Author Archives: eehines

This Should Not Be

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Iran is saying that it’ll negotiate—”this time we really mean it”—if the US stays out of the Iran-Israeli war whose current stage is in progress.

In the midst of a ferocious Israeli air campaign, Tehran has told Arab officials it would be open to returning to the negotiating table as long as the US doesn’t join the attack, the officials said.

I’ll leave aside the mullah’s cynical non sequitur that our participation in the war or not is a negotiable matter.

The mullahs of the Iranian government have welched on every agreement they’ve made with us, with Israel, with the West in general. Their word is worthless. It would be worse than a waste of time to pause the fighting now in favor of more Iranian dissembling under the guise of negotiating. It would cost even more friendly lives as Iran stalls, recovers it ability to build nuclear weapons, and then delivers them.

Apart from that, in addition to it, the US should play a limited offensive role. Iran’s Fordow nuclear weapons plant is under a mountain. Israel does not have the bombs or the delivery systems needed to attack it beyond (temporarily) closing its entry/exit points and, if they can spot them, the air vents. The US has the Massive Ordnance Penetrators capable of getting down to and destroying the Fordow facility, and we have the delivery systems. It would only take 3-5 of these MOPs to destroy that facility. If it isn’t destroyed, Iran would be able to resume building its nuclear bombs after the current stage of its war on Israel is concluded regardless of any other damage the Israelis could inflict.

The US should deliver those MOPs.

For Whom Does He Work

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For whom do they work, come to that? “He” is Dr Marty Makary, the FDA Commissioner. “They” are the bureaucrats of the FDA.

[C]hanges are coming so swiftly, and often without input from career scientists, that Makary faces declining staff morale threatening to stymie his efforts. He must also contend with the administration’s staff cuts at the FDA….

Career scientists—that’s the press’ euphemism for entrenched bureaucrats who happen to have medical or science degrees.

Lowering employee morale, as opposed to bureaucrats’ morale, is an important problem. It is, however, most optimally solved by either or both of two items:

  1. the bureaucrats figure out that they’re not the ones in charge, they must work within an operational hierarchy and either follow the instructions of those placed above them or resign their positions
  2. the remaining bureaucrats and those newly hired, the latter whom lack the habits of entrenchment, get actually productive and do their jobs more efficiently, which can be facilitated by astute use of AI
  3. That last, of course, requires that Makary implements AI as a tool and not as a decision maker itself

Regarding the opening question, “he,” Makary, works for the HHS Secretary, who in turn works for the President, who works for us American citizens. Makary, thus, works through his chain of command for us average Americans and for our benefit, not that of those bureaucrats. Neither the FDA nor government at large are jobs welfare programs; the incumbents are there for our weal, not their own benefit.

I’m not too worried about the morale of entrenched bureaucrats. I’m concerned about their actual performance of their duties.

California’s Problem

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Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed into law a resolution rescinding the Biden administration’s EPA’s last-minute waiver for California to mandate more stringent rules for gasoline and battery cars than the Federal government’s—and that EPA’s—rules. That Biden EPA waiver allowed California to mandate only battery cars to be sold in California; average Americans who also are citizens of California would be required to buy battery cars after 2035 if they wanted another car, whether they wanted a battery car or not. The interstate market for transportation vehicles being what it is, that would have been tantamount to a requirement for all of us average Americans all across our nation to buy only battery cars after 2035.

Hours later, California’s Progressive-Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom led a lawsuit against the Trump administration asking a Federal court to find the waiver rescission…unconstitutional.

Newsom called it “the latest illegal action by a president who is a wholly-owned subsidiary of big polluters.”

Newsom’s Progressive-Democrat State AG Rob Bonta:

We will continue to fiercely defend ourselves from this lawless federal overreach[.]

How dare our elected representatives act against the wishes of California? That’s illegal.

It’s plainly unlawful for Congress to pass a national law of which the State of California disapproves.

Newsom and his syndicate bleat about an allegedly lawless Trump administration. The real lawlessness, though, is Newsom’s claim that a waiver granted by a government agency cannot be rescinded by the elected representatives of the United States, the Congress and the President.

That’s lawlessness, and it’s instructive of the Progressive-Democratic Party’s use of a Newspeak Dictionary to cloak their claims. This is what we can look forward to the moment the Progressive-Democratic Party returns to power.

What He Said

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This quote isn’t the main point of the Power Line post, but it’s spot on in its own right.

Trump had said over and over again that he would not allow Iran to get a nuclear bomb. He said he’d prefer to do it the easy way, through diplomacy, and he let Steve Witkoff offer the Iranians the most generous terms they were going to get. He held the Israelis back until he had given the talks a chance to run their course. But he gave the Iranians a clear deadline, and he also said again and again that if they didn’t agree to his deal, he’d have no choice but to do things the hard way.

The Tablet article from which the above is cited in Power Line is behind a paywall, so h/t Power Line for bringing this much out.

In any event, Park MacDougould, the author of the Tablet piece, is spot on.