government

Defunding intellectual freedom?

~ ianrandalstrock ~ 1 Comment

What is the value of intellectual freedom? of academic integrity? of political independence? The story just now on MSNBC was about the forthcoming meeting and negotiations between Harvard University and the Trump administration; that the government is demanding… well, I’m not entirely sure, other than the Trumpians are angry with the “liberal agenda supported by colleges and universities.”

I’m wondering what will happen if the leadership at Harvard can bring themselves to say “Our intellectual freedom, our academic integrity, is more important to the Harvard community than our federal funding. We have this massive endowment, so we’re going to draw on it to make up for the shortfall in federal funding. President Trump: you can shove your ideology.” Such a move, I think, would lead to an alumni fund-raising windfall. While the Trumpians might tout it as cutting needless federal spending, it could be viewed as a win by both sides. And who better to take that hit to show that Trumpism is not forever and ever than a university which was founded more than a century before the country in which it stands?

Mind you, I am emphatically in favor of rooting out the antisemitism poisoning college campuses. But it doesn’t seem to me that Harvard is dragging their feet on this issue.

And I’m going to throw in a few numbers which caught my ear. According to that MSNBC story, Harvard receives “$9 billion in federal grants and contracts.” Though the same report did also say that Columbia, after having theoretically acquiesced to similar demands, is still waiting for the $400 million in federal funds it receives to be restored.

I question that $9 billion, which may actually be an aggregate of many universities. This Washington Times piece from 2023 said Harvard had $3.3 billion in grants and contracts over the 2018–2022 period.

And in January, the Harvard Crimson said “In fiscal year 2024, the University received $686 million from federal agencies, accounting for two-thirds of its total sponsored research expenditures and eleven percent of the University’s operating revenue.”

But the point remains: can—should—a university bow to political whims, and change its policies to suit a presidential administration, which is by design temporary?

Yes, there is no place on college campuses—or anywhere else in the country—for supporters of kidnappers, rapists, and murderers. But on the other side of the discussion: is this what we have a government for? Isn’t this rather an issue to which a true Republican would have a laissez-faire attitude? Let the market decide, such a Republican would say. If people disagree with the university’s policies, they’ll stop donating to it, stop applying to be students there, stop respecting it. Apparently, the Trumpians are not so secure in their own beliefs to think they’ll win out in the marketplace of ideas, so they have to put the government’s financial thumb on the scale.

Antidiplomacy

~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

Listening to Vice President Vance speaking just now at Pituffik Space Base in Greenland, he said “we expect the people of Greenland will choose independence from Denmark,” and then we’ll cut a deal with them. What happens if the people of Greenland ultimately decide to not associate with the United States? To not become a US territory or protectorate?

All of this, mind you, came after the Vice President spent a long time bad-mouthing Denmark, saying they’ve done a terrible job. And looking at the broader picture, why does it seem to be that President Trump and his administration spend nearly all of their time denigrating, insulting, and attacking every ally the United States has had for the last eighty years, without expressing any real concerns about the countries which have not been our allies?

As I’m writing this, Chris Jansing on MSNBC just called it “antidiplomacy,” and I think that’s a very apt description of the Trump administration’s activity.

Democrats Can No Longer Afford Moral Purity

~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

I’ve said it before in a different context: when only one side is playing by the rules, they’re setting themselves up for a moral victory accompanied by a crushing actual defeat.

The Democratic party’s insistence on moral purity is what led them to purge their own Senator Al Franken. It’s what allowed Antonin Scalia’s Supreme Court seat to sit vacant for ten months, while Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s was filled in ten days. And it’s what continues to cause massive headaches for those of us who actually worry about the future of the country.

Chuck Schumer was absolutely correct in his vote for the “continuing resolution” to keep the government funded: voting against it is what the Trumpians wanted. There may have been moral purity in rejecting the bill, but then what? Shut down the government? Declare moral purity by not voting for the bill? That is exactly what the Trumpians wanted.

Indeed, they’re already doing it. Look at what has happened during Trump 2.0: USAID has been shut down. NOAA has been shut down. The Department of Education is nearly shut down. They’re shutting down the government piecemeal while patriotic ex-employees file pitiable lawsuits, hoping to keep their jobs.

Not adopting Speaker Mike Johnson’s continuing resolution would have done in one fell swoop what Trump & Co. are doing slowly, department by department: it would have shut everything down.

“But then shutting down the government would have been the Republicans’ fault,” the purest of the pure cry.

“So what?” respond the rational people. “That’s what they’re doing today. That’s what they want to do.” And that appears to be what the voters asked for.

Regardless of Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s commentary, there was no pathway to negotiate a clean four-week extension. If that negotiation could have occurred, it would have happened weeks ago. But Trump’s minions in the House had no interest in doing so. They have the majority there, so they don’t need to talk to the Democrats about anything.

Had the staunch Democrats succeeded in delaying the bill and shutting down the government, the Trumpians would have been celebrating. And they would have had no reason to negotiate anything to re-open it. We would be suffering through a government shutdown that would last until the next election, all while Trump and Elon Musk determine which pieces of the government are “necessary” and which are not. They would have had the time of their lives, selling off pieces of the government to their cronies at bargain prices, while the Democrats would be mewling for negotiations to fund and re-open the government.

I disagree—vehemently—with almost every action taken by the president and his gang of thieves. I disagree with their policies, their stated goals, and their methods. But the moral purity of the Democrats is a danger we can no longer afford. Adherence to the rules is a path to victory only if both sides are playing by the rules, and if the judges of the contest care about them. November 5, 2024, showed us that a plurality of American voters don’t care about following the rules, and that saddens me. But if we’re going to save our country from the predations of Trump 2.0, we’re going to have to get dirty, get down in the mud with our foes to fight back, hard.

Was Schumer morally impure for allowing the continuing resolution to pass the Senate? Yes. But was it the right thing to do in an attempt to save the country? Also, yes.

Trump and Musk: Setting Up the Government to Pay Them

~ ianrandalstrock ~ 1 Comment

I hear a lot of consternation over Presidents Trump and Musk and DOGE taking over the federal payment system in the Department of the Treasury. Representative Gregory Meeks on MSNBC just now couldn’t get beyond the fact that one of Musk’s henchmen is 19 years old. But it’s all misdirection; it’s the sound and fury signifying nothing that they want you to look at. Is Elon Musk going to steal my identity when he finds my social security number? I doubt it.

Meanwhile, over in the shadow (well, perhaps not that dark), Donald Trump is doing what he’s done his entire career: planning big real estate deals which offer him the maximum opportunity to skim and grift for his (and his compatriots’) benefit, while stiffing those he’s going to use.

His announcement that the US is going to take over the Gaza Strip is simply the latest instance of his lifelong aim of self-aggrandizement through real estate dealing. Replace “US” in that headline with “Trump Organization,” and it could have been the 1980s: throw out the people who have no money in a run-down neighborhood, rebuild it with the Trump name writ big on the buildings, stiff the construction workers who did the dirty work, and proclaim his own greatness while lining his own pockets.

And the GSA selling half the property it manages? That means a large number of buildings coming onto the market in a short span of time, meaning the prices will depress through oversupply. What does Donald Trump do? Remember, he’s the first president in history to not divest his business interests, or place them in a blind trust. I wouldn’t bet against The Trump Organization (and his allies) buying up a lot of that property, and then leasing it back to the government.

As much as he talks about shrinking the government, there is a the government does that cannot simply be thrown away with the stroke of a pen. But removing those pieces from the government’s control, and parceling them out to private companies offers so much more opportunity to skim.

None of it is irrational; all of Trump’s moves make perfect sense, if we only remember his goal. It has never been “what can I do to make things better for others?” It is always “what can I do to make the most money for myself?”

Will President Trump demand we shift to all-electronic transactions?

~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

Just now (4:57pm on February 3, 2025), on Fox news’ The Will Cain Show, the host asked his guest, Margarito “Jay” Flores Jr (credited as “former Sinaloa cartel kingpin”) how we can disincentivize the cartels from bringing fentanyl into the US? In response, the key point Flores said was, “We need to focus on the bulk use of US currency.” The drug cartels want the almighty US dollar, so we need to remove their ability to get it.

This makes me wonder how long it will be before President Trump tells us we need to shift entirely to an electronic currency, “to protect us from fentanyl and Mexican gangs.”

I’ve written many times of the utility of physical currency, starting with my AnLab-winning article “The Coming of the Money Card: Boon or Bane?” (which appeared in the October 1996 issue of Analog). The ease of its use for person-to-person transactions, its desirability for things like tipping, the fact that using paper money enables the recipient to receive 100% of the value of the transaction (as opposed to a bank or clearinghouse taking a transaction fee, which is what happens with every credit card transaction, and is one of the insidious drivers of long-term inflation), and so on. While there is definitely a role for electronic currencies (I take credit cards when I sell books [though I have to charge an extra transaction fee to make up for the cost of doing so], and I receive electronic payments from distributors when they sell my books for me), requiring all transactions to be electronic strikes me as a monumentally bad idea.

There’s the tracking of every transaction, the fees associated with them, the fact that one has no real control over one’s own store of electronic currency, and so on.

And, with the current president and administration, I also wonder how much of that move will be in order to enrich those people personally. The Official Trump “meme coin” is currently valued at just under $20 per unit, with one billion available (https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/official-trump). Donald Trump is also the “chief crypto advocate” of World Liberty Financial (https://www.worldlibertyfinancial.com/), in which his family has financial interests (all of his sons are employed by the company).

Donald Trump Sure Can’t Pick ’em

~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

Thinking about Donald Trump’s choices of appointees for his upcoming administration.

His supposed business acumen apparently doesn’t extend into the realm of choosing the right people to do the jobs. I mean, look at all the people he’s hired and then fired. Uppermost in my mind at the moment is Christopher Wray, who he hired as Director of the FBI. Wray is resigning coincident with the end of Joe Biden’s term because Trump has made it quite clear that if he stays, Trump will fire him—even though the job has a ten-year term to keep it out of the political realm (see former director James Comey’s commentary in this article). And Trump keeps bad-mouthing Jerome Powell, who he appointed chair of the Federal Reserve in 2018, which similarly is supposed to be above politics.

Fair warning: I initially thought Trump had fired far more Cabinet secretaries than he has. But these numbers don’t take into account other appointees, aides, and advisors, such as White House Communications Director, Press Secretary, lawyers, and so on.

During the first Trump administration, he fired four Cabinet secretaries (three others resigned under suspicion of ethics violations or misuse of funds) and two chiefs of staff. In fact, he had 24 Secretaries and five Acting Secretaries lead the 15 Cabinet departments.

By way of comparison, only two of Biden’s Cabinet secretaries left office in the middle of the term (one to become Executive Director of the National Hockey League Players’ Association, the other to leave public life).

So Trump does have a track record for picking people who won’t stick around too long (either by their choice or his).

For a historical perspective, when I wrote The Presidential Book of Lists, I also looked at presidential cabinets. At that time, Theodore Roosevelt topped the list for the president who had the greatest number of people serve in one cabinet post: he had six Secretaries of the Navy during his seven and a half years in office. Three others (and TR himself) had five people serve in one post: Andrew Jackson (Secretary of the Treasury), John Tyler (Secretary of the Navy), Ulysses Grant (Secretary of War and Attorney General), and Theodore Roosevelt (Postmaster General). Trump joined the list with five Attorneys General (two confirmed, and three acting). He and Tyler are the only ones to do it in single four-year terms.

I also looked at the presidents who had the greatest number of people serve in their cabinets. That list naturally skewed toward the more recent Presidents because the size of the Cabinet has changed over time, from the four officers who served Washington (Secretaries of State, Treasury, War, and Attorney General) to the 15 who currently serve. Harry S Truman topped the list with 34 Cabinet officers, an average of 3.4 per department. Ronald Reagan was right behind him, with 33 Cabinet officers (2.5 per department; only one of his Secretaries served the full eight-year term). Tied for third were Richard Nixon (31 Cabinet officers, 2.6 per department) and George W. Bush (31 Cabinet officers, 2.2 per department—the Department of Homeland Security was created during his term). Tied for fifth place were Theodore Roosevelt (29 Cabinet officers, 3.2 per department) and Bill Clinton (29 Cabinet officers, 2.1 per department—four of Clinton’s Cabinet officers served out his entire eight-year term). Now we can add Donald Trump’s first term to that tie.

To take account of the growing number of Cabinet departments, I also calculated the number of officers per Cabinet department (and then split the list between one-term and two-term presidents). Topping the list of those serving two terms was Ulysses Grant (3.6 officers per department—25 Secretaries, 7 departments). Tied for second were James Madison (3.2—16 Secretaries, five departments), Andrew Jackson (19 Secretaries, six departments), Theodore Roosevelt (29 Secretaries, nine departments), and Harry Truman (34 Secretaries, 10 departments). Topping the list of one-termers was John Tyler (3.5 officers per department—21 Secretaries, six departments). Next was Chester Arthur (2.4—17 Secretaries, seven departments). Third was Gerald Ford (2.1—23 Secretaries, 11 departments). Fourth was James Buchanan (2.0—14 Secretaries, 7 departments). And then Andrew Johnson (1.86—13 Secretaries, 7 departments). Donald Trump joined the list slightly ahead of Johnson (1.93 officers per department—29 Secretaries, 15 departments).

Only four Presidents served their terms without replacing any Cabinet officers: William Henry Harrison (admittedly, he died one month after being inaugurated), Zachary Taylor (died sixteen months into his term), Franklin Pierce (the only President to have served a full term with his original Cabinet), and James Garfield (died six months into his term).

[Edited several hours after posting to add:] A friend asked: How did you count those Secretaries who resigned in the wake of the events of January 6, 2021.

I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t. Skipped right over them. However, I did count Attorney General William Barr’s resignation on December 23.

Other than Barr:
* Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao resigned January 11, 2021.
* Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos resigned January 8, 2021.
* Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf resigned January 11, 2021. In his resignation letter, he cited “recent events, including the ongoing and meritless court rulings regarding the validity of my authority as Acting Secretary.” Two days after he resigned, Wolf said that Trump was partly responsible for the storming of the Capitol.

The reason I left them out of my analysis is that their resignations did not result in new Secretaries or even acting Secretaries. Their workloads were picked up by the deputies, who were never appointed to the Secretary’s position.

Thanks for catching that oversight.

Who else is he paying, or paying him?

~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

Donald Trump is a convicted felon, joining the ignominious ranks of Aaron Burr[1], John C. Breckenridge[2], and John Tyler[3]. Even though his conviction was on the least consequential of the four cases currently pending against him, we now live in a world where a former President of the United States is a convicted felon. But does it really mean anything? Those who support him so ardently will continue to support him. Those who do not support him don’t need new reasons to not support him. And the undecided voters—the key to most elections in this country—are a small and shrinking percentage this time around, since the major candidates are both completely known quantities.

The conviction itself is not the sad event. The sad event was when Donald Trump shamed the office by fomenting insurrection during the ballot counting. It was the entire year of 2020, when he spent so much effort making people mistrust the electoral system, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to win a fair election. It was when he urged others to help him cheat just to retain the office he could not legitimately claim. And those things will be adjudicated in the further trials… if they are ever allowed to proceed.

The current conviction is simply a confirmation of what we’ve known about Donald Trump all along: that he’s a liar, a grifter, a thief, who will do or say anything to protect himself, regardless of its legality or morality.

While the actual crime is fairly small potatoes, it is entirely in keeping with Trump’s character. What makes it so egregious is that it was committed by a presidential candidate. But even that is something we should (unfortunately) have come to expect from him. He keeps telling us who he is; we are the fools for constantly being surprised. He keeps begging us to pay attention only to the show that he is, to not look behind the curtain. And that’s what this case was about: the hidden back-story that is even less appealing. And that’s been his entire career. Keeping a porn star from saying he’s a sexual predator? That’s tiny. What I want to know is why is he still the only president in living memory to not release his tax returns? What is hiding in those documents that he so assiduously does not want people to know about him?

[1] Vice President Aaron Burr (1801–05) arguably committed treason by working with Mexico to overthrow Spanish rule in 1807, but was acquitted due to the paucity of evidence.

[2] Vice President John C. Breckinridge (1857–61) was representing Kentucky in the US Senate in 1861 when he declared that the Union no longer existed and that Kentucky should be free to choose her own course. He enlisted in the Confederate army, was indicted for treason in U.S. federal district court in Frankfort on November 6, 1861, and on December 2, 1861, the Senate declared him a traitor and expelled him.

[3] President John Tyler (1841–45) presided over the Washington Peace Conference in February 1861, which was an effort to prevent the Civil War. The convention sought a compromise, but Tyler voted against the conference’s resolutions. At the same time, he was elected to the Virginia Secession Convention, and presided over it as well. Tyler voted for secession, and negotiated the terms for Virginia’s entry into the Confederate States of America. On June 14, he signed the Ordinance of Secession, and then was elected to the Provisional Confederate Congress, where he served until just before his death in 1862. In November 1861, he was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives but he died of a stroke before the first session could open in February 1862. Because of his allegiance to the Confederacy, his was the only presidential death to go unrecognized in Washington.

The decline of news interviews

~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

As much as I’m annoyed by the double-talking, deflecting, lying politicians, the interviewers aren’t doing much better.

This morning, I watched parts of both NBC’s Meet the Press and CBS’s Face the Nation, and they both share the same problem.

On Meet the Press, the host/interviewer was talking with Senator J.D. Vance. She asked him, if he had been vice president on January 6, 2021, would he have voted to certify the election, or done what Donald Trump wanted. Each time, he deflected, noting that “it’s you who wants to keep talking about that election. We’re focused on the present and the future, and in the present, we have the massive border crisis,” and the drug crisis, and whatever else usually comes at the end of that litany. A perfect opening to ask “Okay, so as a member of the Senate, what are you doing to address that border crisis, and drug crisis, and all the rest?” But she just let the pitch go by, and went back to “But you might be on Trump’s list for vice president in the next campaign. What would you have done in 2021?”

On Face the Nation, the interviewer was talking with Speaker Mike Johnson. After four rounds of “President Biden doesn’t need any legislation to fix the border crisis,” without a return question of “then what do we need the Congress for?”, she showed several clips from Johnson in 2019 saying “an impeachment should not be a one-party action.” A great intro for the House’s current impeachment activity against Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. “So why are you moving this impeachment now?” to which he responded, “Mayorkas has broken the laws. We’ve got three committees investigating,” etc. But there was no return question of “you’re going through all the motions, as the Democrats did before you, but it still looks to be a one-party activity.” Or the even easier question: “You say he’s broken the laws. Which laws?” As most interviewers these days do, she ended with “We hope to have you back, because there are so many more things to talk about.” Completely missing the irony of the fact that each question-and-response was repeated four times, so of course they couldn’t get to too many issues.

Mind you, I didn’t watch the entirety of either program, but I did also see that each also had National Security Council Spokesman Jake Sullivan. Meet the Press asked him if, in the ongoing response to the death of the three US soldiers in Jordan, we could expect attacks in Iran itself. He said “I’m not going to comment on our activities and plans on television.” The interviewer’s response to that? “So you’re not ruling it out?” And he responded, “I’m not going to talk about it on television.” Five times they went through that back-and-forth.

Yes, I understand that repeating a question can sometimes get the interviewee to break down, get angry, and snap out an unintended answer. But come on, people, listen to the responses you’re getting. You can follow them to even more interesting questions and non-answers. I’m disappointed in you.

Conflicting job qualifications?

~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

There are a bunch of elections running around my mind these days: national, local, clubs and associations, and historic. In many of them (but not the one in which you’re a candidate, so don’t worry, I’m not talking about you), it seems to me the skill set necessary to be a successful candidate is not only completely different from the skill set necessary to be a good office holder, but sometimes completely at odds with it.

Consider, for example, the presidency of the USA. To be a good candidate for the job, one has to be an incredible fund-raiser, be a glad-hander, be photogenic (with an equally photogenic family, or at least a compelling family story), be able to whip up crowds of enthusiasm, and be able to speak in sound bites. And in the modern era, one also has to be a staunch ideologue, in order to whip up the enthusiasm of the extreme members of one’s own political party. But to be a good president, one has to be able to think deeply about important issues, and then make hard decisions about them; to be able to negotiate with people in equally powerful positions from (perhaps) less powerful countries; be able to keep secrets about the biggest issues that would bring in incredible amounts of publicity; be willing to compromise on almost everything in order to accomplish anything; and be able to inspire people to be selfless and to aspire for greatness.

Mind you, the same dichotomy (although on a much smaller scale) seems to obtain for most any office that is elected: mayor, congressman, club official, you name it.

Having grumbled about this state of affairs — which is the same state we’ve been in for a very long time — I can’t see that there’s any better way to choose who we want to elect to office. But I sure wish there was a better way.