December, 2019
Lincoln – Two remarkable museum additions in Lincoln and Seward invite the public to see the past and consider the future.
One is the stunning new fourth floor redesign of the State Museum at Morrill Hall on the UNL campus. It offers a look at Nebraska flora and fauna over millions of years, interspersed with contemporary descriptions. There are surprises around every corner for children and adults, regardless of age. The big globe onto which short videos are projected is a welcome departure from flat video screens. There are plenty of benches for rest along the way.
Nebraska soil and water get special attention. Visitors are challenged to think about how they use or misuse these natural resources. Climate change is met head-on by UNL scientists, with descriptions of droughts, floods, and rapidly altered growing zones.
The other is the Nebraska National Guard Museum in Seward. It is instructive as to the Guard's long history, established in 1854. Particularly well done are the museum's descriptions of Nebraska Guard involvement in the Spanish American War, the Philippine American War, and the two World Wars.
For the Spanish American War display, the museum has obtained the statue of William Jennings Bryan that stood for decades in the U.S. Capitol. Colonel Bryan led the Nebraska Guard in 1898 but the regiment was assigned to a disease-ridden camp by President William McKinley, who did not want his political opponent to get favorable attention for his military service.
The Philippine American War narrative notes the heroic deeds of Major Frank Eager and Colonel John Stotsenburg of Lincoln in the 1899 Battle of Manila. Eager won the Silver Star; Stotsenburg was killed in action and buried with ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. Nebraska Private William Grayson's role in the war is duly noted. (I'd put an asterisk by it to show that his role is controversial, at best, as he violated good order and discipline by needlessly killing a Filipino lieutenant while on guard duty, touching off the war.)
Both museums unintentionally but unavoidably raise questions of state government versus federal government missions and powers.
At Morrill Hall, the work of state university scientists contrasts with current federal efforts to discount science in the natural resources, especially climate science. The split is having profound effect on all Nebraska, especially on agriculture. Nationally, the split is so bad that unlikely groups and individuals are gathering to recognize the urgency of climate action.
At the Nebraska Guard museum in Seward, two display boards differentiate the federal mission of the Guard from the state mission. It is not often that the missions are in conflict, but the possibility increasingly exists as states begin to assert more strongly their sovereign rights against federal policies they find contrary to their own establishment of law and order. It's happening: more on state guards in subsequent posts.
Unequivocal recommendation: visit these two wonderful museums in Lincoln and Seward.
Sea Duty, USS Arlington (AGMR-2)
December, 2019
Lincoln – Previously I posted a memoir blog about my first U.S. Navy sea duty, on USS Rainier (AE-5), 1966-68. My second sea duty was aboard the much larger USS Arlington (AGMR-2), 1968-69.
The first glimpse I got of Arlington was through a snow storm in the Sea of Japan in early 1968, from a helicopter that was transporting me over from the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, where I'd spent the previous night after flying onto Enterprise from Atsugi, Japan. The two ships were operating off the coast of North Korea, where they had been dispatched after North Korea captured USS Pueblo and was holding it and its crew.
After landing on Arlington, which had been converted from the old aircraft carrier USS Saipan into a long-range communications relay ship with huge antennas over its former flight deck, I immediately went to the operations room, where Captain T.F. Utegaard* was being briefed on the hostage situation. I was the new assistant communications officer aboard Arlington and got immediately to work.
Two months later we steamed into port at Yokosuka, Japan, moving on to other tasks. The Pueblo crew would not be released for another year. For the rest of 1968, Arlington operated in the waters of the western Pacific, often in the Tonkin Gulf, making port calls at Sasebo and Yokosuka, Japan; Subic Bay, Philippines; Hong Kong; and Sydney, Australia. In December of 1968, Arlington proceeded to Hawaii and then south to the splashdown site of Apollo 8, to provide long-range communications for NASA.
I was able to take shore leave on occasion and visited several cities in Japan, including Nagasaki, Kamakura, Kyoto, and Tokyo. I learned a few phrases in Japanese to aid in getting around. In Yokosuka I ran into Nebraska friends who were in the Navy: childhood pal Bill Anderson and college classmate Ivan Ficken. Bill was a submarine sailor; Ivan was an officer on a tender.
The aged photos below show USS Arlington in port in Yokosuka, at sea; and in Sydney. The bottom photo is of a basketball game in the hanger bay, at sea. It's different, playing on a rolling deck.
___________________________
* I knew Captain Utegaard from his classic book on navigation, a text I still have in my collection. I never imagined while studying navigation that I would later serve as one of his officers at sea.
Lincoln – Previously I posted a memoir blog about my first U.S. Navy sea duty, on USS Rainier (AE-5), 1966-68. My second sea duty was aboard the much larger USS Arlington (AGMR-2), 1968-69.
The first glimpse I got of Arlington was through a snow storm in the Sea of Japan in early 1968, from a helicopter that was transporting me over from the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, where I'd spent the previous night after flying onto Enterprise from Atsugi, Japan. The two ships were operating off the coast of North Korea, where they had been dispatched after North Korea captured USS Pueblo and was holding it and its crew.
After landing on Arlington, which had been converted from the old aircraft carrier USS Saipan into a long-range communications relay ship with huge antennas over its former flight deck, I immediately went to the operations room, where Captain T.F. Utegaard* was being briefed on the hostage situation. I was the new assistant communications officer aboard Arlington and got immediately to work.
Two months later we steamed into port at Yokosuka, Japan, moving on to other tasks. The Pueblo crew would not be released for another year. For the rest of 1968, Arlington operated in the waters of the western Pacific, often in the Tonkin Gulf, making port calls at Sasebo and Yokosuka, Japan; Subic Bay, Philippines; Hong Kong; and Sydney, Australia. In December of 1968, Arlington proceeded to Hawaii and then south to the splashdown site of Apollo 8, to provide long-range communications for NASA.
I was able to take shore leave on occasion and visited several cities in Japan, including Nagasaki, Kamakura, Kyoto, and Tokyo. I learned a few phrases in Japanese to aid in getting around. In Yokosuka I ran into Nebraska friends who were in the Navy: childhood pal Bill Anderson and college classmate Ivan Ficken. Bill was a submarine sailor; Ivan was an officer on a tender.
The aged photos below show USS Arlington in port in Yokosuka, at sea; and in Sydney. The bottom photo is of a basketball game in the hanger bay, at sea. It's different, playing on a rolling deck.
___________________________
* I knew Captain Utegaard from his classic book on navigation, a text I still have in my collection. I never imagined while studying navigation that I would later serve as one of his officers at sea.
Fireworks Between House and DeVos at Hearing
December, 2019
Washington – There were figurative fireworks at the House Education and Labor Committee's hearing last week on predatory student loans, at which Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos testified. Given the dire circumstances of many borrowers, it was to be expected.
Here are some exchanges from the hearing that badly need follow-up:
• The formula for determining partial loan cancellation under a new DeVos "borrower defense" rule, based on borrower earnings, has problems. Although the Secretary referred to the rule over and over as "scientific," it has clear flaws in its misuse of statistical methods. The fact that she could not explain the difference between mean and median only underscores the larger problem of the use of variability measures (standard deviations) suited to normal distributions, which earnings distributions are not. Then there is a problem of the validity of using the earnings data in the first place, as earnings are not well related to the fraudulent actions of the predatory schools, which is the statutory basis for loan cancellation. The new rule starts from the premise under Chevron that courts indulge federal departments and their rules, but whether this one will pass muster with Judge Sally Kim, who has previously held Secretary DeVos in contempt, is a question yet to be answered.
• As to Judge Kim's contempt of court citation and its $100,000 fine, Secretary DeVos said at the hearing that she personally would not be paying it, nor would the Department, as it was improper in her view and is being appealed. Clearly, from her demeanor, Secretary DeVos is not taking the matter very seriously.
• The Secretary went out of her way several times to argue the equivalency of for-profit institutions, even the most notorious ones that have closed, with public and non-profit institutions. She suggested that if for-profit school victims had claims for loan cancellation, perhaps students at the University of California–Berkeley should have their loans cancelled for being defrauded because a UC employee fudged data on a U.S. News survey for its Best Colleges report. Shame on that employee, but the Secretary should be doubly ashamed for reductio ad absurdum arguments.
• Loan servicers got off lightly at the hearing, despite their collections on loans that had been cancelled under borrower defense. The Secretary chalked this up to loan servicer errors, which she said have been corrected and that victims have since been made whole. She was reluctant to admit that the resulting erroneous credit scores have incurred lasting damage to borrowers that cannot be undone. She was determined not to name the Department official who had been in charge of instructing servicers in 2018 not to collect on cancelled loans, per a court order. Only after being pressed again and again did she come forth with the name of James Manning, whose method of communicating with servicers about the court order was the briefest of informal emails that seem not to have made much of an impression on the recipients.*
• One reason for servicers not to pay serious attention to Manning's emails (or for him to communicate more formally) was the March, 2018, determination by Secretary DeVos that loan servicers must not respond to state attorneys general acting on borrowers' behalf under state consumer protection laws. In her view (prompted by industry suggestions), federal privacy law preempts such aid. Without help from consumer protection advocates, borrowers would be unlikely on their own to resolve unlawful collections. Although the DeVos attempt at preemption has now been overturned in several courts, at the hearing Secretary DeVos continued to say that the Department would not recognize borrower defense claims assisted by state attorneys general. ** This is obstruction of law enforcement, for which the Secretary needs to be held accountable.
• Secretary DeVos repeatedly argued at the hearing that her actions were guided by her concern for federal taxpayers, despite the increasingly profligate ways of the president who appointed her. Granted she does not have control over his devil-may-care personal indulgences at taxpayer expense, but she does have the ability to collect $22.3 million from student loan servicer Navient for false claims against taxpayers dating to a 2009 Inspector General audit. An administrative law judge ruled in March of this year that the Department must collect the sums due. Collecting would demonstrate DeVos's concern for taxpayers; not doing so would represent obvious hypocrisy: one standard for students and their families, a different one for the student loan industry.
Underlying the whole hearing, but never mentioned by anyone on either side of the aisle or by Secretary DeVos, is the fact that for-profit schools and student loan servicers make contributions in the tens of millions of dollars to the political campaigns of members of Congress. The schools and servicers receive these funds from taxpayers and essentially recycle a portion of the funds back in contributions, to keep the money flowing. Politicians are loathe to cut them off, even when the federal programs leave a trail of destruction through the lives of student loan borrowers and their families.
Secretary DeVos says everything she does is for students; she repeated it many times at the hearing. It is a good line, but every DeVos decision seems to go in the opposite direction.
______________________________________
* See earlier posts about personnel in the revolving door between industry and the Department of Education, including James Manning. He once signed a letter, which FedLoan Servicing (PHEAA) took as a "joke" that they were in on, as a way for the Department to dispose of a troublesome audit issue. FedLoan may have thought of this Manning communication about collections as another such less than serious message, inasmuch as Secretary DeVos was known to have signed off on borrower defense cancellations "with extreme displeasure" and had issued a preemption notice to thwart consumer protections for such borrowers.
** The preemption action by Secretary DeVos followed on the heels of a federal appeals court decision, confirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, that stripped servicer FedLoan of its claimed sovereign immunity. Such immunity had previously protected FedLoan from borrower and state attorney general lawsuits. After the loss of sovereign immunity, Massachusetts and New York both sued FedLoan on behalf of their borrower residents. Those cases are pending.
Washington – There were figurative fireworks at the House Education and Labor Committee's hearing last week on predatory student loans, at which Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos testified. Given the dire circumstances of many borrowers, it was to be expected.
Here are some exchanges from the hearing that badly need follow-up:
• The formula for determining partial loan cancellation under a new DeVos "borrower defense" rule, based on borrower earnings, has problems. Although the Secretary referred to the rule over and over as "scientific," it has clear flaws in its misuse of statistical methods. The fact that she could not explain the difference between mean and median only underscores the larger problem of the use of variability measures (standard deviations) suited to normal distributions, which earnings distributions are not. Then there is a problem of the validity of using the earnings data in the first place, as earnings are not well related to the fraudulent actions of the predatory schools, which is the statutory basis for loan cancellation. The new rule starts from the premise under Chevron that courts indulge federal departments and their rules, but whether this one will pass muster with Judge Sally Kim, who has previously held Secretary DeVos in contempt, is a question yet to be answered.
• As to Judge Kim's contempt of court citation and its $100,000 fine, Secretary DeVos said at the hearing that she personally would not be paying it, nor would the Department, as it was improper in her view and is being appealed. Clearly, from her demeanor, Secretary DeVos is not taking the matter very seriously.
• The Secretary went out of her way several times to argue the equivalency of for-profit institutions, even the most notorious ones that have closed, with public and non-profit institutions. She suggested that if for-profit school victims had claims for loan cancellation, perhaps students at the University of California–Berkeley should have their loans cancelled for being defrauded because a UC employee fudged data on a U.S. News survey for its Best Colleges report. Shame on that employee, but the Secretary should be doubly ashamed for reductio ad absurdum arguments.
• Loan servicers got off lightly at the hearing, despite their collections on loans that had been cancelled under borrower defense. The Secretary chalked this up to loan servicer errors, which she said have been corrected and that victims have since been made whole. She was reluctant to admit that the resulting erroneous credit scores have incurred lasting damage to borrowers that cannot be undone. She was determined not to name the Department official who had been in charge of instructing servicers in 2018 not to collect on cancelled loans, per a court order. Only after being pressed again and again did she come forth with the name of James Manning, whose method of communicating with servicers about the court order was the briefest of informal emails that seem not to have made much of an impression on the recipients.*
• One reason for servicers not to pay serious attention to Manning's emails (or for him to communicate more formally) was the March, 2018, determination by Secretary DeVos that loan servicers must not respond to state attorneys general acting on borrowers' behalf under state consumer protection laws. In her view (prompted by industry suggestions), federal privacy law preempts such aid. Without help from consumer protection advocates, borrowers would be unlikely on their own to resolve unlawful collections. Although the DeVos attempt at preemption has now been overturned in several courts, at the hearing Secretary DeVos continued to say that the Department would not recognize borrower defense claims assisted by state attorneys general. ** This is obstruction of law enforcement, for which the Secretary needs to be held accountable.
• Secretary DeVos repeatedly argued at the hearing that her actions were guided by her concern for federal taxpayers, despite the increasingly profligate ways of the president who appointed her. Granted she does not have control over his devil-may-care personal indulgences at taxpayer expense, but she does have the ability to collect $22.3 million from student loan servicer Navient for false claims against taxpayers dating to a 2009 Inspector General audit. An administrative law judge ruled in March of this year that the Department must collect the sums due. Collecting would demonstrate DeVos's concern for taxpayers; not doing so would represent obvious hypocrisy: one standard for students and their families, a different one for the student loan industry.
Underlying the whole hearing, but never mentioned by anyone on either side of the aisle or by Secretary DeVos, is the fact that for-profit schools and student loan servicers make contributions in the tens of millions of dollars to the political campaigns of members of Congress. The schools and servicers receive these funds from taxpayers and essentially recycle a portion of the funds back in contributions, to keep the money flowing. Politicians are loathe to cut them off, even when the federal programs leave a trail of destruction through the lives of student loan borrowers and their families.
Secretary DeVos says everything she does is for students; she repeated it many times at the hearing. It is a good line, but every DeVos decision seems to go in the opposite direction.
______________________________________
* See earlier posts about personnel in the revolving door between industry and the Department of Education, including James Manning. He once signed a letter, which FedLoan Servicing (PHEAA) took as a "joke" that they were in on, as a way for the Department to dispose of a troublesome audit issue. FedLoan may have thought of this Manning communication about collections as another such less than serious message, inasmuch as Secretary DeVos was known to have signed off on borrower defense cancellations "with extreme displeasure" and had issued a preemption notice to thwart consumer protections for such borrowers.
** The preemption action by Secretary DeVos followed on the heels of a federal appeals court decision, confirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, that stripped servicer FedLoan of its claimed sovereign immunity. Such immunity had previously protected FedLoan from borrower and state attorney general lawsuits. After the loss of sovereign immunity, Massachusetts and New York both sued FedLoan on behalf of their borrower residents. Those cases are pending.
More Student Loan Hearings
December, 2019
Washington – On December 12th, Secretary Betsy DeVos will testify before the full House Committee on Education and Labor. The subject is "borrower defense" and why she has not complied with the law to cancel the loans of defrauded students. She has continued loan collections, garnished wages, withheld tax refunds, and ruined the credit of borrowers whom she knows owe nothing. The victims number in the tens of thousands.
This puts her in a lawbreaking league above even celebrities caught in Operation Varsity Blues, some of whom went to jail, and international students stung by the ICE's controversial University of Farmington, who were deported. So far Betsy DeVos has been cited for only contempt of court (for which the U.S. Department of Education was fined $100,000, paid by taxpayers, not DeVos).
If other recent hearings on student loans are any guide, however, there will be an attempt by the Secretary and by the Committee's minority to distract from the subject, to scurry down tried and true rabbit holes with claims that
(1) student loan law is too complicated, for which Congress is to blame;
(2) tuition is too high, for which colleges and universities are to blame;
(3) the Democrats caused the problem, with the Affordable Care Act of 2010 that terminated the bank-based FFEL program;
(4) government itself is the problem, so student loans should be turned over to private experts to administer;
(5) greedy borrowers are owed nothing; they signed for the loans and they should repay them;
(6) Federal Student Aid's NextGen system will solve all student loan problems with more iPhone apps;
(7) loan servicers are actually to blame, for not following Department of Education instructions.
I'm not optimistic that the hearing will stay on the subject, given so many such possible diversions for members on both sides of the aisle.
But I'm hoping Committee members will at least ask which servicers have been sanctioned for servicing misdeeds and what kind of discipline was meted out within the Department for administrative failures. The FSA COO, General Mark Brown, made a statement on October 24th that such actions were taken, but there is good reason to believe that servicer sanctions were meaningless and that employee discipline measures were directed at people who were trying to solve the problem, not those who created it.
The other October 24th claims by COO Brown have proved to be wildly inaccurate, unfortunately, so the Committee has all the more reason to ask about the details of any actual servicer reprimands and internal Department personnel actions.
President Trump is reportedly looking for a big student loan move he can announce soon, so as to compete for attention with presidential candidates and others who propose widespread loan cancellation. He is not satisfied with what Betsy DeVos has proposed, whatever that is, according to newspaper reports. His deadline is December 20th.
The following are some administrative actions the President could take, to immediate approbation, by directing his Secretary of Education to:
a. follow the law expeditiously in all cases involving borrower rights, whether borrower defense, total and permanent disability discharges (including veterans), public service loan forgiveness, or other loan cancellation programs. Although some cancellations have been announced, they have not actually happened, most notably disability discharges.
b. drop the "preemption" argument that federal student aid law supersedes state consumer protections and other legal rights, as the preemption doctrine has been shredded by several courts and is transparently hostile to student loan borrowers.
c. begin using discretion on which student loan bankruptcies to oppose, rather than opposing all.
d. close the revolving door between the Department and the student loan industry, by removing or reassigning Department employees with loan industry conflicts of interest.
e. renegotiate servicer contracts, open servicing to new competitors, and debar servicers with bad records.
The President should scrap a new DeVos proposal to move student loans to another entity, out of the Department of Education, which at best is a move to distract from her abysmal record and at worst a possible move to sell off the student loan portfolio to profiteers and eliminate borrower protections.
If the White House wants a bold initiative on student loans, it could propose to emulate other countries' successes with income-based repayments through tax system administration, coupled with adoption of the tools of fiscal federalism* to reduce college and university tuition. That would turn heads and actually be workable, equitable, and affordable.
______________________________
* Matching, maintenance-of-effort, and performance requirements were once features of federal higher education efforts, not coincidentally in an era of low tuition.
Washington – On December 12th, Secretary Betsy DeVos will testify before the full House Committee on Education and Labor. The subject is "borrower defense" and why she has not complied with the law to cancel the loans of defrauded students. She has continued loan collections, garnished wages, withheld tax refunds, and ruined the credit of borrowers whom she knows owe nothing. The victims number in the tens of thousands.
This puts her in a lawbreaking league above even celebrities caught in Operation Varsity Blues, some of whom went to jail, and international students stung by the ICE's controversial University of Farmington, who were deported. So far Betsy DeVos has been cited for only contempt of court (for which the U.S. Department of Education was fined $100,000, paid by taxpayers, not DeVos).
If other recent hearings on student loans are any guide, however, there will be an attempt by the Secretary and by the Committee's minority to distract from the subject, to scurry down tried and true rabbit holes with claims that
(1) student loan law is too complicated, for which Congress is to blame;
(2) tuition is too high, for which colleges and universities are to blame;
(3) the Democrats caused the problem, with the Affordable Care Act of 2010 that terminated the bank-based FFEL program;
(4) government itself is the problem, so student loans should be turned over to private experts to administer;
(5) greedy borrowers are owed nothing; they signed for the loans and they should repay them;
(6) Federal Student Aid's NextGen system will solve all student loan problems with more iPhone apps;
(7) loan servicers are actually to blame, for not following Department of Education instructions.
I'm not optimistic that the hearing will stay on the subject, given so many such possible diversions for members on both sides of the aisle.
But I'm hoping Committee members will at least ask which servicers have been sanctioned for servicing misdeeds and what kind of discipline was meted out within the Department for administrative failures. The FSA COO, General Mark Brown, made a statement on October 24th that such actions were taken, but there is good reason to believe that servicer sanctions were meaningless and that employee discipline measures were directed at people who were trying to solve the problem, not those who created it.
The other October 24th claims by COO Brown have proved to be wildly inaccurate, unfortunately, so the Committee has all the more reason to ask about the details of any actual servicer reprimands and internal Department personnel actions.
President Trump is reportedly looking for a big student loan move he can announce soon, so as to compete for attention with presidential candidates and others who propose widespread loan cancellation. He is not satisfied with what Betsy DeVos has proposed, whatever that is, according to newspaper reports. His deadline is December 20th.
The following are some administrative actions the President could take, to immediate approbation, by directing his Secretary of Education to:
a. follow the law expeditiously in all cases involving borrower rights, whether borrower defense, total and permanent disability discharges (including veterans), public service loan forgiveness, or other loan cancellation programs. Although some cancellations have been announced, they have not actually happened, most notably disability discharges.
b. drop the "preemption" argument that federal student aid law supersedes state consumer protections and other legal rights, as the preemption doctrine has been shredded by several courts and is transparently hostile to student loan borrowers.
c. begin using discretion on which student loan bankruptcies to oppose, rather than opposing all.
d. close the revolving door between the Department and the student loan industry, by removing or reassigning Department employees with loan industry conflicts of interest.
e. renegotiate servicer contracts, open servicing to new competitors, and debar servicers with bad records.
The President should scrap a new DeVos proposal to move student loans to another entity, out of the Department of Education, which at best is a move to distract from her abysmal record and at worst a possible move to sell off the student loan portfolio to profiteers and eliminate borrower protections.
If the White House wants a bold initiative on student loans, it could propose to emulate other countries' successes with income-based repayments through tax system administration, coupled with adoption of the tools of fiscal federalism* to reduce college and university tuition. That would turn heads and actually be workable, equitable, and affordable.
______________________________
* Matching, maintenance-of-effort, and performance requirements were once features of federal higher education efforts, not coincidentally in an era of low tuition.
The Day of Infamy
December, 2019
Washington – It has now been seventy-eight years since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In 1967, twenty-six years after the attack, I took the picture below.
My ship, USS Rainier, is tied up on battleship row in front of the memorial to USS Arizona. It is approximately where USS Maryland, USS West Virginia, USS Tennessee, and USS Oklahoma were moored on December 7, 1941.
When I first reported aboard USS Rainier in 1966, one of our crew was a USS Arizona survivor. He had remained in the Navy and become a chief petty officer.
My ship was enroute from Yokosuka, Japan, to Concord, California, when it stopped at Pearl. It was hard to fathom that we had re-traced the 1941 route of the Japanese fleet and were now at the site of so much wreckage and death.
Washington – It has now been seventy-eight years since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In 1967, twenty-six years after the attack, I took the picture below.
My ship, USS Rainier, is tied up on battleship row in front of the memorial to USS Arizona. It is approximately where USS Maryland, USS West Virginia, USS Tennessee, and USS Oklahoma were moored on December 7, 1941.
When I first reported aboard USS Rainier in 1966, one of our crew was a USS Arizona survivor. He had remained in the Navy and become a chief petty officer.
My ship was enroute from Yokosuka, Japan, to Concord, California, when it stopped at Pearl. It was hard to fathom that we had re-traced the 1941 route of the Japanese fleet and were now at the site of so much wreckage and death.
Rural America Must Be Contested
November, 2019
Washington – Where do Democrats get their counterproductive and sometimes downright foolish ideas about how to win national elections? Unfortunately, some come from respectable sources that should know better.
Take The Atlantic, usually perspicacious but unaccountably off-target in publishing an article by Ronald Brownstein last month. Subtitled "Dirt Doesn't Vote," it confidently asserts Democrats should not worry about maps, favored by Donald Trump, that show a Republican red nation with Democratic blue enclaves limited to the coasts. Excerpt:
Trump’s map offers a misleading portrait because it pictures counties by geographic area, not by population. The map “says to me he has more support from cows than people,” sniffs the longtime Democratic strategist Tad Devine. “It’s not a representation of the population of the United States...."
As any good student of American Government should know, the cows-versus-people apportionment cases Baker v. Carr (1962), Westbury v. Sanders (1964), and Reynolds v. Sims (1964) struck a blow for "one person, one vote" at the state and local level, but not at the national level. U.S. presidents are still chosen by the electoral college, which places a premium on dirt and cows. Nor is the U.S. Senate apportioned by population; that's also by constitutional design, for better or worse.
Democratic strategists who do not recognize this and continue to plan futile campaigns around winning the popular vote should amend their thinking. Tad Devine, it must be noted, has been associated with the losing campaigns of Gore and Clinton, both of whom won the popular vote but not the presidency. Devine has plenty of company, including those who still do not want to hear the word "rural" brought up for discussion, let alone included as part of a 2020 election strategy.
Somewhere, red on the map must be turned blue by Democrats, not written off. Making blue states even bluer will not count. In practical terms, that means states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Ohio, all with plentiful dirt and many cows, must be vigorously contested by Democrats.
These states are winnable with the right strategy, which consists of (1) showing up and (2) offering a positive platform that makes sense to rural constituencies, where swing voters make all the difference. Key to winning in these states: not losing by large margins in the most rural areas, because such losses offset Democratic gains in the suburbs. As Heidi Heitkamp puts it, in one of the few sensible comments in The Atlantic article, "We're not trying to turn those [rural] areas blue, we are trying to turn them pink."
This should not be so difficult. Donald Trump is not personally popular with many rural voters on the margins, who would welcome a credible Democratic alternative. Trump's trade policies are hugely unpopular with farmers, who want "trade not aid." His promises on biofuels are not believable. His Secretary of Agriculture, George (nothing Sonny about him) Perdue, insults farmers as whiners and advises them to "go big or just go." A Democrat who shows up with a platform of scrapping the current Farm Bill and starting over to build local and regional farm markets, fighting rural epidemics of obesity and diabetes with nutritious food, and demonstrating respect for rural America will turn many areas pink, some purple, and a few even blue. Enough to win key swing states.
And the alternative? Ready to move in are those who see rural America as fertile ground for frightening ideologies. If coastal Democrats write off America's heartland, be prepared for a surge of white nationalists and far-right militias, according to those who have their fingers on the pulse of people increasingly in despair. This can happen when people fear their very extinction.
Publishing elsewhere are sensible voices who should be heeded, who offer valuable critiques of Democrats and their strategies, including those of House Democrats who are failing to protect rural America. Writing in The Washington Monthly, Jeff Hauser and Eleanor Eagan offer that "Democrats need to perform meaningful oversight of the Trump administration's assault on American farmers." House Democrats are just not getting it done. Collin Peterson should resign as chairman of the House Agriculture Committee in favor of someone who is up to the job.
But for every sensible voice, there are others who assure themselves that Dirt Doesn't Vote and are leading Democrats yet again into losing strategies. The red map of the country is not misleading. Even editing it so show population rather than area, to make it look bluer, is not going to change how the electoral college works. The Atlantic and its authors should know better.
Washington – Where do Democrats get their counterproductive and sometimes downright foolish ideas about how to win national elections? Unfortunately, some come from respectable sources that should know better.
Take The Atlantic, usually perspicacious but unaccountably off-target in publishing an article by Ronald Brownstein last month. Subtitled "Dirt Doesn't Vote," it confidently asserts Democrats should not worry about maps, favored by Donald Trump, that show a Republican red nation with Democratic blue enclaves limited to the coasts. Excerpt:
Trump’s map offers a misleading portrait because it pictures counties by geographic area, not by population. The map “says to me he has more support from cows than people,” sniffs the longtime Democratic strategist Tad Devine. “It’s not a representation of the population of the United States...."
As any good student of American Government should know, the cows-versus-people apportionment cases Baker v. Carr (1962), Westbury v. Sanders (1964), and Reynolds v. Sims (1964) struck a blow for "one person, one vote" at the state and local level, but not at the national level. U.S. presidents are still chosen by the electoral college, which places a premium on dirt and cows. Nor is the U.S. Senate apportioned by population; that's also by constitutional design, for better or worse.
Democratic strategists who do not recognize this and continue to plan futile campaigns around winning the popular vote should amend their thinking. Tad Devine, it must be noted, has been associated with the losing campaigns of Gore and Clinton, both of whom won the popular vote but not the presidency. Devine has plenty of company, including those who still do not want to hear the word "rural" brought up for discussion, let alone included as part of a 2020 election strategy.
Somewhere, red on the map must be turned blue by Democrats, not written off. Making blue states even bluer will not count. In practical terms, that means states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Ohio, all with plentiful dirt and many cows, must be vigorously contested by Democrats.
These states are winnable with the right strategy, which consists of (1) showing up and (2) offering a positive platform that makes sense to rural constituencies, where swing voters make all the difference. Key to winning in these states: not losing by large margins in the most rural areas, because such losses offset Democratic gains in the suburbs. As Heidi Heitkamp puts it, in one of the few sensible comments in The Atlantic article, "We're not trying to turn those [rural] areas blue, we are trying to turn them pink."
This should not be so difficult. Donald Trump is not personally popular with many rural voters on the margins, who would welcome a credible Democratic alternative. Trump's trade policies are hugely unpopular with farmers, who want "trade not aid." His promises on biofuels are not believable. His Secretary of Agriculture, George (nothing Sonny about him) Perdue, insults farmers as whiners and advises them to "go big or just go." A Democrat who shows up with a platform of scrapping the current Farm Bill and starting over to build local and regional farm markets, fighting rural epidemics of obesity and diabetes with nutritious food, and demonstrating respect for rural America will turn many areas pink, some purple, and a few even blue. Enough to win key swing states.
And the alternative? Ready to move in are those who see rural America as fertile ground for frightening ideologies. If coastal Democrats write off America's heartland, be prepared for a surge of white nationalists and far-right militias, according to those who have their fingers on the pulse of people increasingly in despair. This can happen when people fear their very extinction.
Publishing elsewhere are sensible voices who should be heeded, who offer valuable critiques of Democrats and their strategies, including those of House Democrats who are failing to protect rural America. Writing in The Washington Monthly, Jeff Hauser and Eleanor Eagan offer that "Democrats need to perform meaningful oversight of the Trump administration's assault on American farmers." House Democrats are just not getting it done. Collin Peterson should resign as chairman of the House Agriculture Committee in favor of someone who is up to the job.
But for every sensible voice, there are others who assure themselves that Dirt Doesn't Vote and are leading Democrats yet again into losing strategies. The red map of the country is not misleading. Even editing it so show population rather than area, to make it look bluer, is not going to change how the electoral college works. The Atlantic and its authors should know better.
Censure, Now
November, 2019
Washington – In the matter of the impeachment of the president, too many House options under consideration lead to increasing divisiveness and partisanship.
To some of us, the whole matter of impeachment is not one of partisanship but of national security. National security is not going to be enhanced by House impeachment, Senate trial, and failure to convict, as now seems likely. That is the hope and goal of Russia, which is undermining democracy worldwide and is being remarkably successful at it. Such a scenario plays directly into Russia's hands.
I fully appreciate the House majority's decision to move toward impeachment. The evidence warrants it and it would be irresponsible, arguably even a violation of members' oaths, not to respond to the president's unthinkable transgressions that put America's national security at such risk.
But there is a better way forward: the House majority should censure the president, now. It offers an appropriately strong response. It is more likely to pass with bipartisan support, however modest. Even if a few Republicans support censure as a way to lessen support for impeachment, that is not necessarily a bad outcome, given the likely alternative of total partisan impasse over impeachment, which Russia wants.
Last week's testimony, before the Intelligence Committee, by national security realist Fiona Hill and diplomats William Taylor and George Kent, makes it clear that national security must be put ahead of partisanship, and the issue must be America versus Russia, not Democrats versus Republicans.
What too many fail to realize is that this is not a question of censure versus impeachment, as if the two are mutually exclusive. Impeachment articles can continue to move after censure, but without the burden of being the sole vehicle of presidential reproof. If the effort to impeach and convict fails at some point later, as looks likely, it will be easier, with censure accomplished, for all to turn to other issues of urgent concern. Voters do not want the impeachment process to dominate all else. Polls show a clear majority knows the president did wrong and must be chastened. Censure accomplishes that.
It's football season. Censure should be seen as America putting points on the board with a makable field goal, come what may later, which is quite likely to be a stalemate with no scoring. Censure would constitute a victory over Russia, for America's national security and for defense of the U.S. Constitution.
Washington – In the matter of the impeachment of the president, too many House options under consideration lead to increasing divisiveness and partisanship.
To some of us, the whole matter of impeachment is not one of partisanship but of national security. National security is not going to be enhanced by House impeachment, Senate trial, and failure to convict, as now seems likely. That is the hope and goal of Russia, which is undermining democracy worldwide and is being remarkably successful at it. Such a scenario plays directly into Russia's hands.
I fully appreciate the House majority's decision to move toward impeachment. The evidence warrants it and it would be irresponsible, arguably even a violation of members' oaths, not to respond to the president's unthinkable transgressions that put America's national security at such risk.
But there is a better way forward: the House majority should censure the president, now. It offers an appropriately strong response. It is more likely to pass with bipartisan support, however modest. Even if a few Republicans support censure as a way to lessen support for impeachment, that is not necessarily a bad outcome, given the likely alternative of total partisan impasse over impeachment, which Russia wants.
Last week's testimony, before the Intelligence Committee, by national security realist Fiona Hill and diplomats William Taylor and George Kent, makes it clear that national security must be put ahead of partisanship, and the issue must be America versus Russia, not Democrats versus Republicans.
What too many fail to realize is that this is not a question of censure versus impeachment, as if the two are mutually exclusive. Impeachment articles can continue to move after censure, but without the burden of being the sole vehicle of presidential reproof. If the effort to impeach and convict fails at some point later, as looks likely, it will be easier, with censure accomplished, for all to turn to other issues of urgent concern. Voters do not want the impeachment process to dominate all else. Polls show a clear majority knows the president did wrong and must be chastened. Censure accomplishes that.
It's football season. Censure should be seen as America putting points on the board with a makable field goal, come what may later, which is quite likely to be a stalemate with no scoring. Censure would constitute a victory over Russia, for America's national security and for defense of the U.S. Constitution.
Elder Abuse: "There Oughta Be a Law"
November, 2019
Washington -- Two years ago, on the death of George Garner, the Shepherd of Accokeek, I wrote that one of his regrets was not knowing how his years of legal work to protect the legacy of his rural Maryland neighbor, Howard Vess, actually turned out. George knew Howard had been a victim of financial fraud, perpetrated on the elderly man by an unscrupulous financial advisor.
The litigation is over. George Garner would be pleased that his work was not in vain. There was a successful settlement. The outcome would have been even better had several Maryland judges looked at fewer trees and more forest, figuratively speaking. And the whole case could have been avoided entirely if Maryland law had better guarded against financial advisors becoming their clients' beneficiaries, as do other states, but that's getting ahead of the story.
George's neighbor in Accokeek, Howard Vess, wanted to preserve his rural property after his death so that friends and neighbors could continue to use the trails through his woods for hiking and hunting. The property was also in the Mount Vernon viewshed from across the Potomac, which any elevated development could spoil.
Howard also wanted to leave the balance of his considerable estate to several favorite charities, as he had no survivors in his immediate family. He told this to his extended family, including his niece, Claudia Vess, who kept in touch with him from her home an hour away. All were pleased with the arrangements. Wills and codicils were on file with the county register of wills spelling this out, designating Robert Price, Howard's financial advisor, as personal representative to carry out his instructions. George also knew this from both Howard and Howard's niece.
I knew Howard, the Vess family, and George, and this was my understanding as well.
So it was a shock that preceding Howard's funeral service in 2011, Price described to gathering guests (of which I was one) the ins and outs of dividing up Howard's property for both housing and shopping development. Then, at the beginning of the service, Price announced that a charity of Howard's would be supported by contributions left by guests in envelopes at the funeral home, puzzling those of us who thought Howard's own estate provided well for several charities. After the funeral, Price demurred when discussing next steps with Vess family and friends, explaining that he was taking his own family to Las Vegas, which naturally only raised more suspicions that Price was not carrying out Howard's wishes at all.
A few months later, Howard’s niece discovered that there was a later will, superseding earlier arrangements, which Price had kept in his private office and filed quietly at the courthouse after Howard's death. Instead of rural land preservation and money for charities, the last will made Price, his financial advisor and personal representative, the sole beneficiary.
Washington -- Two years ago, on the death of George Garner, the Shepherd of Accokeek, I wrote that one of his regrets was not knowing how his years of legal work to protect the legacy of his rural Maryland neighbor, Howard Vess, actually turned out. George knew Howard had been a victim of financial fraud, perpetrated on the elderly man by an unscrupulous financial advisor.
The litigation is over. George Garner would be pleased that his work was not in vain. There was a successful settlement. The outcome would have been even better had several Maryland judges looked at fewer trees and more forest, figuratively speaking. And the whole case could have been avoided entirely if Maryland law had better guarded against financial advisors becoming their clients' beneficiaries, as do other states, but that's getting ahead of the story.
George's neighbor in Accokeek, Howard Vess, wanted to preserve his rural property after his death so that friends and neighbors could continue to use the trails through his woods for hiking and hunting. The property was also in the Mount Vernon viewshed from across the Potomac, which any elevated development could spoil.
Howard also wanted to leave the balance of his considerable estate to several favorite charities, as he had no survivors in his immediate family. He told this to his extended family, including his niece, Claudia Vess, who kept in touch with him from her home an hour away. All were pleased with the arrangements. Wills and codicils were on file with the county register of wills spelling this out, designating Robert Price, Howard's financial advisor, as personal representative to carry out his instructions. George also knew this from both Howard and Howard's niece.
I knew Howard, the Vess family, and George, and this was my understanding as well.
So it was a shock that preceding Howard's funeral service in 2011, Price described to gathering guests (of which I was one) the ins and outs of dividing up Howard's property for both housing and shopping development. Then, at the beginning of the service, Price announced that a charity of Howard's would be supported by contributions left by guests in envelopes at the funeral home, puzzling those of us who thought Howard's own estate provided well for several charities. After the funeral, Price demurred when discussing next steps with Vess family and friends, explaining that he was taking his own family to Las Vegas, which naturally only raised more suspicions that Price was not carrying out Howard's wishes at all.
A few months later, Howard’s niece discovered that there was a later will, superseding earlier arrangements, which Price had kept in his private office and filed quietly at the courthouse after Howard's death. Instead of rural land preservation and money for charities, the last will made Price, his financial advisor and personal representative, the sole beneficiary.
George Garner and other neighbors supported Howard's niece in
an effort to challenge the surprise will on grounds that Price had taken advantage of
his elderly client. Claudia Vess knew from last conversations with her uncle
before his death that he had been confused about what Price was doing with the
estate, but she had never guessed Price had audaciously made himself sole
beneficiary.
So she challenged the will, hiring a local attorney to file Vess v. Price. George, Howard's closest neighbor whose off-farm business
had been preparing legal briefs for cases at the U.S. Supreme Court, assisted without
fee.
Price's lawyer spared no effort or expense in defending the surprise will.
The battle went on for years through three different Maryland courts. In
the meantime, Price's administration of the will was obviously deficient on multiple grounds. A judge removed Price from his role as personal representative in favor of a new one, appointed by the
court. Fortunately, the successor sold the Vess real property as two
rural acreages, a victory for Howard's intention to prevent urban development.
Because of dozens of procedural motions in Vess v. Price, no court in six
years ever got to the fundamental question: had Price through undue influence taken fraudulent advantage of a putative friendship and violated his fiduciary responsibility to his elderly client, Howard Vess? The case was a procedural standoff. More
time was spent by Maryland courts looking at time stamps and courthouse drop boxes than on
what the case was about. Although Price lost his appointment as personal
representative, Vess counsel was reproved by an appeals court for not explaining the case well, despite George Garner's
thorough research and legal prep sessions.
After George's untimely death in 2017, and after an appeals court defeat
for Vess counsel, based on procedural rather than substantive issues, the case returned to the original
court of jurisdiction for a jury trial. Claudia Vess then replaced her original
counsel with a lawyer who has a strong litigation practice. The new counsel immediately showed she meant business at
the first depositions and serious settlement talks ensued.
In the final 2019 settlement, niece Claudia succeeded in
obtaining several thousand dollars from the estate for four of six of her uncle's
charities, plus returning to the family her uncle's Arlington Cemetery burial-ceremony flag (he had served in the Marine Corps).
Unfortunately, the amounts for the charities were only about
ten percent of what they would have been had Howard Vess's desires been honored, as filed at the courthouse rather than as represented in a surprise will held privately by his financial advisor. Much of the estate proceeds were spent covering the huge legal
expenses of financial advisor Price, even after his removal as personal
representative.
Maryland law must be changed to guard against financial advisors becoming clients' beneficiaries. Lawyers would be disbarred if they
attempted the same chicanery. Financial advisors are often positioned
even better than lawyers to take advantage of their elderly
clients.
Although in the Vess v. Price case a measure of
justice was reached, it took many years of effort to achieve it. The
State of Maryland needs to decide if elder abuse by financial advisors is going
to be tolerated or stopped. It needs to decide if Maryland justice
continues in the tradition of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, Charles Dickens' tale of an
estate that was entirely depleted by its legal bills.
Neighbors often do a good job of watching out for neighbors,
and the story of George Garner and Howard Vess is illustrative, as it ends, if not entirely happily, at least with a silver lining. But nothing would
be better in Maryland than an overdue statutory crackdown, following the lead
of many other states that have better provisions to protect elders against abuse by financial advisors.
Who's Conservative, Who's Not
November, 2019
Washington – Attorney General William Barr, in a provocative speech to the Federalist Society, said voters put President Trump in office with knowledge of his agenda and those who oppose him are trampling on the Constitution's Article II executive powers:
“While the president has certainly thrown out the traditional Beltway playbook and punctilio, he was up front about what he wanted to do and the people decided they wanted him to serve as president...”
Two observations:
First, that's not the 2016 election I recall. Many Trump votes were a protest in the face of what was widely predicted to be a Hillary Clinton victory, without much regard to his agenda. They simply weren't going to vote for her. Moreover, Clinton won the popular vote decisively; it was the electoral college that delivered the election to Trump.
This was also the election in which some voters, in the famous formulation, took Trump seriously but not literally, and others literally but not seriously. The former prevailed. This was an election that was decided by voters who did not take the Trump agenda literally.
Then there were the Trump voters who thought once he was elected, he would start acting like a president, because his campaign was based on his experience as an entertainer and he would moderate his behavior upon inauguration.
That's why Trump was elected in November, 2016. There is simply not much of a record to support the Barr thesis; of all the reasons people voted for Trump, his literal agenda was not high on the list.
Second, I see that there is conservative push-back against the Barr notion that the concept of unitary executive (that the president leads the executive branch) also extends to executive primacy in the context of separation of powers. Barr goes too far, they say, in eroding the Constitution's checks and balances; he is sounding like an authoritarian, not a conservative.
Charles Fried, solicitor general in the Reagan administration, reacted to Barr this way:
“Conservatism is respect for the rule of law. It is respect for tradition. The people who claim they’re conservatives today are demanding loyalty to this completely lawless, ignorant, foul-mouthed president.”
Stuart Gerson, an official in the George W. Bush administration, was not so blunt, but put it this way:
“It’s important for conservatives to speak up. This administration is anything but conservative.”
I'm glad Attorney General Barr made his attention-getting, illuminating speech to the Federalist Society. He has thrown out history; he has thrown out his party's tradition. It gives us all a glimpse into what lies ahead, and it's not conservatism.
Washington – Attorney General William Barr, in a provocative speech to the Federalist Society, said voters put President Trump in office with knowledge of his agenda and those who oppose him are trampling on the Constitution's Article II executive powers:
“While the president has certainly thrown out the traditional Beltway playbook and punctilio, he was up front about what he wanted to do and the people decided they wanted him to serve as president...”
Two observations:
First, that's not the 2016 election I recall. Many Trump votes were a protest in the face of what was widely predicted to be a Hillary Clinton victory, without much regard to his agenda. They simply weren't going to vote for her. Moreover, Clinton won the popular vote decisively; it was the electoral college that delivered the election to Trump.
This was also the election in which some voters, in the famous formulation, took Trump seriously but not literally, and others literally but not seriously. The former prevailed. This was an election that was decided by voters who did not take the Trump agenda literally.
Then there were the Trump voters who thought once he was elected, he would start acting like a president, because his campaign was based on his experience as an entertainer and he would moderate his behavior upon inauguration.
That's why Trump was elected in November, 2016. There is simply not much of a record to support the Barr thesis; of all the reasons people voted for Trump, his literal agenda was not high on the list.
Second, I see that there is conservative push-back against the Barr notion that the concept of unitary executive (that the president leads the executive branch) also extends to executive primacy in the context of separation of powers. Barr goes too far, they say, in eroding the Constitution's checks and balances; he is sounding like an authoritarian, not a conservative.
Charles Fried, solicitor general in the Reagan administration, reacted to Barr this way:
“Conservatism is respect for the rule of law. It is respect for tradition. The people who claim they’re conservatives today are demanding loyalty to this completely lawless, ignorant, foul-mouthed president.”
Stuart Gerson, an official in the George W. Bush administration, was not so blunt, but put it this way:
I'm glad Attorney General Barr made his attention-getting, illuminating speech to the Federalist Society. He has thrown out history; he has thrown out his party's tradition. It gives us all a glimpse into what lies ahead, and it's not conservatism.
Tall Orders for an Admiral
November, 2019
Lincoln – The NU Regents have selected retired Vice Admiral Walter E. Carter, Jr., to be the next president of the University of Nebraska.
At first glance, the choice seems incongruous. Admiral Carter is a native of Rhode Island; he does not have a doctorate or a record of scholarship; he has no experience at land-grant universities and is untested in the agriculture arena, critical to Nebraska.
He might, however, be a good choice. I confess to a touch of enthusiasm because NU and the U.S. Navy are both institutions dear to my heart and there is more commonality than one might think.
• Admiral Carter has led two academic institutions successfully, the U.S. Naval War College in Rhode Island and the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland. He knows governments and bureaucracies, federal and state, and faculties. The Naval Academy is located in a state capital, Annapolis, as is NU in Lincoln.
• NU has a Navy unit on the UNL campus. Students can minor in Naval Science and receive commissions in the Navy and Marine Corps. Perhaps Admiral Carter will be given a faculty post in the Naval Science department, from which he can draw on his USNWC connections to explore national security issues for the benefit of NU students and faculty.
• Certain issues transcend state and national borders. Climate-change flooding threatens the Annapolis campus and the nation's harbors, just as climate-change flooding threatens Nebraska agriculture. This should form a quick, common bond with the leadership at NU's Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, which for years has been sounding the alarm, despite the issue's unpopularity in right-wing political circles.
There are three immediate challenges at NU that I hope Admiral Carter will meet with "early and decisive action," a phrase he will know from ship-handling at sea.
One is to re-establish better relations with the Nebraska Legislature, based on mutual respect and the Nebraska Constitution, which places authority over university governance with the Board of Regents. There must be no more occasions where an NU president is summoned to a freshman senator's office and told which instructors to hire or fire. A vice admiral should have the stature and experience to handle such situations. (Perhaps that is one reason for the Regents' hiring decision.)
The second challenge is to bring a broader perspective to matters of agricultural export markets, on which the Nebraska economy is overly dependent. The current agricultural leadership in Nebraska, including many elected officials, is desperate for a trade deal with China. Nebraskans now surely realize that it was a grave mistake for President Trump to scrap the TPP, giving China the upper hand in Pacific trade, and to impose tariffs for which farmers suffer retaliation. Is Nebraska agriculture ready to accept or endorse an even greater blunder to try to restore Nebraska's China exports? There are clear warning signs that President Trump will abandon Hong Kong and the South China Sea (he has already spoken to Chairman Xi about it) for a trade deal that may please farmers in the Midwest before the 2020 election. But is this in the U.S. national security interest?
From the Naval War College Review, "Getting Serious About Strategy in the South China Sea:"
Today, the situation in the South China Sea is reaching a critical stage as Chinese advances accumulate, America’s room for maneuver diminishes, and observers throughout the region wonder whether the United States is up to the challenge. And yet Washington still is searching for a strategy.
Admiral Carter, as former leader of the Naval War College, is positioned as no other candidate for NU president to grapple with these issue of immense importance to Nebraska.
The third challenge also deals with rural Nebraska, where the population, counterproductively, is increasingly giving up on higher education. The results of the 2019 Nebraska Rural Poll "showed a sharp decline in the perceived importance of higher education among respondents." What got into Nebraskans to make insularity and ignorance attractive? This is alarming and deserves immediate priority from Nebraska's higher education leadership.
Admiral Carter, welcome to Nebraska. You have tall orders.
Lincoln – The NU Regents have selected retired Vice Admiral Walter E. Carter, Jr., to be the next president of the University of Nebraska.
At first glance, the choice seems incongruous. Admiral Carter is a native of Rhode Island; he does not have a doctorate or a record of scholarship; he has no experience at land-grant universities and is untested in the agriculture arena, critical to Nebraska.
He might, however, be a good choice. I confess to a touch of enthusiasm because NU and the U.S. Navy are both institutions dear to my heart and there is more commonality than one might think.
• Admiral Carter has led two academic institutions successfully, the U.S. Naval War College in Rhode Island and the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland. He knows governments and bureaucracies, federal and state, and faculties. The Naval Academy is located in a state capital, Annapolis, as is NU in Lincoln.
• NU has a Navy unit on the UNL campus. Students can minor in Naval Science and receive commissions in the Navy and Marine Corps. Perhaps Admiral Carter will be given a faculty post in the Naval Science department, from which he can draw on his USNWC connections to explore national security issues for the benefit of NU students and faculty.
• Certain issues transcend state and national borders. Climate-change flooding threatens the Annapolis campus and the nation's harbors, just as climate-change flooding threatens Nebraska agriculture. This should form a quick, common bond with the leadership at NU's Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, which for years has been sounding the alarm, despite the issue's unpopularity in right-wing political circles.
There are three immediate challenges at NU that I hope Admiral Carter will meet with "early and decisive action," a phrase he will know from ship-handling at sea.
One is to re-establish better relations with the Nebraska Legislature, based on mutual respect and the Nebraska Constitution, which places authority over university governance with the Board of Regents. There must be no more occasions where an NU president is summoned to a freshman senator's office and told which instructors to hire or fire. A vice admiral should have the stature and experience to handle such situations. (Perhaps that is one reason for the Regents' hiring decision.)
The second challenge is to bring a broader perspective to matters of agricultural export markets, on which the Nebraska economy is overly dependent. The current agricultural leadership in Nebraska, including many elected officials, is desperate for a trade deal with China. Nebraskans now surely realize that it was a grave mistake for President Trump to scrap the TPP, giving China the upper hand in Pacific trade, and to impose tariffs for which farmers suffer retaliation. Is Nebraska agriculture ready to accept or endorse an even greater blunder to try to restore Nebraska's China exports? There are clear warning signs that President Trump will abandon Hong Kong and the South China Sea (he has already spoken to Chairman Xi about it) for a trade deal that may please farmers in the Midwest before the 2020 election. But is this in the U.S. national security interest?
From the Naval War College Review, "Getting Serious About Strategy in the South China Sea:"
Today, the situation in the South China Sea is reaching a critical stage as Chinese advances accumulate, America’s room for maneuver diminishes, and observers throughout the region wonder whether the United States is up to the challenge. And yet Washington still is searching for a strategy.
Admiral Carter, as former leader of the Naval War College, is positioned as no other candidate for NU president to grapple with these issue of immense importance to Nebraska.
The third challenge also deals with rural Nebraska, where the population, counterproductively, is increasingly giving up on higher education. The results of the 2019 Nebraska Rural Poll "showed a sharp decline in the perceived importance of higher education among respondents." What got into Nebraskans to make insularity and ignorance attractive? This is alarming and deserves immediate priority from Nebraska's higher education leadership.
Admiral Carter, welcome to Nebraska. You have tall orders.
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