Contrasts Along A Timeline

     When I was growing up, if you went to a Protestant church on a Sunday, you knew you were going to get a sermon along one of two lines: Hellfire and damnation, warning of dire Divine retribution against sinners and the necessity of being saved or the Sermon on the Mount, emphasizing compassion and forgiveness and reminding everyone that the Almighty's love was raining down salvation like soup and the church was giving away bowls.  There might be the occasional digression on some point of theology or a Bible verse the preacher had found especially apt, but you knew you were going to be yelled at or gently chided, and either way, they wanted you to eschew sin and follow the Lord.

     With that out of the way, I'll move to the secular.  In his second Inaugural address on January 20, President Trump said: "After years and years of illegal and unconstitutional federal efforts to restrict free expression, I will also sign an executive order to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America."  What decent American would fail to applaud such a firm commitment to free speech?  It is one of our proudest traditions and most valued rights.

     On January 21, the new President, Vice President and their families were at the National Cathedral for an interfaith prayer service, an event organized long in advance, with all of the speakers carefully vetted.  The sermon was delivered by an Episcopal bishop serving the Washington, D.C. area, who concluded, "Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you. And as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives. The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings; who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals, they – they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation. But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors, they are faithful members of [religious congregations]. I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land."

     This is pretty standard stuff, of the Sermon on the Mount variety.  It may not be your cup of tea; it may not be a particular politician's cup of tea.  But it's not an attack; it's not hateful.  And it is most certainly free speech; it is most certainly representative of our nation's cherished freedom of religion.

     Mr. Trump didn't like it -- and he, along with every other person covered by the Bill of Rights, is not obliged to.  A little after midnight on the 22nd, he posted to his social media site, "The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater. She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart. [...]."

     He is entitled to his opinion; I don't think he's a very perceptive critic when it comes to tone or graciousness, but that's merely my opinion.  It is a matter of plain fact that the speaker is a Bishop of her faith -- and no President gets a say in that.

     Another member of the President's party had something to say.  Republican U.S. Representative Mike Collins from Georgia posted a video clip of the sermon to social media with the comment, "The person giving this sermon should be added to the deportation list."

     And that, too, is an opinion -- but it is also a call to action from a member of the national legislature, and as such it is, in the legal sense, chilling.  On the other hand, if he gets his wish, the Bishop will be sent packing, back to where she came from: New Jersey.

     Last time I checked, it was still a state of the Union.

     Last time I checked, speech was still free of government censorship and threats of punishment.  Congressperson Collins might want to do some checking, too.

Not Gonna Do It

     Just downstream of the Inauguration, the news media has locked themselves into a familiar cycle of "OMG, look what the President has done!"  Thrilled or horrified per their political bent, the coverage is long on generalities but short on specifics, and I find myself having to dig for details on the actions that strike me as significant.*

     I suppose I could turn around and share them with readers, but at that point it only throws a teaspoon of signal into a boiling pot of noise, and there's enough steam and fog already.

     Let it settle.  One of the few in-depth stories I could find sorted the flurry of Executive Orders and related actions into three categories: things unquestionably within Presidential powers; things that are going to take considerable adjustment, changes in rules and possibly Congressional action, and which may be challenged; and things that are most likely unConstitutional and either will be challenged or have already been challenged.  The last two sets aren't going to have much effect for some time, if they ever do.

     Presidents do not operate in a vacuum.  The Executive Branch is just one leg of the Federal tripod.  It happens to be the only one with a single individual at the top of it, and the full focus of the Press is on him in a manner impossible with Congress or the U. S. Supreme Court, but that's not the entire show; it's not even close.
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* An example: over 1,500 people were given pardons by the new President; fourteen had their sentences commuted instead, leaving felony convictions on their records.  Can you name the fourteen?  I couldn't find their names in any news story and had to go back to the White House press release instead.  It's an interesting group.

Well, It's Done

     The new President has been installed, with slightly more fuss than screwing a new plug fuse into a 1920s electrical box.  Apparently, we're going to war against Panama, possibly Mexico, and Boy George.  The latter is a Crown subject and presumably protected; Mexico's reaction to organized U. S. efforts against drug cartels is an open question.  But I'd sure hate to be Panama right now.  No, strike that: I'd sure hate to be the Panama Canal.

     The thing about a vulnerable asset, of which the canal is a prime example, is that it is entirely too easy to destroy its value, especially while fighting over it.

     The incoming President's speech was -- and I don't want to be unfair, this is hardly atypical of Inauguration speeches -- long on rah-rah rhetoric and short on specific plans.  So was his express desire to "retake the Panama Canal" chest-beating boosterism or a definite plan?  Are his aims to turn the fed.gov on a dime going to run headlong into the reality that even a cooperative Federal bureaucracy has far worse cornering ability than a 1930s battleship?  I dunno about the first, but the second is likely, and the pile-up will be ugly no matter what.

Get Out Your Auguries

     I don't know, maybe augers will make holes to peer through into the future as well as they make holes in lumber.  But I think it's auguries you want, whatever tomorrow's inauguration may augur for the future.

     It's going to happen.  I'm not going to pretend he didn't win the election, or whine wordlessly over it either.  This is our reality and we're all going to see how it works out together.

     Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe it'll be wonderful, and his cabinet with almost no experience will live up to their jobs, each and every one.

     But I doubt it.  Anyway, tomorrow we get the scaled-down, indoor version of the same pomp and circumstance that first greeted George Washington and has greeted every President who has come into office on the Constitutionally-mandated day since then.

     A spate of Executive Orders are promised to follow, ensuring full employment for civil rights and Constitutional-law attorneys for at least the next six months and probably far longer.

     The Circus is back in town.  I wouldn't be holding my breath for any bread along with it, if I were you, and I kind of am.

Skipped A Day

     I skipped posting yesterday.  The attempt to get across the scale of the mess in Los Angeles is depressing.  And people who think the dueling boasts and threats of politicians somehow outweigh FEMA's guidelines and limits for aid annoy me beyond measure.

     Nothing stops fires pushed down dry mountains and hills by winds in excess of sixty miles an hour.  Nothing much prevents them starting; southern California is a tinderbox in the dry season and LA county is vast, a megacity bigger than Delaware or Rhode Island, containing more people than the individual populations of all but ten U. S. States.*  Sparks are inevitable.

     The people who lose their homes will get the same help as the people who lost their homes to natural disaster in the Southeast: FEMA covers their hotel bill or rental and a few other things.  The Federal agency doesn't play favors because it cannot; it's not a rich man's whim or a politician's pork handout but a fairly hidebound Federal agency, one in which (for example) it took a determined band of worried bureaucrats over a decade to make minor reforms in the way the national-level EAS system functions.  Congress can (and may) come up with extra funding; the Executive Branch can tinker a little with what goes where, but the stuff that makes an actual difference to J. Average Citizen is cut and dried, and involves filling out forms.

     Anyone claiming the LA Fire Chief is a "DEI hire" can go look up her record, including written and physical tests.  She's been fighting fires for a long, long time, mostly in jobs where the inability to fight fires or to lead groups doing the work would result in termination for cause.  If you're still worried about some chick running a 3000-plus person fire department, step up and shake hands with Anthony C. Marrone, Fire Chief of the 3000-plus member LA County Fire Department, working side-by-side with the city (and every helper they can get from within the U.S., Mexico and Canada).  There is no shortage of competent bosses, and the only limitation on front-line firefighters is logistics.

     It's a fire (well, several fires).  Just like storms, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and tornadoes, it hasn't got any politics, and no decent person checks the party membership of the victims before deciding if they'll help.
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* How does Greater LA compare to Indianapolis/Marion County?  The population density is about the same, between 2400 and 2500 people per square mile -- but the 400 square miles of Indianapolis is a tenth of LA County's 4000 square miles.  We lose some land area to lakes and rivers; LA loses a lot more to slopes too steep to build on.

Footnote

     If you're one of the people chortling how the "lib'ruls" of LA voted wrong and now face fires, two bits of information:

     -Post hoc ergo propter hoc is still a logical fallacy.

     -In the 2024 Presidental election, more people voted for Donald Trump in Los Angeles than voted for him in Arkansas or Oklahoma.  This nonsense about "red America" vs. "blue America" ignores the reality that we all live in purple America, a bit redder in some places and bluer in others, and when bad luck falls on Texas or New York, Oregon or Florida, it falls on millions of people who voted the same way you did and hold similar values, no matter how you voted or what policies you favor.  We're all in the same box. 

     But neither voting patterns, election results or efforts to attracts a more diverse pool of firefighters caused the recent and current fires in and around LA.  They had a fairly wet year or two recently, then things got dry (as is normal in that part of our country) and then--  Then the dice came up snake eyes (or double sixes) for the Santa Ana winds, roaring with an intensity rarely seen.  People being people, anyone with a yard has stuff growing in it, and it was all pretty much tinder.  Add strong winds and all you need is a spark.

     Strong winds kept firefighting aircraft on the ground (and still are, at their worst), leaving the greater Los Angeles area with exactly the same resources as any other big city: a hydrant system and trucks and personnel adequate to battle normal fires, a building or three at a time.

     Information about LAFD funding is muddled; they were in the process of negotiating fire department pay (and apparently other terms) during the overall budget process.  LAFD's portion was left for another bill, later, and their funding went up, not down (as has been claimed elsewhere), but reports on how much and what it was for vary.  All I can tell for sure is that it went up some tens of millions -- not much less than 20, nor more than 50 million over what it had been.  Call it a couple week's income for Elon Musk, or more than you or I would see in ten lifetimes.  They've got the money.  They're not worse off for staff than fire departments generally -- and, faced with a wall of flame pushed by katabatic winds exceeding 60 miles an hour, blowing embers ahead of it into paper-dry shrubs, grass, trees and wooden houses, all they can do is fight for time, no matter who they are.  Against a calamity this enormous, all people are the same size, and it's too damn small.  Additional help is pouring in, from as far away as Canada.

     It's probably ironic that the best tool against this kind of disaster is slow and about as nannying as it gets: building codes and zoning.  Requiring more fire-resistant construction and materials for homes and commercial buildings, mandating largely vegetation-free "clear zones" around them, incorporating firebreaks into neighborhood design -- all of those things would help mitigate the kinds of harm we're seeing happen.  Towns and cities in Southern California have made efforts to create such rules -- and it has been decried as liberal interference in personal freedom to do as people wish on their own property.  Like most things in politics, like most things involved in living with neighbors nearby, it's a matter of compromise and sometimes it works out badly.  It's a part of life -- and only a ghoul revels in the bad outcomes.

I Admit It: I'm Surprised

     Mike Johnson was re-elected as Speaker of the House with remarkably little fuss.  Indiana's Victoria Spartz, who'd been making holdout noises, blinked: while a couple of Republicans didn't toe the line at the very first, she was not among them.

     For now, the ringmaster's got the clowns under control.  Let's see if he can maintain it.

     Next up, counting the electoral votes on Monday.  Here's hoping for dull routine.  I won't mind if some Congressthings even manage to doze off during the proceedings.  It's not supposed to be exciting.

Mike Johnson's Tea Leaves

     House Speaker Mike Johnson wants to keep his job.  His party's bare majority in the House means he can't lose even one GOP vote* and word is that he already has.  Kentucky's Thomas Massie has already said he won't vote for the Johnson.  Right behind him, you'll find Indiana's Victoria Spartz in full maverick mode, and while I frequently find myself wondering just what she's up to at any given moment, her position of being a more seriously conservative conservative than all of her fellow conservatives, especially over fiscal restraint, certainly makes for interesting moves.

     With two holdouts and a certain loss, there's no reason for any other Republican looking to earn brownie points or extract concessions to hang back, so the whole thing becomes an exercise in party discipline for a party increasingly given to infighting.  Or possibly a kind of piñata, with everyone taking a whack and hoping goodies will fall out.

     The House needs to put a Speaker in place before the official tally of electoral college votes on January 6.†  They've got three days and the stopwatch is ticking.  They're not fast-moving even on their best days.  This will be interesting, and possibly a preview of the next two years.
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* Unless he's got a secret best buddy among the Democrats who will break ranks.  There are probably several who'd be happy to have him stop by their backyard cookout, but votes like this are a whole other thing.
 
† My goodness, why does that date seem so familiar?

Tragic Start To 2025

     Like you, I'm monitoring the reports from the truck-ramming attack in New Orleans that has killed at least ten people and injured over thirty.  The bare facts are about all that has been released to the public.  It is known to have been a deliberate act, not a drunk or incapacitated driver.  The FBI is on the scene and is investigating it as a probable act of terrorism.

     There are, in fact, a lot of State and Federal agencies at work on this in the French Quarter, and during the first news conference this morning, MayorLaToya Cantrell used an interestingly specific term, referring to the "unified command."

     That tells me that it's not chaos; it's from the Incident Command System, originally developed to coordinate public safety agencies fighting wildfires in California, but adopted and greatly expanded by FEMA, which had already learned the hard way what doesn't work.  ICS does work, and pretty much anyone in a position of command at a public safety agency has at least had the short course on how to work it.  I've taken the online version -- it was required in order to be certified to access the various sites where my employer has equipment, during an emergency situation.

     "Unified Command" comes right out of ICS, and lets me know that the highest-ranking members on the scene from every responding agency are metaphorically -- and probably literally -- sitting around the same table, pooling information, setting shared objectives and timetables, and sorting out who does what, within a framework they're all already familiar with.  It's a tool that prevents conflict and avoids wasted or duplicated effort, designed (perhaps uniquely, as things fed.gov go) to be flexible.  Internal chains of command are not disrupted: your boss is still your boss, but he (or his boss) is in steady contact with the bosses of every other department or agency working the incident.

     ICS command staff numbers expand and contract as the situation requires, task-oriented rather than position-oriented.  One person might wear many hats, or only one.  They may have a subsidiary staff or work solo.  And there are rules of thumb for figuring that out.  At its best, it's staggeringly effective; even when it's just clunking along, it ensures that the people out at the leading edge have ways to resolve conflict that run through their own communications and land in the laps of someone who can work it out with his or her opposite number(s).

     The system's working in New Orleans right now.  It's not magical, but it ensures FBI, the NOPD and the Louisiana State Police (etc.) are all on the same page.  There probably won't be a whole lot of details released to the Press until this evening; the next press conference* will be at noon and I don't expect to learn more from it than an update on the killed and injured, and perhaps early details on the perpetrator.  But the Mayor's use of one uncommon term has told me that the response is coordinated and organized, with clear goals.  They'll figure this crime out.
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* "Public Information Officer" is one of the defined jobs of the ICS Command Staff, and you may see a spokesperson or just a quiet coordinator in the background of the next news conference, but count on someone having the official details, probably an FBI agent; the rest of whoever will be there are only present because it is expected of them -- Mayor, probably the police chief and so on.

Third Time Winner

     I still think the process would go better if the light, heat, air-conditioning and water shut off in the Capitol and all the House and Senate office buildings any time the lack of a budget resulted in a fed.gov shutdown.  It would give Congress a positive incentive.

     Nevertheless, they did manage to cobble together a continuing resolution that keeps things running, while including almost none of the sparkly stuff Representatives, Senators and President-elect Trump wanted.  What was left out included plenty of items that will be fodder for opionators on both sides of the aisle, from children's cancer research funding to scrapping the debt limit.  The process exposed fracture lines in the GOP coalition, and they can be sure their pals across the aisle were taking notes.  Nevertheless, the CR received commanding majorities in both House (366 - 34 - 1, with all 34 noes from the Republicans) and Senate (85 - 11).  With 15 Republicans and 14 Democrats out in the House, Jasmine Crockett of Texas voted "present" and balanced the scales.  Likewise, the four missing or not-voting Senators were split.  The absent wouldn't have tipped the vote anyway.

     It's a hell of a way to run a railroad, but the feather-ruffling is at least evenly distributed, and they can all scamper off to holiday celebrations, secure in the knowledge that they managed to kick the can far enough down the road that the incoming Congress won't have to take it up again until springtime, at which point it will once again be a sudden and wholly unanticipated emergency, because Congress has the memory of a goldfish when it comes to the fiddlin' details of paying the piper, and they think you do, too.

Dog Catches Car

     Dog catches car, realizes he cannot drive: I don't admire Speaker Mike Johnson; he's got a tendency to smirk when he's putting the screws to political opponents that grates on me.  But I'm feeling sincerely sorry for him this morning: he put together a continuing resolution that would keep the lights on in Washington, one that didn't entirely suit him but that he -- and, he thought, his party -- could accept, and one that could even bring a few Democrats on board in the House and get through the Senate.  And then President-elect Trump and his new advisor Elon Musk pulled the rug out from under it.  Ouch!

     It's happened before -- remember the compromise deal on border issues Mr. Trump had them pull the plug on after it was all but done?  Mike Johnson soldiers on.  This time he set to work and turned out a new, slimmed-down continuing resolution he thought could still get enough votes while not displeasing the incoming administration.

     The new, slimmer CR tanked.  174 for, 235 against, 1 abstention, 5 empty seats -- and another 20 out sick, playing hooky or too hung over to show up.  38 Republicans joined 197 Democrats in voting no, in a chamber where the majority party can't give up five votes if the opposition isn't going along.  The reasons for the noes varied, but it doesn't matter: this continuing resolution is a goner and Mike Johnson has got to relight his candle and sit back down at his desk next to Bob Cratchit to put together another try.

     You can work out who's playing Scrooge yourself.  It looks like Social Security and Medicare will keep sending out checks, but if you're in the process of signing up for benefits (etc.), that could be delayed.  Air traffic controllers (and other government workers) won't get paychecks, but they're still supposed to show up for work (Uncle Sam typically makes it good later, but how would it work out for you if several paychecks in a row were held up?  Same for them).  Often the fun stuff gets shuttered -- national parks and monuments.  And, for some reason, nutritional aid programs, food for mothers with babies, has about a month to run before the larder becomes empty once the Federal government shuts down.  I guess it's real hard to hear hungry babies in the House and Senate offices, and unlike retirees, they don't vote, call or write letters.

     This was just a stopgap to keep the lights on.  Come the next Congress, the GOP's House majority will be even smaller; they'll have the Senate by a margin almost as precarious as the present Democrat (plus Independent) majority.  If they're still stuck trying to pass a continuing resolution, it's not going to be any easier.  Mr. Trump thinks he's got a mandate, winning the popular vote by less than two percent.  You can argue that one out with him, bringing in the Electoral Collage (or not) as suits you, but nobody got a mandate in Congress; they're going to have to find compromises if they want to do anything at all.

     Hey, you know who else doesn't get paid when the Feds shut down?  The Feds who work the border!  You'd think that would matter to the party that has put such an emphasis on border security.  I guess not.

Did You Elect Him?

     I'm sure it wasn't me.  Try as I might, I have no recollection of Elon Musk being on my ballot this past November, so he must have been on yours.  I can't figure out what the office might be -- Grand Vizier?  Privy Councillor? -- and I wonder if the alternative choice might not have been better than the relentless self-promoter and all-around weirdo, for all that he's done a great job making space travel less expensive, electric cars zoomier and electric trucks, well, you can't win 'em all.

     Nobody elected him to run the Federal budget, not even at the Go/No-Go level.  That's up to the House to start, the Senate to finish and the President to Yea or Nay, period.  They screw up the process routinely all by themselves, which is why they have been scrambling around, trying to pass a continuing resolution to keep the bills paid and the paychecks coming before the 2024 clock runs out and the incoming Congress has to do business in the dark without even free coffee.  They didn't need any outside help in making a mess of it.

     I am not a big fan of Donald Trump, but he did, in fact, win the election, and after January 20, 2025, he and his Cabinet (and whoever else gets invited in to kibitz) will have their own chance to make their own mess.  Until then, they can wait their turn.  But remember: money stuff starts in the House, finishes in the Senate and then the President (who can indeed ask for advice) lets it stand or vetoes it.  That's the rule and they wrote it down in ink, right there in the U. S. Constitution, long, long ago.

The FCC And The PEBCAK POTUS

     The structure of the actual commission that runs the Federal Communications Commission is simple: there are five Commissioners, no more than three of whom can be from the same party, and they serve five year terms that can be informally extended to seven and a half years if they aren't replaced.  The President appoints them, the Senate confirms them (or doesn't, though it's rare), and the President gets to pick which one gets the Chairman's seat.

     For over-the-air stuff, the Commission's basic mandate is to regulate the operation of actual transmitters, those devices that fill up the limited RF spectrum with signals.  It's different for every service, from the few remaining Non-Directional Beacons and maritime services down below the end of the AM band -- remember AM radio? It's kind of still there, barely --  up through amateur radio and shortwave broadcasting, low-band communications, FM and television broadcasting, VHF and UHF comms, cell phones, terrestrial relay services (mostly digital stuff), satellite radio and TV and so on.  When it comes to broadcasting, the FCC licenses individual radio and TV stations, not networks or group owners.  Each spot on the dial in each location comes with a license -- or a big old Federal fine.

     President-elect Trump's incoming FCC Chair has big plans -- or at least big talk -- about knocking "the networks" into line, but he's got less direct power over them than his sponsor appears to believe.  The FCC can be expensive and annoying to the stations the networks own directly.  Those are relatively few, though in the biggest cities -- think New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Boston and so on.  But they're not the biggest owners; that would be Hearst, E. W. Scripps Company, Sinclair (probably the largest, avowedly conservative and has the greatest number of ABC stations) and Tegna, Inc.  None of these companies own only stations affiliated with just one network; Tegna's got the biggest block of NBC stations (22), but owns ABC, CBS and Fox stations as well; each of them owns stations that carry the four largest TV networks -- so it's tricky for the entity that licenses stations to go after a network: networks are not, themselves, licensed by the FCC.  Each and every one of these very large companies (think billions, not millions) has lawyers by the barrel-full; they have all formed in the course of long strings of acquisitions, mergers and divestments.  Legal sparring with the FCC (and other regulators) isn't just a thing they do, it's a part of what they are.

     Most of these station-owning companies avoid overt politics and editorialized content, other than Sinclair, and even Sinclair is careful where they tread: they're all in the business to make money, and they will follow the money remorselessly, wherever it leads.  The FCC may be able to cost them a few bucks, if they do something the new Chairman deems worthy of reproof  -- but most of their attorneys are already on the payroll, and enjoy an opportunity to keep busy.

He's Doing It Again

     In a recent TV interview, his first since winning election to the Presidency, Donald Trump opined that the members of the House January 6 Committee ought to be in jail for "what they did."  When pressed, he accused them of destroying evidence.

     That would indeed be awful and potentially unlawful behavior -- if they had done so.  In fact, they did not.  You can go browse most it for yourself.

     Some things are under review and may be redacted -- in addition to the public spaces, the U. S. Capitol building is a warren of back corridors, unobvious private offices, hidey-holes, connecting tunnels and so on, including the places where members of Congress and staffers took refuge on January 6, 2021.  There are obvious security concerns with publishing specific data.  Many people still don't realize how close we came to having a Congressperson, staff member or even the Vice President beaten up or strung up that day, but there's nothing to be gained and much to be lost by providing a map for the next attempt.

     Pardoning the rioters is undeniably one of the powers of the office of the President.  I think it would be regrettable, but it wouldn't be illegal.  Going after then-members of the U. S. House of Representatives for doing something well within the powers and purview of their branch of the Federal government is a very different matter.  You may find the J6 Committee infuriating, heroic or boring, but it wasn't illegal.  They didn't kick down any doors, break any windows or take a steaming dump on a House member's desk.  None of them assaulted Capitol police.  The J6 rioters did that, at the instigation, if not the direct behest, of Donald Trump, who was at the time President of the United States of America.

     Pretending otherwise is a fool's game.

One Down, 87 To Go

     It depends on how you count them, but there were almost 90 autocratic governments on Earth yesterday, and today there's one less: Assad isn't running Syria any more.  (Present whereabouts unknown; a plane carrying him may have gone down, and no one is looking very hard.  Update: The Russians say he's been granted asylum in Moscow.  He was their boy in the Middle East for a long time, so it's not unlikely. )

     What comes next?  It's hard to say.  What newscasts are calling "Syrian rebels" is a a polyglot bunch, and the largest bloc, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, has palled around with both the "Islamic State" and al-Qaida in the past.  They haven't run with either since 2016; guessing if that was a matter of wanting less crazy or more is an exercise for pundits and intel professionals.  Junior partner is the Syrian National Army, a collection of at least twenty-eight groups;* some sources say at least twenty-one of them have received U. S. assistance in the past, against IS and related threats, but we've been known to hand out goodies to almost anyone who'd smile and promise to fight Communists, Islamic extremists and the like.†  Some of SNA's roots go back to the "Free Syrian Army," and Turkey has been one of their main sources of support, despite the occasional armed squabble.

     You can tie yourself up in knots trying to sort all this out, and by the time you have, the situation will have changed.  None of them liked Assad, or the way he was running the country, and it appears that became a strong enough motivation that they were able to work together.

     It's an open question if they'll be able to continue working together, but we can at least hope.  If you're expecting the Syrian James Madison will come running down from the hinterlands, waving a draft Constitution well-suited to the people of that nation, don't hold your breath.  They might -- and it would be good news if they can -- manage to cobble something together that will hold long enough to make serious inroads against the starvation and misery that part of the world has become famous for.

     It says something about our species that the very cradle of human civilization has become a nightmare of failed states and warlordism, with refugees as the prime regional export.  It says something about us, and it's nothing pleasant.
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* At this point, the better-informed might be wondering, "What of the Kurds?"  They're wondering that, too.  They appear to have very little presence in the SNA.  Kurds are about ten percent of Syrian population and are likely to get what they usually get: short shrift.  The French, the British, the various Allied and UN powers, the local potentates and so on all overlooked them when they drew lines on maps, and it's one more smoldering problem in a place that has an oversupply of tragedies.
 
† And that's nothing new -- go read some early 19th-Century Letters of Marque issued by Congress for examples. A proxy war is a cheap war for everyone except the proxies.

Politicommentary

     You probably think I have something trenchant and/or pithy to say about Mr. Trump's picks or Mr. Biden's pardons, but here's the thing: it's all sideshow.

     These things don't have anything to do with the day to day running of the country right now, and even the parts that could affect it in the future are only possibilities.  I could probably start a nice helmet fire about all or part of it, but what good would that do?

     Time enough for the Senate to show me how they're going to react.  Time enough to find out who's going to pardon whom and how that's going to work out.

     Right now, the House needs to start looking under the Federal sofa cushions for spare change before the current piggy bank goes dry.  They've got to get it done before Christmas, or they're going to be sending out cards to their constituents in the dark.  I'm pretty sure the Pentagon has a back-up plan before they have to start working by candlelight, and I'm hoping the over-the-horizon radars and earth stations for the DOD spy satellites have all got fat UPSs on standby.  But you'd never know to watch the news: it's all clowns and animal acts.

We Invented Our Way Out Of It

     Humans are clever primates.  Faced with a problem, we invent our way out.  As hunter-gatherers, we lived in small bands, with everyone a general specialist.  When we learned more things, we started figuring out some people were better at chipping flint, others at hunting, collecting edible plants, building shelter, cooking or guarding our homes through the long night.

     We befriended dogs and they befriended us.  We invented cities and agriculture not quite side-by side: many hands make light work.  Cats showed up, hunting the mice in our granaries.  We learned to preserve leather, spin thread, to knit and weave.  We developed pottery.  We started working metal: copper for tools and utensils, humble and dangerous lead, rare silver and gold,* useful bronze, brass and iron.

     And we learned about plumbing and sewers -- not once, but over and over again.  We learned about illness and epidemics, too: a bug that would wipe out a mostly-isolated hunter-gatherer band and stop, stymied by a lack of hosts, could smolder and flare in our cities, sweeping through like a wildfire.  We invented isolation, harsh and fairly effective.  We learned about cross-contamination the hard way (yet again!) and the lesson didn't stick.

     Eventually, we invented vaccines.  Vaccines are how you stuff a few hundred thousand, or a million, or millions of clever primates in a tight-packed city and avoid -- or at least control -- epidemics.  Ever since the first smallpox immunizations, some people have been skeptical.  It was gross, they cried; or it smacked of magic; or who knew what else might happen...?

     We know.  We've been running the experiment at scale, over and over, since the 19th Century.  We know what happens with communicable diseases we don't have vaccines for (epidemics), we know what happens when a sizeable segment of the population doesn't get vaccinated (outbreaks), we know the side-effects of vaccines, and they are evaluated and re-evaluated for safety and effectiveness.  Don't take my word for it, and don't follow internet memes and rumors, either -- you can go look this stuff up on Wikipedia, in the abstracts (summaries) of articles in reputable scientific journals or full articles in mass-market science magazines.  This is not a matter of debate except out at the weirdo fringe: vaccines work.  They're safe.

     Putting a "vaccine skeptic" in charge of this country's Federal health infrastructure is insane.
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* Speaking of humble and dangerous, and of gold: the ancient Egyptians apparently worked out the use of mercury and fire in refining gold, a job with such grave consequences for the people doing it that it was usually assigned to slaves taken in war.  "Mad as a hatter" (also the result of working with mercury) had nothing on an Egyptian gold-smelter.  Eventually we invented our way around that, too.

All Right, That's Enough

     Most people agree that Washington, D.C. is a semi-evil clown circus, or at least the parts that the fed.gov lurks in are.  They start to disagree when you get down to details -- this Administration or that one, one party more than another, and somehow it's almost never their guy or gal, just a prime clown or three and a hand-wavy bunch of "them."

     This general notion of buffoonery, wickedness and performative showpersonship gets applied with a high degree of freakoutery when control of Congress and/or the Presidency passes from one party to the other.*  Maybe that's as it should be.  Maybe with only two parties having a chance to frob (see Usage Notes at the link) around with the levers of power, a degree of viewing-with-alarm is useful in the same way as a product-safety team trying to figure out all the ways a thing can go wrong.

     But it becomes tiresome, and never more so when speculation soars to third and fourth-order effects: If nominee W is confirmed for office X and if they proceed to remove department Y and rule Z, then....  Whoa, nelly!  One worry at a time.

     Some -- in my opinion, most -- of Mr. Trump's nominees are underqualified and overconfident, which is never a good combination.  Many of the things they might do, outlined in Agenda 47 or Project 2025, would negatively affect U. S. citizens and residents, and I'm opposed to those things.  But they have not done them yet; they have not reached a position from which they would be able to do them yet, and there is no certainty that they will.

     There are probably awful times coming.  We have never before elected a President who swore vengeance as a big part of his campaign (not that any previous holders of that office were plaster saints).  But it has not happened yet and diving too deep into they-mights and what-ifs will only get in the way.  2025's House and Senate will be even more delicately balanced than 2024's, and those contentious, deliberative bodies can be counted on to do what they do best and were intended to do: contend and deliberate.  In public.  Loudly.

     Pop some popcorn.  The first couple of months will be interesting.  Yes, things could get pretty bad, but the roller-coaster is already clicking up the hill and there's no getting out until the end of the ride.  Might as well take each climb and swoop down as they come.
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* I'd love to tell you the United States is a multiparty democracy, mentioning the Greens, Libertarians, New Whigs and so on, with a nod to the handful of fiercely independent members of Congress, but as a practical matter, it ain't.  The little-party guys essentially never make it to the center ring and the Is all pick a party to caucus with.  If you want to get anything done, you'll have to choose the party that makes you hold your nose the least, and try to coax or shove them in the direction you want to go.

Ipse Dixie

     House Speaker Mike Johnson might need to do a little homework.  In an interview Sunday, he griped, "I wish the Senate would simply do its job of advise and consent and allow the president to put the persons in his Cabinet of his choosing." [Emphasis mine.]

     Except that's not how it works, and you don't have to take my word for it.  Ask the arch-conservative Federalist Society.

     Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 does not mean "drop hints and go along."  It obliges the U. S. Senate to behave like the deliberative body they are, to openly discuss the nominee and vote on confirming their appointment, yes or no.  Getting the job is not guaranteed simply because the Chief Executive thinks you're the right disruptor for the position.

     Yes, it's awkward and inefficient to require the President and Senate to do some give and take over his choice of office-holders.  But those offices are, per the Constitution, created by Congress.  This back-and-forth is an attempt to fix two problems: the often-abused power of the British Crown and especially Royal Governors to create and fill high offices, and the post-Revolution (but pre-Constitution) arrogation by State Legislatures of those same powers.  By splitting them up and requiring some degree of debate, the Framers hoped to moderate and democratize the process.  You can think of it as a kind of grown-up version of the childhood method to fairly divide treats: one kid slices the pie, the other chooses who gets what piece.

     A large, powerful government had damned well better be slow and inefficient when it comes to appointive office like Cabinet members, Department Chairs and Ambassadors: those boys and girls can do a whole lot of damage, blow though budgets, mess up important projects, insult allies, stumble into wars with enemies and more.  Let's take our time.  Let's give the Senate, eyes and ears of the fifty States, a chance to look 'em over and put the matter to a vote.

The Eleventh Day Of The Eleventh Month

     It's Veteran's Day -- and I do thank you for your service.  It was Armistice Day to begin with, the end of a war that left a scar twisting across the face of Europe.  Some of the WW I battlefield is still uninhabitable.

     Someone who was my age when the guns fell silent at the eleventh hour in 1918 would have had clear memories of the U. S. Civil war.  That includes some of the soldiers and sailors.  One officer is known to have served during both wars -- and the ones in between.  And the scars from the Civil War remain, too, not as dead or as deadly as France's Red Zones but they're still there, etched across the land, scrawled across history, written on gravestones and in family histories.  War extracts a terrible price and it falls most heavily on the young and strong.  Even in peacetime, most military service consists of long hours of hard work for low pay.

     Those people in uniform are us.  Just like you, your neighbors, the people you work with and the kids you went to school with.  They're a mixed bag -- smart, dumb, short, tall, liberals, conservatives and people who just don't care about politics.  They grew up poor, middle-class and wealthy.  They're every color and all the same color -- green or Navy blue or whatever.  What they have in common is they stepped up.  They are doing -- or they have done -- the job, often far from home, frequently in terrible weather, and, at times, with the understanding there are other people not too far away who intend to kill them.

     I try not to be too glib with, "Thank you for your service."  That service is not something you can nod at acknowledging one day a year and call it good enough.