Ah, a Wednesday in Virginia’s gentle Piedmont! The skies are mostly clear, and the Lady in Red assures us we will only scrape the bottom of triple-digit temperatures later. Nice robust humidity. Summer.
There is other stuff going on, of course. We are awash in it, like the cash flooding out of the Treasury. Did you see mention that the loose change left unspent rom the Emergency of COVID is being released for whatever the States and cities that have shortfalls choose to do with it? They say it is about $350 Billion dollars. The section is collectively old enough to remember a lot of stuff, but that number tickled one old memory. It is a number larger than the entire Defense Budget passed in 2001. That bit of research resulted in applause and expressions of wonder. It is a thing so large it was difficult to keep track of even back then. It included active duty pay, retirements, acquisition, operations and management, funerals horses ships and airplanes. The whole ball of wax. Including most of the Intelligence community.
That there is such an amount floating out there, apportioned without debate, is something in which a taxpayer might also take interest.
The Writers Section was awash in laughter. The scope of change- transformation, if you will- is dramatic. But no one could recall a discussion about it. There is a lot being transformed without much conversation. Some are minor changes, like eliminating local control of zoning to build a better America. Some people think it is a Good Idea, and say it will build equity, whatever that is. The way it used to work was different. In prehistoric times, a Good Idea would be brought up by a member of Congress, with an associated price tag. It would be debated in a subcommittee, discussed on the merits, forwarded to the Full Committee, and if the Good Idea really seemed good, it could be passed to the full House for a vote. If successful, it would then be forwarded to the Senate for a similar procedure. There would be reporting at each of these steps in the process, and if endorsed by both Chambers of Congress as a Really Good Idea that should become Law, it is forwarded to the Desk of the President for a quick scan and either signed or not signed. By the President, not the desk.
I know, sounds like a lot of work and a lot of discussion required, but Good Ideas should be able to be talked about. As you know, and as the Footnote Department is aware, we don’t do that any more. Government is too complex to understand, so the members of Congress vote on gigantic bags of Good and Other ideas all jumbled together under a pleasant name, shovel it forward to the President’s desk, and then a year or so later, be available to be spread around to fund a bunch of ideas that may, or may not, have any particular purpose except to fund other previously good ideas that did not work the way they were supposed to.
As it turns out, a bunch of the cash is going to wind up with urban entities that either have an excess of Good Ideas, or are simply not managed very well. The Section thinks you could make a case for fixing that, but that could impact Previously Good Ideas that we couldn’t afford until we invented printing presses and large bags.
As a part of the machine, I am just thankful we don’t use folding money or coins any more. It would be too heavy to move.
That isn’t everything, of course, but other things seem to be floating down the stream, mostly submerged. The Chinese guy is one of them. His name is supposed to be the lyrical “Dong Jing-Wei” or something. He is of interest because he is supposed to know something about the origin of the COVID virus. That is of some interest at the moment, since previous Good Ideas about the emergency were based on what now appear to be lies. Or mistakes, or something. But the tantalizing part of the story is that Mr. Dong may know about virus origins, but he is also supposed to have been Chief of Chinese Counter-Intelligence. And he requested asylum for safety in America.
The Writer’s Group was mildly interested, since something this big should be a matter of some conversation. In fact, it would be the extraordinary equivalent of FBI Director Chris Wray turning up in Hong Kong and announcing he had requested protection by the Chinese from the Americans. If true, and Mr. Dong was who they say he was, it would be the beginning of a Big Story.
We don’t know. The Section decided to play it this way for accuracy: “Let’s just say what we know, outline what we don’t know, and tell people what we think it means while being specific about which category is which.”
One of the old ones laughed, since that is what General Powell specified he wanted from his government Spooks when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. So there it is. One of the people who used to run Chinese espionage is now here because it was worth his career and reputation to get out of being there. That would be a big decision for any of us. To be clear, there isn’t any place we would rather be than right here, under the peaceful puffy clouds of a delightful warm summer day.
There may be some other stuff going on. That would be in two categories- the ones we don’t know, which is secondary, but directly affects the first one. And both affect the third one we have some questions about. But the week is still new of course, even if half of it is already in one of the three boxes of information that probably should be moved out to the garage to percolate. We had a debate, voted on it, and decided it was a Good Idea.
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