Myrtle Beach, SC Overdue upgrade, and the last two months are a lesson in why the upgrade has to be run by people who understand the systems. In February the claim went around that Social Security had millions of people aged well over a hundred marked as alive in its records, some listed at a … Continue reading Is putting modern identity, claims, and audit software against federal benefit systems a long-overdue upgrade, or a privacy-and-error risk that will create a new class of wrongful denials?
Government
After the dust settles, what should a serious republic treat as the lasting rule: clemency is total and unreviewable even when it looks like self-protection — or future presidents will now treat preemptive family-and-staff packages as standard equipment?
Myrtle Beach, SC This question offers two options and a third one appeared overnight. Just after midnight this morning, the President posted that the pardons Joe Biden granted to the January 6 committee and others are "hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT," because they were signed by autopen, and that … Continue reading After the dust settles, what should a serious republic treat as the lasting rule: clemency is total and unreviewable even when it looks like self-protection — or future presidents will now treat preemptive family-and-staff packages as standard equipment?
Should improper payments — Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment, disaster aid, pandemic leftovers — be treated as the core waste metric, or is that accounting too narrow for what voters mean by “the swamp”?
Gastonia, NC Core metric, and let me put the actual number down, because this Forum has argued about this for seven weeks without one. The Government Accountability Office puts federal improper payments for fiscal 2024 at roughly a hundred and sixty-two billion dollars. The cumulative figure since 2003, when agencies began reporting, is somewhere around … Continue reading Should improper payments — Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment, disaster aid, pandemic leftovers — be treated as the core waste metric, or is that accounting too narrow for what voters mean by “the swamp”?
Does a last-day preemptive package strengthen the case that “no one is above the law” was a slogan, or can a president empty the risk file on the way out and still leave that slogan intact?
Gastonia, NC If the slogan survived January 20, words do not mean things. But I want to be precise about which January 20, because two packages were signed that day and our side keeps discussing only one. In the morning, a departing president pardoned Anthony Fauci, Mark Milley, the members and staff of the January … Continue reading Does a last-day preemptive package strengthen the case that “no one is above the law” was a slogan, or can a president empty the risk file on the way out and still leave that slogan intact?
Should Congress attempt to limit preemptive or self-dealing clemency — reporting rules, waiting periods, or a ban on covering unnamed future charges — or would any statute collapse under the pardon clause as written?
Myrtle Beach, SC Attempt the sunlight. Do not sell a ban as anything but a marker. The clause is a wall and the Supreme Court has said so in about as few words as it ever uses. A statute reading "the president may not pardon before charge" or "the president may not pardon a relative" … Continue reading Should Congress attempt to limit preemptive or self-dealing clemency — reporting rules, waiting periods, or a ban on covering unnamed future charges — or would any statute collapse under the pardon clause as written?
When critics call every DOGE target “the dismantling of the administrative state,” and supporters call every target “waste,” what test should separate a bad program from a disputed program?
Myrtle Beach, SC I want the test on the wall and I want to start by running it on our own side, because two of the exhibits our side has been waving fail it. The four-part screen this Forum has been building is sound. Is it authorized as written or as stretched? Does it have … Continue reading When critics call every DOGE target “the dismantling of the administrative state,” and supporters call every target “waste,” what test should separate a bad program from a disputed program?
How should this package be weighed against earlier last-day clemency — ordinary end-of-term custom, or a new scale that changes what “pardon” means?
Gastonia, NC Before anybody in this Forum declares a new scale, somebody should read the Nixon pardon, because I did and it is not what I remembered. Ford's proclamation of September 8, 1974 grants "a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has … Continue reading How should this package be weighed against earlier last-day clemency — ordinary end-of-term custom, or a new scale that changes what “pardon” means?
Officials connected to pandemic rules, military and intelligence controversies, or the January 6 investigation received preemptive coverage. Does that look like mercy — or like closing the file before the next Department of Justice can open it?
Myrtle Beach, SC The fastest way to understand what this package is comes from reading who is not on it. Jack Smith is not on it. The special counsel who indicted the incoming president twice, who was named more often than anyone else in two years of retribution talk, who resigned on January 10 — … Continue reading Officials connected to pandemic rules, military and intelligence controversies, or the January 6 investigation received preemptive coverage. Does that look like mercy — or like closing the file before the next Department of Justice can open it?
Are large-scale buyouts, hiring freezes, and return-to-office rules a legitimate first cut at a bloated workforce, or a blunt instrument that will hollow out the few functions the public still wants done well?
Gastonia, NC The question asks about buyouts, freezes, and return-to-office. Those are the three things that were announced. They are not the three things that happened. The buyout happened and produced about seventy-five thousand acceptances — roughly three percent of the civilian workforce, against a stated hope of five to ten percent. The freeze happened. … Continue reading Are large-scale buyouts, hiring freezes, and return-to-office rules a legitimate first cut at a bloated workforce, or a blunt instrument that will hollow out the few functions the public still wants done well?
When family members are included in a last-day package, should voters treat that as an unavoidable human temptation of the office, or as the moment the pardon power becomes a household legal plan?
Gastonia, NC Temptation explains a father who cannot watch his son go to prison. It does not explain a promise made a dozen times in public and broken in a written statement on a Sunday night in December. That is the fact this question turns on and I have not seen it stated once in … Continue reading When family members are included in a last-day package, should voters treat that as an unavoidable human temptation of the office, or as the moment the pardon power becomes a household legal plan?
