government

First Men In Office

~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

A quick story on ABC’s noon news just now noted that Mikie Sherrill, who is the Democratic nominee for governor of New Jersey, has chosen Dale Caldwell as her running mate, and that if they win, he will be the first male lieutenant governor of New Jersey.

That caught my ear. While we have (or are much closer to) equality of the sexes, I know enough of our history to know it was not always the case, and that a claim that a political office holder will be the first man to hold the office is strange.

So I did a little research. The quote is accurate, but demands a slightly longer explanation, which is that in New Jersey, until recently, the governor was the only official elected state-wide. If the governor’s office became vacant, it would be filled by the president of the State Senate, or by the speaker of the General Assembly. The position of lieutenant governor was created in 2006, and first filled in the election of 2009. To date, the entire list of lieutenant governors of New Jersey is: Kim Guadagno (served January 19, 2010–January 16, 2018); Sheila Oliver (January 16, 2018–August 1, 2023 [she died in office]); and Tahesha Way (September 8, 2023–present).

Indeed, I can’t think of any other American political office to have been held exclusively by women at any point (excepting First Lady and Second Lady [until Doug Emhoff from 2021 to 2025]). Frances Perkins was the first woman to serve in a president’s cabinet, but she was the fourth Secretary of Labor. The 46th and current Treasurer of the United States, Brandon Beach, is the first man to hold that position in 76 years, since the 28th Treasurer, William Alexander Julian, who served June 1, 1933–May 29, 1949 (but all of his predecessors were men).

Over-reacting to show political strength

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In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Shakaar” (season 3, episode 24; first aired May 22, 1995), a new political leader clashes with a political rival over the return of some farming equipment. The rival and his fellow farmers are using the equipment; the leader thinks it would be better used somewhere else. The leader, Kai Winn, asks Major Kira to talk with her friends—Shakaar and the farmers—to return the equipment, thinking that Kira’s prior relationship with them will turn the tide. Kira is unsuccessful, so Winn calls out the militia to take the equipment back by force, deeming Shakaar’s continued reticence a threat to the stability of the government, and a test of her set by the gods. She eventually calls on Commander Sisko to bring Federation forces to support her efforts. Sisko tells her this is an over-reaction, noting that she has done everything to escalate the situation far beyond reason, rather than acting as a leader to calm things down. Eventually, our heroes are able to bring a political counter-punch, and Winn backs down to end the episode.

The whole story is ringing in my ears today as I’m watching the outrageous escalation in Los Angeles, brought about through President Trump’s nationalizing and sending in the National Guard to deal with protests against policies that he himself set. Once again, we’re looking at an outrageous over-reaction apparently designed solely to solidify the over-reactor’s political position. California’s Governor Newsom and Los Angeles’s Mayor Bass have both said there is no need for federal troops to calm the protests, and that they will only inflame the situation. But Trump seems to see it as either a test set by his god, or an opportunity (akin to his forthcoming military parade) to show he is the power, he is the strength, he is the ruler. Once again, he is showing us he has no interest in being the president of a democratic republic, that he would much rather be the strongman in a dictatorship that benefits only himself and his friends.

The situation in Los Angeles is indeed a test. It may be the first volley in a test not unlike the one Abraham Lincoln described in his Gettysburg Address, when he spoke of a nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” We are engaged in the struggle to guarantee that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

[Edited a day later to add:]

A friend pointed out to me that I might not have been clear in the above. I wasn’t saying the entire situation started with the call for troops, that that was the only escalation. It was merely the tipping point that prompted me to write.

But the Kai Winn “escalating the situation out of all legitimate proportions,” in the current situation is Donald Trump’s unceasing cries that undocumented farm workers, manual laborers, anyone who speaks Spanish and has slightly more melanin than he is a threat to the United States and our way of life. The crisis he has manufactured began with the terror he tried to instill in us: terror at the presence of the very people he frequently employed in his various real estate businesses. The violation of Posse Comitatus is only the latest step in his long con to make Americans so afraid of anyone other than Trump and his cronies that we allow them to rob us of our fortunes and freedom.

For today’s chilling extension, see Secretary Noem’s comments and actions in this article.

Even door-to-door canvassers represent the campaign

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A fellow wearing a New York Police Department T-shirt just rang my doorbell, campaigning for Heshy Tischler. I told him that a political campaigner wearing that T-shirt made me uncomfortable, and he started yelling at me that he had a First Amendment right to wear the shirt because he has a relative who is a police officer. I didn’t get his name as I closed the door in his face, yet I heard him continue to yell through the door. Based on that interaction, I am far less likely to vote for Tischler for New York City Council in the upcoming special election.

The things that influence our votes.

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

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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

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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?

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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

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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.