SCOTUS and the Albright Rule

In a NSC discussion over whether and how to intervene in the Balkans during the Clinton administration Madeliene Albright said something like: "what are your great armed forces if you never use them"?  I'll transmute that into a rule, named after her:

"if you have the power, use it".

That rule may be applying in the case of the Supreme Court.  Leader McConnell had the power to freeze Obama's nomination of Judge Garland to the Court.  President Trump has the power to nominate a young conservative woman to the Court.  The Republicans may, or may not, have the power to confirm her.  

After the election the Democrats may or may not have the power to expand the Supreme Court to allow a President Biden to nominate a young liberal black woman and others to the Court and the Senate to confirm them.

It's a game of tit for tat (I initially spelled "tick for tack") with no logical ending except greater polarization.  

Personally I would oppose the steps, but I think analytically down the road some sort of new compromise would evolve.  It's the same sort of dynamic which has created a bipartisan caucus in the House of Representative pushing a compromise pandemic bill. They may fail; the caucus may split; but at some point the center will reassert itself.   

RBG RIP

 My wife and I were fans of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, at least in the sense we saw the documentary and then the biipic made of her life.  She preceded me at Cornell by a few years, so I had that thread connecting me to her.

As liberal Democrats we feel badly; as humans we mourn her exemplary life.

What happens with the Court and the 2020 election now?  Lots of speculation, most of which will be wrong.

CFAP II Coming, and Here

 From Progressive Farmer, a report from Trump's rally saying that CFAP II will be announced next week at $13 billion.

Just went to Facebook FSA employees group and found this was announced.  Don't know why the amount went up $1 billion in a day.

Divisions Among Black Farmer Organizations

 I have a Google Alert set up for "black farmers", dating back to the Pigford days. Today it showed two hits:

"National Black Farmers Association Announces Boycott of John Deere"

"Deere forms new coalition to assist Black farmers with property rights"

No text for either, so I'm left guessing at the story behind the scenes. 

I'll take this opportunity to note that the NBFA (headed by John Boyd) has seemed to be a lot more active in recent months than they were for a while.  

Crop Insurance Fraud

 Farm Journal's Agweb runs a piece on a big, perhaps the biggest, crop  insurance fraud. It goes back over a decade, and I didn't notice a current hook for telling the story now, but it is a big story.  

RMA has a page listing crop insurance fraud cases.

1970's Oil Shock

Noah Smith has a piece in Bloomberg, describing the 1970's rise in oil prices and attributing several structural changes in the economy to that cause.   This shows gas prices over the last 100 years.  In 1968 when I first began driving as a civilian prices were $.34 a gallon.  Sometimes you had gas price wars, which would drive the prices even lower. Stations might offer premiums, like steak knives, for filling a tank. (Back in the day, banks used to offer premiums to open savings accounts, since interest rates were capped--but that's another subject.) We're still using a couple knives I got back then.

By 1980 the prices had risen to $1.19--tripling in price. That's after embargoes and long gas lines as people panicked (rather like the toilet paper shortages this spring). 

Evaluation of MFP

 NYTimes has a piece tied to GAO's assessment of MFP in a report Monday.  The criticisms seem to focus on higher payments for Southern producers and for big producers.  

I'd note that the WTO just issued an opinion that Trump's tariffs on China were illegal. MFP was intended to counter the adverse effects of the Chinese tariffs which responded to Trump's tariffs.

Will I Accept a Trump Victory?

 There's some worrying that liberals would not accept another Trump victory.  I can only speak for myself, a diehard Democrat.

If a "Trump victory" means an outcome like 2016--a loss in the popular vote but a clear plurality in one or more states sufficient to mean an electoral college victory--yes, I'll "accept" it.  By which I mean I'll recognize him as the person elected to be president according to our constitution. It doesn't mean I won't be as active, or more active, in opposition as I have been.

If the election goes to Congress, I'm not giving a promise of acceptance, although to the extent I understand the 1876 resolution I'd likely acceptance such an outcome in 2020.

The Last Mile Problem for US Government

 I've used the idea of a "last mile" problem before, but didn't really describe it.  The "last mile" in the internet is linking a home to the internet.  It's relatively easy to run fiber cable around the land.  It's like our blood--the veins and arteries are easy, but the capillaries are where it gets complicated.  In my mind the American federal government has such a problem--it can't connect reliably with all its citizens in all aspects of society.

I just noticed another instance: Treasury Department has 9 million checks it hasn't gotten to citizens.

The problem is more than 9 million--these are people who are part of the economy--IRS knows who they are, as opposed to people who are "off the grid" entitely.

Gates on Foreign Policy

 Reading Robert Gates: Exercise of Power, American Failures, Success, and a New Path Forward in the Post-Cold War World.

This Post review is pretty good.  Gates applauds Nixon and Reagan as having foreign policy agendas on entering office, and working effectively to implement them. He likes George HW Bush's response to the end of the Cold War, but criticizes Carter, Clinton, Obama, and Trump. He offers overviews of our history in dealing with various foreign affairs issues over the last 50 years, during much of which he was either at CIA, NSC, or DOD. Then he offers suggestions for better management.

His three big things are:

•  reviving, in my eyes, the Weinberger/Powell criteria for military engagement
• arguing for building up our non-military instruments of foreign policy--State, foreign aid, sanctions,education, etc.
• arguing for coordinated use of foreign policy instruments--he cites GWBush's Pepfar (aid to Africa for AIDS) as a model.

Two thoughts in response:

• for any organization there's a trade-off between specialization and coordination of effort. We had that in USDA, still do, and I don't think anyone has really solved the problem.  The National Security Council was supposed to be the solution originally, but Gates doesn't think much of  its modern incartnation.
• Gates in a sense is arguing for "defunding the military" as progressives are arguing for "defunding the police." In both cases the analysis is that using force is counter-productive and/or ineffective, and using available alternatives to force would work better. (This is my take, definitely not his.)

Just a note from history--in the1950's the UN was the hope of the left.  While Gates doesn't ignore the UN, it's obvious from his discussion how far its stature has fallen.