Tag Archives: politics

Yes, But It’s Not Enough

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Leon Panetta and Mike Gallagher are on the right track in sounding the alarm regarding our nation’s lagging behind our enemies in military strength and in the pace of scientific and weapon technology development.

They closed their op-ed, though, with this:

To prevent cold-war competition from devolving into a hot war, it’s time to innovate as if the free world depended on it. The path forward must be paved with investments in technology and undergirded by infrastructure built for innovative national-security research and education.

Innovate, certainly. Develop an infrastructure conducive to producing the scientists, engineers, and other researchers necessary for innovation, absolutely. That’s not enough, though. Panetta and Gallagher also emphasized that we are unlikely to adopt industrial policy or match our enemies in sheer production volume.

That’s the Critical Item remaining leg of our rebuilding: we have to produce the things we innovate, and we have to produce them in sufficient numbers that they can overcome the numerical superiority of our enemies’ production. That requires rebuilding the manufacturing facilities and building new such facilities that are necessary for us to produce our innovations. We can no longer expect our automobile manufacturers simply to adjust their assembly lines to produce tanks instead of trucks—both of those today are too complex and too different from each other.

The war(s) we fight against Russia and the People’s Republic of China will be fought with the men and equipment in being and on scene. The pace and weapons effectiveness of modern war will not allow much at all in the way of American reinforcements from overseas, and it will not allow any—zero—combat loss replenishments from our factories, whether extant or starting to be built when the first enemy bullet is fired at us.

Cognitive Fitness Tests for Presidents

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The Wall Street Journal spent a lot of electrons on the utility of cognitive tests for Presidents and other government officials. The TL;DR version is that cognitive tests are only initial screens for cognitive ability; they cannot diagnose, only point at areas for more in depth examination.

That’s fine. Then don’t stop there for government officials as critical to our nation’s safety as Presidents and Vice Presidents, and House and Senate leadership and Supreme Court Justices.

Do the cognitive testing as a matter of course, and then do the follow-up, in depth, examinations also as a matter of course.

The importance of such in depth examinations is clearly illustrated by the obvious mental decline in our current President. Has his decline progressed to the point that he’s no longer capable in that office? We the People need to know, and sooner is better. And we need to know for future elections to high office.

A Major Defense Contractor…

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…and powerful defense lobbyist…skates?

Boeing, whose pair of 737 MAX software-related crashes and a range of aircraft manufacture/assembly failures have cost or endangered lives, is being allowed to plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to defraud the US.

In truth, many of the assembly failures being laid off on Boeing in the rush of negative publicity are maintenance failures by the airline companies that own the aircraft involved. And, the manufacture/assembly failures are not factors (at least officially) in the plea agreement in progress—that’s limited to the MAX software-related crashes.

It’s also the case that the second MAX crash was more pilot error than it was a Boeing failure, though Boeing’s handling of the software failure involved in both MAX failures figured in the pilot screwup.

Those notwithstanding though, the plea—offered by the government, not by Boeing—seems a wrist slap.

[P]rosecutors have asked the company to pay a second $244 million criminal fine and spend $455 million over the next three years to improve its compliance and safety programs. Boeing also must hire an independent monitor for three years to oversee those improvements.

On the other hand,

The deal also does not cover any current or former Boeing officials, only the corporation.

The wrist slap in the present case compares to a 2021 “settlement” between Boeing and the government over the same MAX software question in which Boeing was fined a similar $243.6 million and paid an additional $2.5 billion to settle the case.

This, too:

Pleading guilty creates business challenges for Boeing. Companies with felony convictions can be suspended or barred as defense contractors. Boeing is expected to seek a waiver from that consequence. The company was awarded Defense Department contracts last year valued at $22.8 billion, according to federal data.

Getting the whole case boiled down to a single felony count, combined with the small fine and the pro forma business about compliance and being monitored, make it much easier for Boeing to get the waiver. The magnitude of the just signed defense contracts—who would the government get to replace Boeing on the tasks contracted?—also give Boeing leverage in getting the waiver.

A Question for Us Voters

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Stipulate for the moment that, at the DNC convention next month, enough delegates vote their consciences, as Party rules require, to nominate a Presidential candidate other than Joe Biden.

Will Biden then go into court and sue the Party’s/convention’s decision? If the convention’s alternative candidate is not Kamala Harris, will Party’s Farther Left go into court and sue over discrimination?

Suing in court is, after all, what Progressive-Democrats and the Left generally do when they don’t get their way.

My Renewed Suggestion

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Former President and current Republican putative nominee for President Donald Trump has challenged Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden to a rematch debate. Trump’s challenge flips the boxing world’s rematch challenge protocol on its head: usually it’s the match loser who challenges the winner to a rematch; this time it’s the debate winner who’s challenging the debate loser to a rematch. This time, too, a cage match: no holds barred.

Biden should take him up on the offer, and sooner would be better. It would be Biden’s chance to prove that his prior debate performance was a fluke. That sort of thing happens in boxing, too: see the Ingemar Johansson-Floyd Patterson series of matches, where Patterson sleepwalked into a Johansson right hand, and then won both rematches, almost in walkovers. So it could be with Biden, with an already scheduled (re)match in September.

The parallels are plain, too. Johanssen was a bit of a hedonist and trained accordingly. Trump doesn’t explicitly prepare for his debates; he relies on his experience as he trots around the countryside in his private jet, moving along to this or that campaign rally. Patterson, on the other hand, trained in monk-like ascetism and isolation. Biden trained in similar isolation, including a week in retreat preparing for his June debate.

Thus my renewed suggestion for Trump. If Biden declines the challenge for a nearby, wide open debate, then Trump should debate an empty chair, or maybe an empty barstool. This time, though, instead of the round arena of a cage match, do it in the round arena of a townhall. Two barstools in the center, one occupied by Trump—or not, as he gets up and strolls around the stage addressing all of the crowd—and one occupied by Biden, who won’t get off his stool, if he shows up at all.

Fact is, it wouldn’t be much different than the CNN debate last month, where Trump debated a nearly empty podium. And one more suggestion: don’t interrupt. Let Biden’s rambling answers speak for themselves, while Trump then demonstrates his own memory and acumen by picking apart Biden’s rambles point by point with facts and specific achievements in his rebuttals. The no interruptions bit would be the hard part, and the challenge, for Trump.

It’s a win-win proffer: Trump wins the rematch, or not, and us American voters win by observing empirically the quality of Biden’s performance.