Author: p_c_neary@hotmail.com

I don’t normally recommend a forensic autopsy on a live patient, but who knows when the latest government shutdown will end? You might have heard it was about ObamaCare. It was and it wasn’t. You might have heard it was all the (Republicans’/Democrats’) fault. It was and it wasn’t. You might have heard it was necessary (according to some) or inevitable (according to others). It wasn’t. But you have to understand government, politics, the federal budget, and health care if you want to have an informed opinion about what just happened. Or just post your favorite uninformed meme on social media.

By now, most people are generally familiar with the federal budget process. They know it takes a bill through two houses of Congress and a President’s signature to become law. That’s called “authorization” in budget-speak, meaning, it tells the executive branch agencies they have authority to spend money thusly. If they try to spend more, or differently, they’re breaking the law (the budget is, in the end, a law). To put it in everyday terms, when you sit down with your spouse and agree that you’re only going to spend $100 a week on eating out at restaurants, and only $5,000 on your vacation, you have “authorized a budget.” If you commit to your friends to blow an extra $100 on boys’ night out, there will be consequences (legal or otherwise).

Authorization is permission, but the money still has to found. That second process is another bill (again through Congress and the President) called “appropriations.” This actually sends the money to the executive branch to be spent in accordance with the budget. If the Congress authorizes you to spend a million, but only appropriates one-half million, the latter is the limit. In family terms, if the savings account only has $2,000 in it, you’re vacationing in Dollywood, not Disney World. Normally the federal government passes many separate appropriations bills, but since normal isn’t these days, the Congress has taken to passing omnibus bills or continuing resolutions (which say keep spending as you were spending). Earlier this year, Congress passed such a resolution as the Democratic leadership held to the idea shutting down the government was a bad idea. Just wait.*

The MAGA party (formerly the GOP) controls both houses of Congress and the Presidency, which should make passing a budget easier. However, they hold less than sixty seats in the Senate, which has its own norm called the filibuster, meaning it takes sixty votes to break the filibuster and pass a bill. The main exceptions are to confirm some nominations, and to pass the budget (as long as the budget is strictly about money). So MAGA passed an authorization into law, called the One Big Beautiful Bill, but could not get enough Democratic support to break a filibuster on the appropriations paying for what it authorized. And a shutdown ensued.

Normally, the two parties negotiate to resolve the impasse. The minority party (the Democrats in this case) picks some ideas they want to support or resist, and the majority party (MAGA) chooses what they can live with to get the larger bill enacted with the rest of their agenda. Needless to say, these are not normal times. President Trump and MAGA are in no mood to negotiate, period. Senator Chuck Schumer caved the last time this happened, based on a long-standing Democratic party principle that shutting down the government is irresponsible. This time, the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate decided to reject their previous principled opposition to government shutdowns, and instead to stake their negotiating position on several healthcare provisions. President Trump probably would not have negotiated on any Democratic party requests, but these were tailor-made to (1) get support from the party’s progressive base, and (2) aggravate the President. And we achieved shutdown.

There is nothing wrong with all of this: it’s politics. Dysfunctional politics, mind you, but those complaining about it remind me of Captain Renault:

Whose fault is it? Yours. And mine. Every time we voters give a party control of both houses of Congress and the Presidency, but not a sixty-seat majority in the Senate, we invite this chaos. The governing party thinks it has a mandate, the minority party wants to play with fire, and we voters get burned. It should force the parties to negotiate, but that’s failed often enough to not be a justification for continuing to do business this way.

MAGA’s fault? Yes, because they could have negotiated, but refused. What the Democrats asked for was their opening position; President Trump, he of The Art of the Deal, could have gotten a better deal, no? But he refused to try. The Democrat’s fault? Sure. They once again abandoned a principle to oppose Trump, then they chose enhanced ObamaCare subsidies as the point of contention. Why were these subsidies at risk? Because they were expiring, and MAGA left them out of their budget bill. Why were they expiring? Because when a Democratic-majority Congress and President passed them in 2021, they did so on the basis of the idea they were temporary, to make sure no one lost health insurance during a pandemic despite being a very expensive benefit. What kind of fool does the party leadership think voters are to say now it must be continued regardless of cost, when the Democrats approved them as temporary?

Furthermore, Senator Schumer correctly pointed out the last time a shutdown loomed that to cause one gives the President enormous emergency powers to decide how the remaining money gets spent. Facing an internal party revolt (perhaps a primary challenger!) and progressive desire to “fight Trump” (without thinking things through), Schumer caved this time to cause the shutdown, and President Trump predictably used those emergency powers to gut federal programs the Democrats support.

What about the enhanced ObamaCare subsidies? Aren’t they worth fighting for? Firstly, they were an extension of the original subsidies. The original subsidies weren’t temporary, so they are unaffected. Second, President Obama promised his Affordable Care Act had provisions to bring down the cost of health care (not the cost of the insurance, the actual cost of health care). None of these worked, as most experts predicted. ObamaCare did bend the cost curve somewhat: the costs rose 6.9% annually for a decade before ObamaCare, only 4.3% the decade after it. But that’s a decline in the rate of growth, not a decrease! One of the arguments for the temporary subsidies was to offset the continued rise in health care costs. So all the ObamaCare provisions to add more people to Medicaid or to create the exchanges where these subsidies help cover the cost of insurance? They amounted to a huge increase in demand for health care, with no increase in supply. You don’t need a Nobel in Economics to know what happens next: prices surge, as they did.

And remember, we’re not talking about the basic subsidies for the poorest Americans. As an example, I asked Gemini (Google’s AI product) to tell me whether a California family of three making $300,000 annually could qualify for the enhanced ObamaCare exchange subsidies. The short answer is yes under the expanded, temporary subsidies at the heart of the shutdown. Not to be heartless here, but do you think the government should be subsidizing health care insurance for such a family? Given our deficit and debt, I don’t.

The shutdown is now the longest in US history. It won’t end well for either side, especially for the government workers or benefits recipients trying to make ends meet when the checks don’t come. Perhaps the Congress will start talking amongst the parties and come up with a compromise. Whatever the outcome is, it won’t be an improvement in how government runs, how we reduce our profligate spending, or the relative power imbalance between the legislative and executive branches. Other than that, it’s been great for political junkies and social media memes.

* For the love of God, I’m not even going to get into “authorized but not appropriated” called “A-not-A” in budget lingo, or the reverse. Let’s just say there are parts of the sausage-making process better left un-examined.

Norms are expected patterns of behavior, usually applied to a specific group, organization, or even culture. The penalty for breaking norms is usually social: from criticism to ostracism. The purpose of the penalty is to re-establish the norm: you broke it, and we make you return to it by apologizing and making appropriate restitution. Or you refuse, and suffer the social consequences.

If the society or group in question decides to enact civil/criminal penalties, the norm may evolve into a law. An historical example of this was consanguineous marriage, that is marriage between close blood-relatives. It used to be a norm, since most of the eligible marriage partners in pre-modern societies came from your village, which was your extended family. The Catholic Church opposed it, and eventually influenced people to reject it. That changed norm became so fixed in many people’s minds that countries enacted laws prohibiting it. And many people today recoil and the very thought of it.

But norms by themselves have little or no power. The funny thing about norms, unlike some other social constructs, is that they can only be restored by insisting on them, not by violating them. If you have a social norm that violence is never acceptable as a means to settle a disagreement between two opponents, you can’t insist that you can use violence to respond to a violation of that norm. “He hit me first, so I hit him back,” is playground jurisprudence that has never won a case.

As an example, many societies have a norm to the effect that “you don’t speak ill of the dead.” It’s not a superstition, or even a religiously-inspired norm. It stems from two, solid, human emotions: the dead person isn’t there to defend themselves, and every death is a cause for mourning, so the immediate aftermath of a death should be about mourning, which can include being positive about the deceased. The process has no balancing criteria: I’ve looked closely at the quote I posted as the norm, and try as hard as I can, I can find no asterisk.

If you stand up at a eulogy and say, “that rat-b@st@rd slept with my wife” people will think less of you, even if it was true. It’s not the time nor the place. It’s just wrong; that’s the norm. People will criticize you or even exclude you until you make reparations for violating the norm. But what if, right after you commit the faux pas, someone else stands up and yells, “Sure, but you *bleep* goats, so what’s your issue, goat*bleeper*?” This will not re-establish the norm; rather, it also violates it (not the time, nor the place, not even if the goats are willing to testify in court), and exacerbates it. You can’t re-establish the norm by engaging in the same norm-violation. It doesn’t work that way.

I’m sure I don’t need to make the obvious point about celebrating someone’s death. Okay, maybe Hitler’s. But to those who say they felt compelled to point out a recently-deceased person’s faults because others were lauding the man? Read the norm again. Or just decide if you want to put your likeness onto the person in this video:

I wrote all this (and made you read it!) to get to the larger issue: one of my biggest concerns about life in these United States today is we have come to the point where both sides now believe they can–or more truthfully–they must violate the norms to re-establish them.

Let’s start with the walking. talking epitome of norm-breaking, President Trump. He gets very upset when people make fun of his weight, his hair, his orange-hued tan, and about a hundred other things. He says people who make these comments are “nasty.” He proceeds to talk about them in ways that also break the norm: “dummy,” “ugly,” “horseface,” and “retarded” are among his rejoinders. The norm teeters. His opponents respond with “pedophile,” “rapist,” and “Nazi.” Down goes the norm.

It happens not only in impromptu, personal observations, but in policies, too. The President maintains he was the victim of selective, vindictive prosecutions. Reasonable people may agree or disagree with him. But what are his directions to go after certain members of his first administration but the same thing? “Oh, but they’re guilty,” my MAGA friends would object, as did my progressive friends when talking about Trump’s legal problems. You see the point: guilt or innocence is not it, the norm is the point.

We used to have a norm in this country that we don’t go after our political opponents using the justice system (federal or state). Richard Nixon committed a bag of felonies in addition to the cover-up that got his impeachment rolling and resulted in his resignation. His successor, Gerald Ford, could have let the prosecutors go after him, but instead he cost himself re-election by reinforcing the norm and pardoning Nixon. And it wasn’t just Nixon. Reading history will remind you that many of our leaders (great and otherwise) could have been in the docket after the White House. That’s what happens elsewhere, not here . . . until now.

Some norms are small things, but they are part of larger things, like small building blocks. The Senate filibuster is one example, ensuring a majority party needs either an overwhelming majority or some minority support to get basic things done. Yet some are itching to erase it despite its obvious utility to whichever team isn’t in charge. Beware those who say such progress is always good, because norms great and small play important roles. You won’t know what you got till it’s gone, as the song goes.

Look at the norm about non-prosecution of past administrations. When the Democrats tossed it aside “because Trump,” they proceeded on a federal and state tear amounting to four indictments and eighty-eight criminal counts. Among these were the charges of interfering in the 2020 election, including the Supreme Court case of Trump vs. the United States. The decision established the President has “absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.”

Now the Supreme Court majority reviewed the competing notions that the Founders certainly wanted no kings above the law, but also did not want a presidency which ended with endless subsequent criminal litigation. Before this, it was just a norm, understood that the President can’t be subsequently sued or charged for his actions in office. The push to end the norm led to a binding precedent that is sweeping. Whether you agree with it (I do) or not, I’m not sure this is a better place for the country to be in legally. I am absolutely sure the Democrats who pursued this course of action didn’t intend where it ended up.

When Michelle Obama told her Party, “when they go low, we go high,” many Democrats rejected it and described it as “weak,” “defeatist,” or simply “unacceptable” when facing Trumpism. She was right, they were wrong. It’s not weak or defeatist to insist on norms, it’s principled. Principled positions win in the end. Many people who don’t know the derivation of the term Nazi* but like to talk about fascism or Hitler forget that the Allies didn’t win by rejecting the norms of human decency in society or war. We won by insisting on those norms. Even after the war, we insisted on a legal tribunal with certain rights, judges, defense attorneys, and procedures before administering justice . . . even for Nazis.

Once you start jettisoning norms, principles and laws are next on the chopping block. Mr. Trump has always viewed laws as things to be manipulated or obeyed only as a last resort. Trying to claim he doesn’t have to back-pay some government employees idled by the shutdown is just his latest one, or is it bullying his ball room over the East Wing of the White House? It’s so hard to keep tally. Mind you, it’s a bipartisan sport. The Democrats recently took a principled stand against Gerrymandering, going so far as to put specific limits on it in blue states, with some notable exceptions (Maryland, for instance). History again is instructive: what are the norms of districting in America? Well the very term Gerrymander is a home-grown term, showing it has been going on since the inception of the Republic. There was indeed a norm that a state normally only redistricted after a federal census, or under court order, but it was only a norm. The Republicans tossed it aside, and then so did the Democrats with their once-principled stand. So much for norms and principles.

“Pat, you’re missing the larger issue. If Trumpism is not defeated in the next election, it will change us forever.” I regret to inform those who hold this view that it has already changed us forever. The question is whether those changes will be for the better or for the worse. If we toss aside every norm, principle, or even law, those changes will be for the worse. If we insist on reestablishing the norms, etc, by continuing to abide by them, it will be for the better. I would remind all that about ten years ago, Democrats were predicting their coalition had an unstoppable majority which would dominate the Presidency and the Congress for decades to come. Didn’t happen. Republicans feel somewhat similar today. Nothing is guaranteed. The new districts the Texas GOP is developing are based on continuing support from Hispanics in Rio Grande border areas. If those voters change their mind (which they did in 2024), the gerrymandering fails miserably. The same will happen elsewhere.

American politics are in flux. This is yet another reason the norms need to be re-asserted by all of us. Nominees come and go, as do parties. What we have left are the rules they compete under. When we suggest those rules are just part of the game, not even norms (let alone laws), we weaken the ties that bind us together. That is a far greater challenge than anything on the ballot in 2026 or 2028.

*Most people know the term Nazi stands for National Socialist in German. But the derivation is interesting. It should be NaSo, right? But Socialists in Germany were called by a derogatory term “SoZis” by the other parties. When the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP in German) came on the scene, the other parties gave them the derivative NaZi nickname. They embraced it.

Sound familiar? You’re about to hear more about it, and you may want to brush up on it. The story you will hear from partisans–including the legacy media–will be all about abortion. Seems there is always another legal issue with abortion causing political controversy. But the underlying issue the Supreme Court will have to decide is (1) a bedrock principle of our Republic, and (2) one that has not ever been fully reconciled by the courts! Strap on your headgear and let’s get smart about it.

Article IV, Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States:

“Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.”

A pretty short, simple statement. This was a principle of international law which the Founders borrowed for the Constitution, applying it to relations between the sovereign states. The concept is simple: accept the legal judgments of the other entity as you own, as long as that entity has jurisdiction. What? Okay, here is a concrete example: if your state claims you are a married couple, then another state must recognize your marriage when you’re there, too. Or driver’s licenses. Or a legal case resulting in a fine, or finding of guilt/liability, or paternity and child custody, and so forth and so on. It’s a simple concept that allows life to continue without undue additional aggravation. Imagine if you had to stop at each state line and pass a driving test!

The point was to keep borders (between countries or states) from becoming something people could hide behind (avoiding a judgment or re-litigating a case they lost) while making the continuation of life across those same lines easier for law-abiding citizens. It is not universal: states don’t have to recognize another state’s doctor’s license, for example. Marijuana is legal in Colorado, illegal in Nebraska. A Cornhusker can’t be arrested in Colorado for smoking a joint, but if they bring that joint back to Nebraska: get out the cuffs (figuratively).

The Dobbs decision (which overturned Roe v Wade) removed the fundamental right to abortion and left the issue to the States, providing fertile ground for interstate conflict. Some Red states banned abortion in toto. Abortion proponents insist that sending abortion-inducing drugs from Blue states into Red states is not only legal, it is morally required. Some Blue states have enacted shield laws to protect doctors, insurance companies, pharmacies and individuals from being criminally tried or civilly fined by Red states for providing abortion services. Some Red states have enacted ever-more laws permitting (practically) anybody to sue someone who enables abortion in a Red State. The main antagonists in this continuing drama are New York and Texas.

Texas contends New York residents and businesses are directly enabling Texans to violate Texas law in Texas. New York claims Texas is infringing on the rights of New Yorkers and attempting to enforce Texas law in New York. Because it is ostensibly about abortion, partisans have occupied their predictable trench lines. Under New York law, any woman can get an abortion at any time. Texas prohibits almost all abortion with very narrow exceptions. A New Yorker cannot go to Texas and claim they may have an abortion, but a Texan can go to New York and get one. The issue is about people in New York sending abortion-inducing drugs into Texas, where such drugs are illegal.

Because this is an interstate issue, it will eventually end up at the Supreme Court. I’m asking my friends to look at the larger issue here, because that is where the Supreme Court will look : to the Full Faith and Credit clause. If the court were to find for Texas, the status quo ante would pertain; nothing changes except New York would either have to respond to Texas’ legal claims against New Yorkers, or those New Yorkers would have to stop sending the pills.

But what if New York prevails? If you defend the “right to choose” you might see this as cause for celebration, but think about it for a moment. This finding directly undermines the Full Faith and Credit clause. If it’s legal for New Yorkers to send drugs into Texas, where those drugs are illegal, is it legal for Texas to send bump stocks, high-capacity magazines, or 3D printed firearms into California, where those things are illegal? Can Indiana decide not to recognize same-sex marriage licenses from Oregon? How about Alabama sending anti-trans books to Connecticut? Or Florida allowing its auto dealers to sell gas-guzzling SUVs directly to Californians?

Because the issue in play is abortion, each side is absolute in their thinking. But the issue before the court is NOT abortion: it is how states get along together, which is bound by the Full Faith and Credit clause. Tweaking that could jeopardize the entire notion of federalism in unforeseen ways. Remember: no one in this case is arguing about what New Yorkers do in New York, or what Texans do in Texas; this is about what New Yorkers do (send) to Texas. Pro-choice advocates claim a moral imperative to ignore Texas sovereign laws; pro-life advocates in Texas claim the right to reach into New York to exact justice.

I don’t envy the Supreme Court in this case. It’s exactly the kind of case with great possibilities for unintended consequences, which is why I expect them to find a way to defuse the issue without rendering the kind of judgment susceptible to such outcomes. If I had to bet on the outcome of a real decision (not a deflection, which is what I really expect), I believe the court will side with Texas. For all the rule-of-law folks out there who have been decrying every move by the Trump administration, this will be where the rubber meets the road. Does New York arrest the doctor prescribing abortion-inducing pills for women in Texas? Do they enforce the fines levied on the New York businesses doing the same? Or do they resist the court’s judgment?

Stay tuned. The case isn’t even on the Supreme Court docket yet, but unless one side or the other yields, it will be, probably next year. When it does, remember: abortion is just the topic, the case is about Full Faith and Credit.

Imagine you saw a good friend, and he looked really sad. You ask, “What’s wrong, friend?” He responds, “My brother just died. He was murdered, and I just feel numb!” Would you:

• a) Express your condolences and shock
• b) Say “I’m sorry” and sit and talk with your friend
• c) Just give them a hug, and say “words fail me!” or
• d) Explain that you had never met his brother, didn’t know him, and thus don’t feel that much compassion.

Any normal person sees responses a, b, and c as variations on compassion: suffering with a friend, because that friend is suffering. Any normal person sees response d as practically sociopathic.

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”

— John Donne, English poet

Donne got it right. Now that’s not to say we all don’t experience grief differently, based on the circumstances. I trust you feel more emotion about the death of a close family member than that of a distant one, let alone a complete stranger. We also feel differently about different deaths. We might feel more emotion about a promising teenager taken from us too early, as opposed to an old man who led a long and happy life. That’s just being human, after all. But that’s not what I’m talking about here.

What does it say about you when you revel in the fact someone you hate has died? Not someone you knew, or who did something horrible to you. Just someone others told you about, and that person was brutally murdered, and you said, “just desserts” or “good riddance.” Where on the spectrum of disordered behavior does such a sentiment lie?

“Our nation is broken. . . . If anyone, in the sound of my voice, celebrated even a little bit at the news of the shooting, I would beg you to look in the mirror, and see if you can find a better angel in there somewhere.”

Utah Governor Spencer Cox

Governor Cox said this speaking spontaneously only hours after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Would that more people could be as eloquent, compassionate, and demonstrate such leadership. I’m not going to address the people on TikTok, FaceBook, Bluesky, etc,. who really were celebrating. Some doubt these claims are real, but if you must, here’s a site (edit: no longer active, probably due to legal concerns) which catches the over 50,000 people (at the moment I posted this blog) who have done just that. Imagine what type of depravity would lead one to believe it’s a good idea to post a video of the shooting with a happy soundtrack and a thumbs-up emoji. There is no sense in talking to such people, for they have delivered themselves over to the darkness.

Rather, I want to talk to my social media “friends” who immediately went to one of the following rationaliztions:

1. Charlie Kirk engaged in hate speech, he said . . .
2. I won’t shed a tear/feel remorse/express condolences because the other side didn’t when the Hortmans were killed (in Minnesota).
3. Trump/Fox News/MAGA shouldn’t make such a big deal about this one man.
4. Maybe the MAGA/GOP/Conservatives will finally get serious about gun control.

If you’re in group one, you might want to find the real, hateful statement, or reconsider. Author Stephen King claimed Kirk “advocated for stoning gays.” No, he didn’t, and King apologized. In debates, Kirk pointed out what the biblical injunction and punishment for homosexuality was/is. Two very different things. Others claimed Kirk was antisemitic, but the allegation was refuted: he was quoting someone else and refuting the antisemitism. Denying transexualism is not violence, nor even hate. And even if it was, does it justify cold-blooded murder? Even trying to use this line of argument merits the censure and general approbation which have happened nationwide.¹

Imagine group two, thinking they’re making a nuanced statement about hypocrisy. No, they’re publicly admitting to pettiness at an monumental level. If Christian, it’s almost a disqualification except that we believe in repentance, which should start right away for those making this claim. Otherwise, imagine being so obtuse as to admit compassion is called for, but is being withheld because of politics. I didn’t know the Hortmans, so I just said a prayer for them/their family and left the matter alone. Perhaps some deranged soul somewhere immediately sought out Speaker Hortman’s voting record as justifying her assassination. But 50,000? Nope.

Group three is annoyed by all the fuss, and to be fair, legacy and social media is full of non-stop coverage. Many people in this group never heard of Charlie Kirk, except for an occasional headline in Occupy Democrats decrying his “hate speech.” What’s the big deal? Here’s the big deal: he was a force of nature. Instead of going to college, at the tender age of eighteen he formed an organization called Turning Point USA (TPUSA) with the goal of turning his Gen Z cohort towards Trump/MAGA. Even most Republicans/conservatives thought he was crazy. TPUSA had $85 million USD in revenue in 2023 and chapters on 850 college campuses. Despite no formal training, he constantly went to those campuses and engaged in hours of public, free-form debate, and eventually got very good at it. Gen Z turned out to be the group with the biggest pro-Trump move among voters in 2024. He may be more responsible for Trump’s victory than anyone else. And because he was such a force on the right, all the politicos and talking heads knew him on a personal basis. That’s why they’re making such a big deal about it, because he was a big deal for them. It was personal. And it’s why the Hortmans’ murders were less covered, even by the legacy media. Sadly, few outside Minnesota had heard of them.

The fourth group is simply guilty of exploiting calamity as a foil to make a political argument. It’s crass and self-debasing, but it’s also very common these days, especially with respect to gun violence. Since this group is out there and raised the issue, let’s replay the same stale argument we do every time this happens: tell me what gun control law or regulation would have prevented this assassination? The coward used a hunting rifle, a Mauser with a scope, legal in all fifty states. No one is seriously considering limiting or restricting its use. Utah is an open-carry state, but even if it wasn’t, the punk stuck the rifle down the leg of his pants. So don’t raise irrelevant points at a time like this.

In 1859, Abolitionist John Brown had had enough. Slavery was pure evil, and he was willing to kill or die to end it. He and a small band of the like-minded raided the federal arsenal in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, hoping to spark a slave revolt. The slaves didn’t revolt. The local militia (and the US Marine Corps, under Robert E. Lee) surrounded and captured Brown and a few survivors of his group. Brown was hanged. His raid didn’t cause the civil war, but it did confirm in people’s minds, both North & South, that violence was justified, and indeed, inevitable.

The assassination in Utah is NOT the start of another civil war. But we should all look in the mirror. It should remind us, like the Harper’s Ferry raid, that if we insist our fellow Americans are evil, the weak-willed or weak-minded among us will act out on those beliefs. Charlie Kirk wanted to convince people, and to those who met him or watched his videos, he was very good at it. Others only heard “of him” and formed opinions absent facts. All Charlie wanted to do was talk, not hate . . . and that got him killed. In response to someone who asked why he kept debating the other side, he said, “we have to keep talking, because when we stop talking, the violence starts.”

He was wrong about that; the violence was what stopped the talking.

1. A comment about free speech. My perceptive friends know that the freedom of speech guaranteed in the First Amendment of the US Constitution is freedom from the government restricting your speech. It does not protect the speaker from natural consequences with respect to your job or your school. The government should not be exacting punishment on those making outrageous statements. But no firm and no school need stand by silently, either. Most importantly, we need to regain the notion of responsibility which accompanies freedom of speech. if you say something so odious, you should admit it, not defend it, ask forgiveness, and if necessary quit to avoid causing your company or school further embarrassment. ↩︎

I was re-reading what I wrote (here) when Russia invaded Ukraine. It holds up well, I think. There was a brief moment recently when it looked like President Trump might have gotten the sides to negotiate, but that was a mirage, used by Putin to forestall secondary tariffs.

Let’s review the situation, what the various actors want, and how it will play out.

Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to control all of Ukraine. He would prefer to incorporate it into Russia, but he would be willing to settle for a passive client state a la Belarus. He tried nibbling pieces of Ukraine, when he invaded Crimea and parts of the Donbas during the Obama administration. He thought he could blitz his way to Kyiv when he invaded during the Biden administration, but that failed, resulting in the current war of attrition.

Look at the map. Putin has achieved the occupation of almost all the primarily Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine. He has established a land bridge to Crimea, augmenting the single overseas bridge which used to be the only connection between Crimea and Russia. His forces in Kherson and Zaporizhzia occupy the eastern bank of the Dnipro river, giving them a defendable line. The Russian Army has eliminated any pockets of Ukrainian activity in Russia, and it is slowly advancing to take the rest of Donetsk province. Ukraine can not stop that advance, only slow it.

Russia has withstood all the sanctions placed on it, which have damaged the Russian economy, but that same damaged economy is producing more drones, more artillery, and more soldiers than Ukraine. While Putin has not realized his overall objectives, Russia is winning the war, and can continue to do so if it chooses. This is why Putin rejects talk of a ceasefire. A ceasefire only helps Ukraine rebound, while a continuation of the current fighting, as costly as it is to Russia, benefits the Russians.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wants to keep his country free, intact, and independent. His army has fought bravely and innovated rapidly, but it cannot evict the Russians from the territory they occupy. The country itself is stuck in transition: it was a corrupt former-Soviet state trying to become a European democracy, but the war has set those goals back. It retains major corruption problems, and even the unity of the war effort is barely enough to hold it together. Despite chronic shortfalls in military manpower, Ukraine has never extended its draft to men below the age of 25! Why? Because the government fears widespread draft avoidance and public discontent if it did.

President Zelensky needs time to rebuild his economy, his military, and a functioning government. A ceasefire would do that, and a peace agreement would be better, but only if it comes with some kind of security commitment from NATO, the US, or major European states.

European leaders want to put a stick in the ground to contain future Russian aggression, correctly fearing that if Putin feels he has “won,” he’ll try again for more. They have already committed to major increases in defense spending (without identifying how they will pay for it), added Sweden and Finland to NATO’s protective canopy, and given billions in aid to Ukraine. The one remaining question for them is do they collectively have the fortitude to stick with their commitments (when the bills come due in terms of a military draft or reduced social spending)?

President Trump desperately wants a Nobel prize; he has publicly admitted it, and it clearly animates his many recent negotiations. He wants to be able to stop spending money and sending equipment to Ukraine, which is in his opinion, Biden’s fault. He wants to drop sanctions and sign a big economic deal with Russia. Putin sees an economic deal with America as the end of sanctions and a chance to recharge his economy.

Putin has raised all kinds of secondary issues. He demands limits on Ukraine’s military, but I suggest this is a negotiating ploy: Putin knows the Ukrainian military is as large as it is going to get. He asks that Ukraine recognize Russian as a second national language and permit the Russian Orthodox Church to operate freely. This is public posturing, to look like he’s defending “Mother Russia” while not really asking for anything of substance. The only import to these conditions is they will be what Putin cites when he decides Ukraine has reneged on the peace deal and he chooses to invade, again.

So how and when will these competing desires work out? When it comes to timing, I believe the when is probably within the next six months. Putin is in no hurry, as his forces are advancing on the final portion of Donetsk province, so he can await their eventual victory or gain the territory by negotiating.

Despite the pleas from Kyiv that it cannot negotiate away any territory, it will do so. If the US, Europe, and Russia build an agreement all three can accept, President Zelensky would find himself unsupported if he used his constitution to deny it. That may sound sad, but it’s true. Ukraine will cede the rest of the Donetsk and all the land Russia already occupies, in exchange for very little. Some military experts point out that such an exchange would cost the Ukrainian Army a defensive belt that is currently holding the Russians at bay; that is true, but new defenses can be built. In the end, the strategic consideration to get a peace agreement will override the military’s operational objection. Whether the Russian occupation is recognized by anyone remains an open but unimportant question (to Russia).

Back in “college,” I had a European history professor who was known for his classroom theatrics, wandering the classroom and alternating between a whisper and a shout. I will never forget his lesson on Yalta, the WWII conference that divided up Europe among the Allied powers. “Did FDR give up eastern Europe at Yalta?” he whispered near my desk. Again, slightly louder, “did the allies legitimize the Communist occupation at Yalta?” A long pause, then a thunderous, “NOOOOOOOOO! The Red Army legitimized it. They took it. You can’t GIVE UP what someone else already HAS!”

Europe will give Ukraine security guarantees; perhaps the United States will also. Why would Putin roll off his current demand prohibiting such support? Because Ukraine has had them before. Bill Clinton and UK Prime Minister John Major confirmed Ukraine’s security in the Budapest agreement in 1994 (Russia too!). President Obama ignored it when Putin took Crimea and started to invade the Donbas the first time in 2014. French President François Hollande and Germany’s Angela Merkel mediated the Minsk agreement, which failed to stop the fighting again. President Biden warned Putin not to invade in 2022, and we know how effective that was. Putin doesn’t believe that Europe or the US is willing to fight Russia over Ukraine. He will bide his time and seek to change the government in Kyiv through other means, knowing that some time later, he can always resume the military option.

Why have so many American and European leaders been so lukewarm about Ukraine in this conflict? First, as a post-Soviet state, it has been a mix of democratic aspirations, repression, and corruption. That’s not meant to be as harsh as it sounds. Media have made Ukraine the “good guys” in this war, and that they are. But before that, Ukraine was struggling with poor governance, corruption, and a lot of Russian meddling.

Second, from a geostrategic perspective, Ukraine is not as important to NATO or Europe as it is to Russia. Remember that not long ago, Ukraine was a reliable, post-Soviet ally of Russia, much like Belarus is today. Part of Putin’s ire was sparked by the Maidan revolution, which chased Russia’s puppet leaders in Kyiv back to Moscow. Oh, and Putin’s great disgust with Hillary Clinton goes back to her support (as US Secretary of State) for that revolution. President Obama and Secretary Clinton had offered a “reset” with Russia, then they promoted the Maidan revolution which belied their “reset” claims in Putin’s mind. Mind you I am explicitly NOT agreeing with this Russian interpretation (they’re wrong), just stating it as Russia’s view of the history.

True Story: In March 2009, Secretary Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov with a small red button ostensibly labelled “reset” in Russian, signalling a desire to improve US-Russian relations. Lavrov pointed out that perhaps the Americans needed better translators, as he said the button was actually the Russian word for “overcharge.”

In the end, if Russia had a client state in Ukraine, it would greatly extend its border with NATO, but only to what it had been in 2009. And the addition of the Russo-Finish border is a far more significant factor.

Finally, the outcome of this war is only symbolically important. If Russia “liberates” the Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine, or if it eventually installs a puppet government in Kiev (reverting to Russian spelling), the important point is what Europe is prepared to do about it. If Europe goes through with their stated intentions to man, re-arm, and integrate their military capabilities, Russia will be hard-pressed to push further, much like NATO deterred the far more powerful USSR. If Europe’s leadership falters, or fails to follow through, Putin or his successor will almost certainly choose another victim nation to seize.

The war in Ukraine, for Ukraine, will have to end soon. It is decisive for Ukraine, but not for Europe (and certainly not for the United States). It is only a precursor to a larger competition in Europe, for Europe.

I’m writing this post safely from an undisclosed location outside the country. I never thought it would come to this. Jack-booted thugs patrolling the nation’s Capital. Marines occupying the City of Angels. More troops pouring in every day, and the White House threatening more cities. It’s only a matter of time before Trump pulls off the mask and announces martial law, and the end of our democracy.

Or not.

When you look at the litany from that first, overwrought paragraph, you see the problem. Exaggeration multiplied by fear to the point of irrationality. When President Biden deployed 4,000 active duty and National Guard troops to the border, he was chastised by both Democrats and Republicans. The former said he shouldn’t do it because Trump did, the latter because it was all a show (the GOP was correct in this case). The troops went to Red states. Nobody seriously called it an invasion by the federal government against his political opposition.

Trump deployed 5,000 National Guard troops and US Marines to Los Angeles. They prepared a defensive perimeter around several federal building that had been the scene of protests and some minor violence. The deployed elements cross-trained to accompany ICE and DEA on raids; their mission was (again) to provide a secure perimeter for the other federal agents as they completed their law enforcement operations. Was any of this necessary, and why?

Protection of federal buildings is first and foremost, the federal government’s responsibility. While state and local officials usually complete this role, the federal government retains the right to defend itself (period). Was the threat sufficient to justify the deployment? While you may think no, it’s not your decision; it’s the President’s. Why would ICE or the DEA need federal troops to provide security on raids? In California, state law prohibits state and local law enforcement from assisting ICE. If ICE coordinates with local law enforcement, someone leaks the impending raid, ending its effectiveness. And numerous civilian vigilantes track ICE and report on them, endangering their operations and officers. So yes, security is needed, and the force providing it must itself be secure from operational leaks.

Almost all the Marines and guards troops have left. There is a residual lawsuit by California against the Trump administration, but it will come to nought, perhaps by the US District Court judge in San Francisco, or later on appeal. Some fascist takeover.

The case in DC is even more ridiculous. There, the President has special authorities which make any lawsuit against his recent moves dead-on-arrival in court. The best the DC government could do was get the administration’s scheme to replace the police chief overruled by the courts, but the principle that the federal government can and has taken control of the metro police stands. All that legal kerfuffle was actually about one thing: the DC Council passed a rule prohibiting the DC metro police from cooperating with ICE (sound familiar?), and the police chief claimed she didn’t have to obey any federal edicts to the contrary. So the Trump administration tried to replace her, which they don’t have the authority to do. Now the Mayor has had to admit that the federalization of the Metro Police allows them to coordinate with ICE. End of that discussion.

What about the National Guard soldiers on the Mall? They’re doing the same sorts of things they did in Los Angeles: securing federal property or operations. The first tranche is the DC National Guard, so they know the area. In fact, the main Army unit in the DC Guard is a Military Police Battalion, so, you know, they might know a thing or two about crowd control, securing a perimeter, establishing checkpoints. At least I hope they do! Other deployed Guard units are logistics. With a bunch of federal agents and guard elements deploying, somebody has to provide food, fuel, bunks, etc. That is what a logistics unit does. So spare me also the “they’re losing their combat readiness” nonsense. They’re doing one of their military missions, on the fly, in a semi-hostile environment. Great training.

Was the crime rate in DC such that it justifies federalizing the Metro Police or deploying the National Guard and other federal officers? In whose eyes, with what data? There is a great discussion of the data at Substack’s Jeff-alytics here. You really should go there and read his work. The DC murder rate and carjackings are way down from their pandemic highs . . . but the DC rates are high among other US cities. The DC data on violent crimes is a mess. Look at this chart Jeff created:

There is a huge discrepancy in both the total and trend line direction between what DC posts on its pages and what it reports to the FBI! And there is no single good explanation for the difference. On top of that, there is a DC police union allegation of widespread data fraud in violent crime reporting. While it’s unproven at this point, I’m shocked (not really) that friends who tell me that unions are the bedrock of our society are quickly denying the union’s claims.

Fun with Numbers! Trump and the MAGA world claim crime is high in DC; the Resistance says it is dropping and less than it was 30 years ago. Both are correct. Let me explain, with an exceedingly absurd example. If DC suffered a million murders two years ago, then half a million last year, and a quarter million this year, the murder rate would indeed be dropping in a spectacular fashion. And crime would still be high. By the way, DC in the 1990s was the unofficial “murder capital.”

The bottom line? Crime is almost certainly down from pandemic highs, but still high for a major metropolitan area. And the data is at least suspect. Does that make DC unsafe? Should the nation’s capital be more or less safe than Portland, Oregon? San Francisco, California? It’s a value judgment. I have friends who assure me they felt completely safe in DC before the Trump administration moves. I have other friends who said things were getting out of control.

When Governor Hochul deployed nearly one-thousand national guard personnel into just the New York City transit system, there were only a few raving lunatics calling it an invasion. She admitted subway crime was actually down, but there were high profile and particularly unsettling crimes like people pushing others in front of subway trains. She acted, and things got better. In DC, crime too may be down. But there have been unsettling carjackings of government employees, muggings of Congressional staffers, even criminal assaults on members of Congress in their homes. And in DC, the President has constitutional prerogatives to take action, like the Governor did in New York City.

If you want to believe this is the Gestapo, or the beginning of a fascist dictatorship, or the “end of our democracy” (sic), that’s your right. You have no obligation to learn the facts, to understand the politics or the history, or to even be consistent. It’s a free Republic, after all.

Wait, did I hear a knock on the door?