Strange Washington Signals – Things Getting Done

Something out of the ordinary is almost always a sign that trouble may be afoot. That scratchy feeling in your throat, the car that chugs instead of purrs, the clothes dryer that sounds like The Incredible Hulk – all are signals experience has taught us to handle.

But there’s something extraordinary happening in Washington lately, and it’s so strange that most of us have no idea what to do. Difficult as it is to believe, it must be said in the open:

Washington is getting things done.

Now that’s not supposed to happen, of course. Washington in general and Congress in particular is where good ideas and citizens go to languish and fade. It is supposed to be a place of bitter partisan strife and naked personal ambition where duty and expediency are synonyms.

So how did it happen that the United States Senate passed a bill allowing the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco at last, giving it broad powers over the product that kills 400,000 Americans a year? The bill is expected to be accepted by the House, which passed a similar measure earlier. President Obama, himself a struggling sometimes smoker, is eager to sign it.

This 79-17 Senate vote ends more than four decades of malign neglect after the first warnings that smoking cigarettes could kill you. And it happened in Washington.

That’s the same place where Congress and regulatory agencies nodded complacently while corporations floated all sorts of financial balloons and paid lavishly for the executive hot air that filled them. Or it was until the balloons popped. Now Washington is into regulation, whether by public law or public shame, to curb the worst excesses.

Corporate fat cats coughing up compensation hairballs are only part of the picture. Washington seems determined to do something about the national health system.

Started by employers trying to compete around World War II wage freezes, employer-provided health insurance became an assumption for most Americans – except those who didn’t have it.

As the have-not numbers increased and American health standings fell to a par with former Soviet republics, insurers and doctors wrapped themselves in the banner of free enterprise and fought off all attempts at change with the mighty club of “socialized medicine.”.

Now Washington is not talking about whether we will have health care reform, but what it will look like – an earthquake change in assumptions. “Socialized medicine” is now not so much a club as one of several proposals. That overdue earthquake follows economic legislation and other action that happened with a speed and sense of purpose not seen in Washington in decades.

Since any president’s administration takes lumps for things it couldn’t have controlled and accepts bouquets for being just plain lucky, it’s too soon to hand laurels for this change of tone and pace to an Obama administration yet to celebrate its first anniversary.

But it’s not too soon to say that a Washington where more problems are solved than are caused could get to be a pretty comfortable thing.

Let’s see if it continues.

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Homeland Security’s Laughter Lexicon

 

 

The Department of Homeland Security’s real strategy for keeping the bad guys away surfaced Tuesday in a Washington Times story that made it clear our plan is for terrorists to laugh themselves to death.

 

A couple weeks ago, word got out that our ever-vigilant DHS guardians had decided returning war veterans might be prone to extremism, especially right-wing extremism. You know -- trained and experienced killers and all that.

 

The howl over that anti-veteran slur came from everywhere. But Tuesday’s Washington Times story says even before that bureaucratic belch, DHS had put together – and hastily deep-sixed – a Domestic Extremism Lexicon.

 

The DHS document said the lexicon would assist “ federal, state, local, and tribal homeland security and law enforcement officials in conducting analytic activities.”

 

Maybe, but the  lexicon seems more anal than analytic.

 

Every paragraph begins with (U//FOUO), which Homeland Security says means Unclassified For Official Use Only. (Readers are encouraged to explore what other uses the letter F, U and O might have in describing this tax-dollar-supported effort.)

 

The  Domestic Extremism Lexicon says its purpose is “definitions for key terms and phrases that often appear in DHS analysis that addresses the nature and scope of the threat that domestic, non-Islamic extremism poses to the United States. Definitions were derived from a variety of open source materials and unclassified information, then further developed during facilitated workshops with DHS intelligence analysts knowledgeable about domestic, non-Islamic extremism in the United States. “

 

Sounds pretty impressive, until you read the first of the definitions so thoroughly researched:

 

“(U) aboveground (U//FOUO) A term used to describe extremist groups or individuals who operate overtly and portray themselves as law-abiding.”

 

If the NYPD, LAPD, Chicago, Dallas, Miami and other major police departments were blown away by the insight and clear thinking this revealed, they kept it quiet.

 

That may be because they were stunned to learn also that:

 

“(U) lone terrorist (U//FOUO) An individual motivated by extremist ideology to commit acts of criminal violence independent of any larger terrorist organization. (also: lone wolf)”

 

And in a document remarkable for its completeness of purpose, even if it may not have been the intended purpose, law enforcement agencies could discover:

 

(U) underground (U//FOUO) A term used to describe clandestine extremist groups, individuals, or their activities.

 

We also learn:

 

(U) Cuban independence extremism (U//FOUO) A movement of groups or individuals who do not recognize the legitimacy of the Communist Cuban Government and who attempt to subvert it through acts of violence, mainly within the United States. (also: anti-Castro groups)

 

The Department of Homeland Security is clearly so dedicated that it forgot the Kennedy administration-backed armed invasion at Cuba’s Bay of Pigs, or that the United States has no formal diplomatic relations with Cuba, both of which would seem to fit the terms of its definitions. There’s probably a good explanation for this, but it can’t be shared because, as the document says right at the top:

 

(U) Warning: This document is UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY (U//FOUO). It contains information that may be exempt from public release under the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. 552). It is to be controlled, stored, handled, transmitted, distributed, and disposed of in accordance with DHS policy relating toFOUO information and is not to be released to the public, the media, or other personnel who do not have a valid need-to-know without prior approval of an authorized DHS official.

 

Those of us who pay taxes probably don’t have a problem with this sort of thing being exempt from public release. The challenge is to get it exempt from public funding.

 

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