The White House reality show

The New Neo Posted on by

It occurs to me that Trump has brought “The Apprentice” to the White House. I’m a bit handicapped in making the analogy because I never watched the show, but I’ve seen small clips from it, and the description fits, too:

…The show depicts contestants from around the country with various professional backgrounds in an elimination-style competition to become an apprentice to a businessman…

The show depicted a group of 15”“18 businessmen and -women competing in an elimination competition for a one-year, US$250,000 job to run one of real estate magnate Donald Trump’s companies…

…The show led Trump to become known for his fateful catch phrase “You’re Fired!”.

Trump’s executive style seems to be to pit a bunch of competitive people against each other, watch the fur fly, eliminate the ones he considers didn’t measure up, and see which ones remain standing. I’m sure there’s always been a lot of competition and jockeying for position in previous White Houses as well; after all, people don’t reach those sort of positions without being competitive and having skills to negotiate power struggles. But this tendency seems excessive in the Trump White House, and some of the personalities seem particularly aggressive (Scaramucci, do you hear me?)

Who’s going to be the last man standing? The hope is that new chief of staff John Kelly will bring order into chaos. [*see below] After all, he’s a military guy who was in the Marines for 45 years:

“He knows how to do this: with common sense and good leadership,” said Kelly’s longtime friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer frank opinions. “He won’t suffer idiots and fools.”

Good luck with that, chief of staff Kelly.

When I read this earlier today from Susan Wright at RedState, it resonated with me (at least partially):

I believe, and the events bear it out, that Trump is using his staff for personal amusement, playing them against each other, giving them the opportunity to prove who is “most loyal” and he’s surrounding himself with the kind of cutthroats and lackeys who will do just that.

I said “partially”; the part I don’t agree with is that Trump’s motive is “personal amusement.” This is indeed a game of sorts (although not quite of Thrones—I hope), but it’s not being played merely for yuks. This is Trump’s idea of how to test people’s mettle.

[NOTE: *I wrote the title and the first five paragraphs of this post before I read the WaPo article I linked to in the sixth paragraph. When I read it I was surprised to see a similar analogy to the one I’d made:

As Kelly moves to the West Wing, he’ll likely move quickly to confront the “reality television show that runs on a raucous mix of drama, machismo and suspicion,” as The Post’s White House team characterized it Thursday.

Hmm.]

Priebus out

The New Neo Posted on by

Kelly in.

Well, it never seemed as though the Trump/Priebus nuptials were a marriage made in heaven. And I never cared much for Preibus anyway.

When voters selected Trump as president, they should have expected turmoil and drama to accompany him wherever he went. That’s his style. And I doubt this is the end of it.

Skinny repeal couldn’t get to 50 votes

The New Neo Posted on by

Today features still another failed attempt at Obamacare reform, this time the defeat of a modified (“skinny”) repeal bill.

Because the GOP has such a slim majority in the Senate, and because no Democrats will come aboard, it would take the “yes” votes of all but two of the GOP senators to get to 50 (Pence could break the tie), and so three defections were able to kill the bill. The defections were by Susan Collins (who can’t really be called a “defection,” since she had voted “no” on repeal back in 2015), Lisa Murkowski (who voted to repeal in 2015), and John McCain (likewise).

This is an old, old story. Collins and Murkowski are RINOs extraordinaire who often vote with Democrats, and as I already mentioned, Collins was one of just a few who voted that way in 2015 as well. McCain is—well, Mr. Maverick himself, and this particular move will not endear him to the conservative wing of the party.

It doesn’t endear him to me, either. Here is his statement; you can read it and judge it for yourself. On the surface, this sort of thing makes sense:

The so-called ”˜skinny repeal’ amendment the Senate voted on today would not accomplish those goals. While the amendment would have repealed some of Obamacare’s most burdensome regulations, it offered no replacement to actually reform our health care system and deliver affordable, quality health care to our citizens. The Speaker’s statement that the House would be ”˜willing’ to go to conference does not ease my concern that this shell of a bill could be taken up and passed at any time.

The idea that the details of a “replace” bill should be ready to go when “repeal” is passed, and that we shouldn’t trust promises that it will be taken up in a timely fashion, seems sensible. The problem is that this was originally tried, and it couldn’t pass, either.

The “skinny repeal” bill was a compromise arrived at in order to get the negotiations to continue, including probably some changes in the House. “Skinny repeal” was a Sancho Panza bill, as it were. McCain is the Don Quixote here (that is, if you think he’s sincere—and many people would say he’s not).

Here’s an example of what he’d like to see happen, taken from his statement on the reasons for his “no” vote [emphasis mine]:

I’ve stated time and time again that one of the major failures of Obamacare was that it was rammed through Congress by Democrats on a strict-party line basis without a single Republican vote. We should not make the mistakes of the past that has led to Obamacare’s collapse, including in my home state of Arizona where premiums are skyrocketing and health care providers are fleeing the marketplace. We must now return to the correct way of legislating and send the bill back to committee, hold hearings, receive input from both sides of aisle, heed the recommendations of nation’s governors, and produce a bill that finally delivers affordable health care for the American people. We must do the hard work our citizens expect of us and deserve.

Everything except that highlighted bit is possible, but bipartisanship has gone the way of the dodo and “reach-across-the-aisle” McCain fails to realize it (although if you think he’s insincere, you’d amend that to say he realizes it and doesn’t care because this is all a pose on his part). The problem is that McCain’s own voting “no” on the skinny repeal is probably the best way to ensure that none of the things on his list will be happening.

Some general thoughts about transgenderism

The New Neo Posted on by

Every time the topic of transgenderism comes up, a great many people generalize about the transgendered population. It’s often said that such people are deluded and/or mentally ill. And there’s no question that research shows a higher percentage of emotional difficulties (suicide, for example) in people who identify as transgendered as compared to the rest of the population. But it’s not a universal, by any means.

When people state that there’s no such a thing as a transgendered human being (for example, here), I think that perhaps what they might mean is that there’s no such thing as a person born biologically transgendered (i.e. “in the wrong body”). In other words, I believe they are saying that they feel the condition known as transgenderism or gender non-confromity is 100% psychological in origin. But still, if that were true it wouldn’t mean that transgenderism has no existence as a psychological condition.

I’ve written about transgenderism (or transsexuals) several times before (the most thorough treatment is here), but it probably bears repeating that we know very little about its causes. Whether it is a biological (and innate) condition, a 100% psychological one, or often (as I strongly suspect) some combination of the two to varying degrees, is therefore unknown. One can cite all sorts of research one way or the other (and I’ve read a good deal of it and discussed some of it), but the jury is out.

I also have come to the conclusion that transgenderism is most definitely not a unitary thing that’s the same in all people who report being transgendered. For example, some transgendered people have had the conviction from earliest childhood, but some have only come to the realization late rin life. That suggests that a different entity is operating in these different populations.

Not only that, but some people identify as transgendered for a while and then change their minds. Some—although certainly not all—of that particular group say it was fear of being gay that caused them to declare they were transgendered, and that once they accepted their homosexuality they were able and willing to de-transition (go back to their original birth sex). That’s clearly a different population, too.

In fact, there are a great many YouTube videos posted by people telling their detransition tales, and every now and then I watch a few. These detransitioning people often report being recipients of a great deal of antagonism from the transgender community when they decide to do this, as you might imagine.

Lastly, I happen to know two people who are transgendered, and both are among the most well-functioning and emotionally healthy people I know. That’s anecdotal, of course, but it strongly indicates to me that mental illness and/or dysfunction definitely do not inevitably go with the transgender territory.

Trump and the military transgenders

The New Neo Posted on by

A Trump tweet is not an official presidential declaration. That is, although Trump is the president, and in his tweets he’s usually declaring something (unless he’s asking a question), tweets are not official statements of policy that he is enacting.

Trump’s tweets act more like testings of the waters, fingers in the wind, and as such they are part of the “mutable” aspect of his personality and his presidency. In them, he’s doing market research for his brand, as it were. In this case, Trump’s initial messages went like this:

On Wednesday morning, Trump wrote that “after consultation with my generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military.

“Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail,” Trump added. “Thank you.”

A predictable firestorm ensued, despite the fact that it was only one year ago that the military became transgender-friendly at the behest of Commander-in-Chief Obama. That article I just linked about Obama stated that it would take a year to “fully implement” that policy, and when I read it just now I wondered whether the policy had been fully implemented yet. I found the answer here: no, it had been postponed.

You may also have noticed that this article stated that there are “thousands” of transgendered people serving in the military. That’s a common assertion in the press and by proponents of Obama’s policy, but the fact is we haven’t a clue how many transgendered people actually serve in the military. That estimate is based on a set of extrapolations that go like this:

Lieu spokesman Jack d’Annabale said the congressman got his estimate (of thousands) from a May 2014 brief by researchers at UCLA’s Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy.

They used responses to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, sent to respondents by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality. The definition of transgender included “those whose gender identity or expression differs from those traditionally associated with their assigned sex at birth,” according to the study.

Extrapolating that 0.3 percent of the population identified as transgender, UCLA’s researchers estimated that there were “approximately 15,500 transgender individuals are serving on active duty or in the Guard or Reserve forces.” It also said that about 134,400 transgender people were veterans or retired.

Another study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in September 2015 used data from the UCLA brief and other sources to determine that 12,800 service member would be eligible for transgender health care. The study suggested of those, 188 would use benefits for transition services, at a cost of $4.2 million to $5.6 million.

You can study the results of that first survey here. Let’s just say it’s deeply flawed, and for various reasons I suspect the true figures are significantly smaller (I plan to write a separate post on that subject, but maybe not today).

The most meaningful real-world data we have is this:

About 250 troops have officially come out as transgender since the Obama administration lifted the ban on transgender troops in 2016.

That’s all we really know about this entire issue.

My opinion is that this should be handled by the military on a case by case basis. After all, transgendered people are hardly a unitary group. There are those who just feel vaguely uncomfortable in their own skin and yet are pretty quiet about it and not asking for benefits, although they might identify as transgendered in some general way (a definition in that survey, for example, included “those whose gender identity or expression differs from those traditionally associated with their assigned sex at birth,” and it includes people who call themselves “gender non conforming” as well as cross=dressers). Then there are those who entered the service with only vague feelings that they are “gender nonconforming” but whose feelings crystallized while in the service and they are now demanding transition services and even surgery. The opposite end of the spectrum would be people who were already fully transitioned on entry and who had the surgery some years ago.

It sounds as though the Joint Chiefs were unprepared for Trump’s tweets, and my guess is that it was because Trump made no effort to prepare them:

“There will be no modifications to the current policy until the president’s direction has been received by the secretary of defense and the secretary has issued implementation guidance,” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford wrote in a letter…

He stressed that “we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect” while the military waits for further direction.

He also wrote that the issue should not distract the military from its warfighting mission.

Ah, but these issues have been pretty distracting for quite some time.

Trump indicated that the idea behind his ban was to save money and end “disruption.” I think the money involved is a mere drop in the bucket. I’m not sure how bad the “disruption” is, but I doubt it’s had the effect of sending general enlistment rates soaring. That said, Trump as Commander-in-Chief has the right to do this, and there are possible bona fide reasons for doing it, some of them listed here by Paul Mirengoff of Powerline.

Propaganda isn’t just about what the MSM covers

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s about what it doesn’t cover:

…[A]n information technology officer has been accused of bank fraud. He tried to flee the country, and now Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s (D-FL) office has finally fired the aide, despite this person being under investigation since last winter. His termination was made official on Tuesday.

Imran Awan is the name of the subject in question. The Capitol Police launched a probe, where he’s been accused of “serious, potentially illegal, violations on the House IT network.” He also provided technical assistance to other Democratic members of Congress…[H]is two brothers, along with two of their wives, also worked for members of Congress. Imran moved out of his house in Virginia when he found out he was under investigation last February. He rented the home to a Marine Corps veteran and his wife, a naval officer, who found hard drives that they tried to destroy. The FBI now has possession of those hard drives.

I’m not sure what the significance of this story will end up being. But I’m fairly sure that it’s something the MSM ought to be covering at this point. But apparently, it’s been decided that it’s hardly worth mentioning. I doubt that would be the case if the party Awan had been working for had been the GOP.

You see this sort of downplaying of stories all the time in terms of the MSM. It’s a far more subtle form of controlling what people think than the way they write (or talk) about what they do write about.

At least, when a story is covered, the MSM’s readers have a chance of evaluating it. This way, the story doesn’t exist, and if the MSM is a person’s sole news source that person doesn’t know a thing about the story. I don’t know the statistics on this, but I believe there’s still a significant number of people for whom the MSM is the sole news source.

[ADDENDUM: The WaPo covered the story, but in a manner designed to minimize it.]

[ADDENDUM: As a blogger, I certainly pick and choose what I’m going to cover. But I’m just one lone person, and my criteria involve whatever stories especially interest me and on which I have something unusual or compelling (in my opinion, anyway) to say. Also, if I represent the sole news source for anyone, it would surprise me greatly.]

Trump the blustering bully vs. Sessions

The New Neo Posted on by

Trump proved his bully bona fides a long long time ago.

The question now is what he thinks he stands to gain by his continual public taunting of Jeff Sessions. The obvious answer—“Sessions’ resignation”—doesn’t make much sense because that wouldn’t actually solve any of Trump’s problems, unless he can go to Handy-Hire-a-Lacky for a replacement. Deputy AG Rosenstein won’t fit the bill, and offhand I can’t think of anyone who would.

So unless Trump is just venting his considerable spleen with this approach, I don’t get the strategic reason he’s doing it. The folks who think Trump’s every move is a brilliant ploy in a game of 3-D or 4-D chess might be able to opine, but I doubt they’d make sense either—and when I go to such Trump strongholds as Breitbart, I only see a lackadaisical effort.

For example, the discussion on this Breitbart thread shows a split among the erstwhile Trump admirers there between those who try to justify what he’s done to Sessions and those he can’t. An example of a typical comment by an admirer is this: “Trump to Sessions …Do your job or YOU’RE FIRED….Who could argue with that
WE DO NOT NEED A SQUISH AS AG.” And here’s a reply:

Sessions is the ONLY person doing what Trump ran on and what we voted for, while Trump is busy filling his cabinet with open border/amnesty globalists. Trump has brought in his liberal family. Trump played kissy face with Paul Ryan and supported the disaster of Ryancare. Trump did an about face on Hire American, Buy American with his backing of DACA. Right away Trump said he was not interested going after Hillary.

You are playing right into the hands of the open border/amnesty left and globalists. If Sessions goes, Trump will appoint yet another globalist and U.S. sovereignty and the immigration issue will die yet again.

Trump is only as good as what he ran on and he is undermining much of that daily. Some of you act like Hitlerbots.

That commenter was then told: “Go back to National Review and the Hill you phony NeverTrump schmuck,” and he responded by saying he was a Trump supporter from the very start and can’t stand NR.

I think that sort of exchange is symptomatic of the trouble Trump has brought on himself by attacking Sessions this way; even his base (at least some of them) is disheartened. Yesterday Trump doubled down on his accusations and added these pearls of wisdom:

“It’s not like a great loyal thing about the [early] endorsement [of Trump by Sessions],” Mr. Trump said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “I’m very disappointed in Jeff Sessions.””¦

“When they say he endorsed me, I went to Alabama,” Mr. Trump said on Tuesday, recalling the endorsement. “I had 40,000 people. He was a senator from Alabama. I won the state by a lot, massive numbers. A lot of the states I won by massive numbers. But he was a senator, he looks at 40,000 people and he probably says, ’What do I have to lose?’ And he endorsed me. So it’s not like a great loyal thing about the endorsement. But I’m very disappointed in Jeff Sessions.”

I can’t say I’m very disappointed in Trump, because I expected this sort of thing from him. But, as Allahpundit at Hot Air observes, it was a stupid move of Trump’s:

Sessions had zero need to ingratiate himself with his home state’s voters by riding Trump’s coattails. He held a safe red seat in a very red state; he would have been reelected whether or not he backed Trump. It’d be like Hillary claiming that Dianne Feinstein endorsed her only because she was worried about losing her seat in, um, California if she hadn’t.

Ah, but Trump either doesn’t know that, or thinks that his supporters don’t know it, so he thinks if he says something patently absurd he will get away with it. It wouldn’t be the first time, but in this case anyone who follows politics probably remembers how Sessions stuck his neck out and risked his reputation to help Trump when no one else would do it.

People ordinarily don’t like the sort of ungratefulness Trump demonstrates here; it seems petty and narcissistic and yes—unmanly and juvenile. But it might be that none of that would matter if it weren’t for one other thing: Trump’s attack on Sessions is the one approach most likely to annoy and even anger Republican senators. That’s something Trump really, really shouldn’t want to do. Congress holds the keys to both the implementation of a lot of his promises, and his ability to stay in office without being impeached and possibly convicted.

Maybe Trump is sick of his present job. Maybe he wants to say to himself, ” “You’re fired.” And if he doesn’t, but he really wants to say it to Sessions, way not marshal those Trumpian cojones that people are always talking about and just do it? That would be bad, IMHO, but still far better than this business of letting Sessions twist slowly, slowly in the wind.

Scalise released from hospital

The New Neo Posted on by

Excellent news:

Rep. Steve Scalise has been discharged from MedStar Washington Hospital Center, the hospital said in a statement Wednesday, six weeks after he was shot at a congressional baseball practice.

Six weeks is quite a while to be in the hospital these days, but Scalise’s initial condition was extremely serious and he had complications afterwards, as well.

There seems to be an error in that report, however—it says, “He will now begin a period of intensive inpatient rehabilitation. ” Inpatient?? I thought he’d just been released. Wouldn’t that make it “outpatient”?

In or out, I wish him a speedy and uneventful recovery.

Mama said there’d be days…

The New Neo Posted on by

…like this:

I hadn’t listened to that song in many decades, and so I didn’t recall it was about romance—although, since so many songs are, I would have guessed it. My day today was about something else.

After just a few hours of sleep, I spent the morning and much of the afternoon helping a sick friend, including doctor and hospital visits. The hospital visit was supposed to be for a quick test, but ten minutes before we arrived there was a power outage. They had a generator but it only powered one machine, so the wait was considerably longer than expected. I went to get the friend’s medication, and insurance had refused to approve it.

And then when I got home my computer was going haywire. My mouse cursor was twirling around erratically and randomly, and I need to use the mouse rather than the touchpad because the latter tends to inflame my arm injuries. My computer was insisting I update some random useless program I’ve never felt the need for, but when I tried to tell it “No!” it simply ignored me and showed me the box again and again and again…and again. While the box was up there, the computer wouldn’t allow me to navigate anywhere else. The problem persisted after I tried rebooting, so I had to uninstall the stupid worthless program—which I probably should have done ages ago. That took longer than it should have because the instructions were written by people from Mars.

So if you wonder why I’m a bit late checking in today—and a bit cranky—that’s your answer.

Cosmos mariners

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Stan McQueen” wrote on the Conrad Aiken thread:

I was especially touched by the inscription of “Cosmos Mariner-Destination Unknown” on his tombstone, which is in the shape of a bench.. He saw a ship by that name and looked it up in the port logs and found the notation “Destination Unknown”. He apparently likened that ship to himself.

I found that intriguing, too. Here’s the tombstone, which can be found in Savannah, Georgia, Aiken’s birthplace:

“Cosmos Mariner”—I like it, although I’m not so sure that most of us have either the tools or the charts. Have we lost our ability to steer? Did we ever have it?

Vote on Obamacare repeal

The New Neo Posted on by

This afternoon the Senate is voting on Obamacare repeal:

After months of tedious deliberation, behind-the-scenes deal making and countless setbacks, Tuesday afternoon’s vote will determine if the Senate can start floor debate on legislation to overhaul the Affordable Care Act even though there aren’t any guarantees the votes are there to eventually pass it — and it’s unclear what a final bill will look like.

Several Republican holdouts have announced they will vote for the motion, bringing McConnell close to the 50 he needs to pass it.

Sens. Rand Paul, Dean Heller and Shelley Moore Capito say they will vote “yes.” Ohio Sen. Rob Portman will also back the motion, the Columbus Dispatch reported.
Fifty votes will be needed to advance the bill, and with only 52 Republicans in the Senate — no Democrats willing to back Obamacare repeal — there is no margin for error. Vice President Mike Pence will be on Capitol Hill in case he needs to break a tie.
Adding to the drama: Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who has been away from Washington after surgery and a diagnosis of brain cancer, is flying back Tuesday for the vote.

People who are enraged at the Republicans for not having done this earlier (and they are legion) sometimes forget, or perhaps don’t care, how slim is the margin in the Senate. Even 52 makes for a majority, of course, and is important in terms of the leadership remaining in GOP hands. But it doesn’t leave room for error or a few RINO or Libertarian defections.

This bill is nice window dressing, and I think it’s necessary at this point. But it just kicks the can down the road. At the moment, I’d settle for it. They better not kick it so far down the road that they lose that majority, though.