So Obama is claiming that HE never authorized a tap on Trump's phone. He failed to say that Trump's phone was never tapped, he just said he didn't do it. Old Harry Truman would not have seen it that way. If any government agency tapped Trump's phone, then Obambi is responsible, at least as long as he was in office. There is a report out on TV saying that the rubber stamp FISA court DID issue a warrant to tap Trump's phone. Nobody has denied that report, yet. If the report is true, then Trump's charge of wiretapping is true. And Obambi is doing a weasel. As usual.
TV is doing a long song and dance about the FISA court and what it can or cannot do, aimed to showing that the court won't do a wiretap on just the president's sayso. Since the court meets in secret, the justices are secret, and the records are secret, it can do anything it wants. And probably has.
Monday, March 6, 2017
Why the Republicans haven't announced a "replace" plan.
It's due out this morning according to the TV. Democrats have been sniping at it, claiming that the Republicans should have a replace plan already.
I'm pretty sure that actually the Republicans have a plan. In fact they must have a dozen plans. Problem is, they cannot get everyone (or even 51%) to agree on WHICH plan they are going to support. Health care is a gravy train for patients, doctors, big pharma, insurance companies, hospitals, medical device makers, ambulance drivers, ambulance chasers, state governments. Health care is 19% of the US GNP, that's a huge amount of money. With that much gravy the spread around, no wonder everyone wants their fair share, and more if they can get it.
To pass anything at all, the Republicans need nearly every single Republican vote. The Republican margin is thin, and in the Senate, a mere three defectors could sink anything. I'm thinking that they won't keep their party in line, or even attract a few Democratic defectors, without president Trump getting behind ONE replace option and pushing it hard. Which he hasn't done yet.
I'm pretty sure that actually the Republicans have a plan. In fact they must have a dozen plans. Problem is, they cannot get everyone (or even 51%) to agree on WHICH plan they are going to support. Health care is a gravy train for patients, doctors, big pharma, insurance companies, hospitals, medical device makers, ambulance drivers, ambulance chasers, state governments. Health care is 19% of the US GNP, that's a huge amount of money. With that much gravy the spread around, no wonder everyone wants their fair share, and more if they can get it.
To pass anything at all, the Republicans need nearly every single Republican vote. The Republican margin is thin, and in the Senate, a mere three defectors could sink anything. I'm thinking that they won't keep their party in line, or even attract a few Democratic defectors, without president Trump getting behind ONE replace option and pushing it hard. Which he hasn't done yet.
Sunday, March 5, 2017
Who knows what a Gryf is?
Good question. The Economist compared the EU to a triceratops, a big, extinct, dinosaur, generally believed to be a plant eater along the lines of the dinosaurian rhinoceros. Only with more horns up front. Then they went on to call for conversion of the triceratops into a gryf.
So what's a gryf? Tarzan, on one of his adventures into darkest unexplored Africa, encountered them, and they looked like triceratops (Tarzan even recognize them as such in the book) but they were ferocious man eaters instead of herbivores. I happened to have read that very Tarzan book as a child. My summer camp library had a copy. The book (Tarzan the Terrible) was published back in the 1920's and I never saw it for sale anywhere. It's like really out of print.
Anyhow, an Economist writer read the long out of print Tarzan book, and thought the Edgar Rice Burroughs fictional monster would make a good simile or metaphor in 2017. Groovy.
So what's a gryf? Tarzan, on one of his adventures into darkest unexplored Africa, encountered them, and they looked like triceratops (Tarzan even recognize them as such in the book) but they were ferocious man eaters instead of herbivores. I happened to have read that very Tarzan book as a child. My summer camp library had a copy. The book (Tarzan the Terrible) was published back in the 1920's and I never saw it for sale anywhere. It's like really out of print.
Anyhow, an Economist writer read the long out of print Tarzan book, and thought the Edgar Rice Burroughs fictional monster would make a good simile or metaphor in 2017. Groovy.
Saturday, March 4, 2017
Drain the Pentagon Procurement Swamp
Disneyland East we used to call it. That humongous five sided office building from WWII times, filled with civilian bureaucrats, who soak up a good slice of the military budget themselves, and spend the rest of it. With a giant 100,000 page set of "procurement regs", containing paragraphs tailored to jack up the price of everything the services buy.
We could save a lot of money, at least 10%, maybe 50% of the cost of military procurement, by burning ALL those procurement regulations. And then fire all the civilian bureaucrats. For a military budget,of some $600 billion, we are talking saving anywhere between $60 billion and $300 billion.
Replace those 100,000 pages of cost jackup regs with just a few simple ones.
1. Always obtain THREE bids for anything, even super high tech weapons systems. If you cannot get three bidders, do without.
2. Never do "cost plus" contracts. Always push for "firm fixed fee" contracts. Settle for "cost plus fixed fee" contracts only when the product is badly needed and you cannot get firm fixed fee contracts..
3. Avoid gold plating the specifications. In all possible cases, procure standard commercial items, using the commercial specifications common to industry. Make the specifications public for review by possible bidders, bloggers, and the press. Make the requirements testable features of the completed product, not directives to use over priced mil-spec parts in manufacture.
4. And on the subjective side, qualify all bidders. For instance on an aircraft contract, clearly Lockheed, Boeing, Northrup, and Grumman, are qualified, they have track records of building aircraft going back to before WWII. Whereas AC/DC Power Supply and Storm Door Company is not qualified, they have never built so much as a toy aircraft, and nobody has ever heard of them. You cannot give a contract to an unqualified bidder, they will be unlikely to actually deliver the product, but they will most certainly, spend all the money.
We could save a lot of money, at least 10%, maybe 50% of the cost of military procurement, by burning ALL those procurement regulations. And then fire all the civilian bureaucrats. For a military budget,of some $600 billion, we are talking saving anywhere between $60 billion and $300 billion.
Replace those 100,000 pages of cost jackup regs with just a few simple ones.
1. Always obtain THREE bids for anything, even super high tech weapons systems. If you cannot get three bidders, do without.
2. Never do "cost plus" contracts. Always push for "firm fixed fee" contracts. Settle for "cost plus fixed fee" contracts only when the product is badly needed and you cannot get firm fixed fee contracts..
3. Avoid gold plating the specifications. In all possible cases, procure standard commercial items, using the commercial specifications common to industry. Make the specifications public for review by possible bidders, bloggers, and the press. Make the requirements testable features of the completed product, not directives to use over priced mil-spec parts in manufacture.
4. And on the subjective side, qualify all bidders. For instance on an aircraft contract, clearly Lockheed, Boeing, Northrup, and Grumman, are qualified, they have track records of building aircraft going back to before WWII. Whereas AC/DC Power Supply and Storm Door Company is not qualified, they have never built so much as a toy aircraft, and nobody has ever heard of them. You cannot give a contract to an unqualified bidder, they will be unlikely to actually deliver the product, but they will most certainly, spend all the money.
Thursday, March 2, 2017
You gotta call 'em something.
You gotta name the enemy before you can fight him effectively. Obambi refused to name them and they took over Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and other places. The Trump administration is calling them radical Islamic terrorists.
Democrats and even some Republicans object that the word Islamist makes Muslims worldwide feel we are persecuting them. Which has some truth to it. But what else to call them? In the past, we called enemies by their ideology (Nazi, Commie, Fascist). Far as I can see, this enemy's ideology IS Islam and so calling them Islamic is fair enough.
I suppose we could call them Jehadis. Except that word doesn't carry enough juice to be a biting epithet. Using acronyms, ISIS, ISIL, AQAG, also doesn't seem to cut it. Using their own names like Al Quaeda suffers when they stop using the name themselves.
Perhaps we could call them scumbagies?
Democrats and even some Republicans object that the word Islamist makes Muslims worldwide feel we are persecuting them. Which has some truth to it. But what else to call them? In the past, we called enemies by their ideology (Nazi, Commie, Fascist). Far as I can see, this enemy's ideology IS Islam and so calling them Islamic is fair enough.
I suppose we could call them Jehadis. Except that word doesn't carry enough juice to be a biting epithet. Using acronyms, ISIS, ISIL, AQAG, also doesn't seem to cut it. Using their own names like Al Quaeda suffers when they stop using the name themselves.
Perhaps we could call them scumbagies?
Jeff Sessions schmoozing with the Russians??
The New York Times, a sleezy rag that's been spreading disinformation for 70 years that I know of, quotes an unnamed Justice Dept official the the effect that Jeff Session had two contacts with the Russian ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak. Sessions has denied the reports. The TV newsies are going full bore with this story, this morning's Fox News has talked about little else today.
I got some questions. 1. When did these alleged contacts occur? 2. What's wrong with a US Senator talking to anybody, including the Russians? 3. Sessions was a US Senator until very recently. How does a Justice Dept official know anything about what a Senator is/was doing? 4. Who is this mysterious Justice Dept official that the Times hangs the story on? 5. Are there any other sources? Named or anonymous? 6. Sessions has a pretty good rep for honesty, why should I not believe him over an unnamed source?
I got some questions. 1. When did these alleged contacts occur? 2. What's wrong with a US Senator talking to anybody, including the Russians? 3. Sessions was a US Senator until very recently. How does a Justice Dept official know anything about what a Senator is/was doing? 4. Who is this mysterious Justice Dept official that the Times hangs the story on? 5. Are there any other sources? Named or anonymous? 6. Sessions has a pretty good rep for honesty, why should I not believe him over an unnamed source?
Wednesday, March 1, 2017
Can we cut the State Department?
Good question. State has 13000 employees. It has missions in 172 countries. That's 75 employees per country. While 75 employees might be reasonable for a major county like Russia, it is overkill for minor countries like Luxembourg, or Bermuda.
In the 21st century, State has two missions that make sense to me. First to gather intelligence. There is a lotta useful stuff we can pick up by just reading the local newspapers. Like who is who in their government, and in the government's opposition. What are the important industries and businesses? And who runs them? How does the general population feel about things? Geography, good maps are important, and they remain useful for years. During WWII North African operations relied on maps made by the US marines fighting the Barbary pirates of old. All this stuff is important, and gathering it and filing it, is legal.
Second is to give aid and succor to US citizens abroad. Lost or stolen passports, arrest by local authorities, kidnappings, and Lord knows what else. As a mid to lower class American, I like to hope that if I get into trouble in a foreign land I can call on the US consul or ambassador for help.
And, in this day and age of air travel and world wide instantaneous communications, heavy duty international negotiations are handled out of Washington DC, not by US ambassadors abroad. In fact president Eisenhower created the National Security Counsel to bypass a State Department that he considered inefficient, and infiltrated by communist agents like Alger Hiss.
So, if we allowed 20 state department employees per country, that yields a headcount of 5120, a helova lot less than the 13000 bodies they have warming chairs today. If we figure each state department bureaucrat costs $100K a year, than laying off 7840 of 'em would save $784 million a year. That's not quite real money in DC speak, but it's still a useful piece of change.
In the 21st century, State has two missions that make sense to me. First to gather intelligence. There is a lotta useful stuff we can pick up by just reading the local newspapers. Like who is who in their government, and in the government's opposition. What are the important industries and businesses? And who runs them? How does the general population feel about things? Geography, good maps are important, and they remain useful for years. During WWII North African operations relied on maps made by the US marines fighting the Barbary pirates of old. All this stuff is important, and gathering it and filing it, is legal.
Second is to give aid and succor to US citizens abroad. Lost or stolen passports, arrest by local authorities, kidnappings, and Lord knows what else. As a mid to lower class American, I like to hope that if I get into trouble in a foreign land I can call on the US consul or ambassador for help.
And, in this day and age of air travel and world wide instantaneous communications, heavy duty international negotiations are handled out of Washington DC, not by US ambassadors abroad. In fact president Eisenhower created the National Security Counsel to bypass a State Department that he considered inefficient, and infiltrated by communist agents like Alger Hiss.
So, if we allowed 20 state department employees per country, that yields a headcount of 5120, a helova lot less than the 13000 bodies they have warming chairs today. If we figure each state department bureaucrat costs $100K a year, than laying off 7840 of 'em would save $784 million a year. That's not quite real money in DC speak, but it's still a useful piece of change.
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