Joe Hilley's Blog, page 11
September 28, 2016
The Past Has A Way of Repeating Itself
"Here, 'Hitler adapted the content of his speeches to suit the tastes of his lower-middle-class, nationalist-conservative, ethnic-chauvinist and anti-Semitic listeners,' Ullrich writes. He peppered his speeches with coarse phrases and put-downs of hecklers. Even as he fomented chaos by playing on crowds' fears and resentments, he offered himself as the visionary leader who could restore law and order."
Kakutani, Michiko, From 'Dunderhead to Demagogue, The New York Times, September 28, 2016
Reviewing Hitler: Ascent 1889-1930 by Volker Ullrich
Kakutani, Michiko, From 'Dunderhead to Demagogue, The New York Times, September 28, 2016
Reviewing Hitler: Ascent 1889-1930 by Volker Ullrich
September 8, 2016
Totally amazed that Reagan Republicans - who embraced the...
Totally amazed that Reagan Republicans - who embraced the conservative view that Russia was a threat to world peace and US security - now readily accept Donald Trump's embrace of Russian president Putin as a leader to be emulated.
May 11, 2016
President Trump
Donald Trump sounds convincing - like the guy you see at the party who seems to know everyone, even you, and people who regularly have three or four drinks before dinner find him . . . interesting.
But the speeches he gives are mostly about himself with policy positions painted with the broadest strokes possible. The most oft repeated being, "We're gonna make America great again." He gives little detail about how he would accomplish that, but he makes the claim anyway, leaving plenty of space for listeners to fill in the blanks.
Giving Trump the benefit of the doubt, and reading past his sparse comments on policy, he sounds like a CEO addressing shareholders or employees at an annual gathering. And that might be expected. After all, he's spent a lifetime leading a number of companies. But as attractive as the CEO model might be, the presidency is not a CEO position and the government is not a business corporation. This is a critical point because if he wins the presidency in the general election, the differences between corporate CEO and president of the United States will become a major stumbling block as he confronts one of his most important official duties - proposing the next year's federal budget.
After years of government shutdowns and debt-limit grandstanding, almost none of which had any noticeable effect on the individual lives of private citizens, the federal budget might seem like merely a document. It is, in fact, quite the opposite.
The federal budget lies at the heart of an administration's plan for governing. The budgetary process - the process by which each year's allocation of funding is determined - becomes the battle ground upon which dreams and political rhetoric collide with the enduring enemy of all attempts at government reform - the narrow-minded but often powerful congressional constituencies in both parties who protect and defend billions of dollars in federal pork aimed at projects in their home districts.
The CEO of a private corporation could address company budget problems by simply deleting from that budget those items he thought were unnecessary - a power often referred to in government as the line-item veto. However, the president of the United States does not hold line-item veto power. The president can approve a budget and sign it into law in its entirety, or he can veto the budget in its entirety and send the document back to congress. But he can't strike from the budget those individual items he does not wish to fund. Approval or disapproval of the budget is an all or nothing matter.
In addition, most of the items the president will want to cut from the budget have their own congressional constituency - congressional members, even from within the president's own party, who are determined to retain some measure of federal largess for voters back home. As a result, a first-term Trump will watch as his administration becomes bogged down in relentless congressional arguments over each and every item he wishes to strike.
And then consider this . . .
To alleviate his frustration, a President Trump will do what he has already done when confronted by Republican Party hierarchy and the Republican Establishment - he will look beyond congress and the legislative process and rally the American people to his cause. Using the same empty and vacuous, but oh so entertaining, rhetoric that won him the office, he will make a very public argument for why he should have greater budgetary control. In speech after speech he will chide Congress for its failure to govern and exhort the American people with promises that he can easily fix most of the government's problems, if only he had the power to strike individual appropriations from the budget.
His argument will seem appealing and opinion polls will show voter sentiment strongly in favor of Trump's request. A Republican controlled Congress, facing the prospect of voter anger in their home districts, will give him the line-item power he seeks - by constitutional amendment if necessary.
Using his newly acquired power, Trump will dramatically shrink the federal budget. Deficits will become a thing of the past. Key government programs wiped out with the stroke of a pen. The American economy, almost instantly devoid of excess federal spending, will descend into a depression far more devastating than the Great Depression of 1929. Millions will be out of work. Voter anger once again will rise.
Rather than addressing the truth - that his federal budget policy withdrew trillions of economic activity from the national economy - Trump will turn again to the rhetoric that holds the key to his power and divert public attention to illegal immigrants as the source of the nation's economic trouble. Illegal immigrants, he will say, as he already has, are the ones who stole our jobs and destroyed our economy.
With that rhetoric as his tool, he will convince Americans that the economic crisis is really an immigration crisis, one that requires the deployment of federal troops in a massive roundup of some fifteen million allegedly illegal immigrants. A Republican controlled congress, eager to retain their office and its paycheck, will rubber stamp all of his proposals.
Sporadic resistance will create poorly organized disruptions, but those attempts at resistance will attract national media attention and provide the illusion of widespread unrest. In the midst of that, he will declare martial law and, as his second term approaches its end, he will declare a national emergency, temporarily suspending federal elections, leaving himself in office indefinitely.
And so . . .
If you think this is nothing more than the overactive musings of a fiction writer, you should read the history of Germany from 1920 to 1945. This is precisely how Hitler shredded through centuries of German law, tradition, and practice to become first chancellor, then Fuehrer - an absolute ruler with absolute and unrestrained power.
But the speeches he gives are mostly about himself with policy positions painted with the broadest strokes possible. The most oft repeated being, "We're gonna make America great again." He gives little detail about how he would accomplish that, but he makes the claim anyway, leaving plenty of space for listeners to fill in the blanks.
Giving Trump the benefit of the doubt, and reading past his sparse comments on policy, he sounds like a CEO addressing shareholders or employees at an annual gathering. And that might be expected. After all, he's spent a lifetime leading a number of companies. But as attractive as the CEO model might be, the presidency is not a CEO position and the government is not a business corporation. This is a critical point because if he wins the presidency in the general election, the differences between corporate CEO and president of the United States will become a major stumbling block as he confronts one of his most important official duties - proposing the next year's federal budget.
After years of government shutdowns and debt-limit grandstanding, almost none of which had any noticeable effect on the individual lives of private citizens, the federal budget might seem like merely a document. It is, in fact, quite the opposite.
The federal budget lies at the heart of an administration's plan for governing. The budgetary process - the process by which each year's allocation of funding is determined - becomes the battle ground upon which dreams and political rhetoric collide with the enduring enemy of all attempts at government reform - the narrow-minded but often powerful congressional constituencies in both parties who protect and defend billions of dollars in federal pork aimed at projects in their home districts.
The CEO of a private corporation could address company budget problems by simply deleting from that budget those items he thought were unnecessary - a power often referred to in government as the line-item veto. However, the president of the United States does not hold line-item veto power. The president can approve a budget and sign it into law in its entirety, or he can veto the budget in its entirety and send the document back to congress. But he can't strike from the budget those individual items he does not wish to fund. Approval or disapproval of the budget is an all or nothing matter.
In addition, most of the items the president will want to cut from the budget have their own congressional constituency - congressional members, even from within the president's own party, who are determined to retain some measure of federal largess for voters back home. As a result, a first-term Trump will watch as his administration becomes bogged down in relentless congressional arguments over each and every item he wishes to strike.
And then consider this . . .
To alleviate his frustration, a President Trump will do what he has already done when confronted by Republican Party hierarchy and the Republican Establishment - he will look beyond congress and the legislative process and rally the American people to his cause. Using the same empty and vacuous, but oh so entertaining, rhetoric that won him the office, he will make a very public argument for why he should have greater budgetary control. In speech after speech he will chide Congress for its failure to govern and exhort the American people with promises that he can easily fix most of the government's problems, if only he had the power to strike individual appropriations from the budget.
His argument will seem appealing and opinion polls will show voter sentiment strongly in favor of Trump's request. A Republican controlled Congress, facing the prospect of voter anger in their home districts, will give him the line-item power he seeks - by constitutional amendment if necessary.
Using his newly acquired power, Trump will dramatically shrink the federal budget. Deficits will become a thing of the past. Key government programs wiped out with the stroke of a pen. The American economy, almost instantly devoid of excess federal spending, will descend into a depression far more devastating than the Great Depression of 1929. Millions will be out of work. Voter anger once again will rise.
Rather than addressing the truth - that his federal budget policy withdrew trillions of economic activity from the national economy - Trump will turn again to the rhetoric that holds the key to his power and divert public attention to illegal immigrants as the source of the nation's economic trouble. Illegal immigrants, he will say, as he already has, are the ones who stole our jobs and destroyed our economy.
With that rhetoric as his tool, he will convince Americans that the economic crisis is really an immigration crisis, one that requires the deployment of federal troops in a massive roundup of some fifteen million allegedly illegal immigrants. A Republican controlled congress, eager to retain their office and its paycheck, will rubber stamp all of his proposals.
Sporadic resistance will create poorly organized disruptions, but those attempts at resistance will attract national media attention and provide the illusion of widespread unrest. In the midst of that, he will declare martial law and, as his second term approaches its end, he will declare a national emergency, temporarily suspending federal elections, leaving himself in office indefinitely.
And so . . .
If you think this is nothing more than the overactive musings of a fiction writer, you should read the history of Germany from 1920 to 1945. This is precisely how Hitler shredded through centuries of German law, tradition, and practice to become first chancellor, then Fuehrer - an absolute ruler with absolute and unrestrained power.
April 28, 2016
Cage Free Eggs Revisited
Earlier I wrote about cage free eggs with a rather sarcastic tone. I assumed caged in this context meant the chickens were confined to a chicken house but able to walk around. This morning, the Diane Rehm Show had a guest who talked about cage free and what it meant.
Here's a link to a video showing hens in laying cages. Apparently, they're confined like this most of their laying life.
Commercial Chicken Laying Cages
Here's a link to a video showing hens in laying cages. Apparently, they're confined like this most of their laying life.
Commercial Chicken Laying Cages
April 25, 2016
Deception
If you try hard enough,
you can convince yourself
of anything.
you can convince yourself
of anything.
April 21, 2016
Taxes
The other day, we were down at Texas Medical Center and while I waited for my wife to bring the car around I noticed all the plaques and pictures on the wall in the lobby remembering those who'd gone ahead of us and reminding us that they helped create that facility. The buildings have names that enshrine their memory, too. Like Brown, Alkek, Fondren, Dunn, Smith, Scurlock and Mary Gibbs Jones. And that's just the part at Methodist Hospital. Other areas of the Center have their own memorials.
With Tax Day falling in this month, many have no doubt expressed their disdain for paying taxes. That sense of frustration is understandable. It's quite and eye-opener to see how much money the government gets from our hard-earned income. But this week I've also been thinking about another aspect of the tax system. The Estate Tax and all of those plaques on the wall in the hospital lobby.
Under US law, a federal tax of forty percent is imposed on all estates valued above five million dollars. That's a much higher rate than the federal income tax, but there are ways to legally avoid that tax. One of those ways is by giving everything above the five million dollar limit to a qualifying institution or entity - a charitable cause, your alma mater, the church you attend, or by giving it to a foundation of your own.
As I thought about that and the plaques on the wall in the hospital lobby I realized the federal tax code actually pushes us to give away our wealth. The law forces us to think about our estate in terms of others. To address those needs, issues, and causes that are dear to us. To start or join a work that takes more than a single generation to accomplish.
Texas Medical Center was started by Monroe D. Anderson, a cotton broker who created a foundation to avoid federal taxes on his estate. The money that went to that foundation after Mr. Anderson died bought the land for the Center and helped fund construction of its first hospital. His vision was an inspiration to those who carried out the mission he started and that vision still drives the current generation of leaders who manage the Center today.
Yes, the federal government takes a big chunk of our income. And, yes, the federal government is far more intrusive than our Founders ever imagined. But the Estate Tax is one thing the tax code gets right. It encourages us - forces us - reminds us - to think of others. To build toward a future with dreams and visions bigger than we can accomplish in our lifetime. To join with those who've gone before us. To add our efforts to their's and to remind those coming after us that caring for others is their responsibility, too.
With Tax Day falling in this month, many have no doubt expressed their disdain for paying taxes. That sense of frustration is understandable. It's quite and eye-opener to see how much money the government gets from our hard-earned income. But this week I've also been thinking about another aspect of the tax system. The Estate Tax and all of those plaques on the wall in the hospital lobby.
Under US law, a federal tax of forty percent is imposed on all estates valued above five million dollars. That's a much higher rate than the federal income tax, but there are ways to legally avoid that tax. One of those ways is by giving everything above the five million dollar limit to a qualifying institution or entity - a charitable cause, your alma mater, the church you attend, or by giving it to a foundation of your own.
As I thought about that and the plaques on the wall in the hospital lobby I realized the federal tax code actually pushes us to give away our wealth. The law forces us to think about our estate in terms of others. To address those needs, issues, and causes that are dear to us. To start or join a work that takes more than a single generation to accomplish.
Texas Medical Center was started by Monroe D. Anderson, a cotton broker who created a foundation to avoid federal taxes on his estate. The money that went to that foundation after Mr. Anderson died bought the land for the Center and helped fund construction of its first hospital. His vision was an inspiration to those who carried out the mission he started and that vision still drives the current generation of leaders who manage the Center today.
Yes, the federal government takes a big chunk of our income. And, yes, the federal government is far more intrusive than our Founders ever imagined. But the Estate Tax is one thing the tax code gets right. It encourages us - forces us - reminds us - to think of others. To build toward a future with dreams and visions bigger than we can accomplish in our lifetime. To join with those who've gone before us. To add our efforts to their's and to remind those coming after us that caring for others is their responsibility, too.
April 11, 2016
Everyone uses unisex restrooms at home.
Everyone uses unisex restrooms at home.
April 9, 2016
Aspire to goals and dreams that are bigger than one could...
Aspire to goals and dreams that are bigger than one could achieve or complete in a single life.
April 7, 2016
The Smartest Places On Earth
If you're interested in our economy - where it's headed and what's really happening - you need to watch this webcast from Brookings Institute.
The Smartest Places On Earth - Brookings Institute
The Smartest Places On Earth - Brookings Institute
April 6, 2016
Cage-Free Eggs
Caught a blurb a moment ago about a grocery store that will move toward selling 100% Cage-Free eggs soon. Cage-Free eggs. Hmm.
Now, Cage-Free Chicken - I see that. A way for some to feel good about eating chicken. At least it wasn't confined to a cramped coop and force-fed steroids to make it grow into a giant chicken breast with a beak before someone killed it, plucked it, gutted it, and wrapped it for display in the store.
But Cage-Free eggs
When I was a boy I had a dozen yard hens and a rooster. They wandered free and wandered everywhere. So did their nests. And when I found their nests, I gathered their eggs and took them in the house to the refrigerator. When we cooked them, they tasted like whatever the hens had eaten - bark from the camphor tree is the flavor/scent I remember most in the scrambled eggs - there was a camphor tree behind the garage and they routinely pecked at its roots.
So, if you like Cage-Free eggs, help yourself. I prefer the consistency in flavor of whatever's in the bright white cartons with the brand logo stamped on each clean, smooth egg. But I do wonder how they get the eggs so uniform in size and shape.
Now, Cage-Free Chicken - I see that. A way for some to feel good about eating chicken. At least it wasn't confined to a cramped coop and force-fed steroids to make it grow into a giant chicken breast with a beak before someone killed it, plucked it, gutted it, and wrapped it for display in the store.
But Cage-Free eggs
When I was a boy I had a dozen yard hens and a rooster. They wandered free and wandered everywhere. So did their nests. And when I found their nests, I gathered their eggs and took them in the house to the refrigerator. When we cooked them, they tasted like whatever the hens had eaten - bark from the camphor tree is the flavor/scent I remember most in the scrambled eggs - there was a camphor tree behind the garage and they routinely pecked at its roots.
So, if you like Cage-Free eggs, help yourself. I prefer the consistency in flavor of whatever's in the bright white cartons with the brand logo stamped on each clean, smooth egg. But I do wonder how they get the eggs so uniform in size and shape.
