Update no.889

Update from the Sunland

No.889

14.1.19 – 20.1.19

Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

            To all,

            Sunday night’s eclipse of the super, blood, Wolf Moon proved marginally interesting in Arizona, due to a thin layer of high cirrus clouds.  Bummer!  It was still worth watching.  Our next opportunity for a similar astronomical event will not occur until 2021.  Hopefully for that future event, the atmospheric conditions will be better.

            The follow-up news items:

-- An interesting opinion article sparked a recurrent topic of discussion.

“Women Don’t Belong in Combat Units—The military is watering down fitness standards because most female recruits can’t meet them.”

by Heather Mac Donald

Wall Street Journal

Updated: Jan. 16, 2019; 1:38 p.m. ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/women-dont-belong-in-combat-units-11547411638

Twenty years ago, I wrote an essay on this topic, titled: “The Limits of Gender Integration” (25.8.1998):

http://www.parlier.com/essay-1.html - gender

The concerns expressed in my original essay remain valid; however, please note my 2015 amendment. I have been off-duty too long now to know exactly how female integration is going.  If, as MacDonald claims, the military is being forced by political leaders to “water down” performance requirements to accommodate women, I will agree with her.  Lowering requirements is not the answer.  Equality is equality, full stop!  Military requirements and performance must be based solely upon the needs of the service and the job description—not any one or combination of the social factors—as long as the individual can perform the common tasks associated with any particular assignment.  Women deserve to be treated equally with deference but not preference or bias.

-- On Monday, search teams in Indonesia finally located and recovered the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) from the crash of Lion Air Flight 610 (LN610) crashed shortly after takeoff from Jakarta [878; 29.10.2018].  I have been reluctant to write about this accident, since it involved a brand new Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft with just 800 hours in service and conflicting information about the event.  While the CVR will not provide answers, it is a very important element to hopefully correlate the flight crews concerns and interaction with the flight data from the FDR.  Early indications suggest the crew was fighting an errant automation feature that the flight crew was not trained to recognize or deal with in flight.  The seriousness of this accident for Boeing for a host of reasons cannot be overstated.  We need to pay attention to this one more so than other aircraft accidents.

-- The postponed Brexit vote in the House of Commons to comply with the popular referendum vote [758] was finally held on Tuesday. Commons rejected the government’s arrangement with the European Union and plan for withdrawal by a substantial margin—202 to 432.  Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn immediately called for a no-confidence vote that occurred the following day.  Prime Minister May held on and survived that vote—325 to 306—although not by a reassuring margin.  What all this means for the orderliness of Great Britain separation from the EU is uncertain?  The prevailing opinion seems to be the withdrawal will occur on Friday, 29.March.2019—plan or not. All I know is a event like Brexit would be better with a plan, any plan, rather than no plan.  At this stage, we can only hope this is not injurious to Great Britain, to Europe, and to the World economy.  Now, we all hold our breath.

-- The on-going, macho-male nonsense precipitated and sustained by the BIC [884] reached new levels of ridiculousness.  He already holds the historic record for the longest federal government shutdown, and he is going for more.  He held a Saturday afternoon national television broadcast from the White House to “offer” a “compromise” of a temporary reprieve for DACA individuals for permanent funding for his vaunted wall. Frankly, the BIC’s offer is a slap in the face.  The Speaker of the House summarily rejected the BIC’s lame “offer” . . . and rightly so.  If binding arbitration was a workable solution, I would say, end the hostage crisis created by the BIC and enter binding arbitration to yield comprehensive immigration reform. It is far too much to expect the infamous Senate Majority Leader to lay down his mantle of tribal chieftain to put the House funding bills [887] to a vote in the Senate.  Nope, staying true to his tribal loyalty over his patriotic, national loyalty, the Senate Majority Leader intends to present a version of the BIC’s wanker proposal to force a rejection vote in the House.  The BIC has no interest in a solution, only something he can call a win to feed his grotesquely inflated ego and narcissism. He persists in this facing-face position above all else.

            Watching the Senate confirmation hearings for William Pelham Barr to be Attorney General, I was left with one stark impression—the monumental difference in tone, demeanor and content of the Barr hearing versus the Kavanaugh hearing.  Wow!  He deserves appropriate credit for his efforts to assuage our concerns that the BIC sought an unwaveringly loyal lapdog to protect him, rather than a defender of the law. He was unequivocal in his statements of independence and commitment to the Constitution and the law.  While I have serious concerns about Barr’s view of nearly unbounded executive power in the position of the Office of the President of the United States, I believe he should be confirmed for the position of Attorney General.

            Comments and contributions from Update no.888:

Comment to the Blog:

“Understand that ‘winning’ requires an opponent or some type of conflict.  That shapes King Baby’s every thought.

“I have seen an announcement from a neighboring county that SNAP benefits will not be disbursed for February due to the shutdown.  I have yet to verify this disaster.  Hunger is a national issue. Border security is a red herring.  Study real figures about our nation’s immigration in this century.  There’s no need to change how we deal with it and no benefit at all to the ‘physical barrier’ approach.

“We know that King Baby takes no responsibility for his actions.  (I’ll say again that King Baby probably has an insanity defense available.)  That leaves Mitch McConnell with the responsibility for not stopping the shutdown and the circus more generally. Pence could probably do at least a little more as well.

“Good luck to your English contributor on getting U.S. cooperation on their trade woes.  At this point, the U.S. cooperates with none of our erstwhile allies.”

My response to the Blog:

            Yeah, regrettably, this has turned into a macho-thing for the BIC; his self-image is paramount to him.  And yet, no matter how this crisis ultimately ends, the BIC will self-proclaim himself the solo victor—the nature of the beast.

            I do not agree that border security is a red herring.  I certainly understand your prioritization of hunger over border security, but that does not mean border security is not a valid issue.  Perhaps you are implying that we have never had border security, so why worry about it now?  IMHO, FWIW, border security (immigration control) is a proper issue; the BIC’s vaunted wall is NOT; the BIC’s wall is neither border security nor immigration control.  Further, the traditional Republican position of border security first, and then they would consider immigration reform, is as wrong as the BIC’s wall. Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are NOT the authorities WRT border security or immigration reform; but, those talking heads are clearly who he listens to in such matters.  What the Republicans fail to recognize or acknowledge is comprehensive immigration reform is border security—not some damnable border wall.

            Absolutely, of course the BIC takes no responsibility for his actions, for one reason and one reason alone—he is omniscient and thus he is never, ever wrong.  So, when something fails, by definition, it must be someone else’s fault; it is impossible to be his responsibility.  Insanity defense . . . not that far out.  Now, McConnell and Pence are impotent, since a solution would look bad for the BIC; he did not get his cookie.

            Yeah, the BIC has made sure to alienate our friends, and embrace and bend over for our adversaries (the other dictators) . . . makes sense to him (and no one else).

 . . . my response to round two:

            On a grander scale, I agree with you. For the most part, immigrants (even illegal immigrants) want to be in this country, want to make a contribution, and work hard to do just that.  Unfortunately, there are bad men among those entering this country, which is the fact that begs control of those who enter our country for any reason.

            There is an interesting PBS series that just recently opened—The Dictator’s Playbook.  So far, the program is a very impressive piece of work in the illumination of common traits among many dictators—almost a clarion call.

            Yes, the BIC is not that sophisticated. While, to my knowledge, he has not yet ordered his opponents imprisoned and killed, he has exhibited many of the common traits already.  After all, in his own business dealings (however shady), he was the dictator of his company for most of his adult life.  There is no reason whatsoever for us to expect a narcissistic, megalomaniac (before & after) to adapt to the rigors of public office.

            The BIC is literally holding nearly a million innocent federal employees hostage as the only fulcrum he has left to get his desperately desired wall.  He created this situation, more than once refusing to accept yes for an answer.  His macho-male, I-always-win intransigence makes backing down impossible; he has unilaterally removed constructive compromise from the toolkit.  The Democrats, after repeatedly reaching bipartisan deals only to be rejected by the BIC, must not give an inch to the BIC’s foolish position for a myriad of reasons.  The only solution I can see is for the adults in Congress to pass overwhelmingly bipartisan legislation and override the BIC’s threatened veto; Congress must take the BIC out of the equation.  Unfortunately, McConnell would have to grow a set of balls he has never had, and at his age, will be unlikely to change.

 . . . Round three:

“We already controlled our border before all this noise began, and the evidence shows we did a good job.  Not perfect, but good.  Your phrase ‘bad men’ always annoys me because it's vague and fearful.  Who could you mean in this instance?  Drug dealers?  Human smugglers/traffickers?  Terrorists?  People brought drugs in and they still do, but they rarely walk through the places a fence or wall would go.  The drugs come via parcel post, by air and water, in tunnels and through checkpoints in trucks or baggage.  Those who smuggle people use trucks, mostly.  Terrorists, such as they are, either lived here in the beginning or came by air.  We don't need real improvements over what we did two years ago.

“Unfortunately, the border security ‘issue’ has also become a macho test of dominance for the Democratic Party.  It makes sense to me to treat King Baby as I would a real baby.  Let him throw his fit, give him his binky, and throw it away when he's asleep or throwing another fit about something else.  If there's any shred of justice left in the United States, he won't be President all that long anyhow.”

 . . . my response to round three:

            “Good job”?  So people entering this Grand Republic illegally, without permission, or violating their visa limitations is simply acceptable collateral consequence?  Further, not being able to identify those who are in the country illegally is further failure of our immigration control process.  Porous borders of any kind (land, sea or air) are never good or acceptable.

            “Bad men,” in my mind, are Salvadoran MS-13 gang members, violent criminals, well actually criminals of any category, class or type.  I’m not as deeply concerned about drug smugglers, as I see it as predominately a self-inflicted wound, like Prohibition—we created the criminal subculture.  We could largely eliminate drug smuggling overnight by legalizing and regulating the psychotropic substance business from production to consumption.  However, my tolerance terminates if smugglers resort to violence.

            Your reference to illegal entry via ports of entry is appropriate, which is precisely why we need defensive measures in depth from external ports of embarkation to every state, country, city and village in this Grand Republic.  A defense in depth process is the only system that has any chance of working.  Short of that, complacency, tolerance and myopia are an abdication of our sovereignty, which I cannot support.

            I see the Democrat response to the BIC as an unfortunately necessary political response to make an emphatic statement regarding the BIC’s petulant, temperamental, misty (non-substantive) behavior as exceeding the boundaries of acceptable or even tolerable behavior. This is one instance that the time of compromise has past; the BIC has summarily and cavalierly rejected multiple bipartisan efforts to find compromise.  At the bottom line, he cannot be rewarded for his tantrums and mercurial conduct.

            My suspicion is growing that the Special Counsel report may well be far more damning of the BIC’s conduct than anyone (other than him) ever imagined, and may well list multiple indictable felonious offenses at the federal and state level.  The smoke is simply getting far too thick and the heat too intense. Guiliani’s performance last night was shocking.  Now, he’s trying to separate the BIC from his campaign, as if the BIC is ignorant and totally separate from his campaign.  Quite frankly, it is quite like Captain Francesco Schettino and the SS Costa Concordia; the captain is responsible for all actions or inactions. Schettino was convicted and imprisoned.  I suspect the BIC will be as well.  No one is above the law.

 . . . Round four:

“The borders were not porous in the first place.  Not that people were screened perfectly, but they were screened well.  Don't tell me your fears; show me how we had actually failed in a significant number of places and ways.  We might want to follow up on visa overstays if we can find damage to our country from people who do that.

“I also expect the Mueller investigation and others to yield ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ that will force a legal and political response likely to rescind whatever damage King Baby does with his distractions.  The centrist Democrats egged on by their owner/donors, would prefer a showy confrontation with the crazy guy to a serious examination of such issues as climate change, income inequality, and corporate corruption.”

 . . . my response to round four:

            So, if I read the implication of your words correctly, no individuals—man, woman or child—crossed the land border illegally. Correct?  No one walks across the border.  They only enter illegally through ports of entry?  . . . presumably because of some failure by border agents?

            For the sake of this debate, I do not care whether there is one twit of damage due to an illegal immigrant.  Arguably, this Grand Republic has not been an open country since the 1920s, or if I took a more strict interpretation, since 1819. This is not about what damage potential immigrants do, it is all about their potential contributions. Foreign migrants who choose to enter to pick lettuce should be encouraged to do so with proper controls and regulations; in fact, we need those migrants.  To suggest there is no cost associated with illegal immigration is myopic at best.  I do not open my home to any ol’ Joe who might want to enjoy the warmth & comfort; I only invite those I know and trust.  I do not see this issue as any different.   Your words imply that you feel we need no border security or immigration control . . . just let everyone in who wants to come here.  If so, let’s take this position to the extreme . . . what if all 8 billion living human beings want to come here to enjoy our benefits?  Can or should we accept them all?

            I’m not sure I fully comprehend your “a showy confrontation” statement.  What are you suggesting here?

 . . . Round five:

“At no time did I specify that our border controls had reached perfection.  That's ridiculous, and I suspect you know that.  I stated that we did well enough that immigrants are a net benefit to our nation.  That is, they do more good than harm.  You may not care one whit (or twit) about that, but I do.  It matters a great deal to me that our national resources and attention have a laser-like focus on a non-issue.  What a waste!

“The Clinton Democrats, who still control the party, prefer to focus on Trump rather than address the troubles facing Americans.  Why is that?  They get their money from corporations, most of which would make less profit if those troubles were addressed.  Hence the uncompromising theater over the ridiculous wall.  Only the Green Party and Rand Paul are trying to get our attention turned to real issues.”

 . . . my response to round five:

            In the prior message, you said, “The borders were not porous in the first place.”  To my understanding of the English language, that means there were no unauthorized penetrations, i.e, no porosity.  My contention is, the land border with Mexico has been and remains porous.  Given the pressures on our southern land border, porous is not acceptable.

            “well enough” suggests an acceptable threshold of tolerance.  If so, what is that threshold—one, a thousand, a million, a billion, where is the acceptable level of illegal immigration?

            “do more good than harm” also suggests a threshold.  So, taken to an obvious demarcation, when the equation turns negative, do we start to do something aggressive about border control?

            While the Emma Lazarus sonnet implies unbounded welcome, that ideal cannot be our practical guidance and policy.  We cannot possibly absorb the world’s “wretched refuse.”  Great and worthy ideal . . . but impossible general policy.

            I do share your assessment in that I have rejected the reckless spending of Republicans and Democrats; they are both guilty in the extreme.  Consistent with that, spending US$25B on a massive, 30-foot wall on our southern borders is quite like the BIC’s tax cut—unnecessary, extraordinarily wasteful, political stunt, and otherwise ridiculous.  My only point in arguing this issue is balance. There is little doubt in my little pea-brain that a substantial physical barrier is warranted, necessary and appropriate in specific places.  Unfortunately, none of us have seen a plan or even a proposal beyond “I want my wall” as to what that barrier will entail and exactly what it will cost to build and maintain.  Further, in direct opposition to the Republican mantra, I am against spending precious taxpayer funds on an “I want my wall” basis.  Physical barriers where appropriate must—MUST—be part of comprehensive immigration reform to include defense in depth measures, tracking of legal and illegal immigrants/migrants/visitors, and most importantly a workable, positive control, guest worker program. Spending Treasury funds to satisfy the BIC’s “I want my wall” is just as bad and non-productive as giving the tempestuous toddler the candy he demands.  At this stage, the paramount villain in this tragedy is Mitch McConnell for his abdication of his constitutional responsibility to the petulant BIC.  Shortly behind him are the spineless Republicans who are too afraid of the BIC’s wrath and their own re-election to override the BIC’s imply veto and end his dreadful hostage situation.  Regrettably, 800,000 innocent federal employees are caught in the middle.  I can’t imagine what might happen if this carries on into the spring and the appropriations legislation work-up period for FY2020 funding.  Sooner or later, the pain will force sufficient Republicans to smack down the petulant BIC and return us to a stable condition.

            Needless to say, I do not share your assessment of the Democrats.  While I find agreement with the Green Party and Rand Paul, I cannot subscribe to the positions of either.

 . . . Round six:

“Let's not be silly.  Your insistence on an either/or definition of border security has no basis in reality.  Again, study the situation as it is and as it has been for about the past five years.  The ‘equation’ has trended to improvement ever since the turn of the century; why are you talking about it getting worse?

“I stand on my statement about the Democrats.  Federal Election Commission reports correlate with their actions; the rest of the discussion is marketing.”

 . . . my response to round six:

            I’ve gone back and re-read my words. What on God’s little green Earth gave you the impression I was espousing the BIC’s all-or-nothing stance? First, allow me to be clear, there is no such thing as perfect security.  Where there is a will there is a way always prevails. The best we will ever do is provide time and depth to our security processes.  We have never achieved an acceptable level of illegal immigration, IMHO.  Yes, illegal immigration has improved; it is not today as bad as it once was, but even at today’s levels, it is still not acceptable . . . at least to me.

            I accept your position . . . even though I do not agree with you.

Another contribution:

“All good here, yes the vote comes tomorrow, I don’t believe there is a single soul in the U/K who knows which way it will go.  Many say the behaviour of our MPs in the discussions leading up to this vote has been substandard and of an irresponsible personal perspective.  Well we shall see tomorrow-of course if the PM loses the opposition are craving for a General Election which they will more than likely loose.”

My reply:

            I saw yesterday’s vote, and today’s for that matter.  The fallout has only just begun.  Your tragedy added upon our continuing and prolonged tragedy is not good for anyone.  What do you think will be the path forward for HMG now that the government’s deal was rejected?

            My very best wishes to all.  Take care of yourselves and each other.

Cheers,

Cap                        :-)