating for a "no fly zone" in Syria. ISIS has no air force. So who does this affect? Russia! Can we afford to antagonize the Russians when we have a common enemy? Why shouldn't we let the Russians look like the bad guys - even if it means that we sacrifice our rebel friends to keep the Syrian government nominally in power?
Much noise has been made by the GOP about her use of private email servers. But government officials from the GOP have done the same thing. Given the data security breaches in Federal Government computer systems, it is likely that her private server may have been more secure than the government servers she was expected to use. (It is also possible that her private servers may have been "Honey Pots" designed to feed false information to people spying on her.) Bernie Sanders is likely right - this is a non issue.
There is something not generally reported in the press - she has a soft, human side that people don't often see on the political trail. She likely hides it because of the double standard imposed on women - if she is soft, she is weak. And if she is hard, she still can't be as imposing as a male. In short, she is not allowed to be herself - no matter how qualified she is for office.
So the big question is: Is Hillary Clinton qualified to be president? She hasn't done anything important enough to disqualify herself. But has she developed enough skills to steer this country? Or, is she the only logical choice left, given the non-logic coming from the opposition? Only time will tell....
A dog with good taste! He shows this candidate the respect he truly deserves.
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If Trump is someone we could compare with Hitler, then Cruz would be a more dangerous version of Mussolini. Cruz has said that he would Carpet Bomb ISIS - and then demonstrated his lack of sensitivity to the rules of war which prohibit attacking civilian targets.
The animosity shown towards us in much of the Islamic world has been caused by our actions over the past 60 years. Cruz even has the gall to state that the Middle East is a safer place than before our "War on Terror." This does not jibe with objective reality. How many people remember the role the USA played in overthrowing a democratically elected government in Iran, and our actions, such as the Second Gulf War, that destabilized much of the Middle East? Can we afford to have a bellicose, bombastic, bullshit artist running America? I doubt it very much.
Right now, Cruz is making sure NOT to publicly cause Trump any problems. For the most part, Cruz is laying low, hoping to scoop up Trump's followers if Trump crashes and burns out. For the most part, Cruz is playing the role of "Trump Lite". But given Trump's statements in regard to the Middle East, does this bode well? I doubt it. Recently, a retired 3 star general hinted at "Mass Resignations" if Trump were elected. I'm pretty sure the same would happen if Cruz were elected. This retired general went on to say:
“...The American military studies these kinds of things. They know the moral and the values implications associated with these kind of decisions. They will attempt to persuade their leaders the right approaches to take and the various options available. But they won’t do things illegally or immorally.”
In the past, I wouldn't believe this general, having been tainted by the reporting of the Vietnam War. However, I have more faith in our military than I had 30-40 years ago, and I feel that many of our top military leaders would rather resign than allow America to make the mistakes Germany made in the 1930's-40's. But would enough resign (as a vote of "No Confidence") to make a difference, if a leader like Cruz was to be elected? I'm not sure, and I don't want to take the chance.
If I don't feel that even the military would be comfortable following Cruz as a leader, he is likely unfit to serve as President of this country. Hopefully, most Americans will feel the same way in both the GOP primaries and on Election Day....
