The Bureaucrat and Politics: Reagan and Me

The DOJ IG report is out.  Pro-Trump partisans see it as helping him; anti-Trump partisans see it as confirming Clinton lost the election due to Comey's announcements.  Both seem to agree that the Strzok-Page emails were beyond the pale, particularly his reassurance to Page that "we'll stop him" meaning stopping Trump from winning the election.  The only evidence he did anything to back up the promise is the idea he didn't work on the Weiner emails issue for a month because he was working on the Russian-collusion investigation.  At least in the discussions I've read there's little detail on this.

In defense of bureaucrats being able to separate personal opinions and professional duties I'll offer a story from the Reagan administration.  I was strongly opposed to Reagan's election, and remained so throughout his 2 terms.  I was in the habit of referring to him as "the senior idiot", and a boss of mine as "the junior idiot".  Although I don't remember saying that to my co-workers, I'm sure most of them knew I wasn't for him.  In ASCS at the time, at least in the program areas one was pretty well identified as Democrat or Republican.  While I steered away from active involvement and wasn't then contributing money, the players within the bureaucracy knew my tendencies.

Anyway, comes fall of 1982 and the Reagan administration decides to implement a legally-questionable multi-billion dollar program to both reduce CCC-owned surpluses and crop acreages without budget expenditures--the program known as Payment-in-Kind.  Because of my background on the administrative side I knew the people who needed to be involved to create the forms and handle the directives and regulations to implement the program.  Because of my experience on the program side I understood most of the complexities of creating the program, writing the regulations and the contract (the contract the OGC lawyers insisted on to provide a legal fig-leaf for the program), and dealing with Kansas City IT players, I was a key player in the implementation (Had a chance to watch Seeley Lodwick, then the Under Secretary ramrod morning coordination meetings, giving me an example of what to do, an example I dearly wish Obama had seen when implementing ACA.).

The bottom line: I and a lot of other bureaucrats did a good job and PIK was implemented.  We did it despite our political leanings, whether pro- or con- Reagan.

I've written before on this question: Trump trusts people working for him to be good soldiers, if not lickspittles, and support his positions even if they're very different than what the workers used to support.  (See Mulvaney, see Bolton.) The same should apply to FBI agents.

Addendum: I admit there's a difference between the FBI behavior I've seen described from articles on the OIG report and mine.  Some of the agents were more open in expressing their opinions to each other than I ever remember being.  That's a bit bothersome.   On the other hand, I'm sure many soldiers and marines involved in our years of recent wars openly voiced their adverse opinions, while still doing their jobs.

Trump as Quintessentially American

Trump has gained attention for his noting to KJU the potential of NK beaches.  While there's derision, it strikes me as quintessentially American.  Perhaps my opinion is swayed by my exposure to the "frontier thesis" of Frederick Jackson Turner which pointed to the impact of "free land" on the development of American society and culture.

Pointing out the parallel--Americans historically have found opportunity existing in new frontiers, first in land, later in new areas of endeavor.  So it's typically American for Trump to see development opportunities in an area which might become newly available to entrepreneurs.

Farm Bill In the Senate

DTN reports on the progress of the Senate's version of the farm bill.  And from there you get this:

Censky also said that the Trump administration is continuing the modernization of technology at USDA and that officials hope that all the programs in the 2018 farm bill will be available online.

Farmers will still need to go to county Farm Service Agency offices to sign some papers, but Censky said he hopes farmers will be able to deal with applications and other forms online from home before going to the office. Farmers uncomfortable using a computer will still be able to go to the county office to fill out paperwork, he said.

I note there's a provision requiring use of the same county yields, requiring reconciliation of NASS and crop insurance figures.   

North Korea and the US

If I consider Pres. Kim to be rational, this is what I imagine his ultimate goals/wishes would be, in no particular priority:

• security guarantees from the US
• nuclear weapons and missiles
• peaceful unification of the peninsula under his leadership, being an autocracy like China's Xi
• economic aid from South Korea and where ever.

For the US, our goals would be:

• no nukes or missiles
• no unification or unification under the South's system
• no proliferation or transfer of nuclear or missile technologies.

I suspect the minimax solution, assuming both sides are rational is trading NK aid and security for verified agreements on nonproliferation, and kicking the unification question down the road.  

It's possible that Trump's clownish antics will provide enough cover and distraction for the US to give up its, and his, proclaimed goals denuclearization. 

Trump Records Management II

Some more thoughts on the Politico piece describing how Trump tears up documents when he's through with them, requiring employees to tape these official records back together.  (See yesterday's post.)

1. Who knew our President actually handled any documents--the impression the media gives is he operates in meetings and by tweets?  That's an exaggeration, of course.
2. Presumably these are briefing papers, not decision memos.
3. Ann Althouse commented this morning, making one valid point: Scotch tape isn't the right choice for archival materials (which anything seen by POTUS likely would be). Can't say much for the rest of her post.
4. The employees who spoke to the reporter were likely GS-11 or below in pay grade.  Perhaps they're in the same category as Clinton's Filegate employees--people who usually carry on from one adminstration to the next, but who aren't permanent civil service so don't have the usual job protections.

Records Management in the Trump White House

This is--I lack the words.

The management of official records is a serious business, but one can only laugh.

Import Brains (Continued)

Via Marginal Revolution an article on the amazing success of Nigerian-Americans. 

Some points which occur to me:

• importing immigrants who succeed is good foreign aid--they tend to return to the country of origin and/or send remittances.
• I wonder what happens to the children.  There's research, mostly I think on Hispanic immigrants, which show the children as losing the advantages of immigrants and gain the disadvantages of American children (obesity, crime, etc.)
• such success is complicating the task of American racism in finding support for their stereotypes.
• I write all this despite having had negative feelings towards African/Caribbean immigrants in FSA some 25 years ago--there were a couple with whom I had some interactions.  It was easy to doubt their ability to contribute when they had no background in US agriculture (though looking back on it I suspect I was being unfair.)

Trump and God Bless America

As an independent-minded liberal, or so I like to think, I must occasionally give our president the benefit of the doubt. One such occasion has arisen.

When he disinvited the Eagles to the White House, his substitute ceremony included "God Bless America".  During the song, Trump seemed not to know all the words, a fact which has attracted attention and some derision.

The Post has an article on the history of the song which is very good.  Its popularity is relatively recent, that is, within my lifetime.

I don't know about Trump, or the rest of you, but the way I learned our patriotic songs was in music class in elementary school.  Anchors Aweigh, etc.  I'm sure I can no longer remember the words to any of them, even our national anthem, in the sense that I could sit down and write out the song.  But, get me standing with a group of people and a band playing and somehow muscle memory takes over and I can produce what stands as singing of the words, good enough for government work anyway. 

But I'm sure "God Bless America" is not a song I learned. I'm aware of it, having heard it enough, but I've no muscle memory to count on.  Now Trump, being younger than I, may have learned the song in his elementary school, may have if he wasn't talking or disrupting the class (on his way to military school).  If so, let's criticize away.

Time to Check Farmers.gov

Why?

USDA just got $10 million for it, one of three agencies to get the first awards from OMB's Modernization Technology Fund, according to this article.

Personally I wonder about two things:

1. what is the management and organizational structure supporting the effort?  Dedicated resources or detailed from the agencies? Full-time managers and programmers, or part-time?
2. what metrics do they have, and how are they fed back into the management structure?   

In other words, how is the bureaucracy organized.

Trump and the Harshaw Rule

My Harshaw Rule says you don't do things right the first time. 

The Trump Administration provides abundant proof of the rule.  Starting with the man at the top, the administration has been filled with people who lack previous background in their posts.  And their various blunders and flouting of ethical standards are the result.  The unprecedented turnover in Trump appointees is an indicator of the strength of the Harshaw rule.

All this means, however, that in the Mueller investigation there will be no conclusion of a "corrupt intent" for the simple reason Trump had no ability to form a coherent intent.