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How to Save the Federal Legislature

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Our Congressional system currently operates on the worst kind of winner-take-all cronyism: the majority party controls all of the legislative committees.

Here’s an alternative: Count up the number of committees, and divide into 100%. If there are 20 committees, that would be 5%. Every party with more than 5% representation in the chamber gets to pick a committee to run. The largest party picks the first committee, on down to the smallest qualifying party. Continue the rotation, skipping those parties that have more committees by percent under their control than has been allotted to the larger parties.

So if a party has 5% representation when there are 20 committees, they don’t get to pick any more committees at all. If they have 10%, they have half as many as they are allowed, and they don’t get to pick another committee until every other party has at least half as many committees as they are allowed.

So if the party has 7%, they only get one committee.

This allows single-issue parties to manage the committee they feel most passionately about – although with only a single committee member, they still have to convince the larger parties on the merits of their policies.

And the majority party can’t prevent legislation from advancing from committees that they don’t control. So they’ll have to learn to negotiate, instead of acting like little tyrants.

Trial-by-“Fired”

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Donald Trump’s presidential reality show is finally hitting its stride. Rather than betraying his promises to his blue-collar loyalists, this blogger has learned that Trump’s cabinet of big-money, corporate-welfare advocates was carefully selected for a humiliating process of elimination. The juiciest moment yet was the Russian Foreign Minister’s sneering “Really? He was fired?” response to the news of James Comey’s elimination. Rupert Murdoch and his team of script-writers at Fox are preparing even worse for the rest of the team that Trump gulled into serving in his Cabinet.

Las Vegas odds-makers are setting up betting pools now. Who will be the survivor of the ultimate reality show? The reality show that is, in fact, reality?

My money is on Kim Jong-un.

But until then, of course, every week the voters that elected Trump will be able to cheer as another swamp-monster falls. Price, Mnuchin, Tillerson: the end is near!

Compromising Positions

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Last night, I finally shook out of the Congressional leadership the reason for their passivity regarding Trump’s malfeasance. They are confident that he is going to destroy his presidency. They want Pence as president, because Pence is a committed partisan of Ryan’s domestic policies. And they want to secure control of Trump’s blue-collar base by blaming the Democrats for the failure of his Administration.

Trump’s attack on Comey undermines the second goal: Comey was the alt-right’s hero for his take-down of Clinton. By attacking Comey, Trump begins the alienation of his base – a base that hates with a purple passion the Washington establishment led by Ryan and McConnell.

And Pence may no longer be a viable president. Currently, the national security community is focused on the possibility of compromat, the use by Russian intelligence services of financial and social relationships to entrap their targets into the commission of treason. The US has its own culture of compromise, though: organized crime. Trump was tutored in business by a lawyer who moved in organized crime circles. Trump’s cabinet selections are almost universally people with ethical clouds in their pasts. Trump has surrounded himself with such people because they are malleable – he can use their history to command their loyalty.

In The Godfather, Michael Corleone aspired to federal office before chaos in the family’s empire force him to assume criminal control. Trump may not have been born into the Mob, but he is a student of its methods. Worse, he may beat back opposition by drawing upon the Mob’s knowledge of transgressions by federal office-holders, in much the same way that Edgar Hoover secured his control of the FBI by threatening politicians with exposure to secrets uncovered by the FBI.

Even if Ryan and McConnell weather the storm of Trump’s self-destruction, when the full story is gathered together by historians, they will emerge as the most craven of the cowards of this ear.

The Tide Pool of Selfishness

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Watching Donald Trump serve as president brings up a memory from my elementary school years. The Cub Scout pack took a field trip down to the tide pools in Palos Verdes. I spent the day picking my way through the kelp-coated rocks, amazed by what I was seeing, until one of my school chums said: “Hey Brian, come see this! These kids have found some crabs!”

Excited, I rushed over, hearing raucous laughter, to be confronted by the sound of a crab being crushed against the rock under an older boy’s boot.

The principal characteristic of a stable democracy – often the only thing that prevents it from devolving to fascism – is the existence of a robust and independent justice system. The lack of such a system is what has allowed Putin to make himself the richest man in the world while running Russia. Again and again, his political enemies have languished in jail while the courts transfer their assets to Putin and his cronies.

Watching Trump dismantle our federal justice system is terrifying to me. The onslaught of court cases brought against Trump since the inauguration demonstrate the dangers of letting a narcissistic fraudster into office, and that many of them involve foreign financial dealings means that they are brought in federal court. Trump’s political and financial interests are aligned to the end of destroying the system.

In my mind, that Republican legislators green-light the demolition only builds greater certainty that they’ve got something to hide. Perhaps Republican campaign operatives are linked to the weaponization of the data stolen from the DNC by the Russians?

I was back in Palos Verdes a few years ago. The abused tide pools now are barren rock.

The Original Entitlement

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Republican policy makers see “repeal-and-replace” of the affordable care act as a fundamental test of governance. It has nothing to do with health-care policy, or the rights of participants in a free-market economy.

If it did, they would be forced to recognize that the sick should have the right to change insurers when denied treatment. This is possible only if pre-existing conditions are disallowed as an exclusion for coverage – which means that everybody must have coverage, because otherwise the greedy would wait until they got sick to get insurance.

Against this reality, the Republicans raise the fantasy of “entitlement programs.” This was the specter raised by Salma Hayek in the early 1900’s: democratic governments would face popular pressure to allocate resources from the wealthy to the poor. When such programs were established, it would be impossible to get rid of them, because beneficiaries would only elect those that safe-guarded the program.

But let’s get real about this: the wealthy are beneficiaries of the original entitlement known as private property. This is a fiction established by legal writ and armed might that allows greedy people to allocate to themselves what was once held by the people. The oppressive machinery of the private property state was what destroyed native cultures during the colonial era.

To Republicans, would you surrender that protection? Is it fair that contract law allows insurers to bury exemptions from coverage in impenetrable legal and medical terminology? Is it fair that employers should enrich themselves while their workers surrender health to physical, mental and emotional stress? That is what the entitlement of private property allows: the transfer – without recourse – of energy and wealth to the greedy through a slow grinding down of people who are simply trying to take care of those they love.

Argue the merits of health-care policy. The moral purpose of an economy isn’t to make your donors rich. It’s to provide for the well-being of the people.

And put Hayek away. If you’re going to dismantle state programs, on principle you’ll have to accept that inevitably the peasants will march on your estates with torches and pitchforks, and the proper response of “government” will be to sell the popcorn.

Slush Fund of the Apocalypse

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Rachel Maddow reported today that a Venezuelan businessman bought access to Trump’s National Security Council for his son. The purpose was to go over a ten-point plan that would remove US sanctions on Venezuela, instituted by the Obama Administration in response to the deaths of those protesting government corruption.

Access was apparently linked to a contribution of $666,000.00 to the president-elect’s inauguration fund. The fund raised more than $100 million, of which probably 20% was necessary to fund the celebration. The rest of the money is unaccounted for.

What amuses is that the original donation was $500,000. Someone on the Trump team felt it necessary to hold out for an additional $166,000.

“666”, of course, is the number of the beast in Revelation.

Anomie in Action

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I ate dinner on Easter at Jack-in-the-Box. Fox News was broadcasting a synopsis of the Gospels. I came in just as John the Baptist was being dragged before Herod. The reaction of Jesus was portrayed as an angry invocation to his disciples to pick up the sword. The lines were (I paraphrase):

I understand now the anger of my father. It is time to take up swords against his enemies!

Followed on the Temple steps by a threatening diatribe against the religious authorities.

Obviously, this is a corruption of the story related by the Apostles. I just shook my head and turned the other way.

Last night at Bible study I found myself counseling a man of deep convictions who had come in railing against the hypocrisy of those that use Revelation to justify dropping bombs on our enemies. I suggested that he not argue Revelation with them – the symbolism is too complex, and in the past we have seen that often only those doing the work can interpret prophesy. Rather, take heart in the actual words of Jesus that so clearly contradict pronouncements of hate.

This came up again this morning with my Muslim colleague at work. He related a call-in broadcast with a scholar who was attacked by a young man claiming that the scholar was spreading lies regarding a Wahhabi theologian. When confronted with the actual words of the Wahhabi, the young man continued to assert that what was said was a lie. The moderator finally intervened, telling the young man to please not call in until he had studied the source materials.

Was that the right approach, though? Or will it leave a bitter taste that will continue feed anger and violence in the caller?

Put two rats in cages and subject both to shocks. In one cage, install a red button that the rat can use to interrupt the sequence of shocks. Ensure that both rats still receive the same number of shocks. Guess what? The rat with the button will behave pretty normally. The rat without the button will lie motionless. The motionless rat suffers from anomie, a type of hopeless paralysis.

As the lower 90% of our society slides slowly into desperation, receiving shock after psychological shock, they will grasp at anything that gives them a sense of control (no matter how displaced) over their situation. Expressions of anger are a great way of shutting people up, as is brandishing of a weapon. They don’t have any affect on our circumstances, but like the rat in the cage with the button, they enable us to continue to act when we otherwise would succumb to hopelessness.

So I would say that the young Muslim caller should have been congratulated for reaching out, and offered sympathy for the circumstances that provoked his anger. Stories from the lives described in the Qu’ran – including Moses, Joseph and Muhammad himself – would guide him towards patience and faith.

Political and religious zealots of all stripes arise in desperate times. They flourish because we don’t pay attention to the circumstances that create desperation. Shutting them out of our gardens won’t solve the problem.

 

 

Feminine Power

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Letter to Dr. Marcie Bianco in reponse to her recent article in Quartz.

Reading “The Future of Feminism” in Quartz, I am concerned that the references you cite depart from the masculine framework for gender relations.

Many have also questioned whether strict “equality” is desirable, even if attainable. Diversity implies difference, if only in particulars. In the case of the genders, biology guarantees that there will never be strict equality.

My recommendation is a focus on “fairness.” Patriarchies do tend toward the centralization of power (to paraphrase Unamuno: “every man wishes to rule the world”). Practices of fairness – returning value commensurate to an individual’s contribution – will be interpreted by the “establishment” as a form of resistance to centralization. There is more to fairness than that, though. Fairness creates robust networks of trust.

My observations and research on “matriarchies” tends to support the conclusion that this is what women naturally seek. They give support to those that suffer, empowering them to think proactively rather than reactively.

I understand that “robust” is difficult to quantify. My belief, though, is that “robust” is the metric that feminists should pursue as alternative to the calculus of power (“What percentage of CEOs are women?”). I was heartened by Balanced Scorecard methods back in the ’90s (https://hbr.org/1992/01/the-balanced-scorecard-measures-that-drive-performance-2). Unfortunately, in the interim exploitation of foreign labor and resources has made it too easy for the economic elite to centralize resources, and such disciplines don’t appear to have become part of American management culture.

Kleptocrats, Unite!

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Rachel Maddow is building the case that Rex Tillerson’s actions at the State Department – and principally the firing of the top career civil servants – are consistent with the goals of Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

To those that understand Putin’s Russia, the goals are simple: transfer as much wealth as possible from the Russian state to private ownership. This is called “kleptocracy” – government serving the financial interests of the leadership. Putin has made an art of this game, becoming arguably the richest man in the world.

As CEO of Exxon Mobil, Rex Tillerson was awarded Putin’s “Friend of Russia” designation for his stand against U.S. sanctions that impeded Exxon’s ability to exploit oil and gas resources in Russia. The methods used to enforce those sanctions were situated in the U.S. State Department. Those methods were also used to bring pressure against Exxon for its actions elsewhere in the world.

So Tillerson’s business history supports the conclusion that the State Department, with its focus on human rights and equity, is a nuisance to those trying to get business done in the world. My guess is that this is consistent with Trump’s goals, particularly as it has become clear that our President is almost certainly in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, for which the sentencing mandates jail time. Cleaning out the top of the State Department will allow the administration to identify and elevate career diplomats that share their priorities, and perhaps protect themselves from prosecution.

So Rachel, don’t push the Russian connection too hard. Trump and Tillerson share with Putin the attitude that government should be turned to the purpose of making money. Their kleptomania may be sufficient explanation for their policies. Regardless of whether Putin is using blackmail to coerce their actions, the Trump administration is composed of people that appear to be inspired by Putin’s success.