The Logan Act of 1799, is found in US CODE,TITLE 18, PART I, CHAPTER 45, Section 953.  Private correspondence with foreign governments.  It states that:

             "Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence     or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of     the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

              This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply, himself or his agent, to any foreign government or the agents thereof for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects."

There is only one Chief of State identified in the US Constitution.  It is the President of the United States.  It would seem to follow that authorization to interact directly with a foreign government must come from the President or an official to whom he has delegated authority to do so - one would normally think that would be the Secretary of State, not the Speaker of the House or the Majority Leader of the Senate or, for that matter, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court..

Fact-finding trips are one thing - and good Congressional oversight demands it.  Going to another nation to meet with its leaders after the President of the United States, under his Constitutional authority as head of state, has specifically said that it should not be done, would seem to be inconsistent with the meaning of the Logan Act.  

To be fair, this is not the first time this sort of thing has happened.  Members of Congress from both parties, and sometimes private citizens,  have, over time, made similar trips against the express wishes of a sitting President.  

Yet, there are no punitive consequences for these repeated violations of US law.

There is also only one Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.  That is also the President of the United States as specified by the Constitution.  That constitutional designation also does not include the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Majority Leader of the Senate, or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

But we see members of Congress attempting through legislative act to specify troop movements and establish deadlines for ending military presence or engagement in a military conflict. The House of Representatives can use its Constitutional authority to fund, or refuse to fund, any program.  But to use that power as a way to blackmail any President of the United States into changing military strategy or tactics in contravention of the best intelligence and military expertise available to him, should be immediately declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and widely condemned by the Press.  Not happening.  Not likely to happen.

There should not be a larger picture that that.  But there is.  

We have already seen the impunity enjoyed by illegal immigrants - given colorful names that sound innocuous. Undocumented workers. Guest workers. Necessary to the very survival of the US economy.  Do not enforce the law.  Logan Act violations happening over and over, do  not enforce the law.  Steal classified documents from the National Archives, get a slap on the wrist.  Make a misstatement to the FBI, go directly to jail, do not pass go.  Spend millions of dollars investigating a supposed crime, determine early that no crime has been committed, but keep on going anyway spending those millions. No indictments are even possible for a non-crime, but somebody must go to jail to justify all those millions spent. Travesties all.

The Rule of Law, upon which our freedoms are ultimately based, is being flouted in many very public ways.

At some point, one can imagine the silent law-abiding citizens of the United States will have a belly full of this flagrant behavior and there will not be enough law enforcement personnel to stop the mass lawbreaking which might then occur.  We can finger-point all we want.  It is not the Democrat party..  It is not the Republican party.  It is not the Press.  It is our leaders.  All of them.  From both parties.  Forgetting their oaths of office, ignoring the Constitution and laws they are sworn to enforce.  Forgetting that politics stops at the waters edge.  Forgetting that bullets make people bleed and die on both sides of a conflict.  Forgetting that if you want to defend freedom, a way of life, the sanctity of citizenship, the blessings of nationhood, then bleeding and dying are sometimes necessary.
 
When will we see a Chief Executive and Congress - all sworn to uphold, enforce, and defend the laws of the United States - begin to do just that?????  Or will we?  And if not, what then? Could be Anarchy.  Will likely not be democracy as we know it.  Or maybe we will collectively decide that our way of life is not worth saving and simply succumb to whatever power decides to take us over and mold us to their ways.  That seems to be more likely.

THE PRIMARY SYMPTOM IS INSANITY
Jerry Fox


States are scrambling and stumbling all over each other trying to get a "say" in the presidential primaries so that their state's voters will not be "left out" of the candidate selection process.

At last count, 15 states were scheduled for the six week period from January 14, 2008 to February 28.  Many of them are smaller states with fewer electoral votes, but California has jumped in, and Florida and Illinois are taking a hard look at moving their primaries into that time period also.  That would make 17 states stretching from Hawaii to New Hampshire, to Florida, with a large number of stops in between.

Will this really produce a larger "say" in the process, or will it further diminish the already wacky process of candidate selection?  Here is what I think.

Candidates will be in a fund raising frenzy to try and raise enough cash to cover the television outlets in multiple population centers of all those states.  They will be spending a great deal of time in studios preparing positive life story spots with appeal to each such population center.;  They will be spending more time in studios with attack ads on the other candidates based on the findings of continuing "opposition research."
Who got drunk?  Who used drugs? Who had an affair?  Who has been married multiple times and what do their exes have to say about them?  Who has made a bunch of money in some quick turnaround deal that can be made to look fishy?  Who has had an illegal alien mow their lawn or watch their kids, or clean their house, etc.  

No candidate will have enough time to present themselves to those population centers as a "real" human being with "real" ideas and a "real" set of core beliefs and principles that resonate with those voters.  Some, probably most, will come across as opportunistic attack dogs who simply want the power of the presidency by persuading voters to simply deny the prize to everyone else.

It will turn out - as wise heads are already saying - to be simply about the money.  Which candidate can remain standing after the incredible bills that will come in from what amounts to a nationwide campaign to be carried out over those six weeks.  And that means that the "special interests" will once again hold sway over who shall lead this nation.

I am old enough to remember when ambitious politicians were vetted by party bosses.  They looked over the crop and decided who they wanted to present the face of their party to the voters, and rallied their party faithful behind those individuals.  At least then someone was paying attention to qualifications and electability before anyone else could do "opposition research."  Or at least that is the way it seemed.

Neither system is perfect.  But the current primary system has an emerging symptom of insanity.

The Afterboomers are coming!

Jerry Fox

We have had recent presidents from the “Greatest Generation,” in Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush.  Mixed results and mixed reviews.  Some believe that only one of them was a “great” president.  History will sort it out.

 
Then we have seen baby boomer presidents in Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.  Mixed results and mixed reviews.  Some believe there is not a ”great” president in that pair either.  History will sort it out.

In the new House and Senate leadership we are back among several of the “greatest generation” in key chairmanships.

Is it time to say enough already?  Where are the Afterboomers?  We know they are out there.  And we know that their leadership time is coming.  Other than Barack Obama, who else is out there who could capture the appetite for new blood so evident in widespread and growing support for a first term US Senator with unknown executive competency.  Where are the other emerging leaders in their thirties and forties? 

 
Let’s look at the state governors, the most likely source of seasoned executive leadership. They are tested in the crucible of state budgets, state legislatures, ever present media, unanticipated natural disasters, unfunded mandates from Washington, unfavorable decisions from state and federal courts, and more.  Only 11 are under fifty.  Five were just re-elected; four are sitting governors whose terms were not up in 2006, and two were just elected and are just stepping into the crucible.

 Of those re-elected to a second term in 2006, two are women, and three are men.  Two are Republican and three are Democrat.  So far so good.  They are:

Janet Napalitano, D, Arizona, incoming Chair of the National Governors Association.  No national office background.

Jennifer Granholm, D, Michigan, no national office background.

Tim Pawlenty, R, Minnesota, no national office background.

Brad Henry, D, Oklahoma, no national office. 10 years in state senate.

Mark Sanford, R. South Carolina, three terms as US representative.

The four sitting governors whose terms did not expire in 2006 are all men, and include three Republicans and one Democrat.  They are:

Matt Blunt, R, Missouri, in his first term.  Served in Missouri General Assembly, no national office background.

John Hoeven, R, North Dakota, in his second term.  No national office background.

John Huntsman, Jr., R, Utah, in his first term.  Extensive national experience as White House assistant during Reagan; deputy assistant Secretary of Commerce and US Ambassador to Singapore under George H.W. Bush; deputy US Trade Representative under George W. Bush.

            Tim Kaine, D, Virginia, in his first term.  No national office background.

The two newly elected governors yet to be tested but worth watching closely are:

            Sarah Palin, R, Alaska

            Martin O’Malley, D, Maryland

My quick take on these identifies a few who stand out with experience beyond state government, although the Governor’s job itself is, in my opinion, a highly qualifying preparation for the presidency.  But, if the governor also has had some national level experience in an executive capacity, or in the Congress, that adds additional luster to the resume.  Going further, if any of them have foreign relations experience, that is even better.

So, the top two Republican Afterboomers in my unsophisticated analysis are:

     South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, three term Congressman from that state.

     Utah Governor John Huntsman, Jr., with national experience, both executive and foreign           policy related, under three presidents.

 
And the top two Democrat Afterboomers are:

     Arizona Governor Janet Napalitano, incoming Chair of the National Governors Association.  If      her peers, republican and democrat alike, consider her worthy of their Chair, then she has      got a lot on the ball.

     Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry.  Even with no national experience, 10 years in the State            Senate, with Chairmanship responsibility, is an added bonus.

 
So lets hear some more about these folks.  How do we turn the media on to looking at the Afterboomers.  They are the future.  They are coming.  The time is now.

December 9, 2006 could be the day that disgruntled Americans start planning a big march back across the Atlantic to a country more in tune with the life they would like to lead. Descendants of the Pilgrims and others who fled England to escape tyranny and enjoy freedom may well decide that the brits have got it right this time around.

Tony Blair has said out loud what many Americans would like to see said here by our leaders.  You are welcome in America if you come legally, embrace our values, learn our language, and operate under our laws, not some you bring with you.

According to the Daily Telegraph this day, that is what Blair has announced in Britain.  It is a turnaround for him, and for the Labour party, and it reflects growing disenchantment with the multiculturalism experiment.

Some time back an article was circulating on the internet, attributing similar remarks to the Prime Minister of Australia.  I don't know if it was verified by anyone or not.  But if so, then there might be the beginning of a trend.

I would not be surprised to see the leadership in France take a similar view in the coming months, and be joined by other nations as well. 

Who are the spoilers of the great dream to multiculturize the world?  It is not just muslims, it is not just mexicans, it is any and all immigrants who refuse to adjust themselves and their views to the country they have chosen as their new home.

America is not innocent in this failure.  We have been among the leaders in exporting our religious beliefs to other nations, and exporting our way of governing as well.  Does this mean isolationism is the best way to go. 

Perhaps for a while all nations need to draw back from exporting their culture, ideology, and religion.  Maybe if would be best to just go for commerce.  It is much more likely that as wealth spreads around the globe, education will be enhanced, and the need will grow for people to "have a larger say" in how their nation is configured.  Trying to do a culture push through activism, instead of a culture pull through economic development just may be the wrong thing to do.

In my own view, a big hooray goes to Tony Blair for sure,  and maybe John Howard too.  It will be interesting to see how the world reacts to this development, and whether the Mayflower of the 21st Century heads the other way.

                                                 Rebuilding the Iron Triangles Again

                                                                       Jerry Fox

 

A Washington inside-the-beltway term, an iron triangle is created when the advocates of a government program (read beneficiaries), the agency or department assigned responsibility to carry out the program, and the committee chairs in the Congress responsible for oversight of the program forge a friendly alliance.  The intent is to preserve, protect, and grow the program - this helps the advocates receive even greater benefits, helps the agency increase its staff and budget, and helps the committee chairs expand their influence. 

 

As the years from program inception go by, the triangle increases in strength.  If the same committee chairs stay in  position for a long time, the triangles get even stronger.  That is why when Presidents take office vowing to reduce the size and scope of government - they are seldom successful.  John Kennedy tried it.  Ronald Reagan tried it.  Others talk about it.  None have been able to do it very well.

 

Understanding the principle of the iron triangle also helps to understand that it is not reducing the number of federal employees that reduces government.  Government programs once in the law books have to be “faithfully executed” by the Chief Executive - so says the United States Constitution, and so says the President’s oath of office, and so says the oath of office of every federal civil servant.  A great big reduction of 200,000 federal employees (its really only a small percent of the total federal workforce) sounds good to the voters.  It means very little about reducing the size and scope of government.

 

First you have a law, then you have a raft of federal programs to execute the many different provisions of that law, then you have a mountain of regulations to execute those programs. Wouldn’t it be neat if the Congress would devote itself to a program-by-program review, looking at the reason each program was created  and the time in which it was created, looking realistically at the success of the program in serving its original purpose, looking at whether the original reason for a program’s  creation is still present, looking at the relevance of the program in the context of today’s world and national situation, and looking at the lifetime cost of the program against its measurable degree of success.  It is only by rigorously examining the individual federal programs that those which have failed, or have succeeded but served their purpose, can be finally laid to rest.  And even for those programs that must continue, maybe we could at least hope for streamlined delivery and a reduction in the regulatory burden.

 

Once again, after the election of 2006,  there is a small window of opportunity to try and deal with this issue.  The Congress turned over in 1994, and all the committee chairs were new.  All of the iron triangles were broken – and then rebuilt over the past 12 years.  Now the Congress has turned over again, and we have new Committee Chairs in January. 

 

Encouraging our elected representatives to take a carefully planned and executed approach to reviewing over two centuries of federal law - and implementing regulation - is something that can only help the country.   Encouraging the same among our representatives to state government can only be good for the state.  As time passes, and the new committee chairs become entrenched, the iron triangles will begin to grow stronger again.  Who knows how long it will be until another short window of opportunity presents itself..

Wernher von Braun was the first and only Director of the NASA Center in Huntsville, Alabama for 10 years.  His management style was one of collegiality.  He had brought or attracted over a hundred rocket specialists from Germany after World War II.  Many of them had worked together at the Peenemunde missile works developing the V1 and V2 missiles - the latter being used widely on London, England.  They knew each other well, and were at ease finding flaws and suggesting improvements in each others' work.  And they developed new missiles for America - including the Saturn V which lifted US astronauts to the moon.

There were regular Staff and Board meetings of all the executives who reported directly to Dr. von Braun.  There were many of them.  The technical directors of the various laboratories were the "Board," and the Staff included such areas as budget, manpower, facilities, public affairs, and so on.  At those meetings, everyone was free to chime in on any issue no matter whose department.  Then the Staff portion was over and those individuals left.  The Board remained in session and the meetings sometimes became very animated and interesting as the conflict of technical ideas and approaches took center stage.

In 1970, Dr. von Braun decided he had held the Director's position long enough and agreed to transfer to Washington, DC to head up a new planning effort to help shape NASA's programs after the 1969 lunar landing.  For a little over a year, he was succeeded as director by his longtime "number two", Dr. Eberhard Rees.  Not surprisingly, Dr. Rees' management style was in most respects identical to that of von Braun.

But, in 1973 Dr. Rees announced his retirement, and Dr. Rocco Petrone was assigned to the Huntsville Center as its new Director.  A retired Colonel, former Apollo Program Director after the lunar landing, and former Launch Director at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Dr. Petrone had a distinctly different style.

His first act, was to schedule a series of presentations by each of his direct reports, so that he could get up to speed on their area of specializtion, and also gauge the individuals.  He was abrupt, direct, inquisitive, and some would say rude.  But he learned about the work and he sized up the people.  From the series of presentations, he concluded that everybody was in everybody elses business to an extraordinary degree and it needed to stop for the sake of efficiency and order as the Center made its own preparations for a post Apollo period.

So he announced a drastic change in how the Center would operate.  He told all of those who reported directly to him to get in their tunnels, shine their own tunnel until it was smooth and effective and operating at the cutting edge of whatever field it was in.  He said that each such leader should not stick his head out of his tunnel unless specifically called upon by Dr. Petrone to do so. He would determine when cross collaboration was needed and he would decide who would participate in it.  Violating that order would carry considerable career risk.

The result of that change was swift indeed.  Many of the laboratory directors that had been with Dr. von Braun for years decided to retire, as did some of the senior staff executives as well.  They could see that the approach which worked so well for them leading to the lunar landing would not be continued.  But they also recognized that with the lunar landing over, there was no longer a single driving focus which ultimately controlled all of them - carrying out the promise of an assasinated president.  For no matter how raucous their meetings or profound their disagreements, the did come to a collegial decision on how to proceed.  They had to.  There was a deadline to meet and national prestige at stake.  

The space center in Huntsville has survived Dr. Petrone and a string of directors since then - and is still a major contributor to this nation's quest in space.

It occurs to me, watching the goings on at the United Nations, and in both houses of the Congress of the United States, that our nation and our world are suffering from too much input from too many sources on too many issues.  It seems that it is time for a leader who would apply Dr. Petrone's method across the board, in the UN, in our country, and in any other country where chaotic leadership appears to be the rule.

We have globalization - the flat world,  instant communications world wide through the internet and the cable news channels, international air travel and teleconferencing, and widespread demands for a "place at the table" by every racial, ethnic, and sexual orientation.  And we have an endless supply of talking head "experts" on every subject imaginable, all with advice on What To Do.   Couple that with near universal rules about not speaking one's mind to keep from hurting someone's feelings.  It is a recipe for anarchy.

So where is the leader that will think it over, conclude it is too messy, and apply the rule:   Shine Your Own Tunnel and don't come out unless I call your name.  It cannot be Rocco, for he passed away just recently.  But there must be another one out there somewhere.

The original Canon on Decency said, “A newspaper cannot escape conviction of insincerity if while professing high moral purpose it supplies incentives to base conduct, such as are to be found in details of crime and vice, publication of which is not demonstrably for the general good...”   There is no Article on Decency in the 1975 version.  The entire Article was omitted from the revision.   Against the backdrop of the seventies, the strong growth of supermarket tabloids, and the orientation of television news, it is easy to see why the ASNE gave up on this one.

 

It is great that the Newspaper industry has a Statement of Principles.  It is great that so much of it has remained unchanged over so many years. But we do see an erosion in the Principles, brought about largely by other media and the pressures of competition.  

 

Two Canons,  Sincerity and Decency, have already been silenced, and Fair Play has been rolled back a ways. Truthfulness, Accuracy, and Impartiality are at best suspect, being under continuous attack by the supermarket tabloids, tabloid television shows, and to a growing extent the nightly television news.  And only time will tell whether there will be any restraint at all on the content of the Internet.  Recent events suggest otherwise.

 

Yet there is a new and very widespread activity on the internet that has potential for both good and evil – the “blogosphere,” where anyone with a computer can write anything and publish it instantly – this blog is an example of just that.  Bloggers come from all walks of life.  Some are expert in one or more technical areas.  Examining news photos for “doctoring,” evaluating the type used in an alleged “copy” of a damning letter; or simply analyzing in great detail some statement of a leader, and by application of simple logic, showing the leader to be something of a dunce.  The impact of the “blogosphere” as an instant critic of newspapers is turning out to be quite profound.  It is an ongoing and developing story of its own.  Even more formidable, the Internet  is enjoying phenomenal growth as yet another mass advertising media, further increasing competition for the limited advertising dollar.

 

Does anybody really care about standards any more?  Is there some connection between the relaxing of the newspaper standards and the decline in moral values that we see today?  Or is all of it just the march of history in a free and increasingly permissive society?  Or maybe its even worse.  Newspapers, radio, and television are all businesses.  They exist to make money.  They do that by satisfying their customers.  Their customers are us.  We must want what we are getting.  If not, we’re being awfully quiet about it.  As for me, this blogger thinks Grandpa’s generation thought it through and had it right.

Come to find out, there is even a website group called The Society of Childlike Grownups.  (There really must be an organization for everything.)  You can find it on the internet at http://www.childlikegrownups.com.  One of their mottos is, “You’re never too old for recess.”

 

A friend said something like that in a birthday card to me once. He wrote, “you cannot stay forever young, but it is never to late to be immature.”  Is a childlike adult “immature”?  Or is the childlike adult just having more fun than the stodgy old rest of us.  Who is right?  Maybe we are slowly redefining what is socially acceptable behavior in the 21^st Century - and maybe the occupants of that century will have a lot more fun than we did.  Maybe America really is loosening up. 

 

Where have all the adults gone?  I don’t know.  I guess I don’t know for sure what one even is.  I just thought I knew.  Shows what you get for thinking when you aren’t used to it.