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Sunday, February 16, 2025

Federalism and EVs

Three years after President Biden signed the bipartisan infrastructure law, it has resulted in only 58 ERV charging stations. Marc J. Dunkelman at WP:

[By] the time of the chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, progressives had soured on the establishment’s excesses. Men such as Lyndon B. Johnson and Robert McNamara had steered the nation into an unwinnable war in Vietnam. Local power brokers such as Richard J. Daley and Robert Moses decimated whole neighborhoods in the name of urban renewal.

And so, to protect ordinary people, reformers erected mechanisms to dilute public authority. Slowly, over the course of the next half-century, bureaucracies they deemed too powerful became, in effect, impotent.

By the point the Biden administration turned its attention to expanding the nation’s EV charging infrastructure, the approach that FDR might have taken during the 1930s — just hiring people to do it — was entirely off the table. Such a plan would immediately be labeled a “socialist” enterprise that posed a threat to private companies.
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Instead, the Biden administration was left to rely in large part on the system that governs 90 percent of federal transportation spending: distributing the money to the states. This pattern, established during the Eisenhower administration, works by sending federal dollars to the state highway departments that maintain the nation’s infrastructure. Each state figures out how to implement the law, which in this case called for high-speed chargers at least every 50 miles on major highways.

The states, of course, had no experience with EV technology. And so it was up to the federal government to help them navigate their new responsibilities. The Transportation and Energy departments quickly established a “joint office” to guide the work. Within weeks of the infrastructure law’s signing — lightning speed, by modern standards — the administration had published a draft rule establishing the requirements:
  • The chargers would have to work on all electric vehicles (as opposed to just Teslas).
  • They would have to be reliable 97 percent of the time (so drivers wouldn’t encounter broken stalls).
  • They would have to be located in remote areas where there would otherwise be gaps (as opposed to the busy corridors where private companies might choose to place them without subsidy).
Over the course of 2022, the government incorporated public feedback into the rule, as mandated by the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act. In the nearly 80 years since its passage, the APA has become the Magna Carta of bureaucratic governance, ensuring that agencies are fair and transparent. The attendant checks and balances, designed explicitly to prevent the bureaucracy from steamrolling opponents, almost inevitably slow things down.

Saturday, February 15, 2025

A Strong Letter

Many posts have discussed prosecutors.

 From WP:Hagan Scotten, the lead prosecutor in Mayor Eric Adams’s federal corruption case, has quit over the Justice Department’s demand that the case be dismissed, calling any lawyer who would move in court to toss the matter a “fool” or “coward,” according to a copy of a letter obtained Friday.

BY EMAIL 

Re: United States v. Eric Adams, 24 Cr. 556 (DEH) 

Mr. Bove,

 I have received correspondence indicating that I refused your order to move to dismiss the indictment against Eric Adams without prejudice, subject to certain conditions, including the express possibility of reinstatement of the indictment. That is not exactly correct. The U.S. Attorney, Danielle R. Sassoon, never asked me to file such a motion, and I therefore never had an opportunity to refuse. But I am entirely in agreement with her decision not to do so, for the reasons stated in her February 12, 2025 letter to the Attorney General. 

In short, the first justification for the motion—that Damian Williams's role in the case somehow tainted a valid indictment supported by ample evidence and pursued under four different U.S. attorneys is so weak as to be transparently pretextual. The second justification is worse. No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives. 

There is a tradition in public service of resigning in a last-ditch effort to head off a serious mistake . Some will view the mistake you are committing here in the light of their generally negative view of the new Administration. I do not share those views. I can even understand how a Chief Executive whose background is in business and politics might see the contemplated dismissal-with-leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal. But any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way. If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me. Please consider this my resignation. It has been an honor to serve as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. 


Yours truly, Hagan Scotten Assistant United States Attorney Southern District of New York

Thursday, February 13, 2025

The Impact of COVID


The most significant pandemic of our lifetime arrived as the United States was experiencing three major societal trends: a growing divide between partisans of the left and right, decreasing trust in many institutions, and a massive splintering of the information environment.

COVID-19 did not cause any of this, but these forces fueled the country’s divided response. Looking back, nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults (72%) say the pandemic did more to drive the country apart than to bring it together.

Fundamental differences arose between Americans over what we expect from our government, how much tolerance we have for health risks, and which groups and sectors to prioritize in a pandemic. Many of these divides continue to play out in the nation’s politics today.

The pandemic left few aspects of daily life in America untouched. Looking back on it nearly five years later, three-quarters of Americans say the COVID-19 pandemic took some sort of toll on their own lives. This includes 27% who say it had a major toll on them and 47% who say it took a minor toll.
The virus itself also had a staggering impact. A large majority of U.S. adults have had COVID-19 at some point, and more than 1 million Americans died from it. Millions continue to struggle with long COVID. And most say they know someone who was hospitalized or died from the virus.


Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Warren Commission Seance?


Rep. Anna Paulina Luna  (R-FL) is heading a congressional task force on the JFK assassination. Michael Luciano at Mediate:
“What sort of witnesses will you expect to have at your hearings, at least the first ones in March that be department heads, former employees of various agents?” a reporter asked.

Luna responded by saying the task force would seek to consult with some of the doctors who examined Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, when Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy from a book depository window. She also suggested bringing in members of the Warren Commission, which President Lyndon Johnson formed via executive order:

Based on what we’re actually looking to do with the JFK investigation, I’m looking to actually bring in some of the attending physicians at the initial assassination. Then also people that had been on the various commissions looking into it, like the Warren Commission looking into the initial assassination. There’s been conflicting evidence. And I think that even the FBI at the time reported some anomalies in the initial autopsy at Bethesda, Maryland. All of those seem to have been rinsed and repeated in the media to push a certain narrative that we don’t agree with.
The Warren Commission had seven members, all of whom are dead, as are the majority of counsels who worked on it. Also deceased are the doctors at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas – Charles Baxter, Robert McClelland, and Malcolm Perry – who examined Kennedy when he was brought in after being mortally wounded. Later that day, an autopsy was performed at Bethesda Naval Hospital by Drs. James Humes and Thornton Boswell, who are also dead.

The commission found no credible evidence to suggest there were multiple shooters, as some have claimed.

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Finding House Rules


Kevin Kosar at AEI:
House Rules

The U.S. Constitution says very little about how the House should operate. It requires legislators to choose a Speaker, and has some rules about spending bills, but otherwise allows the House and Senate to create their own rules. Over the centuries, the House has built a big corpus of rules. It has done this by voting these rules into effect. Below is the corpus of rules in effect as of 2023.

You may locate the most recent copy of the Rules of the House of Representatives by visiting the House Rules Committee’s website, surfing to GovInfo.gov’s House Rules and Manual page, or Googling “Rules of the House of Representatives”.

And I would be remiss if I failed to mention two additional sources: the congressional budget rules that have been enacted by statute, which you can find in the back of the above volume; and the Precedents of the U.S. House of Representatives, which compiles interpretations of House rules.

Alterations to House Standing Rules (AKA House rules package)

Inevitably, the majority of the House starts each session by voting on a rules package. This document amends or augments the existing rules. It tends to be a partisan exercise—whichever party has a majority will draft the new rules then vote them into effect. The other party usually votes against them. Here are the alterations that were adopted in January of 2025 when the 119th Congress began. (By the way, no, neither the Senate nor the President have any role in this process.)


Party Rules

Each party in the chamber draws up their own rules before the start of a new Congress. Think of these as similar to the rules of a club. So there are two documents, the Democratic Caucus Rules and the Republican Conference Rules.

Lots of these rules are internal—they focus on how the Democrats will run their private meetings, or how the Republicans will pick their Speaker and other leaders. Below are copies of these rules from December 2024, when both parties gathered in Washington, DC after the election and hashed them out and adopted them.

But these rules also affect how the chamber operates because they aim to bind party members. So, for example, has a rule curbing the use “suspension of the rules” to move bills and declares “no member shall request an earmark.” These party rules often posit policy ideas to guide the party. Sticking with the Republican example, the most recent GOP conference rules state, “authorizing committees shall… seek opportunities to move… mandatory programs with automatic funding streams to the annual appropriations process.” Translation: entitlement spending should not increase each year without Congress voting on said increases.

Locating party rules is not difficult, usually. Simply Google “Rules of the House Democratic Caucus and “House Republicans conference rules” (or “House Republicans conference resolution”).

Of course, very few people know all of these rules. But becoming familiar with some of them will help you better understand why the House of Representatives behaves as it does.


Monday, February 10, 2025

Goodbye Foreign Policy Internships in the Executive Branch

Many posts have discussed federal employment and bureaucracy.

 Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff at The Washington Post:

Yasmine Mirhaji had planned out her last three years at American University’s School of International Service meticulously, taking classes on diplomacy and power. Inspired by her parents’ experience fleeing Iran to the United States decades ago, she dreamed about joining the State Department, which deals in foreign policy, and had applied for an internship at the agency

But moves by the Trump administration, in its first days in power, to slash funding and jobs across federal agencies has upended civil service prospects for scores of local college students, many of whom chose D.C. universities for their pipeline to federal and international careers.

First, Mirhaji, a 20-year-old junior, learned she’d have to reapply or start her internship search all over again. Then she wondered whether her degree was becoming obsolete. Now she is leaning toward law or graduate school, rather than trying to work in the federal government.
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“All my plans are scrapped,” said Mirhaji, who was raised in Westchester County, New York. “So many of the jobs our professors have proposed to us as potential opportunities don’t exist anymore.”

Sunday, February 9, 2025

Federal Hiring in 2025


Since Trump’s victory in November, Trump’s team has rejected hundreds of applicants that it felt won’t be loyal enough to Trump, according to people familiar with the matter. The hiring scrutiny has applied to a range of jobs across agencies and seniority levels: more than in Trump’s first term, a White House signoff has been required on lower-level cabinet appointees, people with knowledge of the interviews said. And unlike the 2017 White House, a team on the transition vetted thousands of employees before Trump took office.

Applicants were asked if they ever made comments critical of Trump, worked for a politician who disliked Trump or supported causes or politicians not aligned with the president, according to a person with direct involvement in the vetting operation. Some questions aim to gauge an applicant’s support for the president by asking how long the applicant has backed Trump, the person said, and determine whether the candidate had given to any politicians or supported any causes that aren’t aligned with Trump.

Of particular interest to the vetting team is whether hires made any comments criticizing Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol and his false claims that the election was stolen, the person said.

Potential hires have also been pressed about their policy views, sometimes on subjects that are unrelated to the jobs for which they are applying, some of the people said. They have been asked questions about their views on tariffs, whether Ukraine deserves more or less U.S. aid and whether the U.S. should be a member of NATO. The questions are intended to measure whether a job candidate’s worldviews match up with Trump’s, the people said.

Ellen Nakashima and Warren P. Strobel at WP:

Candidates for top national security positions in the Trump administration have faced questions that appear designed to determine whether they have embraced the president’s false claims about the outcome of the 2020 election and its aftermath, according to people familiar with cases of such screening.

The questions asked of several current and former officials up for top intelligence agency and law enforcement posts revolved around two events that have become President Donald Trump’s litmus test to distinguish friend from foe: the result of the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, according to the people, who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

These people said that two individuals, both former officials who were being considered for positions within the intelligence community, were asked to give “yes” or “no” responses to the questions: Was Jan. 6 “an inside job?” And was the 2020 presidential election “stolen?”
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One former senior intelligence official said that attesting to something you know to be untrue — as in the assertion that President Joe Biden stole the 2020 election — would violate the ethos of an intelligence officer. “I don’t understand how somebody could [answer untruthfully] and do their job,” said the former official.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” ― George Orwell, 1984