Sunday, February 26, 2017

Deconstructing the Administrative State


What part of Steve Bannon's rhetoric is not something that should raise the hackles of sedition and treason? How is it that one man and his handful of appointed individuals have the authority and power to completely alter and reshape the entire Federal government all without a vote in the US House and Senate?

By acting the part of a despotic dictator, Donald Trump has been able to subvert a dozen federal agencies, bureaus and administrations merely by appointing people to head the organization who also have a pledged agenda to dismantle the self-same organization by administrative decisions. Steve Bannon himself has stated his personal goal of Deconstructing the Administrative State of the Federal Government. While he appears to have the ear of the President and a number of members of congress, he has zero mandate to make such sweeping changes.

There are some parts of his agenda which possibly are beneficial to the US economy. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was widely panned as a treaty which would subvert American Sovereignty to foreign and multi-national corporations who could file claims in civil courts seeking monetary remedies for lost profits when government regulations curtailed their plan or increased their costs. However, on the other side of the coin, it did create a cadre of partners who would work together to benefit the group at the expense of those on the outside.

The United States has excelled in its Administrative State to the benefit of the middleclass. We have been able to limit the intrusion of profit-driven interests into the essential services that humans need in order to be comfortable. Such comfort and standard of living for the middleclass stands in direct opposition to shareholders of the corporate culture here in the US and around the world. Owners and Labor both vie for the same income dollar.

When allowed a free hand, all corporations push the envelope further and further toward their domination of the ubiquitous marketplace, of the labor which makes their profits a reality,  and of the environment in which they exist. American Constitutional checks and balances among the three branches of government has up to this Presidential Administration kept the Equilibrium. Without rules, regulations, watchdogs, and consequences anarchy is what develops and destroys any semblance of order.

Without a national government we get such scenarios as Somalia and former Soviet Union. Somalia has no rule of law and it is every man for himself. Violence and death are the main tools of the business trade in that country.

Russia, the main entity of the former-USSR dominates the region and now today does as it pleases. Actually in is not what the country wants but that which its President dictates will be done.

Deconstructing the Administrative State will only benefit the investors of corporations which seek to boost profitability by neglecting what corporations refer to as "externalities." Examples of externalities are what becomes of the coal ash after the coal is burned. The mining company is in the business of extracting coal from the ground as their primary interests not of handling the ash afterwards. They can price their product while neglecting the damage the use of that product does.

The HFCS, sugar, transfat, tobacco, alcohol, opioid producers all are happy to provide their products just so long as they do not have to consider the toll on the health care industry.

Coal mining concerns, hydraulic frackers, oil well drillers, nuclear power plants all produce their medium of energy while not considering carbon loading of the environment, earthquakes, poisoning of aquifers, or what to do with millions of tons or radioactive wastes.


All of these industries need supervision and controls placed on them by the Administrative State which Steve Bannon and Donald Trump want to dismantle. Without such quality controls and the taxes to pay for essential services, America would be no better than a Third-world Country. Taxes and controls built this nation. We cannot allow a small cadre of men dispose of it.

Thursday, February 16, 2017

History is His Story

I knew a year ago in February 2016 that the world, more specifically the United States, has passed through some unseen portal into a completely Biz-ar-aye version of what we knew to be logical, ethical and justifiable. Those events played out at the wildlife refuge at Malheur, Oregon. Several dozen heavily armed white men and women took over a Federal wildlife refuge and buildings to protest the ownership of real estate by the Federal government. After 41 days of essentially doing nothing, the occupation was terminated with a traffic stop along a snowy rural highway wherein one many demanded to be killed to become a martyr. Lavoy Finicum was given that status as he orchestrated his death at the hands of a tyrannical government.

After all the hoopla was over and the Federal trials were conducted, the outcome was a universal not guilty verdict for all involved who pled not-guilty. The four main leaders were likewise found not guilty even though they continued to face other criminal charges in Nevada for other similar crimes.

All the while meetings between conspirators and state-level elected officials took place where in the position of the occupiers was both condoned and praised as heroic against the nasty federal government. The US Congress even has proposed legislation that would facilitate the transfer of ownership and control to the states by Law rather than lawlessness. Every notion of propriety was destroyed in that altercation and the positions GOP Legislators took in response.

So even as black and other minorities were being killed daily by police for "crimes" far less serious than armed insurrection and sedition, the white men all got to leave, save the one who chose to "fall on his sword" for the cause. This is when the upside down nature of the world became highly evident. It heralded the next year of TTPT events and outcomes. (Totally Twisted Political Twatwafflery).

The lead Republican presidential candidate could say and do the most outlandish thing and exhibit all the negative behaviors that made it impossible for a lesser Republican to be given the time of day due to not being conservative enough, family oriented enough, Christian enough, spousally fidel enough, and patriotic to the GOP cause enough. Little did anyone realize, the GOP itself was in the process of deprecating all of those attribute both to favor their loutish selection and their own skins. All too often a politician would berate an opponent only to be caught being exactly the same. The Undiscovered Lie used to be a career killer. But today they are "political capital assets" needed in order to prosper.

So we jump ahead. Donald Trump has bested Hillary Clinton by every means possible that includes, Gerrymandering voting districts, voter suppression in the form of challenging all persons without a photo ID, challenging voters who names are similar in other districts, alleging widespread fraud, alleged tampering with voting machine tabulations, organized misinformation/disinformation (aka Fake News) and all the other usual suspect shenanigans of the electoral process. Let's not get bogged down in those allegations and accusation.

So here we are with a GOP controlled House of Representatives, a GOP Controlled Senate, and a GOP controlled Presidency and Vice Presidency. This Trifecta of dominance had been avoided by the electorate in most elections for many decades. Rightfully so was the answer too. There always was the constitutionally prescribed "Checks and Balances" among the Three equal Branches of government. The President has the responsibility to appoint the Judiciary Branch people and the Senate has the responsibility to confirm or reject the appointee. But when the Legislature and the Executive Branches are similarly aligned they have the power to determine the political allegiances of the Judiciary.

Members of the Trump Team have (allegedly) conspired with Russian agents, their President, spies and cyber attackers  who would assist Donald in becoming President in a Manchurian Way to assist them with global fiscal and energy development policy. Now with the SPECTRE of being labeled treasonous, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov meets with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Thursday in Bonn. Tillerson states that the US and Russian might work together as allies of "certain" things. Wow! What a deflection from the scandal of Flynn talking with Russians before, during and after the November 2016 Presidential election where the allegations are Russian intelligence operatives guided the Us election toward Donald Trump and other alleged American government officials, FBI Director James Comey, sandbagged Hillary Clinton to favor Trump in the 2016 election.


If the USA and Russian are "friendly" and "allies" how can Flynn's actions be counted as treason? Even as we try to characterize political actions as unpatriotic, treasonous, as sedition or merely unwise, the rules are being changed right before our eyes. There is some form of "mission-creep" going on that rights the wrongs after the fact. It is like one can actually alter the Past.