Tag Archives: responsibilities

There is a Solution

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Crystal FitzSimons, Food Research & Action Center President, is worried that reduced participation in SNAP is not an indication of reduced need for assistance.

[T]the law’s stricter time limits, administrative hurdles, and pending cost-shift to states, along with inadequate benefits, are pushing eligible households off the program.

She correctly outlined the benefits of SNAP (which, I claim, generalize to welfare programs in general):

When investments are made in SNAP, real progress is made toward lifting people out of poverty. …
When SNAP benefits better align with increasing food costs, more families stay above the poverty line. When barriers increase, the opposite happens.

But she proposed the wrong solution.

Through legislation, Congress should ensure that everyone has the nutrition they need to thrive rather than make it harder for families to put food on the table.

No.

In our federated republican form of government, the member States are responsible, each for its own internal affairs. It’s time for them to stop freeloading off the Federal government—freeloading off the citizens of the other 49 States—and start honoring their own obligations toward their own citizens. Each State has the money. It simply needs to reallocate its spending and stop taking ever more money away from its own citizens in the form of ever rising tax rates.

“Extreme Emotional Disturbance”

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The lawyers defending Luigi Mangione for his (alleged) murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson are planning to say that Mangione admits to his murder, and then the lawyers will argue that he can’t be held liable for his murder because he had an angst.

Guilty but insane is a viable defense in some jurisdictions, and New York, where Mangione is supposed to have committed his crime, has something of the sort. Typically, the plea results in confinement in a psychiatric facility for treatment, and on successful treatment (if that occurs), the guilty person is then transferred to a prison wherein he serves the remainder of the sentence he would have received had he been simply convicted of the crime.

That works for me.

In the event, the defense decided not to run that defense by the judge or the jury. Too bad, from my perspective. That would have gotten Mangione locked up sooner, saving the court time and the people tax money.

A Thought on the MOU

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Of course this depends on how accurately the press is reporting an unnamed official’s “readout” of what the press alleges is the Memorandum of Understanding between us and Iran regarding the Iran war. Adding skepticism to the accuracy of this readout is Iran’s insistence that the text of the MOU not be released yet.

Paragraph 1. The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran and their allies in the current war, by signing this memorandum of understanding, declare the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and undertake from now on not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other, and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other, and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon. The final deal will confirm the permanent termination of the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and other provisions of this paragraph.
WSJ analysis
The inclusion of Lebanon is highly controversial in Israel, which is fighting a war there with Hezbollah. This official version includes tougher language on Lebanon’s sovereignty.

It’s more than controversial. The inclusion of Lebanon in this MOU is Trump’s mistake. The conflict between Hezbollah and Israel is entirely separate from the conflict between the US and Israel (and now US only) and Iran, and it should have been kept so.

Paragraph 2. The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran undertake to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and to refrain from interfering in each other’s internal affairs.
WSJ analysis
President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began the war calling on Iranians to overthrow the regime, a goal that faded as the government in Tehran held firm.

This is so blatantly wrong that the WSJ‘s “annotators” can only be taken as lying. Neither Trump nor Netanyahu (whose commentary would be irrelevant, anyway) never called for regime change—they—Trump—only said that it would be nice, and “here’s an opportunity for the Iranian people.”

Paragraph 5. Upon the signing of this memorandum of understanding, the Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days only from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa. The traffic of commercial vessels will immediately start, and considering the need for removing the technical and military obstacles and demining by the Islamic Republic of Iran, will be reinstated. The Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct dialog with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz in discussion with other Persian Gulf littoral states in line with the applicable international law and the sovereign rights of coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz.
WSJ analysis
Iran’s main obligation under the deal, lifting its chokehold on the strait. The updated version says Iran agrees not to charge fees for transit for 60 days and blesses an Iranian plan to work with Oman on the future administration of the strait, but says they must involve other Gulf states in the discussion.

This is Trump’s mistake. He needed to insist on Iran openly acknowledging the international waters characteristic of the Strait. At most, at this point, he should not have agreed to any sort of consortium involving Iran for “managing” the Strait.

A Partial Truism

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Willian Galston, in his Tuesday Wall Street Journal op-ed, has it mostly right in his discussion of the meaning of created equal as acknowledged in our Declaration of Independence.

There has always been a gap between America’s promise and its performance. This was true in the revolutionary era, and it remains so today. This doesn’t make the equality proclaimed in the Declaration false or hypocritical. It means that there is a difference between moral truth and empirical reality. Politics at its best works to narrow the gap between them….

That’s completely true, as far as it goes. But it’s necessary for us to take the next, long, critical step. Politics at its best works is far more than just politicians doing politics in the nooks and crannies and in the hallways and on the floor of our government buildings. The critical factor here is us. Us American citizens, We the People, we who are the sovereign of our nation are—or should be—the driving force, the primary political actors, of our government and of our nation.

As a great American philosopher once said, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Misbehavior of a Federal District Judge

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A short while ago as such things are measured, a Federal district judge was given a private reprimand for having sex in her chambers with a local police department senior-level cop. Many folks, experts as well as my august self, consider that wholly inadequate.

The judge has since been identified as Northern District of Georgia judge Eleanor Louise Ross, and the (still individually unidentified) senior-level cop as a member of the Atlanta Police Department. Furthermore, her relationship with the cop has been identified as an extramarital one, lasting for two, or so, years, and the relationship included repeated sexual encounters in her judicial chambers, generally within earshot of her clerks and other staff.

That private reprimand, though, is all she got, because she’s sorry, and she apologized, so it’s all good.

Pfft.

The article outlined a number of more serious outcomes for her misbehaviors, leading off with impeachment. That, though, would take a majority of the House voting to impeach and a two-thirds majority of the Senate to convict in order to get her off the bench. The article acknowledged the unlikeliness of that outcome, but without suggesting why. I claim the reason is this: even were impeachment a serious possibility, there aren’t enough Progressive-Democrats in the Senate willing to convict one of their own, the Obama appointee who is Ross.

The article also outlined a number of alternative consequences, but while potentially financially expensive in terms of opportunity cost, they would leave her on the bench. The worst realized outcome of all these would be this:

Recusal motions are the sharpest instrument available. …
The Justice Department has already moved to disqualify Ross from a high-profile voter-roll case, citing both the misconduct findings and her attendance at Fani Willis’s 2024 primary victory party. If that pattern continues, she could find herself a judge in title only.

Judge in title only. That actually is nice work for anyone who can get it. Ross’ pay in 2025, just for being a Federal judge, was nearly a quarter of a million dollars. That puts her income higher than 96% of the rest of us working stiffs.  Nice work, indeed, especially for someone whose word—professional or personal—is worthless.