The Skeptical Bureaucrat
From deep inside the foundations of our Republic's capital city
Friday, December 1, 2023
"Secretary Anthony Lincoln" Visits Jerusalem, According to U.S. Embassy Jerusalem's Facebook
'Gold Bar Bob' Menendez Switches Lawyers, Plus a Co-Defendant Eats Some Cheese
Now The Post can disclose that one of Daibes’ former business partners, who was also a Menendez donor, has been cooperating with Manhattan prosecutors since February 2022, four months before the raid.Please read the whole article, since it describes a New Jersey nest of organized crime that rivals The Sopranos.
Friday, November 10, 2023
From Kindergarten Plays to GoPros on Home Invaders, It's All a Performance to HAMAS
Maryland Wins the Race For FBI HQ, But FBI Director Calls a Foul
Throughout the selection process, the FBI coordinated closely with GSA with a clear focus on what’s best for our workforce, the mission, and the American people. Paramount for us were fairness and transparency in the process. In the course of our work with GSA, however, we identified concerns about a potential conflict of interest involving the site selection authority and whether changes that individual made in the final stage of the process adhered to the site selection criteria. Despite our engagement with GSA over the last two months on these issues, our concerns about the process remain unresolved.
-- snip --
Congress initiated the site selection process, so, moving forward, it will control the next steps. For our part, we will continue to be clear about our process concerns, even as we work with GSA toward the design and construction of a facility.
Note the reference to "changes that individual made" to the site selection criteria. According to news reports yesterday, the individual is a former Metro employee who is now a political appointee at GSA, and that may implicate a conflict of interest because Metro owns the Greenbelt site that GSA will now purchase.
Or anyway, they'll now purchase it if Congress appropriates the very considerable funds necessary. Wray's veiled reference to Congress tells us where this conflict is headed next.
Putting the new FBI HQ in Greenbelt makes no sense at all - I mean, not unless you own the site, or would collect revenue from land development there. The FBI officials who'll work at that HQ need to be close to the DOJ, relevant U.S. Courts, Congress, and the existing FBI and assorted other USG facilities they need to visit, all of which are in DC and Virginia.
And then there are the political realities, starting with the fact that the House of Representatives is normally where appropriations must begin, and the House right now is, ah, not favorably inclined toward the FBI or its Director. Furthermore, Washington is now entering an election year, and that destabilizes everything on the legislative agenda.
At best, Congress will table the FBI HQ project for another year. Or maybe the Republican majority will start another oversight investigation, this time partnering with Director Wray to tag-team the GSA and Biden Administration. It looks like they could find plenty of red meat there for a good old election year scandal, and one with the strategic advantage of turning the FBI against the White House.
Or even, and it takes an effort to control myself as I imagine this option, that Republican majority could go ahead and appropriate the millions to buy the Greenbelt site just to screw over the FBI for decades to come by saddling them with the worst site option that's on the table.
As Robert E. Lee once said of war, it is well that partisan politics is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.
Tuesday, October 31, 2023
Kinky Friedman and One Of His Best Problematic Song Titles
Saturday, October 21, 2023
Force, the Last Resort of Nations (Mitigated By Good Manners If You're Lucky)
A convoy carrying much-needed humanitarian assistance crossed the Rafah border this morning into Gaza to address the growing humanitarian crisis. We thank our partners in Egypt and Israel, and the United Nations, for facilitating the safe passage of these life-saving shipments.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) October 21, 2023
"I believe that force, mitigated as may be by good manners, is the ultima ratio, and between two groups of people who want to make inconsistent kinds of world I see no remedy except force." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Holmes knew about force and irreconcilable conflict, having served as an infantryman in the Civil War where he was wounded three times. At Antietam he was shot through the neck and left for dead on the field, one of 23,000 casualties in that single battle.
Sunday, October 15, 2023
The Conflict to be Known as The GoPro War.
This will be known as the GoPro War. https://t.co/EYzm4yv16x
— TSB (@TweetingTSB) October 15, 2023