Time to Be Draconian

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DoD is beginning a period of ostensibly serious performance review of the department’s several contractors.

Michael Duffey, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment:

We have completed initial reviews to assess company performance as part of this executive order and will now undergo an extended period of review in which we will make noncompliance determinations[.]
Following the upcoming decision period, we will be in touch with identified companies to begin remediation plans[.]

And this from Sean Parnell, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs:

If progress doesn’t continue to be made, we will take enforcement actions. The Department of War will partner with those who perform—and hold accountable those who do not.

This has been a long time coming, assuming it’ll truly be a serious assessment with truly serious outcomes. If DoD is serious, then included high on that list of remediation plans should be cancelation of contracts. If the contractor has been noncomplying for some period of time, the cancelation and subsequent opportunity costs will be limited to the scofflaw business; there would be no loss to DoD from the contractor management team’s decision to fail to perform, and the losses to us taxpayers would be capped at what’s already been wasted on the scofflaws.

Remediation progress should be assessed on short time frames with closely spaced major milestones and a firm, nearby deadline for finally coming into full compliance. That compliance measure also should include concrete, measurable plans for staying in compliance and blocking drift away from requirements.

Shirking and throwing the contractor’s metaphorical shoes up on the desk, calling it job well done, and collecting us taxpayers’ money must be at an end. The only way to promote that is to be draconian in the department’s corrective actions. Pour encouragement des autres. Or, to fit today’s environment, il est bon de résilier un contrat avec un prestataire de temps en temps pour encourager les autres.

Trouble in Balochistan

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Balochistan is a resource-rich province of Pakistan with a handy coastline on the Arabian Sea and an extensive border with Iran. The People’s Republic of China is busily developing the province’s wealth of minerals and then importing the output. The PRC also is developing both a seaport and an airport in the province to support both those imports and to facilitate its Belt and Road and Maritime Silk Road ventures. There also has been an “uptick” in terrorist violence in the province.

Pakistan alleges that the uptick in violence in Balochistan is due to backing from its rival and neighbor, India; that nation denies involvement.

It’s certainly possible that India would reach all the way across Pakistan to interfere in Balochistan, though that seems unlikely. There are other possibilities, however. One is that the terrorism is tacitly supported, if not covertly instigated, by the People’s Republic of China as it seeks to reduce competition for those resources. That would be especially effective in reducing or eliminating American competition, since American business managers are famous for their timidity in the face of uproars.

Another possibility is that Iran is behind the terrorism as the mullahs look to incubate and develop another client terrorist entity in the aftermath of the decimation of its Hamas and Hezbollah clients.

“Our Democracy”

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Jack Butler, a deputy editor at The Wall Street Journal‘s Free Expression, had a good piece on Progressive-Democratic Party politicians’ defense of our democracy. The TL;DR of it (it really isn’t that long; it’s a good read in its own right) is this:

Party politicians and the Left generally aren’t talking about our nation’s republican democracy or our democracy in the lazy phrasing too often fallen onto; they’re talking about our democracy, and the rest of us can join them or go hang. This is illustrated by the remarks of Party’s ex-President Joe Biden:

In a 2022 speech, President Biden agreed with a federal judge’s assessment that “Trump and the extreme MAGA Republicans” are a “clear and present danger” to “our democracy” and called on Americans to “unite behind the single purpose of defending our democracy, regardless of your ideology.”

This is Party’s attitude toward American citizens: you’re either with us, or you’re separate from us, and we’ll simply ignore you while we take care of our version of the nation of the United States.

Sending a Message, Or…?

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House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford (R, AR) is worried about a proliferation of People’s Republic of China hidden biolabs throughout the US. One of his points of concern regarded the apparent occasionally sloppy setup and operation of the labs.

“Why would you have some illicit labs set up in an Airbnb, except for, maybe, you’re trying to create some sort of, you know, patient zero scenario, that you might infect someone, that you might create another COVID-like scenario.”
Crawford said the alleged handling of dangerous pathogens appeared careless at best, and possibly deliberate. “Why would you do it in such a slipshod way, if it wasn’t almost deliberately to try to maybe attract attention? Are they trying to send a message to us?”

Sending us a message about how easy it is for the PRC to reach out and infectiously touch us is certainly one possibility.

Another possibility, though, is that these are the biolabs we were supposed to find and to be distracted from noticing the other, more serious biolabs with the more serious and disruptive, if not lethal, pathogens.

Constitutionally Questionable

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The subheadline lays out the problem:

Refusal of older officeholders to cede stage to younger faces is prompting fresh calls for a limit on how long they can serve

Statutory limits on how long Congressmen and -women can serve in Congress are constitutionally highly questionable. Here’s what Article I, Sections 2 (on Representatives) and 3 (on Senators) of our Constitution says about eligibility to serve in Congress:

No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

And

No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

Our Constitution places a floor on age, but it places no ceiling on age, nor does it place any limit on the length of service or number of terms an individual may serve. In many venues, it’s possible for lower jurisdictions to tighten standards of higher jurisdictions, but with our Constitution, such efforts have been routinely disallowed under the Supremacy Clause, which unequivocally states, along with Marbury v Madison, that our Constitution is our supreme law, and Congressional statutes are subordinate to it. It’s most likely that imposing an upper age limit would require an Amendment to our Constitution.

In any event, limiting by age for how long a congressman might serve is a decidedly suboptimal solution to this perceived problem. A much better solution is the term limit that was used in our erstwhile Articles of Confederation. That document’s Article V limited a Congressional delegate to three terms out of six, with no bar on serving further in subsequent six term runs.

The Articles were written for a unicameral Congress, but it’s easily adaptable to our present bicameral Congress. This also would require an Amendment to our Constitution, but it would be a better one that makes medical improvements to the abilities of aging citizens irrelevant.