FSA and NAP--Catching Fraud

The Rural Blog has a short piece on this:

Dexter Day Gilbert, who has farms in Alabama and Florida, pleaded guilty recently to submitting false applications under his name and others to the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program. He submitted 14 false claims of loss between July and November 2016. Court documents say he began submitting the applications in March 2016. He will be sentenced in September.

Digging a bit further, the fraud (almost a million, which I find amazing) may have been in collusion (to use a currently popular term) with an FSA employee.

Liberals Love America, Conservatives Don't

The heading is click bait.

I responded to a Brit Hume tweet, later deleted, about how liberals don't love America.  I'll expand it a bit here:

IMO most liberals, like me, aren't terribly proud of America's past.  We tend to see the dark side, and there is a dark side: the ruin of Native American tribes, slavery, imperial misadventures, etc.

But most liberals, again like me, love America for its future, believing that the "arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice"; the future will redeem the past.  For the Christians among us it's a postmillennial vision, the idea that if Christians do Christ's work on earth, the world will get better and better, leading up to the eventual return of Christ.  (I'm channeling what I think were the beliefs of my minister grandfather and missionary aunt.)

On the other side, conservatives see America as having been a model for the world, the establishment of the government under the Constitution as being the great event in world history.  So they love America for its past, but are concerned about its future, as liberals thoughtlessly destroy the fabric of society which accounted for its greatness.

Do Away with ICE?

I believe it was Noah Smith or Matt Yglesias who asked for a piece on whether we need a federal internal police force focused on immigration.

This is the way I'd analyze it:

Question:  do we want federal laws on immigration or not?

Answer: if we do, then you have to deal with the situation where people violate the laws and are inside the U.S.

Options: 

1. Have the laws but don't enforce them (similar to laws on prostitution, speeding, etc.)--not acceptable to public opinion now, though it might work in a less frenetic environment.
2. Have state and local police enforce the laws--as long as immigrant is a fraught issue probably not a good option because you'd have great variation in enforcement (i.e., sanctuary cities) 
3. Have the FBI or other existing federal police body enforce the laws.  This would shake things up, but in the long run the causes that ICE may have developed into an organization with a culture and standard operating procedures some, like liberals, find offensive likely would recreate the same problems.  (IMHO, any situation where there's power on one side and no power on the other is very likely to devolve into something bad--"power corrupts, etc."
4. Reorganize ICE under new authorities and new leadership.  That's what will happen if the Dems win in 2020.

"Impeach Earl Warren"

Just tweeted to Orin Kerr on the impact of the Earl Warren court on American life.

The cry of "Impeach Earl Warren" was likely more widespread in the 1960's than any slogan of more recent years.   It's memories like that which make me think we were more divided then than we are today.

Good News Today: Multiple Myeloma

The NYTimes has column today on good news this week.  I'll add to it:  

Kevin Drum reports on the progress being made on multiple myeloma--the disease he's been fighting for years.  He's hopeful, which is great news for many, but especially for devoted readers of him, which I am.

Bipartisanship in the Senate

Despite the acrimony, in the right circumstances the Senate can pass bills on a bipartisan basis.

They did so this week with the farm bill.  And a Senate committee  passed a bill restructuring the way musicians are paid.

Neither issue is terribly partisan, at least for the Senate.  The right wingers in the House force a split on the issue of work requirements for SNAP, but they finally got a version passed there.   It will be interesting to see how well the two houses work to reconcile differences and pass final legislation.

Our Socially-Isolated Citizens: Really?

The NYtimes reported that 12 percent of people report using their cellphones in the shower.

The Benefits of Moderates

Who is appointed and confirmed to the Supreme Court is very significant.  My spouse is very concerned.  The senators who seem to be key are Collins and Murkowski on the Republican side, who presumably would not want an appointee certain to overturn Roe.  And on the Democratic side, the WV, ND, MO, and IN senators who might want to polish their non-partisan credentials by voting for a Trump appointee.

Ideologues on both sides want to oust the RINOs and DINOs in their party.  The more they do so (no Jacob Javits or Hugh Scott in today's Republican party) the more power the remaining individuals have. 

It's similar to the maneuvering within the Court itself.  Back in the old days, Sandra Day O'Connor was the swing vote, and Kennedy was just a slightly less conservative than his fellows on the right.  O'Connor retires, promoting Kennedy into the swing position.  Kennedy retires, and the conventional wisdom is that Chief Justice Roberts becomes the swing. 

Unions and Marketing Agreements

The Supreme Court struck down the ability of unions to charge fees to non-members for service rendered in representing them to management. 

A couple comments:

1. FSA in DC became unionized before I retired.  As a manager, it was another pain, another hoop to work through.  But it wasn't really that big of a deal, as I remember it.  My suspicion is that the union has become less effective over the years because of turnover in its members, meaning the original members who pushed to get the vote have retired and/or got tired.  That's the way humans do.  (Might be wrong, particularly as issues like Trump's attitude towards civil servants and more importantly Perdue's proposals for reorganization have come to the fore.)
2. As I've been distracted by working on a book for a relative I've not read the decision or evern detailed discussion of it.  But, not allowing that to stop me, I'd think the principles of the decision spell trouble for the agricultural marketing order/promotion system.  I'd think the argument is the same: being required to pay fees to a union or promotion fees to a promotion organization is a violation of free speech and free association.

That's not to say I like the fact.  While sometimes I lean libertarian I do think the government can appropriately encourage the formation of groups, like unions and marketing groups.

Chang and Eng or the Bonds of Affection

What's the more appropriate reference for today's political situation?

Is it Change and Eng, the original Siamese twins, forced to accommodate each other by their bond of flesh, or is it Lincoln's "bonds of affection", as he pleaded in his first inaugural address?

IMHO we're stuck with each other, and we just have to get along (with each other).