Election Predictions

I was wrong in 2016.  Maybe I'll do better in 2020.

As of Memorial Day, I'd put the odds this way:

• 10 percent chance Trump wins a majority of the 2-person popular vote and wins back the House.
• 30 percent chance Trump wins a majority of the electoral vote and keeps the Senate
• 10 percent chance neither candidate wins with 48 hours of election day, including possibility it goes to the House
• 30 percent chance Biden wins a majority of votes, both popular and electoral but fails to win the Senate.
• 10 percent chance Biden wins a comfortable majority, and squeaks a Senate majority
• 10 percent chance Biden wins a landslide, taking House and firm Senate majority

Bottom line, I think the Dems have more upside than the Reps but it's currently a tossup.

Furman and I: Great Minds

Politico reports that some Democrats, led by former Obama economist Furman, are worried that the fall will see lots and lots of positive economic news, as the economy starts to recover from the pandemic shutdown.  That's similar to my post here.

On the other hand, a FiveThirtyEight survey of economists has a prediction of a relatively slow recovery, a slight majority predicting a Swoosh (i.e., Nike logo) recovery.

Revising the US Food System

In the wake of the pandemic I'm seeing calls for the US to change the way we produce and distribute food.  Some of the proposals are intended to make it more resilient to disasters, some just hope for environmental friendlier ag.  See this piece and this 

I've doubts.  The way our food system currently works was never planned, but evolved. The forces at work were economic,governmental, social--the market system meant rewards for greater productivity and lower costs; the government ensures uniform food regulations for the country, government programs have eased the dislocations caused by the growth of more productive agriculture, the society as a whole values education, science and technology and the new, people place less of a priority on the taste and provenance of food and more of a priority on fast, cheap food which they don't have to prepare themselves.

Can these forces be changed, even if you have a popular cause that supports government action? Tastes can change, norms can change, but I'm not sure how well any social movement can manage such change.

Trump Is Dyslexic?

Bob Somerby at Daily Howler is often repetitive and long-winded, but he offers a perspective I don't often find elsewhere (although he and Kevin Drum respect each other and Kevin's my favorite blogger).

Here's Somerby discussing Andrew Sullivan's attack on the president.

Buried in there somewhere is the suggestion Donald Trump might be dyslexic.  I've not heard that before, but it's an intriguing suggestion.

As Somerby notes, liberals would normally shy from attacking someone with some disabilities or mental disorders, but not DJT.  The possibility won't change my attitude towards him either.

[Updated: If you assume that Trump is starting from a position of no knowledge, it would explain why he's easy prey for the last person to talk to him, and why he's suspicious of people.  For similar thoughts,here's Friedersdorf.

Speculation on What the FBI Was Doing

I approach the Michael Kelly case with some preconceptions:

1. the FBI has never been particularly fond of liberals.  The head of the agency has never been an agency.  For a long time it was headed by J.Edgar Hoover, a great bureaucrat and no friend to liberals.  It was a struggle to get some diversity into the agency, both minorities and women.
2. as an entrenched bureaucracy with its own esprit de corps it's liable not to follow direction from the outside.
3. Kelly I knew from his association with Gen. McChrystal and the Rolling Stone article, which got McChrystal fired.  I may have seen appraisals like that of Sarah Chayes in Business Insider, essentially a loose cannon, as I was once called, innovative but needing close management.
4. Not being a lawyer I've no good way of judging between claims that the interview with Flynn where he lied had no "predicate" (the Barr position) and therefore the case was tainted, and claims that the charges were appropriate and well-based.
5. Being a Democrat I'd enjoy any embarrassment to the Trump administration.

So, what do I make of Kelly, his indictment, and the subsequent dropping of the case by Attorney General Barr?

1. He was totally miscast as National Security Advisor, particularly for a president such as Trump. His selection, despite the warning from Obama, was an early instance of Trump's incompetence.
2. I doubt the narrative that the FBI looking at Flynn was part of an Obama administration's plot to undermine the Trump administration.  I don't believe the FBI would risk good relations with the incoming administration just because Obama or Yates told them to. That wouldn't fit my picture of the FBI as sophisticated bureaucratic players.
3. Not being a lawyer, I've not carefully followed the arguments about FBI having a predicate for its investigations, particularly because the rules seem to differ some between a criminal investigation and a national security (counter-intelligence) investigation.
4. My vague suspicion is as follows: in counter-intelligence people are paid to be suspicions, overly so.  Witness James Jesus Angleton, about whom I've written a time or two. It doesn't seem totally unreasonable to me that FBI agents would look at Flynn, fired by Obama from his DIA job, and say to themselves: if I were a Russian agent I might try to exploit his hard feelings, at least feel him out.  Certainly the KGB would see that as a potential gold mine and certain to reap big bureaucratic rewards.  
5. If I'm an FBI bureaucrat, I think I'd believe that the Russian/Flynn investigation could offer big rewards--it'd be good for my reputation and promotion prospects.  (I'm assuming that the FBI culture is rather insular, and  agents would believe that their director still, as J. Edgar was, could insulate them from flak from DOJ and the presidency.  )
6. I like a summary of the Mueller report from Dana Milbank: the Trump campaign wanted to collude with the Russians but was too incompetent to.  The whole episode is murky, and I don't believe it could have been much clearer to FBI agents.
7. One known unknown: we don't know what covert sources of information were and are available to the administration.   Presumably there are some, the existence of which has been hidden from the public record.

So my bottom line is disbelief in any sinister plot against Trump and his people. I think a combination of bureaucratic motives, culture, and incompetence came together with Trump incompetence to produce one good result: Flynn's resignation as national security adviser and likely a bad precedent for the way the FBI should operate in the future.

Firing Inspectors General

As a good government ("goo-goo") type, I'm perturbed by the president's removal of several IG's and acting IG"s.  But this piece  suggests there's not much Congress can do to stop such actions by a president.  IG's are executive branch employees and as such are subject to the president's authority.

I wonder: could we look to sports, the NFL, for a solution:  There the tension is between getting the call right and keeping the game flowing.  Could we give the president a couple get-out-of-jail cards per term--allow her to fire two IG's but no more?  Arguably this would permit the president flexibility but not too much.

I'm afraid what will happen when the administration changes: the new president will use the Trump precedent to fire the Trump-IG's and goo-goo norms will suffer further erosion.

CFAP--A Tip of the Hat

I remember the pains of trying to implement new legislation on a rush basis.  I could tell, and have told, stories about the experience. 

One thing I never experienced was trying to implement new legislation while working from home during a pandemic.  A tip of my hat to those working in DC and the field who are trying to navigate that morass.  (Post inspired by Brent Orr's picture of the training room in the South Building from which they did online training of the field on CFAP.)

What Will the Recovery Look Like?

I've no insight, but since when does that stop a true blogger?

Personally I think it will be slow-fast-slow. 

• the first slow will because the majority of people won't be risk-takers, they'll let others be the trailblazers.
• the fast will be as people realize that it is relatively safe--isolated incidents but nothing drastic enough to cause major political subdivisions to revert back to a lock-down.
• the second slow will be because of the drag on economic activity from the measures taken to minimize risk plus dealing with the economic damages of the pandemic--the closed restaurants, the half-empty nursing homes, etc.

We'll see.

A Test of Leadership

Back in the day I got bawled out by my deputy division director for cursing at an employee.  I deserved it.  I think it was that conversation where he discussed a fellow branch chief.  Lou was a WWII vet, whose ship IIRC had been sunk on D-Day.  He was a voluble guy, loud and boisterous with a temper.  But Bob pointed to him as a good leader, simply because he was consistently Lou.  His employees and those who dealt with him knew, at least after the initial getting-to-know-you, that what you saw was what you got, no surprises.  I needed that, to be consistent.  (Not sure I ever achieved that.)

I think of that lesson from time to time, never more these days when considering our President.  His approval rating on dealing with the pandemic has not been good.  Meanwhile some of our governors have very good ratings, particularly Gov. Cuomo. I don't follow him closely, but it seems to me his record of decision-making hasn't been all that great.  I account for the difference in ratings between him and Trump by consistency by the one and inconsistency by the other.

The Usefulness and Reuse of Masks

Early on in the pandemic, I think I was informed that masks would insulate the wearer from the world, particularly the viral particles floating around in the air from those already infected.  So it made sense that masks were one-time use--you go out wearing a mask, you meet someone infected and his virus particles get hung up in your mask. You then go home, and the mask represents a threat to anyone who contacts it.  Fine.

But now I'm getting the impression the main function of the mask is to protect the world from you, the wearer.  It captures your germs, your viral particles.  Is that true?  If it is, then the mask can be used more than once.  If you're infected, and the mask captures your virus, there's no new contamination in the home and no real downside to reusing it.