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ashton carter
Joe Biden Is a Link to the Past--and Not In a Good Way
In ideology, political strategy, and demeanor, Biden represents the Democratic Party of the past
Apr 01, 2019
Joe Biden is, in so many ways, a man from a Democratic Party of another time. Yet as he inches closer to a campaign to lead the Democratic Party of 2020, he is suddenly finding himself being asked questions that had lay dormant while he served ably as Barack Obama's vice president for eight years, questions that get right to the heart of what his party stands for.
In most of the polls that have been taken of primary voters, Biden comes in first with around a quarter of the vote, in no small part because he is far more familiar than the other candidates (with the possible exception of Bernie Sanders). But like all the other candidates, his long record in office is being reexamined, particularly those parts that look much more problematic from the perspective of 2019 than they did even in 2008.
Like all the other candidates, his long record in office is being reexamined, particularly those parts that look much more problematic from the perspective of 2019 than they did even in 2008.
There's his role in writing the harsh 1994 crime bill, his advocacy for banks and credit card companies, his denunciations of busing in the 1970s. And there's the confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas's nomination to the Supreme Court, which Biden oversaw as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, when Anita Hill was mocked and abused despite the fact that she was the one telling the truth. Biden now says "I wish I could have done something" to make it less awful for Hill, as though he were some sort of bystander. One thing he could have done was allow the other women who were prepared to corroborate Hill's account to testify. But he didn't.
Biden has expressed regret over all that; whether he has done enough is a matter people could disagree about. But now another issue has been raised, one that has been in plain sight for years: Biden's tendency, when standing next to women, to act as though he has the right to put his hands on their bodies without their permission.
As so often happens, it took one woman speaking out to force everyone else to take seriously what people already knew and joked about. Lucy Flores, who in 2014 was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor of Nevada, wrote an essay in New York Magazine about what happened to her when Biden came to do an event for her, and they stood backstage waiting to go on:
As I was taking deep breaths and preparing myself to make my case to the crowd, I felt two hands on my shoulders. I froze. "Why is the vice-president of the United States touching me?"
I felt him get closer to me from behind. He leaned further in and inhaled my hair. I was mortified. I thought to myself, "I didn't wash my hair today and the vice-president of the United States is smelling it. And also, what in the actual fuck? Why is the vice-president of the United States smelling my hair?" He proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of my head.
"In my many years on the campaign trail and in public life, I have offered countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection, support and comfort," Biden said in a statement responding to Flores's account. "And not once--never--did I believe I acted inappropriately. If it is suggested I did so, I will listen respectfully. But it was never my intention." He also stressed the need to listen to what women have to say and promised to keep doing so.
"Frankly, my point was never about his intentions, and they shouldn't be about his intentions. It should be about the women on the receiving end of that behavior."
Flores's response hit the right note: "Frankly, my point was never about his intentions, and they shouldn't be about his intentions. It should be about the women on the receiving end of that behavior."
I wouldn't be surprised at all if Biden has no memory of this incident, because what Flores describes is exactly what he does all the time. To call him "handsy" is an understatement. It's not necessarily sexual, but it's deeply disturbing.
What's distinctive about Biden's behavior is that unlike many politicians who have been accused of acting inappropriately, his acts were both private and public, not hidden as though it was something he might be afraid to be caught doing. Go to YouTube and you can find plenty of videos of Biden doing exactly what Lucy Flores described to any number of women and girls, particularly during Senate swearing-in ceremonies where newly elected members pose for pictures with their families. Biden will find himself next to a female--sometimes a grown woman, sometimes a teenager, sometimes a girl who looks no more than seven or eight--whereupon he'll grab her shoulders, thrust his face into her hair with a smile as though drinking in her scent, and maybe plant a kiss. Here's a photo of him burying his nose in the hair of actress and activist Eva Longoria at the same event he appeared at with Flores.
At these moments one notices that the women, like former Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter's wife Stephanie, stand stoically while he holds them, since this is no doubt not the first time they have experienced such a thing. The girls, on the other hand, like Senator Chris Coons' daughter, are more likely to squirm uncomfortably.
So what would we like to hear from Biden now that he's being forced to confront this issue? Perhaps something that demonstrates that he understands, or at least is trying to understand, how it can feel for a woman to have a powerful man walk up to her and put his hands all over her. How about something like this:
It has become clear to me that what I thought were moments of affection felt like anything but to the people on the other side. I can say I never intended to make anyone uncomfortable, but that's not good enough. I did make them uncomfortable. I treated them as though their bodies were available to me, at my whim, to stroke or smell or kiss, whether they wanted me to or not. I violated their autonomy, because I figured they'd enjoy it, and because I could. I understand, and I'm sorry. And I'm going to change.
Perhaps it would be naive to hope that any politician would actually say something like that, to present themselves as something less than a hero who was always in the right and never had anything but the purest of motives. In these kinds of situations, they tend to respond in ways that are respectful to the accuser but insist upon their own innocence. But there isn't a question of Biden's innocence, since he has done what Flores describes so many times on camera. The question is whether he understands why it's wrong.
Of course, you could argue that this doesn't have that much bearing on what sort of president he'd be, and Biden points to his work on things like the Violence Against Women Act to show that he is an advocate for women's rights. But as Rebecca Traister argues in a devastating indictment of the former vice president, it is the things that supposedly make Biden "electable" that are precisely the problem with the idea of him leading the Democratic Party at this point in its evolution.
Joe Biden, we are told over and over, is the one who can speak to the disaffected white men angry at the loss of their primacy. He's the one who doesn't like abortion, but is willing to let the ladies have them. He's the one who tells white people to be nice to immigrants, even as he mirrors their xenophobia ("You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent," he said in 2006). He's the one who validates their racism and sexism while gently trying to assure them that they're still welcome in the Democratic Party. "In an attempt to win back That Guy," Traister writes, "Joe Biden has himself, so very often, been That Guy."
And Biden is the embodiment of the idea that winning the support of That Guy is the one true path to Democratic success. Not exciting African-American voters, or young voters, or Latino voters. Not engaging the millions of Americans who would vote for Democrats if someone convinced them to register. Not mobilizing the Democratic electorate as the party did so successfully in 2018, but winning over some of those endlessly glorified white working-class men.
It's not yet clear what policy agenda Biden will propose, though it's likely to be pretty standard Democratic fare that rejects some of the more ambitious goals other candidates have embraced. But Biden represents something more fundamental: a link to the politics and political style of the past. Even if that's not his intention.
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Suffer the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Children
When the Pence family is offended chances are somebody said something that very much needed to be said
Feb 01, 2019
Amo, amas,
I love a lass,
As a cedar tall and slender;
Sweet cowslip's grace,
Is her nominative case,
And she's of the feminine gender!
-- John O'Keefe, The Agreeable Surprise, (1783)
January was a bad month for the LGBTQ community. First it was Mississippi that made a brief appearance in the United States Supreme Court. Then it was Karen Pence, the vice-president's wife, who made an appearance in the media. And, finally, the armed services made a brief appearance in the United States Supreme Court.
It began with news on January 8, 2019, when a majority of the United States Supreme Court declined to get involved in a lawsuit challenging a law passed by the Mississippi legislature in 2016. In that year the legislature said, among other things, that it was alright for state employees and private businesses to refuse services to members of the LGBTQ community. The Mississippi legislature had received word from the God in whom they believe, that members of the LGBTQ community displeased Him notwithstanding the fact that He had participated in their creation. In order to know what their God thought, it was, of course, necessary for His thoughts to be filtered through the minds of His is self-appointed spokespersons in the Mississippi legislature who were responsible for passing the legislation in question. Those who objected to the law thought that for Mississippi legislators to be considered the vessels into which God would pour anti-LBGTQ venom, was highly suspicious, if not completely incredible. The Supreme Court was not so troubled. It declined to delve into the complex question presented, and permitted the law to stand.
A few days later it was Karen Spence, the wife of the vice-president, who was in the news. She, it turned out, was another vessel into which it seemed, God had poured anti-LBGTQ venom. She had taken a job at a school that does not simply refuse to hire members of the LBGTQ community in any capacity, but refuses to accept children if they participate in or condone homosexual activity. Among its many tenets, as described in the Parent Agreement that all parents sign, is a denial of the theory of evolution, a denial to which the actions of the school would lend credence. Employees are required to sign an employment agreement that, among other things, says the employee will not do anything that violates the "unique roles of male and female."
Karen's husband, Mike, was outraged that anyone was offended that his wife had gone to work at that well spring of intolerance. The vice-president said that attacking "Christian education, is deeply offensive to us." Some might respond that a school that espouses intolerance towards those who do not subscribe to what it thinks its God wants, is offensive to the rest of us.
The final episode occurred on January 22, 2019. The good news was that the bad news imparted to the country on that day, had nothing to do with anyone pretending to be the vessel through which God made His wishes known. It simply had to do with reversing what Trumpsters perceived to be an ill-conceived legacy from the Obama years pertaining to the LGBTQ community. It had to do with military service, something about which the Trump has no first-hand knowledge, due to the debilitating effects of a mischievous heel spur that prevented him from serving in the military.
In 2015, then Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter, let it be known that he thought the only reason transgender people should be barred from the military should be an individual's lack of merit. On August 19, 2015, the Secretary said that regulations banning transgender individuals from the military were being dismantled, and on June 30, 2016, those regulations were repealed. Then came the Trump.
Thirteen months after the regulations were repealed, the Trump said transgender people would no longer be permitted to serve in the military. On August 25, 2017, the Trump ordered the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security to submit an implementation plan by February 21, 2018, that would, among other things, reinstate the ban on transgender individuals serving in the military. Not unexpectedly, suits were brought attacking the Trump's actions. One trial court that heard a case that arose because of the decision to ban transgender individuals from the military, ruled, among other things, that the reasons the Trump gave for the ban "were not merely unsupported, but were actually contradicted by the studies, conclusions and judgment of the military itself."
Another case attacking the ban was brought in Washington state and, like its predecessor, the ban was struck down by the trial court. That court observed that the transgender individuals seeking entry into the military were a protected class and laws impairing their rights were subject to strict scrutiny. The government appealed that decision, and on January 22, 2019, the United States Supreme Court reversed the decision of the lower court that had prevented the administration from implementing its ban on permitting transgender individuals to serve in the military. It permitted the ban to go into effect while the matter was litigated in lower courts. Until the lower courts have ruled on the question, and the case once again arrives at the United States Supreme Court, transgender people will not be permitted to serve in the military. Only God knows how He will instruct the members of that Court to rule when the case once again appears before it. Those among my readers who are not in touch with God, however, probably know.
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Our Man From Boeing: The Pentagon's Revolving Door Spins Fast
Has the arms industry captured Trump’s Pentagon?
Jan 28, 2019
The way personnel spin through Washington's infamous revolving door between the Pentagon and the arms industry is nothing new. That door, however, is moving ever faster with the appointment of Patrick Shanahan, who spent 30 years at Boeing, the Pentagon's second largest contractor, as the Trump administration's acting secretary of defense.
Shanahan had previously been deputy secretary of defense, a typical position in recent years for someone with a significant arms industry background. William Lynn, President Obama's first deputy secretary of defense, had been a Raytheon lobbyist. Ashton Carter, his successor, was a consultant for the same company. One of President George W. Bush's deputies, Gordon England, had been president of the General Dynamics Fort Worth Aircraft Company (later sold to Lockheed Martin).
But Shanahan is unique. No secretary of defense in recent memory has had such a long career in the arms industry and so little experience in government or the military. For most of that career, in fact, his main focus was winning defense contracts for Boeing, not crafting effective defense policies. While the Pentagon should be focused on protecting the country, the arms industry operates in the pursuit of profit, even when that means selling weapons systems to countries working against American national security interests.
The closest analogues to Shanahan were Charlie Wilson, head of General Motors, whom President Dwight Eisenhower appointed to lead the Department of Defense (DoD) more than 60 years ago and John F. Kennedy's first defense secretary, Robert McNamara, who ran the Ford Motor Company before joining the administration. Eisenhower's choice of Wilson, whose firm manufactured military vehicles, raised concerns at the time about conflicts of interest -- but not in Wilson's mind. He famously claimed that, "for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa."
Shanahan's new role raises questions about whether what is in the best interest of Boeing -- bigger defense budgets and giant contracts for unaffordable and ineffective weaponry or aircraft -- is what's in the best interest of the public.
Rampant Conflicts of Interest
Unlike Wilson, Shanahan has at least implicitly acknowledged the potential for conflicts of interest in his new role by agreeing to recuse himself from decisions involving his former employer. But were he truly to adhere to such a position, he would have to avoid many of the Pentagon's most significant management and financial decisions. Last year, after all, Boeing received nearly $30 billion in DoD contracts for working on everything from combat, refueling, training, and radar planes to bombs, drones, missile-defense systems, ballistic missiles, and military satellites. If Shanahan were to step back from deliberations related to all of these, he would, at best, be a part-time steward of the Pentagon, unable even to oversee whether Boeing and related companies delivered what our military asked for.
There is already evidence, however, that he will do anything but refrain from overseeing, and so promoting, his old firm. Take Boeing's F-15X, for example. Against the wishes of the Air Force, the Pentagon decided to invest at least $1.2 billion in that fighter aircraft, an upgraded version of the Boeing F-15C/D, which had been supplanted by Lockheed Martin's questionable new F-35. There have been reports that Shanahan has already trashed Lockheed, Boeing's top competitor, in discussions inside the Pentagon. According to Bloomberg News, the decision to invest in the F-15X was due, in part at least, to "prodding" from him, when he was still deputy secretary of defense.
And that's just one of a slew of major contracts scooped up by Boeing in the past year. Others include a $9.2 billion program for a new training aircraft for the Air Force, an $805 million contract for an aerial refueling drone for the Navy, two new presidential Air Force One planes at a price tag of at least $3.9 billion, and significant new funding for the KC-46 refueling tanker, a troubled plane the Air Force has cleared for full production despite major defects still to be addressed. While there is as yet no evidence that Shanahan himself sought to tip the scales in Boeing's favor on any of these systems, it doesn't look good. As defense secretary, he's bound to be called on to referee major problems that will arise with one or more of these programs, at which point the question of bias towards Boeing will come directly into play.
Defenders of Shanahan's appointment to run what is by far the largest department in the federal government suggest that key Boeing decisions won't even reach his desk. That, however, is a deeply flawed argument for a number of reasons. To start, when making such decisions, lower-level managers will be aware of their boss's lifetime connection to Boeing -- especially since Shanahan has reportedly sung the praises of his former firm at the Pentagon. He has insisted, for example, that the massive F-35 program would have had none of the serious problems now plaguing it had it been run by Boeing.
In addition, Shanahan will be developing policies and programs sure to directly affect that company's bottom line. Among them, he'll be setting the DoD's priorities when it comes to addressing perceived threats. His initial message on his first day as acting secretary, for instance, was summarized as "China, China, China." Will he then prime the pump for expensive weapon systems like Boeing's P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft designed specifically to monitor Chinese military activities?
He has similarly been the Pentagon's staunchest advocate when it comes to the development of a new Space Force, something that likely thrills President Trump. He's advocated, for example, giving the Space Development Agency, the body that will be charged with developing military space assets, authority "on steroids" to shove ever more contracts out the door. As a producer of military satellites, Boeing is a major potential beneficiary of just such a development.
Then there's missile defense, another new presidential favorite. Shanahan presided over Boeing's missile defense division at a time when one of the systems being developed was the Airborne Laser, meant to zap launched nuclear missiles with lasers installed on Boeing 747 aircraft. The project, a dismal failure, was cancelled after more than $5 billion in taxpayer funds had been sunk into it. The Pentagon's latest "Star Wars"-style anti-missile technology, whose developmentwas just announced by President Trump, calls for a major investment in an equally impractical set of technologies at a price that Joseph Cirincione of the Ploughshares Fund suggests could reach $1 trillion in the decades to come.
Among Boeing's current missile-defense programs is the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense System, an array of land-based interceptor missiles that has already failed the majority of its tests. It's unlikely that it will ever function effectively in a situation in which incoming warheads would be accompanied by large numbers of decoys. The Congressional Budget Office has identified the cancellation of the program as one obvious decision that could save significant sums. But what chance is there that Shanahan would support such a decision, given all those years in which he advocated for that missile-defense system at Boeing?
Or take nuclear policy. His former company is one of two finalists to build a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Critics of such weapons systems like Clinton administration Secretary of Defense William Perry point out that ICBMs are the most dangerous and unnecessary leg of the U.S. nuclear triad, since in a potential war they might need to be launched on only minutes' notice, lest they be lost to incoming enemy nukes. Even some of their supporters have questioned the need for a brand-new ICBM when older ones could be upgraded. Nuclear hawks might eventually be persuaded to adopt such a position, too, since the cost of the Pentagon's across-the-board $1.5 trillion "modernization" of the U.S. nuclear arsenal (including the production of new nuclear bombers, missiles, and warheads) will otherwise begin to impinge on department priorities elsewhere. But how likely is Shanahan to seriously entertain even such modest critiques when they threaten to eliminate a huge potential payday for Boeing?
Finally, there is the issue of U.S. support for the brutal war launched by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Yemen nearly four years ago. Boeing's combat planes, bombs, and attack helicopters have played a central role in that conflict, which has killed tens of thousands of civilians, while a Saudi blockade of the country has put millions more at risk of famine. In addition, Boeing continues to benefit from a $480 million contract to service the F-15s it has supplied to the Royal Saudi Air Force.
Here, President Trump is firmly in that company's corner. "Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon... I don't wanna hurt jobs," he told 60 Minutes. "I don't wanna lose an order like that [from the Saudi government]." Before his resignation, Secretary of Defense James Mattis was regularly called upon to comment on the Saudi war and help craft U.S. policy towards both that country and the UAE. Where will Shanahan stand on a war significantly fueled by the products of his former company?
There is, in fact, a grim precedent for Shanahan's present situation. The Intercept and the Wall Street Journal have both reported that State Department Acting Assistant Secretary for Legislative AffairsCharles Faulkner, a former lobbyist for Raytheon, advocated giving Saudi Arabia a clean bill of health on its efforts to avoid hitting civilians in its air strikes in Yemen, lest Raytheon lose a lucrative bomb deal. So much for draining the swamp.
The Revolving Door Spins Both Ways
Shanahan and Faulkner are far from the only former defense executives or lobbyists to populate the Trump administration. Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson is a former lobbyist for Lockheed Martin. Ellen Lord, who heads procurement at the Pentagon, worked at Textron, a producer of bombs and military helicopters. Secretary of the Army Mark Esper -- rumored as a possible replacement for Shanahan as secretary of defense -- was once a top lobbyist at Raytheon. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood was a senior vice president at Lockheed Martin. And the latest addition to the club is Charles Kupperman, who has been tapped as deputy national security advisor. His career includes stints at both Boeing and Lockheed Martin. (His claim to fame: asserting that the United States could win a nuclear war.)
All of the above, including Patrick Shanahan, spun through that famed revolving door into government posts, but so many former DoD officials and top-level military officers have long spun in the opposite direction. In 1969, for example, Wisconsin Democratic Senator William Proxmire, a legendary Pentagon watchdog, was already describing the problem this way:
"The easy movement of high-ranking military officers into jobs with major defense contractors and the reverse movement of top executives in major defense contractors into high Pentagon jobs is solid evidence of the military-industrial complex in operation. It is a real threat to the public interest because it increases the chances of abuse... How hard a bargain will officers involved in procurement planning or specifications drive when they are one or two years from retirement and have the example to look at of over 2,000 fellow officers doing well on the outside after retirement?"
Or, as a 1983 internal Air Force memo, put it, "If a colonel or a general stands up and makes a fuss about high cost and poor quality, no nice man will come to see him when he retires."
As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump appeared to recognize the obvious problem of the revolving door and proposed a five-point ethics reform plan to slow it down, if not shut it down entirely. Unfortunately, the ethics executive order he put in place once in office fell wildly short of his campaign ambitions, leaving that revolving door spinning madly. A new report from the Project On Government Oversight has documented 645 cases in 2018 alone in which former government officials held jobs at the top 20 Pentagon contractors. The leader among them? You probably won't be surprised to learn that it's Boeing, with 84 such hires.
Retired Vice Admiral Jeffrey Wieringa, who led the Pentagon's arms sales office, is a case in point. In that role, he helped promote sales of U.S. weaponry globally. Perhaps as a result, he "earned" himself a position as president for global services and support at Boeing less than a year after he retired. He's far from alone. Retired Rear Admiral Donald Gaddis, a program officer for Navy air systems, also joined the company, as did retired Air Force Major General Jack Catton, Jr., who served as the director of requirements for the Air Combat Command before moving to Boeing. Retired Vice Admiral Mark Harnitchek, the former head of the Defense Logistics Agency, charged with managing $35 billion in goods and services across the DoD annually, similarly became a vice president at Boeing.
Slowing the Revolving Door
Candidate Donald Trump saw the revolving door between government and industry as a problem. "I think anybody that gives out these big contracts should never ever, during their lifetime, be allowed to work for a defense company, for a company that makes that product," he said. As the continuing flow of officials through it suggests, however, as president, he's done anything but drain that swamp.
In order to do so, he would, as a start, have to focus his administration on closing the many loopholes in current federal ethics laws, which, however imperfectly, seek to limit conflicts of interest on the part of government officials who move to jobs in industry. Under current law, lobbying restrictions on such former officials can be circumvented if they label themselves "consultants" or "business development executives." Similarly, former Pentagon officials can go to work for an arms maker they once awarded a contract to as long as they're hired by a different division of that company. In addition, while Congress requires that the Pentagon track whoever's moving through that revolving door, the database that does so is both incomplete and not available for public viewing.
Candidate Trump was onto something. However, rather than curbing the blatant conflicts inherent in the revolving door -- the ultimate symbol of the military-industrial complex in action -- President Trump is actually accelerating them. America is indeed great again, if you happen to be one of those lucky enough to be moving back and forth between plum jobs in the Pentagon and the weapons industry.
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