The slow drip, drip, drip of activity from the Mueller investigation has become a steady trickle, and it may soon become a flood.  If you are having trouble keeping up, take a few moments to review the latest edition of the Guilty Guy’s Playbook. You can’t get it on Amazon, but your cellmate or your Congressperson probably has a copy you can borrow.

Make sure you don’t confuse the Guilty Guy’s Playbook with the Wrongfully Accused Guy’s Playbook.  They are actually easy to tell apart, because the Guilty Guy’s Playbook is almost always dog-eared and tattered from near-constant use, while the Wrongfully Accused Guy’s Playbook is probably still bound in its original shrink-wrap.

One of the first things you will notice about the Guilty Guy’s Playbook is that it doesn’t matter what you are guilty of.  Murder, jaywalking, robbery, sexual assault, lying to the FBI, obstructing justice, colluding with a foreign power to interfere in a federal election: your response should be the same.  It also doesn’t matter who is accusing you.  Whether you are jousting with a small-town detective, the FBI, a Congressional sub-committee, a high school classmate, or an investigative reporter; it’s all the same to the guilty guy or gal.

All of the advice in the Guilty Guy’s Playbook stems from three basic facts:

1. They have to prove it.
2. They have to follow the rules.
3. You don’t.

Keep these points in mind and the guidelines in the Playbook pretty much write themselves.

Here is a summary of the timeless advice contained in the Guilty Guy’s Playbook:

1. Deny everything.
2. Deny everything vehemently.
3. Discredit witnesses.
4. Attack the investigators.
5. When they can prove an element, admit to it, and deny everything else. Repeat as necessary.
6. Babble endlessly about unrelated and irrelevant topics.
7. Never tell the truth. Never.

As the Guilty Guy’s Playbook explains, if you are actually guilty, the truth is not your friend.  So, you need to do everything in your power to prevent the truth from coming out.  Under no circumstances should you ever discuss the actual charges or allegations. Obfuscate, lie, dissemble, and attack.  These are your essential tactics. The guiltier you are, the harder you need to work to keep the truth hidden. This is the primary difference between the Guilty Guy’s Playbook and the Wrongly Accused Guy’s Playbook, which has a lot of old-fashioned advice about discovering the truth.

Following the guidelines of the Guilty Guy’s Playbook, a hypothetical guilty guy might respond to a hypothetical investigation like this:

1. What meeting? There was no meeting.
2. I told you before, there was no meeting.
3. This investigation is rigged! THERE WAS NO MEETING!!!
4. Oh, that meeting. OK, there was a meeting, but I wasn’t there.
5. I told you before, I WASN’T THERE!!
6. OK, I was there, but there were no Russians.
7. Did you hear me? NO RUSSIANS!
8. OK, there were Russians, but I didn’t know they were Russian.
9. OK, I knew they were Russian, but I didn’t know what they wanted to talk about.
10. Why are you harassing me? Why aren’t you out catching real criminals? She’s the puppet!
11. OK, I knew what they wanted to talk about. It was adoptions.
12. OK, I knew it wasn’t adoptions; they offered to provide dirt about a political opponent, but I didn’t know it.
13. What about that guy? He’s been to lots of meetings. Why aren’t you investigating him? She’s the puppet!
14. This whole investigation is a disgrace! Sad!
15. OK, I knew they wanted to offer dirt about a political opponent, but I wasn’t interested.
16. OK, I knew they were offering dirt and I was very interested, but I didn’t know where it came from.
17. This whole investigation is corrupt!
18. OK, I knew that they were offering information obtained by a foreign intelligence service that I could use against a political opponent in a federal election, and I was very happy to receive it, but the information wasn’t bad enough to help us, so we never used it.
19. Everybody does it.
20. Witch Hunt!!!!!

December 1, 2018

Despite holding no office or official position of any kind, Hillary Clinton continues to exert an otherworldly power over a certain segment of the population.  This should really be investigated.

Of course, since she’s already been under investigation of one sort another pretty much continuously since 1992, at a cost to taxpayers of $100 million dollars, without ever being charged with an actual crime, perhaps another investigation isn’t what we need.

In many ways she is a remarkably accomplished person and future historians will no doubt puzzle over the hysteria her mere existence seems to provoke in some presumably sane individuals. At the same time, she is not a perfect person and she was certainly not a perfect presidential candidate.  She was, in fact, the only woman in America who could have put Donald Trump in the White House.  You’d think Mr. Trump would appreciate her efforts, just a bit.

While she’s had a very successful career, like the rest of us, when Mrs. Clinton looks back, she probably wishes she’d done a few things differently.  Attacking the women who accused her husband of sexual harassment and/or assault would be wrong today, and it was wrong in 1993. Losing money on Whitewater was ill-advised. Her inexplicable affection for pantsuits hurt. Murdering Vince Foster might have been a step too far.  So was organizing a pizzeria-based pedophile ring. And she shouldn’t have traded arms for hostages and used the profits to arm Central American rebels. But these things have all been investigated thoroughly, or will be investigated just as soon as the Mueller witch-hunt is completed, which, if the Whitewater and Benghazi investigations are any guide, ought to occur just in time for the presidential election in 2056.

 For an accounting of the cost of investigations of Bill and Hillary Clinton, see:

https://www.newstalkflorida.com/featured/gops-fear-loathing-hillary-clinton-cost-100-million/

November 30, 2018

From the news: “When asked Friday about his latest tweets about Mueller, Trump said tellingly: ‘I like to take everything personally, because you do better that way.’ “

This explains a lot.

This would be remarkably bad advice for anyone, but for the elected leader of the most powerful nation on earth, it is truly horrifying.

The President of the United States takes an oath to faithfully defend the Constitution of the United States.  His, or her, every act must be measured against the following standard: what action is in the best interest of the United States?

To take everything personally is to assume that your interests are paramount.  That the interests of the nation do not count.  As president, you are absolutely not ‘doing better’ that way.

Worse, taking everything personally pretty much guarantees that you will misinterpret the actions of others. Even as president, you are not the center of everybody else’s universe, and people and nations almost always act to further their own interests. If you believe that everyone’s actions are motivated by their feelings about you, you will be wrong nearly all the time. Worse, your ability to respond intelligently will be fatally compromised.

As if that’s not enough, taking things personally is psychologically and emotionally draining. In the end, taking everything personally is a recipe for inaccurate judgments, ineffective responses, and mental exhaustion.  A far cry from ‘doing better.’

Trump quote: https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/16/politics/donald-trump-robert-mueller/index.html

November 18, 2018

I am no immigration expert, and I don’t even play one on TV, but there is plenty of accurate information readily available about America’s immigration system, if anyone wants to actually understand it.  At the end of this post I will include links to a number of articles and reports from a variety of sources, including the CATO Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Brookings Institute, and the Economist.

First of all, there is no immigration “crisis.”  That doesn’t mean that as a nation we are doing a good job managing the issue of immigration.  But it does mean that our current system, though badly broken, is not endangering the republic.

Our current immigration situation is the result of decades of inaction and inattention. Eleven million unauthorized immigrants did not get here overnight.  The mismatch between the goals of our immigration system and the needs of the U.S. economy did not develop yesterday.

While clearly not optimal, our failure to implement an effective immigration system is neither taking jobs away from Americans nor boosting America’s crime rate.  Unemployment is at a near-record low, and crime has been declining in this country for fifty years.  The loss of low-skilled jobs is far more attributable to automation and offshoring than to immigration (legal or illegal). Please note that automation, offshoring, and the hiring of illegal immigrants are actions performed by American businesses, and are not perpetrated by immigrants. (Except, I suppose, when immigrants become business owners…)

So, you have to recognize that the breathless warnings about the existential threat of immigration are a political stunt intended to use fear to fire up a certain segment of the voting public.

Our current immigration system is unsustainable.  But so is our current system of health care, our deficits/national debt, our inability to fund infrastructure improvements, our college tuition costs, and our continued pumping of carbon dioxide into the earth’s atmosphere (just to see what will really happen…). We are headed down a lot of roads where we would really rather not go, but since immigration is the issue that most visibly energizes some voters, it is the pre-election priority of the current administration.

When we discuss immigration, we should understand what is really going on.  Here are twelve facts about immigration in the United States:

1. Congress hasn’t passed significant immigration reform legislation since 1986.
2. There are about 11 million illegal immigrants in the US today. Many of them have been here for years as valued and productive members of their communities.
3. Most illegal immigrants in the U.S. did not cross the border, they arrived legally and overstayed their visas.
4. The rate of illegal immigration into the U.S. has been declining since before the current administration took office.
5. Immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans.
6. Immigration boosts the U.S. economy. Immigrants purchase goods and services, pay taxes, and provide labor for American businesses.
7. Immigrants do not take jobs away from Americans.
8. Illegal immigrants pay more in taxes (sales tax, property tax, and income tax withholding) than they consume in government services. They are ineligible for virtually all government benefits, including Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and food stamps.
9. Immigrants are motivated to come here far more by conditions in their home countries than by anything we say or do here. Central Americans aren’t coming here because they want to pick vegetables or wait on tables. They can do that at home.  They are coming here to escape violence.
10. Our current immigration system does not support the needs of our economy for skilled workers. With a declining birthrate and an aging population, the United States needs an influx of skilled workers to maintain economic growth. Immigration can be part of the solution.
11. There are far too few immigration judges handling far too many cases, which leads to a backlog that can leave immigrants waiting for years.
12. A $20 billion border wall will neither remove illegal immigrants already here nor will it provide some of the skilled workers our economy needs.

Immigration reform is not some secret, dark art that only a few understand.  The path we should be taking is pretty well-marked.  We need a system that:

1. Strengthens border security through an increase in the size of the Border Patrol, additional surveillance systems, and other measures.
2. Increases the number of immigration judges, courts, and ICS agents to reduce the backlog of immigration cases.
3. Determines the skills and abilities the U.S. economy needs and develops an immigration process that values and prioritizes those attributes. Many nations, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia use a points-based system to determine immigrant desirability and award the majority of visas to high-skilled workers while still allowing for family and humanitarian visas
4. Addresses the existing backlog in our green card system by creating effective temporary worker programs for workers of all skill levels that can provide workers that American businesses need and reduce the motivation to enter illegally.
5. Establishes an effective worker verification system for employers of all sizes to reduce unauthorized employment.
6. Establishes a process that sets forth strict eligibility criteria for allowing the otherwise law-abiding individuals who are already here to earn legal status.

I am sure that this is the ultimate plan that the administration has in mind, they just haven’t announced it yet.

And here is a section of a report by the conservative CATO Institute:

“The overriding impact of immigrants is to strengthen and enrich American culture, increase the total output of the economy, and raise the standard of living of American citizens. Immigrants are advantageous to the United States for several reasons: (1) Since they are willing to take a chance in a new land, they are self-selected on the basis on motivation, risk taking, work ethic, and other attributes beneficial to a nation. (2) They tend to come to the United States during their prime working years (the average age is 28), and they contribute to the workforce and make huge net contributions to old-age entitlement programs, primarily Social Security. (3) Immigrants tend to fill niches in the labor market where demand is highest relative to supply, complementing rather than directly competing with American workers. (4) Many immigrants arrive with extremely high skill levels, and virtually all, regardless of skill level, bring a strong desire to work. (5) Their children tend to reach high levels of achievement in American schools and in society at large.”

https://www.cato.org/research/immigration

Sources:

https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/fall-2017/illegal-immigration-outcomes-us-southern-border

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2018/08/06/the-state-of-us-immigration-policy-and-how-to-improve-it/

https://www.brookings.edu/research/a-dozen-facts-about-immigration/

http://fortune.com/2017/02/16/donald-trump-immigration-canada/

https://nypost.com/2018/09/23/why-the-american-immigration-system-is-broken-and-how-to-fix-it/

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/20/how-experts-would-fix-the-broken-us-immigration-system.html

https://www.uschamber.com/series/above-the-fold/how-america-s-immigration-system-failed-and-why-we-need-fix-it

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/06/30/americas-immigration-system-is-broken

October 31, 2018

For reasons we can’t actually explain, our daughter has become a very capable equestrian. For the past couple of years she has been a member of a riding team, operating out of a stable near our home.

We think the best part of the whole experience – for her, and for us – is that she did it virtually all on her own.  I am no big fan of horses, and neither is my wife. Neither of us have ridden more than three or four times in our lives.  So we’re not really sure where our daughter acquired her love for horses and riding, but we are certain that it did not come from us.

The equestrian thing is Melina’s deal.  We support her, we pay for it, and we drive her all over Ohio to compete with her teammates.  She’s not the greatest rider ever, partly because she picked up the sport years later than most of her teammates.  But every jump she has completed and every ribbon she has won has been the result of her own effort and dedication. She’s not riding because one of her parents used to ride in high school. She’s not getting any special coaching from mom and dad, who know as much about riding as they know about particle physics. She’s not even riding to boost her resume for college admissions officers.  She does it because she loves it, and she has made herself into a skilled rider.

Our hope is that the sense of accomplishment she feels from her success will be self-reinforcing and will help motivate her in the future.

As a sport, riding is not really optimal.  It’s pretty expensive, the competitions take all day and are almost always a couple of hours away, and there is an element of risk.  Melina’s mom is pretty nervous about the whole thing, especially the jumps.  One of Melina’s friends broke her arm and got a concussion in a fall.  Melina has fallen, but she has never been injured. On the plus side, the kids are expected to take care of the horses, including feeding, cleaning, tacking up, and cleaning up after.  The girls work together to make sure everything is done, they seem to genuinely love the animals, and they bond a bit over their shared experiences. And unlike other youth sports, nobody’s dad is reliving his high school glory days coaching the kids.

August 22, 2018

From the news:

“A man accidentally shot his wife last night at the Super 8 Motel on Merchants Drive, but that’s not what he initially told officers, KPD officials said. Officers responded around midnight after the man called 911 and said someone had shot through the window of the motel room and struck his wife.

Officers said they found the woman lying on a bed with a knee injury, where they applied a tourniquet to stop the bleeding until EMT’s arrived to transport the victim to University of Tennessee Medical Center. Her injury was non-life threatening.

The man repeatedly said he didn’t know who had shot his wife, but after additional questioning from officers admitted it was his handgun that had discharged, KPD officials said.He told officers he owned a handgun and kept it inside his vehicle. He was attempting to unload the weapon while inside his vehicle when it discharged and struck his wife.”

Sadly, there is nothing remarkable about this news item.  As a former police officer, I especially like the details about the responsible gun owner’s actions after he accidentally shot his wife.  Naturally, he hid the weapon and lied repeatedly to police.  Because what kind of a responsible gun owner would take actual responsibility for his own actions?  I don’t suppose he will be charged, since gun owners normally get a pass on any kind of goofhead negligence that results in an “accidental” shooting, even when the result is dead body.

For a daily dose of such nonsense, take a look at a news and media Facebook site called “A Well-Regulated Militia.”  The site is a compendium of news articles about accidental and intentional shootings committed by so-called “responsible gun owners.”

As the website notes: “The 2nd amendment calls for a well regulated militia, but this is what we have instead. Which founding father would be proudest of us?”

The website itself adds no editorial comment to the articles it posts, except for referring to the responsible parties as “members of our well regulated militia.”

To scroll through the site is to gape in horror at the fetid swamp of America’s gun culture.  The incidents related on the site have a common theme: “A responsible gun owner is responsible until he or she is not.”  This is the sad truth about gun ownership.  Firearms are tools that are designed to kill.  When mishandled or used inappropriately, they can and do kill.  There’s no way to know beforehand if a person will handle a firearm responsibly or if they will leave it unattended and loaded on a coffee table, so that a 4-year old child can pick it up and kill a 2-year old.

The website makes no policy recommendations, and I personally have no answer for the endless procession of senseless tragedies that we are apparently willing to accept. Guns are legal, and I suppose they always will be, hysterical rants about “government gun grabs” notwithstanding.  If I lived in an area where I truly felt imperiled by high rates of criminal activity or ineffective law enforcement, I might want to own a firearm myself.  But I was a police officer for nine years and I served in the military for more than twenty, so I understand a few things about proper handling and use of firearms.  As the website mournfully attests, not all “responsible gun owners” do.

The saddest part of the whole thing is how often children are victimized by the negligence of adults, and how infrequently “responsible gun owners” are actually held responsible for the results of their negligence.  Over and over again, authorities decline to charge persons responsible for “accidental” shootings.  Sometimes, when the dead victim is the child of the “responsible gun owner,” some official will be quoted saying, “They’ve suffered enough.”

That’s quite a presumption, and I am not certain that someone’s feeling should determine whether or not they are held accountable for their actions.  We don’t seem to feel that way when drunk or distracted drivers kill people through negligence.

Click here for more news about our well-regulated militia: https://www.facebook.com/OurWellRegulatedMilitia/

August 12, 2018

From the news: “President Trump’s Scottish golf resort raked in more than $77,000 in government money thanks to his visit there this past weekend, federal spending records showed.

US State Department documents, cited by Reuters and The Scotsman newspaper, showed that it paid $77,345.35 to Trump’s SLC Turnberry Ltd for “hotel rooms for VIP visit.”

Looking at this article and an associated social media thread, a couple of points come to mind:

1. Of course it is an ethics violation. Anyone who has worked for the government for fifteen minutes knows this.
2. When people talk about “running government like a business,” this is exactly what they have in mind. There are no ethics violations in business: an act is either legal or illegal, nothing else. The terms “ethical,” “improper,” “unfair,” and “in the public interest” have no meaning whatsoever. Running government like a business means no rules, no accountability, no purpose beyond personal enrichment, no recognition that the public has any right to know what is being done or how much it costs.
3. Although we won’t know for sure for some years, it is likely that the current administration is the most corrupt in American history.
4. Other administrations have been corrupt, but in most cases, corruption was a betrayal of a president who was generally (or in the case of US Grant, scrupulously) trustworthy and honest.
5. In this administration, the president set the tone from the very beginning, openly challenging the legitimacy of the electoral process prior to the election and refusing to release personal financial records (tax returns). He’s running the government like a business; meaning that anything not nailed down is his for the taking and every government employee works for him, and not for the people of the United States. His cabinet – filled with businessmen – operates the same way.

https://nypost.com/2018/07/17/us-government-paid-trumps-scottish-golf-course-77k-for-weekend-visit/

July 23, 2018

Saw on the news today that the Democrats are looking for a new political slogan for the midterm elections. Apparently their focus group did not like their original choice: “Hillary 2016 – It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time.”

The Republicans haven’t announced their midterm slogan yet, but here are a couple of suggestions:

“Nice Country You Got There. Be a Shame if Something Happened to it.”

“Vote GOP. While You Still Can.”

“Healthcare? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Health Care.”

“America Foist! Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk.”

“I’ve Got Mine. Screw You.”

“Vote GOP. We Know Where Your Kids Live.”

July 21, 2018

From the news: “President Donald Trump will consider allowing Russian investigators to question U.S.-born investor Bill Browder, former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and others after President Vladimir Putin floated the idea, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday.”

While the idea of allowing a foreign entity to question an ambassador should be a complete non-starter, I am also disappointed in the willingness of the current administration to establish some sort of moral equivalency between the US and Russian governments. As a former law enforcement officer, I am well aware that our criminal justice system is far from perfect. But in general, in this country many officials do make an effort to adhere to the rule of law and to protect the rights of citizens who are suspected of criminal acts. No such protections exist in the Russian system, and the Russian criminal justice system is designed solely to maintain the power of the ruling party. Allowing Russian investigators to question a former US ambassador would simply support the Russian propaganda narrative (and the current administration narrative) that the west is hopelessly corrupt and that we would be better off if we were more like Russia.

White House: Trump will consider letting Russia question investor, former ambassador

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/18/trump-russia-browder-mcfaul-questioning-731616

July 20, 2018

I see a lot of products in the grocery store marked “gluten free.”  Well, of course.  Gluten’s always been free.  I’ve never been asked to pay extra for it, and I doubt that I would…

July 8, 2018