Up For Debate

     If your rights are up for debate, they're not being recognized as inalieneable; the debaters do not think those rights are inherent.

     In Tennessee, there's a bill under consideration that would deny children in this country illegally the right to a public education.  ICE is conducting operations based on the notion that anyone in the country illegally is not entitled to due process of law -- and that they can"illegalize" anyone in the country on a student visa or "green card" simply by claiming they pose a threat to public safety or national security (or if they are found to have engaged in criminal activity or fraud).  Laws and Executive Orders in multiple states have barred adults changing the sex or gender marker on their ID -- and this applies not just to they/them boogeypersons with unusually-colored hair but to people like the late computer scientist Lynn Conway and electronic music pioneer Wendy Carlos.  Bear in mind that "Real ID" driver's licenses and State ID cards require this information, and you'll soon need one just to board a passenger flight.

     All of these are examples of people whose rights are being debated -- not just in public forums but in legislatures and governmental executive offices, and while it is problematic in and of itself, if the rights of some group are questioned, the rights of everyone are under question, too.

     Within my lifetime, a single woman had difficulty opening a bank account, getting a credit card or buying a house; a married woman had to have her husband's consent, even to open an account solely in her own name.  Within the lifetimes of my grandmothers, women could not vote.

     When the rights of one subset of people are up for grabs, everyone's rights can be.  Maybe you believe you're safe.  Maybe you are -- but you'd be a lot safer if your inalienable rights were genuinely protected from the grubby paws of partisan politicians, stirring up division in search of power, and the only way that works is if those rights apply to everyone -- whitebread types happy near the statistical mean, weirdos, freaks, foreigners and criminals, even people who didn't vote for the same politicians you chose.

Gone Too Soon

     Henry Petroski, the unofficial poet laureate of engineering, left us in 2023, leaving the world considerably better off from his many books -- and considerably poorer by his absence.

     A wonderful writer, witty and accessible, he gave detailed attention to many of the things most of us take for granted, from pencils to paperclips to bookshelves to bridges, and explained why they worked and who made them work.  I am sorry not to have noted his passing when it happened.  Have a look at his books.  You won't regret it.

Beans And Rice

     Most of the people I know do not like beans and rice-based meals nearly as much as I do.  For me, it's comfort food.

     For most of my early adult life, I didn't make much money -- but I had the advantage of only working forty hours a week.  If you're low on money, you can still eat well if you have time to cook, though it took me a couple of years to figure that out.  Dried beans and rice are cheap, filling and take time to make.  If you've got more to spend, you add more stuff -- fresh vegetables, meat and so on.  If money's tight, dry spices are inexpensive and store well.

     So beans and rice means I'm doing okay.  A little money, a little free time.  During the stretch when I was working two full-time jobs, I ate fast food, cheap ramen, hot dogs -- and splurged on peanut butter and jelly or bacon and eggs occasionally.  When my wages have outrun inflation, which has happened a few times, though it never lasts, I eat better, but money-saving habits persist.  I freeze leftovers, try to plan meals to fit what's already in the fridge or on the shelf.  And I'm never without a little "just in case" stock of rice and beans.

Playing Their Game

     Outrage -- reaction.  Shock -- reaction.  Blow past limits -- reaction.

     That's the game.  Every day, a new bad thing -- or three, or four.  Even ostensible errors work for them.  And anyone invested in norms, in stability, in lawful, orderly liberty is left off-balance, struggling to keep up.

     I could write about one of the most recent, a harebrained scheme to essentially flash-migrate the Social Security Administration's vast codebase (and the database it manipulates) off ancient, crusty COBOL and the machines it runs on over to something newer, sleeker and supposedly better, but I don't know if I can share just how big a nightmare it is, especially since DOGE code kiddies have already demonstrated hat they don''t even begin to understand COBOL and all the tricks and cruft it takes to make it work.  Informed speculation claims they're going to use AI to get it done -- you know, the same AI that still can't get the right number of fingers on pictures of people.

     But it's only one shock among many, and that is the point: shock and awe.  Blitzkrieg.  Storm in, tear stuff up high, wide and mighty, leave it screwed up until people don't think it it will ever work again, then patch together some cheapjack mess that kind of runs and claim to have saved the day -- though we're nowhere near the "slap up a crappy replacement and play for applause" stage yet, and there's always the risk the trick won't actually work.

     And through it all, attention, attention, attention.  The newsies say the President's name hundreds of times a day, all the nations of the world watch to see where his (and his staff's) whim will fall next, a planned tariff there, a proposed annexation elsewhere....  It'll make your head spin, and it's supposed to.  It's supposed to keep you so off guard you don't notice rights and freedoms ebbing away -- people are grabbed off the street by masked law enforcement, held without recourse to counsel, jailed without trial.  Law firms are being made to bend the knee to the Executive Branch, officials dismissed without following Congressionally-required procedures, and everywhere, the heavy hand of authoritarianism is descending.

     This isn't the America I learned about in Civics class.  And it's not like we weren't warned.

It Couldn't Be Real

     Surely it was "black propaganda" video (alternative) worthy of a modern-day Sefton Delmer: Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem warning people to not enter the U. S. illegally -- which is okay-fine, that's part of her remit -- in front of an El Salvadoran jail cell crowded shoulder-to-shoulder with shaven-headed, shirtless men, presumably deportees.  That part is shocking.  It's a real "are we the good guys?" moment, especially considering these people did not get due process.  Hey, if they're criminals, charge 'em, run 'em through the courts, and if found guilty, make 'em serve their time (etc.).  If they sneaked in, deport them back to where they came from.  But indefinite jail time without trial, in a prison outside U. S. jurisdiction? That's not how civilized countries enforce their laws.

     Here's the thing: if the men in the video are deportees, they were shipped out under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which applies in times of war, and there are international standards for persons so imprisoned.  Among other restrictions, you don't get to use 'em as photo-op props.  If they're not deportees, they're just random El Salvadoran prisoners being used as props, a horrifying breach of civilized norms.

     This is Stalinesque stuff.  And it is for real.  Secretary Noem appears to be proud of it.  You can be for tough border control and enforcement without playing footsie with crimes against humanity, but this Administration doesn't care.  They're running up a bill we will all have to pay.  Maybe it'll be a punchline in 65 years.  Maybe not.

     Update: There are claims going around that this is a keyed-in background, that she's in front of a "green screen."  AP has raw video and nope, she's there and so are they.

Onward!

     All this excitement from Washington, DC and we're only 64 days in.  Three years and a little under ten months to go.  The only way through it is forward.

     I keep thinking about the story my mother told, of when she was in the hospital delivering me or my brother.  Back then, they still had wards, rows of beds with heavy curtains that could be drawn between them for a bare minimum of privacy.  Sound still traveled.  Somewhere in the maternity ward, a young woman was beginning labor with her husband beside the bed, alternating between complaining bitterly to him, "You did this to me!  You!" and sobbing.  Yes and no; they did it together, and presumably the result was around for a long, long time.

     And now here we are.

I Suppose I Should Comment

     The thing is, when top Federal intelligence and defense officials plan international military action:

A. Using their personal cellphones and not the secure means and methods OPSEC and general good practice require, and which Uncle Sam provides them at considerable effort and expense;

B. Via an inherently insecure commercial service;

C. In plain, clear language;

D. Having somehow inadvertently added a journalist to the group;

E. While one of the other members of the group is apparently in Moscow (and not the one in Idaho);

and

F. The Speaker of the House all but laughs it off as a little peccadillo, an oopsie that they'll learn from;

and

G. The President and his closest advisor do much the same;

     I got nothin'.  It's Amateur Hour and the grand prize is everybody's future.  This is an Executive Branch filled with thugs, nitwits, religious and pseudo-scientific kooks, racists and rigid ideologues.  Their incompetence may be their least appalling shortcoming.

     It will be a wonder if this bunch manages to avoid stumbling into another pandemic, a global depression, a world war or something unexpectedly worse.  They have already done irreparable harm to U.S. military and commercial alliances, our Defense industry and the useful functions of the Federal government.  There are 588 days until the midterms, 1,323 days until the next Presidental election and until then, we have got to get by with an Executive Branch that is not simply embracing a radically different political philosophy but is actively bad at their jobs; a largely supine Legislative Branch that only might toughen up after the 2026 elections, and a Judicial Branch with willing enablers larded through it from bottom to top.

     I'd like to have a clever comment.  I really would.  But all I can think is that there's nowhere to go when (or, with enormous good luck, only if) these clowns screw up even worse.  At least Casey Jones's fireman could judge the right moment to leap off the locomotive; at least the crew of a shot-up B-24 over WW II Europe could try to get out and parachute down.

Report Card Due

     The next set of U.S. GDP numbers will be released in a few days.  On March 27th, the Bureau of Economic Analysis will look back at 2024 and the numbers for the fourth quarter of that year.

     A month later, at the end of April, the earliest look at GDP for the first quarter of 2025 will be released.  This doesn't quite provide an apples-to-apples comparison, but it'll be numbers that can be held up side-by side.  There is one caveat: the Trump Administration plans to remove the kinds of government spending that are normally included in the formula, and I'm not sure if that's happening for the numbers to be released this month or if it will be introduced in April.

     It has never included some of the biggest chunks of "government money" -- transfer payments like Social Security don't go into the math.  But the government spending is not small; The U. S. went from -9.3% growth in four years under Herbert Hoover to +10.1% in twelve years under Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the huge bump comes from 1941 - 43: WW II spending.

     So we'll see what comes out, and what the pundits think it might mean.  BEA is filled with exactly the kinds of math, statistics and economist geeks you'd hope it would be, and they love to share their numbers.  There will be plenty to look at.

     (Speaking of GDP and industry, how many of you have read of Samuel Slater?  Oh, we all learned about Eli Whitney, who turned cotton -- and, somewhat inadvertently, slavery -- into an industry, but once you have the fiber, it's still got to be spun, and it was Slater who got the U. S. into the business of spinning on an industrial scale and helped fill New England with mills.)

"Lady? Wake Up, Willya?"

     Last night, I slept badly.  Fell asleep with the TV muttering to itself, woke up to find it was busy Voyaging To The Bottom Of The Sea (did you know there was a real flying submarine?) and both cats had colonized me.  I shut it off, dozed off but kept waking up.

     When the alarm went off at six, I fed both cats, as contractually required (just ask 'em -- they've got a strong union!) and laid back down.  I was absolutely out until ten, when Huck decided I'd slept long enough -- he climbed on my shoulder and batted at my face until I woke up, nose to nose with with a concerned tomcat.  When the cat thinks you're sleeping too much, you probably are.

Will They? Won't They?

     Coming along at the tail end of the Baby Bloom is colossally bad timing.  Oh, it could have been worse; my parents were born within a couple of years of 1929's "Black Friday" stock market crash and grew up in a Depression that morphed into a World War -- and their older siblings, well....

     Nobody escapes some kind of bad timing.  But I managed to reach the date for full Social Security benefits just in time for the various agencies and departments of the Federal government to be thrown into chaos.  Bingo, right on the nose.  I applied without much hope, was surprised when the first payment showed up, and a little relieved when the various cards and Informative Brochures arrived.  Will the payments keep on coming?  Don't ask me; the present top man at SSA has been playing a game of chicken between "DOGE" and court orders, suggesting he might have to shut the whole thing down, relenting, and then allowing as how he just isn't quite sure.

     It's uncomfortable for me -- but I haven't had time to get used to the eagle flying like clockwork one Wednesday a month, every month.  Ahead of me, as always, is that great big cohort of Baby Boomers.  One of the Administration's zillionaire department heads recently opined that good, decent, virtuous older folk would just take it in silence if the money stopped, and the only complainers would be cheats and frauds -- and all I've got to say to that is, dude, do you know any Boomers at all?  They started getting loud in the 1960s and most of them have never shut up.  Stiff 'em on their Social Security, and they'll go right back to the kinds of things they were doing in the day, only grouchier, meaner, a little more slowly, and with a whole lot more lawyers.

React? Better To Act!

     For any pessimist who was paying attention, the early days of the second Trump Administration have been a real-life version of one of those horror movies in which the villain outlines exactly what he plans to do -- and then proceeds to do so, despite the valiant efforts of the hero(s) and victim(s).

     The Project 2025 playbook (the one Mr. Trump and campaign members distanced themselves from prior to the election) is being put into effect with dizzying speed.  It doesn't make any difference at all if you think Mr. Trump has plotted it all out in intricate detail or if it is a natural consequence of hiring senior officials from the pool of committed Trump partisans who developed Project 2025: either way, it's happening.  And, fueled by Elon Musk's money and daunting reputation, it is happening hard.  It is remaking the Federal government we're used to into something more partisan, less predictable, stingier and less helpful.

     The problem with "move fast and break things" when applied to government is that a lot of the "things" that get broken are people, and the damage lingers.  So does the resentment, boiling over at events for Congresspeople and government officials all across the political spectrum.  Republicans have cancelled town meetings and public Q&A sessions; some Democrats have stepped up to rally opposition -- and others, like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, are dodging withering scorn for failing to oppose the GOP's efforts.

     Depending on where you get your news, you'll hear a variety of takes on all this, but what they have in common is that they are all reactive: Mr. Trump, Mr. Musk, "DOGE" or some Trump appointee takes controversial steps, and everyone else reacts to it; injured parties and concerned activists sue, supporters gloat, NPR does weepy interviews, Fox (etc.) and MSNBC (etc.) do pro and con man-in-the-street pieces: it's all in reaction to what's being done.

     There's very little action so far.  The first politician, philosopher or rabble-rouser who comes up with a plan of action in opposition that can attract wide support is going to have a considerable advantage.  With every change, more people suffer adverse effects, from plunging stock prices to lost benefits.

     "FA" is running full steam ahead.  "FO" has scarcely begun.

Bingo Card

     It's a bingo card for the demolition of the Federal government -- first to get a complete row vertically, horizontally or diagonally wins!

     And we all lose.