Like a Case of Arson.

There are three political/legal issues swirling about us these days that strike me as being somewhat interconnected.  Federal Judges in Hawaii and Maryland have blocked President Trump’s travel vetting policies from being implemented; that will move forward another space or two next week.  Senate and House Committees, and apparently the FBI, are looking to see if the Trump Campaign colluded with the Russians to defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential race.  And finally, Senate and House Committees are trying to determine if President Trump’s tweet accusation about being “wiretapped” by Obama has any legs.  I believe I detect a common approach by the media and the Democrats to all three stories; and that approach is very similar to an arson investigation.

In any arson case, the primary concern for all concerned is to deal with the smoke and the fire and to put out the blaze in an effort to limit the damage.  Once that is accomplished, then the ashes and remains are sifted in an effort to determine the cause.  Was it organically spontaneous or was it arson?  In the three stories aforementioned, the fire is still burning. 

In the travel vetting episode, it has become pretty clear that the lifetime appointment autonomy enjoyed by Federal Judges has emboldened these two black-robed individuals to elevate their personal political philosophies to an equal or greater plane as their judicial standards.  Piecing together the stories that have been released on this matter, it seems very likely that Obama-holdover persons in the intelligence community have put together a wholly unofficial “report”, leaked that report to the mainstream media and the two Judges in question, and given them phantom bullets to put in their legal guns in an attempt to foil a new and different Trump policy initiative.  You do not have to be a lawyer to be bemused by the opinions rendered by the Judges when they stopped the implementation of the Trump initiative.  I have never before seen legal reasoning that cited campaign statements, leaked and unofficial intelligence reports, and sheer personal political opinion used to adjudicate an issue that clearly has national security implications.  This matter has taken partisan politics to a level heretofore unseen.

I remain convinced that given a choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump for U.S. President, the Russians would select Hillary Clinton every time.  When you consider the infamous red reset button that Hillary presented to the Russians, the way Obama turned his head the other way when Russia invaded its neighbors to the southwest, the way SOS Clinton assisted the Russians in cornering the uranium market, the way that Obama invited the Russians back into the Middle East party and then left the affair’s arrangements in their hands, and the basic weak-kneed and spineless approach that Obama took to all US/Russia relations; why in the world would the Russians want to change the rules of a game that was going so much in their favor?  Based on the lack of evidence that has been so desperately sought for months on end, one can reasonably conclude that the Russians were simply interested in meddling in anything US and anything cyber, rather than trying to accomplish the nigh-impossible feat of actually influencing the US Presidential election.  Simply because Hillary and the DNC’s lax cyber-security allowed their files to be hacked while the Republicans were able to rebuff such intrusions, are we to assume that only Hillary and the DNC were targeted?  I think not. 

Don’t miss the next post!  Follow on Twitter @centerlineright.  If you enjoy the blog, pass it on to your friends.

And finally, is it so outrageous to think that President Trump would have his campaign organization and Administration spied upon by the Obama Administration?  Can anyone with a straight face submit that the ethical purity of the Obama folks was of such magnitude that they were above using the intelligence resources available to them to help insure the continuance of the policies that they had worked so hard on for eight years?  Remember; these are the same Obama people who politically weaponized the Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service, wiretapped the phones of foreign leaders (are you listening, Angela?), had their Attorney General meet with Hillary’s husband while she was under active investigation,  and maintained a literal river of strategic leaks to the mainstream media over their eight-year tenure.  If you want to be a wordsmith and adjust your standards to literal words and their meanings (a first for the Obama Administration and the mainstream media); then President Trump’s wiretap tweet was, in fact, flat out wrong. On the other hand,  if you apply a reasonable, common sense interpretation to Trump’s tweet, the clear meaning is that he is accusing the Obama Administration, with the expressed approval of Obama himself, of surveilling the operations of his campaign and new Administration during the time period pre-election through inauguration, by utilizing the intelligence resources available to them.  When you consider the Executive Action taken by Obama just days before his White House departure that dramatically broadened the accessibility to sensitive intelligence, it is hard not be believe that any subsequent improper (and perhaps illegal) leaks to the mainstream media were anticipated and, most likely, intentional.  For Obama and his ilk, it seems very poor (and inadvisable) form to be hurling dense objects from within the fragile structure that they inhabit.  I have said before that absolute power corrupts absolutely; and the Obama Administration at its close was tripping on the closest thing to absolute Executive Power corruption that I have seen in my lifetime.  There is every reason to believe that they would do everything…everything…in their power to preserve their self-formed legacy; looking at YOU, Ms. Farkas.

Now here is the tie-in back to the arson deal.  As things stand right now, the mainstream media and the Democrats are consumed with the process, not the fundamental concerns, of all three matters.   The Federal Judges want to talk about Muslim discrimination and splitting families apart; as opposed to constitutional law and authorities.  The Democrats want to talk about the meetings between Russians and Trump representatives; conveniently omitting any perspective about Clinton or Obama meetings of a similar nature.  Regarding Obama Administration possible spying on Trump folks, Congressman Schiff has his undergarments in a sufficient wad as to prevent his wife (or whoever does his laundry) from ever doing a thorough cleansing on them again.  In all three cases, all of the attention is being placed on the smoke and the fire and the heat; but that will soon pass.  Very soon, the fire will die down to embers, the smoke will dissipate, and the heat will become tolerable.  Once that occurs, attention will properly turn to hard facts, truth, and evidence.  It is a fool’s errand to predict political game outcomes in today’s partisan environment, but do not be surprised if the law does not overturn the Federal Judges and the Trump travel vetting policy is implemented.  Do not be surprised if there is no evidence found to support any type of election collusion between Russia and the Trump Campaign; that whole notion simply makes no sense.  And most critically...Do not be surprised if the mainstream media is put to the extreme test of trying to paper over one of the most serious abuses of Executive Power we have ever witnessed; that being the improper (illegal?) surveillance of an opposition political party and a duly-elected President, with a bare-knuckled and a sucker punch approach to partisan politics labeled “winning at all costs”.

The Restoration of Our Government.

I am amused by the Democrat’s and other Trump Denialist’s reactions to the Republican’s failure to pass their American Health Care Act (AHCA) House legislation.  To me, a good analogy is a basketball team ridiculing their opponent for missing a breakaway dunk…even when the opponent is up twenty with two minutes left in the game.  Has the composition of Congress (that being the House and the Senate) changed since Friday, the 24^th of March?  Has the date for the next mid-term election been moved up or is it still scheduled for the fall of 2018?  Is Donald Trump still the President of the United States?  I believe the clear answers to these questions will lead one to conclude that even though the initial Republican effort to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act (ACA) failed in a rather public and pathetic fashion, there is ample opportunity and likelihood that a more reasoned Republican effort will be executed well before the fall of 2018.  The more pertinent question that begs answering is what, if anything, have our Legislators learned from this exercise?  Let us consider a few things that we might hope have become a bit more apparent.

As I have written before, the single biggest error committed by Obama was his and his party’s insistence on passing the ACA on a strict party-line vote using extraordinary legislative chicanery.  It poisoned the political well for his entire eight-year term.  Had the Republican’s AHCA legislation passed, it would have done so in the exact fashion that the ACA was brought screaming and fighting into this world; on a party-line vote using extraordinary legislative chicanery.  To me and many other voters who reluctantly chose Trump over Clinton and helped to put Republican majorities in Congress, one of the first orders of business should have been to restore the regular order of business. 

Instead, Senators placed themselves in the middle of House debates; debate and amendments were limited in the name of expediency; terms like binary choices were bandied about; facile efforts were made to include Democrats (in spite of their recalcitrant attitudes) in the legislative mark-up; the President was inserted into the process in a premature way that diminishes the true role of Congress; and a 3-step strategy was developed that would make Solomon throw up his hands in frustration.  The Republican-controlled House of Representatives, with the blessing of our President, started down the same treacherous path as the Democrats; apparently secure in their self-image as an all-seeing, all-knowing, entity with all the damn answers.  Apparently, they prescribe to the same philosophy as their Democratic predecessors…the end justifies the means.  What is in the water in WDC that makes these people leave their senses back home in the handful of counties where their constituents reside?  Do they not understand there is established procedure and regular order for our Congress and the best way to good government is conducting business based on that regular order?  It has now become standard fare for our Congress to reverse engineer legislation.  A small handful of individuals in positions of power and authority decide what the end product should be and then the process is rigged to arrive at that predetermined conclusion.  Instead of bi-partisan legislation and organic law-making, we are witnessing bi-partisan subversion of Congressional function.

Instead of the proper House Committees and Sub-Committees authoring legislation in a deliberate and thoughtful manner based on debate, hearings, and (God Forbid!!) an open and honest exchange of ideas and principles; we are presented with the Just Say No Democrats, the Tuesday Group Republicans, the Freedom Caucus Republicans, and who knows what other organized group of legislators running their own little games and agendas on the sidelines.  Folks…there is a blueprint for exactly how the House of Representatives should operate.  I am not an expert, but I doubt that part of that blueprint is worrying about how the Senate Parliamentarian will or will not rule on a particular Senate bill.  The House is where the tea is brewed; the Senate is where it is sent to cool.  The House needs to get down to some serious brewing.

And when did we get to the point where the main consideration in the legislative process is a spinning game with the media?  Must everything first be leaked or floated or in some way presented in the media before it can be tackled by actual Representatives in the true context of the legislative process?  These men and women were selected by the people in their respective districts to work and use their best judgment to pass legislation that will best serve them and, in a broader sense, our nation.  Steve Bannon, the Koch Brothers, George Soros, and all the other PACs and influence-peddlers be damned; our legislators need to make their laws using regular order and then, once the process is completed, defend themselves to the people who elected them.  Can we find some intestinal fortitude?

Obama began retreating to the (ab)use of the Executive Order when he became frustrated with the legislative processes of the House and Senate; even when his own party was in control.  His frustration was understandable; but his over-reliance on executive actions did serious and long-term damage to our nation, our government, and the ability of our national political parties to coordinate in any reasonable fashion.  If the Republicans in the House cannot get their act together quickly, it is entirely likely that President Trump will allow that same frustration felt by his predecessor to drive him towards governance by executive action.  And whether you agree with his policies or not, that move would simply worsen the crisis our government finds itself in today.  President Trump’s potential abuse of executive power would be no less improper than was Obama’s.  Somehow, someway…someone has to restore some degree of statesmanship to our Congress. 

That someone must be President Trump and the Republican leadership in Congress.  They alone can do this because they are operating from a position of power with their majorities and can fall back to power politics if their invitation falls on deaf ears; they can afford to be magnanimous. They must restore regular order to their operations.  They must make a sincere and reasonable invitation to their fellow Democratic legislators to join in that regular order.  Once that legitimate entreaty is made and if the Democrats as a Party refuse to participate in a meaningful way, then (and only then) the Republicans should use the regular order of the House and the Senate and the Chief Executive to pass party-line legislation that makes sense for this country.  Our nation needs a smaller government, a more efficient and effective government, and a more open and transparent government; but it needs to be done the right way…not necessarily the fast way.  Congress needs to get down to business, forget about their re-election prospects, ignore the media meddling and heavy breathing, follow the established rules of order that are in place, and do the work of the people.  Republicans: Act like winners and reach out to your fellow Democrat legislators for their legitimate input.  Do not run roughshod over the minority.  Instead, make extraordinary efforts to include their ideas in the final product.  Democrats: Accept your President and the fact that the voters have put the Republicans in charge (at least temporarily) of this government; seek your opportunities to participate in the process and do so in a meaningful and constructive fashion.

For all of the things that Donald Trump is or isn’t, I believe it has become apparent that he views (in the main) political negotiations as true compromise.  For all of his partisan instincts that occasionally rear their ugly little heads, his business background has ingrained in him the reality that you never get everything you want the way you want it; the art of the deal is give and take.  The real world of corporate America has taught him this and it is part and parcel of his approach.  This makes him different than recent past presidents.  Judging from the way he has handled the AHCA process thus far, he appears to be sincerely ready to compromise on the final package in order to get something done.  Democrats need to recognize this trait in our President, recognize that he has some innate moderate-to-liberal instincts,  and work with him; not only on health care, but on all the other necessary legislation that should be addressed.  

Why Comedy Ain't Too Damn Funny Anymore.

Why Comedy Ain’t Too Damned Funny Anymore.  Stand-up comedy, television satire, cutting edge theater, comedic movies…they just don’t generate the laughs they once did.  Why is that?  Have we lost our sense of humor?  Are the comedians, actors, writers and directors less talented?  It simply cannot be the fact that there is insufficient material out there because we are definitely living in the most ridiculous times ever.  Maybe…just maybe…the comedians have become too offensive and we, the audience, have become too sensitive.

Good comedy has always been somewhat offensive.  “Offending” was a way to break down walls, to chip away at taboos, and to help us all take ourselves (and the world around us) a bit less seriously.  There has always been, and there will always be, those in comedy and satire that push too hard and cross the line between satire/sarcasm/editorialism and basic human decency.  You might even make the case that a certain amount of this “poor taste humor” is necessary so that we can recognize, in real terms, exactly where the line is.  But at some point in the last few years (I think it was somewhere in the Bush 43 Administration) the cutting edge of comedy took a dark turn.  Up to that point, offense was used as tool to be funny.  We now seem to be in a place where funny is used to create offense. 

It is also a fact that as a group, we have all become more polarized and opinionated about life in general and this has naturally spilled over into the realm of comedy.  I find that when I now partake of commercial comedy, I look for a balance between targeting conservatism and targeting liberalism.  If after some time I do not perceive this balance, I tend to turn away from the subject comedy and brand them for future purposes as biased.  Now you tell me…who in heck ever used the term biased to describe comedy twenty-five years ago?  It’s one thing to judge comedy as unfunny, crude, too graphic, or even over-the-line insensitive; but have we reached the point where we demand that our comedy be fair and balanced?  I think we have.

Our citizenry is so divided that comedians have given up on trying to be funny to the population in general.  They seem to have accepted Lincoln’s and Lydgate’s thoughts that they can’t please all of the people all of the time, so…they choose which audience they want to entertain and use the others for ridicule.   This comedic strategy has a mean streak to it and has served to further the divide between segments of our people.   SNL, for all intents and purposes, is today an extension of the Democratic Party specifically and Liberalism in general.  That is not how the show started off years ago.  Now I am sympathetic for the plight of those in the comedy industry.  Trying to come up with material that would be equally humorous to Rush Limbaugh and Elizabeth Warren would seem nigh on impossible.  One can understand why a person producing comedy for a living would simply make a business decision about which segment will purchase the most product and then cater to that segment.  If that assumption is correct on my part, Democrats are a damn sight funnier than Republicans.

Not sure how it can, or will, be accomplished, but we need to get most of our comedy back to the middle; back to a centerline where funny cuts both ways politically.  Where satire doesn’t feel like a sharp knife in the gut, people are not cruelly ridiculed for the way they choose to live their lives, one group doesn’t laugh at the other group out of malice, and we can all rediscover the very healthy therapy of laughing at ourselves.

NCAA Men's Basketball and the Legislative Process.

NCAA Men’s Basketball and the Legislative Process.  If the Christmas Season is the Time to be Jolly, NCAA March Madness is the Time to be Crazy!  The NCAA’s men’s basketball championship tournament somehow brings out the best and the worst of America’s rabid basketball fan base.  Now I am a simple man; stoic to a fault.  But believe it or not, I can see a similarity to the evolution of the NCAA Tournament administration and the current state of Congress.  Bear with me and try to follow this disjointed, meandering post about that analogy.

Basketball first.  As a proper disclaimer, I will admit to being a large University of Kentucky basketball fan; loyal and excitable, but not rabid to the point of bleeding blue.  That being said…One of the most fascinating and popular topics for argument and debate during this time of year is the selection and seeding of the NCAA Tournament teams by the NCAA Selection Committee.  This Committee, composed of ten college Athletic Directors from across the nation, determines exactly which teams will participate in the annual NCAA Tournament, who they will play, and where they will play.  Now this group of AD’s is an esteemed bunch; well respected and well-meaning in their attempt to structure a fair and balanced basketball championship contest.  My problem is not so much with the people, but with the process.  Let’s be honest; they could put 68 teams in hat, pull out the teams and fill out the brackets at random, and still have a tremendous tournament and show.  College basketball is exciting and there will always be the Cinderella stories and the Davey vs. Goliath match-ups.  It is equally inevitable that there will be some teams who do not get in the tournament that should be in, and some will be in that should be left out.  There will also be certain inequities that occur due to seeding and bracket construction.  Despite the Committee’s best efforts, this will happen.  Therefore the goal is not to eliminate any trace of unfairness from the process, but rather to limit that unfairness to the smallest degree possible.

Now here comes the analogy.  Any legislative product that flows from our government will be not be perfect; there will always be winners and there will always be losers with any particular piece of legislation.  The goal is to limit that balance so that the prevailing effect is clearly in the people’s best interest.  Maybe it’s just me, but it seems that in the last couple of decades, the legislative winners just keep on winning and the legislative losers just keep on losing.  The rich get richer; the poor get poorer.  The wealthy are a more effective lobby for their cause because they have so many assets to influence the process.  It is a vicious cycle where the powerful control the process and thus perpetuate their preferred status.

A similar situation exists in college basketball.  The Power Five conferences have an inordinate amount of influence on the NCAA and how it conducts business.  Mind-boggling media contracts have further cemented the Power Five group’s strangle hold on college athletics.  The two best examples of this paradigm shift are the SEC in football and the ACC in basketball.   If the bulk of a conference’s teams are pre-season ranked in the top 25, the season becomes a self-perpetuating cycle of that particular conference’s advantage over others.  Based on these early polls, any loss to a conference opponent becomes a good loss and any win becomes a signature win.  Have a good season in your conference, play .500 ball outside of the conference, and you’ll be taken care of in the post season.  It really makes it rough if are not a member of the Power Five club, but it is the way it is.  I’ll give this to the basketball boys:  At least they decide it on the field of play (court).  The football folks still maintain their championship as largely a product of polls and opinions; but that was the topic of a prior post.  The preseason polls…well that can be fixed.  Just eliminate preseason and early season polls.  Let the first polls come out a few weeks into the season so that the initial rankings are based on performance and not on expectations.  This would go a long ways towards helping to eliminate that built-in scheduling advantage of the Power Five conferences and help to ease their strangle hold on those precious NCAA Tournament seeds.  It would also lend more credibility to poll-driven metrics such as SOS and RPI.

Now you’re wondering…What does the NCAA Tournament have to do with Legislation.  Just this: Any decision that is made, be it Congressional or by the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, is made up of two components.  One component is the judgment of the entity members and the other is some form of metric; a clearly definable fact(s) or measure(s).  In both cases, Congress and NCAA, I submit that the judgment component has become far too large in proportion to the metric component.  And any time we begin to rely on judgment over reality, we increase the risk of bias and poor decisions.  Now any process must have a human factor because all things are not binary; but that human component should be limited.  Defending one’s opinion is far more difficult than reviewing a won/lost record, or a SOS rating, or rich/poor statistics, or the simple process of budgetary constraint, or cost/benefit analysis.  For instance, if the NCAA’s goal is 75 percent metric and 25 percent judgment, we are currently way out of joint.  The same can be said for the legislative process; too much opinion and political agenda goes into the lawmaking system.  Our Senators and Representatives are no more genius than are the NCAA Selection Committee members.  In both cases, we need good people of high integrity and good judgment; but their roles need to be limited by the process.  Humans are fallible and the first step towards a good system is a frank acknowledgment of that fallibility.  I fear that Congress and the NCAA Tournament Committees have lost their grip on their own fallibilities.  They both need to revise their processes down to a proper balance between metrics and opinions.  Oh, and by the way…Go Cats!!!

Riders on the Storm.

Riders on the Storm.   I haven’t put up a blog in quite a while; honestly, I do not know what to say about this world we live in.  Every day brings a new high level of stupidity, absurdity, shallowness, idiocy, and simple chaos.  I turn on Mike and Mike and get Oscars Discussion.  I turn on the Oscars and get Trump Politics.  I turn on Trump and I get…not real sure what I am getting there.  Is there no one who sticks to their area of expertise anymore?   Is it necessary to include political and partisan commentary in every single aspect of our waking hours?  Does anybody really know what time it is?  Does anybody really care?

As evidenced by the most recent developments in the Trump/Russia escapade and the Obama/Wiretapping escapade, President Trump and the Mainstream Media simply cannot restrain themselves from engaging in a maelstrom of anonymous sources, unfounded accusations, outrageous displays of hypocrisy, and general infantile behavior.  Why can’t we have a media entity that simply reports the facts and names their sources (Andrew C. McCarthy acknowledged; the man is laser-straight)?  Can we have a television channel where the opinion-giver is clearly separated from the fact-presenter?  Can we have a world where sports reporters report on sports, news reporters report the news facts, political pundits acknowledge what they are, and celebrities once again inhabit this planet and have a clear understanding of exactly how they obtained their claims to fame?  There are many George Clooney and Meryl Streep movies I enjoy; they are great actors.  I can even enjoy their personal reflections, within limits….and as long as they are on a flat screen and I have a remote in my hand.  I don’t ask my banker to fix my sore foot.  I don’t ask my mechanic how to treat my sick heifer.  I don’t go to my County Ag Agent for retirement or financial advice.  I don’t watch a TV show to be told how to live my life.  I don’t listen to music to be lectured to about my social responsibilities and shortcomings.  And, as unfortunate as it is, I now do not listen to the President or Congress to find out about what is happening in government; because…they obviously do not have a clue.  And what about the mainstream media?  Well, what can you expect when chaos reports or comments on chaos?  Chaos begets chaos and bias begets bias and corruption begets corruption. 

As for President Trump…would someone on the White House staff or in his inner circle please take away his tweets?  The reality TV star shtick was fun for a while and he skillfully managed it into acquiring quite a political prize.  But acquiring the Presidency and executing the Presidency are two entirely different things.  Now that you are The Man, Donald…put away the playthings and get serious.  Your comments like “health care is complicated” are ridiculous on their face.  No one said anything about the Presidency being an easy job.  Obama has already tried coasting through eight years and we know how that worked out.  Get on the job, get over to Capitol Hill, demonstrate some leadership, and pull the Republican Party together.  MOVE on health care reform. MOVE on tax reform.  MOVE on immigration reform.  MOVE on an infrastructure bill.  MOVE on shrinking government and making it more efficient.  MOVE on getting conservative judges in the Federal Court System.  Are we to accept that the Republican leadership in Congress can only address one big issue at a time?  Can we not allow the Congressional Committee System to function as it should so that all of these issues could be addressed simultaneously on parallel tracks?  I realize we as voters have placed some clunkers in Congress over the lasts few elections; but surely that can walk and chew gum at the same time. 

The Republicans are assured of two years to operate as the controlling legislative entity in this government.  Every day the clock on that two years is ticking and every time the President allows the media to pull him into these childish games is another day of lost opportunity to create some positive, fundamental change in how this country operates.  Mr. President…no matter how provoked or entitled you feel about it, stop the histrionics.  Grow some callous on that paper-thin skin of yours and keep your eye on the prize.  This is not about you, Donald; this about stopping the descent into liberal lunacy.  This is about the outrage and limits of patience that a mass of voters expressed last November.  This is not about your ratings (or the Terminator’s ratings) on the Apprentice; it is about serious and responsible administration of our nation’s business. 

Two months out of twenty-four is over eight percent.  That is how much time has been expended towards the possibilities that had so many folks excited last election day.  Every month that goes by is another four percent.  The clock is ticking and if nothing gets done, who do you think wins?  Riders on the Storm was one of the greatest hits from Morrison and the Doors.  It is eerily tragic that in some ways, our society is beginning to emulate his dark and manic life.  Are we all just…riders on the storm?