THE LIVING APPLICATION OF THE PETER PRINCIPLE IS KILLING US

orders

 

“The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter, which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to their “level of incompetence”: an employee is promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another. The concept was elucidated in the 1969 book The Peter Principle by Dr Peter and Raymond Hull.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

I have gleefully appropriated an illustration of the cover of that book to draw attention to my little exercise. Thanks go to whomever and wherever it is pertinent.

Since the 2016 election we have seen this management theory p;laying out in real time, but not in a commercial company whose rise and fall of fortune may affect its shareholders and employees and possibly some customers. Rather it is in full bloom  the governance—or lack thereof—of The United States of America and affecting each one of its 330 million citizens as well as the billions of brown-skinned murderous, raping, and drug-peddling hordes seeking to infest, invade, and infiltrate this grand nation’s borders, arriving in a fleet of vintage Dodge Caravans lacking functioning exhaust and noise controls but in which one can inevitably find purple and pink shag carpeting, Hippie bead curtains, and an 8 track tape of Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass’s Greatest Hits. Oh, that lonely bull!

Yes, the administration of Racist Drumpf has brought us a plethora of under and un-qualified Cabinet Secretaries, undersecretaries, agency heads, West Wing flunkies, official spokepersons and others whose level of competence was surpassed long before they ever received credentials permitting them past the Secret Service guard gate at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

There are those whose level of competence was exceeded immediately after emerging from their mothers’ wombs, blood or marriage connections being the only reason they were ever chosen in the White House Draft, defying any mock draft composed by Mel Kiper. You have Ivanka and Jared, the former selected due to her ability to give her dad a hard on and her loverboy who seemingly could have been born into the royal family itself as his expertise lies in being a slum lord a la Fred. The Brothers Runamouthoffzov have been trained to kill endangered exotic animals on expensive safaris but who somehow believe they can provide wisdom for the ages even though their combine IQ is less than that of the mold growing in my refrigerator.

Let’s look at some of the Cabinet appointees and their qualifications.

Rick Perry—Secretary of Energy   Good Ole Boy Rick was known for his ability to turn all the lights on in a large room without missing a switch and whose joy at overseeing more than 300 executions extended to not only the wrongfully convicted but even to one convicted of a non-crime.

Ben Carson—Secretary of HUD    Ben was a brilliant brain surgeon who could heal other people’s brains but on too many occasions brought to mind the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz in terms of his own and who thought the the 1963 Paul Newman movie was the video instruction manual for his job.

I can’t possibly list all individually. A man’s stomach can only take so much exposure to putrid filth but here are a few lowlights without specificities. An Attorney General in charge of enforcing laws against racial discrimination who was once denied a federal judgeship by his own party due to his blatant racism. An EPA administrator who, along with many other sins, would reasonably have been expected to promote as health a steady diet of exhaust fumes washed down by the flaming waters of the Cuyahoga River. The head of the Small Business Administration who thought chairs were made for throwing into wrestling rings and loved it when fresh blood was shed on turnbuckles. And finally a Secretary of Education who values schooling so much that she thought a high price should be paid for it by all.

And, in a bit of contrariness, any more than competent holdovers from the prior administrations were deemed over qualified and summarily dismissed. Oh, and any positives for the country that had been established by that illegal alien black dude who just left office were overturned by presidential fiat, though the results more resembled a Yugo.

Yes, the Peter principle is the most apt analogy for the usual bunch of idiots that another term euphemistically equal to peter, is invariably applied to them.

REPUBLICANS, YOU OWN IT

We are at crisis stage in these United States of America.

We have a Republican presidential administration that has summarily rejected progressive steps instituted by prior administrations

We have a Republican presidential administration permeated by racism that is palpable from the president, through his White House staff and within many of his cabinet departments.

We have a Republican presidential administration whose corruption, incompetence, and plain ignorance are also palpable.

We have a Republican presidential administration built on lies led by the president himself but enabled and supported by press secretaries, top level aides, and policy makers who believe the truth is an inconvenience at best and an outright impediment to its evil agenda at worst.

We have a Republican presidential administration that appoints people to jobs for which they are not qualified, to carry out responsibilities antithetical to their peculiar political ideologies, and which they are treating as their own personal piggy bank to buy overpriced furniture, travel at exhorbitant expense, and protect against a security threat that is nonexistent.

We have a Republican presidential administration full of sound and fury signifying nothing that is contemptuous of the people of the United States and their rights under the Constitution.

We have a Republican presidential administration that is contemptuous of our system of laws and the courts that help enforce them and the power of those courts to demand that this administration obey the laws of this nation.

We have a Republican presidetial administration contemptuous of the humanity of those people from foreign nations, especially those just to our south, who are fleeing oppression and dire circumstances and attempting to enter the U.S., following long-established procedures, but who are forced to undergo a unique form of torture while doing so in that their children are unceremoniously being taken from them and housed in virtual prisons as if they were guilty of some crime.

We have a Republican presidential administration that is contemptuous of any voices speaking out against it, whether it be ordinary citizens or members of the press protected under our Constitution.

We have a Republican controlled Congress that is not only inept at maintaining its position as a co-equal branch of the government but is spectacularly obsequious to the whims and outrageous words and actions of the Executive Branch and, given a chance to rein in those excesses as part of its Constitutional duty, is deliberately obtuse in failing to even acknowledge that the outrageousness and excess exist.

We have a Republican controlled Senate that approved a man for the vital position of Attorney General who once sat in that chamber as a member himself,  but who also was once rejected for a seat on the Federal bench though nominated by a Republican president before a Republican controlled Senate for the plain reason that his racism was publicly known, demonstrably proven before that body during the confirmation process, and for which he in no way has shown the slightest remorse  or displayed efforts to change his nature in the intervening years.

We have a Republican controlled Senate that approved a man for the vital position of Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency who not only denies climate change is real and needs to be addressed but who as Attorney General for Oklahoma actively sought to undermine the power of the agency he now heads.

We have a Republican controlled Senate that approved a man for the position of Secretary of Housing and Urban Development who declared himself incompetent to do the job prior to hs nomination for the position and who in nearly every word and action since has exhibited the truth of that declaration.

We have a Republican controlled Senate that approved a woman for Secretary of Education, responsible mainy for overseeing and coordinating efforts to enhance and improve our nation’s educational system which, to her distaste and contrary to her desires, is still predominantly a system of free public schools open to virually any student.

We have a Republican controlled Congress that is itself contemptuous of the need for and the right of citizens, all American citizens, to access health care with few limitations and at a reasonable cost and indeed has sought to reverse the  actions of the previous presidential administration and an earlier Democratic controlled Congress that passed a law that expanded that access that, though flawed, yet enabled people to get the care they required and saved the lives of actual human beings.

We have a Republcian controlled Congress that recently passed a tax “reform” bill that greatly advantaged individuals and corporations in need of no economic assistance while tossing a few, temporary bones at most other taxpayers and which, ironically, adds greatly to our National Debt which they so joyously railed against when the black guy was president not so very long ago.

We have a Republican controlled Congress seemingly hell-bent on drastically altering the myriad programs that provide a safety net to nealy half our population in one form or other including millions of children dependent on the programs for their health and welfare through such “extravagances’ as three meals a day or the ability to have their ailments treated, all the while telling lies that these programs are bankrupting the country when this Congress so willingly that it appears they are paid to do so provides break after break for millionaires and billionaires who don’t need a freaking helping hand in the least.

We do have Democrats in that Congress tainted by the same corruptive influences of big money in the form of campaign contributions and open receptiveness to lobbying efforts by big businesses that ill-serve our nation, but they have neither done so with the openly and gleefully evil motivations of their Republican counterparts nor with the competence of their presumed rivals such that I am frequently reminded of the response of Will Rogers when asked his politcal affiliation, “I am a member of no organized political party. I am a Democrat.”

There is so much more that concerns and alarms me and many many many millions of my fellow Americans about these current events resulting from both a Republican presidential administration and a Republican controlled Congress that to list each one would require my blog platform to utilize about 100 more servers and for me to give up any semblance of a personal life for the next two years.

Recently the word ‘feckless” has been used in refernce to multiple figures involved either in the Republican presidential administration or the Republican controlled Congress. It is an apt term since both are royally fecked up.

In a way one could describe the chaos as like a bull in a china shop, smashing everything in its path. In this instance, however, it really more resembles the running of the bulls in Pamplona as if they were deliberately rerouted through that china shop.

Retired U.S. Army General Colin Powell may have expressed it best when, as Secretary of State,  during discussions in 2002 about the feasability of invading Iraq, privately cautioned about the so-called Pottery Barn Rule, “You break it, you own it”

Republicans have broken it. Republicans own it.

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN? THIS ELECTION SEASON I’D SETTLE FOR MEDIOCRITY.

 

Earlier today I blew up on Facebook. I called friends who generally share my views stupid and those who don’t stupider. Much of my heartfelt enmity is the result of the rise of Drumpf.

Why do I refer to him as Drumpf? You can thank John Oliver for that.

Immediately after my viewing of this episode I downloaded the Chrome extension that converts Drumpf to Drumpf (I have found I can’t even type the actual name here without it undergoing the transformation) on stories in my browser. It is one small consolation to see this at work in the headlines and stories I see on Slate, Huffington Post, Rolling Stone, and elsewhere, even on sites that lean farther right.

I deplore the lowlghts from all the 2016 campaigns. Our Presidential  electoral process is in the gutter, dragged there by Drumpf who has been joyfully joined there by Marco Rubio  who questions the size of Drumpf’s penis; by Ted Cruz simply being Ted Cruz; by Jeb Bush forced to defend charges of being a mommy’s boy; by Ben Carson, who fell in while sleep walking; by John Kasich, who destroyed any possible claims of being a moderate by defunding Planned Parenthood; and by the millions of presumably sentient human beings who listen to all the crazy talk about immigrants and an out of control government who couldn’t pass a U.S. citizenship/civics test if it were an open book exam and the original Declaration of  Independence and Constitution were splayed in front of them.

Holding them hostage there are David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremicist groups armed to the teeth courtesy of the National Rifle Association, crazed Evangelicals who believe Drumpf somehow possesses better Christian bona fides than the Pope when The Donald is probably more likely to provide a quote from a Smokey Stover comic book than from II Corinthians when asked about his favorite Bible passage.

Let us not forget the Secret Srvice which somehow has improved its training to the point that a reporter who wanders 10 inches outside the designated journalist area at a Drumpf rally is strong armed when only a few months ago intruders inside the White House grounds stole President Obama‘s favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe before being hustled to the requisite nearby mental hospital for observation.

Oh I’m not forgetting the Democrats. Their participation is in somewhat shallower waters near the curb cutouts that allow wheelchair crossing rather than in the middle of the block, but where the H2O is equally putrid. This time it is not so much the candidates themselves…Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton …hurling invectives at each other so much as it is the so-called BernieBros who have been accused of ugly misogynistic characterizations of the other camp while feminist icons Like Gloria Steinem, though using politer language, are equally sexist in how they portray young female Sanders enthusiasts.

And from these nominal Progressives come the enabling threats to withold their vote from the nominee should he or she not be the one they love to death at this moment. Enabling threats because by doing so they will practically guarantee that our next President will have a bulbous red nose, bizarre multi-colored makeup, a fright wig,  and will be making nonsense noises as he struts around the circus ring. Of course all but Drumpf will need to be fitted for this outfit.

Accompanying this flotsam down the gutter where it will eventually empty into the stream that will make the water supply of Flint, Michigan seem utterly pristine by comparison are various pundits, analysts, economic gurus, and the like offering opinions that may be parsley, rosemary, or thyme, but most certainly not sage.

Perhaps the only good that is coming from this is Spotlight. No, not the latest Oscar winning film but the harsh relentless glare focused on the entire Presidential nominating process that places premiums on a candidacy that begins within weeks after the prior election and is fueled by endless speculation, pollmongering profiteers, the need to fill cable TV news with anything but substance, and the proliferation of web sites whose sole purpose is to promulgate lies, denigrate anyone with opinions different from theirs, and disregard anything remotely likely to benefit the America they all profess to love but which they incessantly subject to virtual domestic violence while declaring their fealty between bruising blows.

Super Tuesday is an agglomeration of primaries in states and American Samoa which would be significant just for the sheer numbers of opportunities for voters to express their choices were it not for the media telling us that the issues have been decided by the primaries/caucuses already consigned to history in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina and whch have a combined poulation dwarfed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania whose own 2016 primary is not until April 26, a date by which the names of many former candidates will be not even a memory and which may represent only the merest possibility of ultimate success to the horses (asses) still in the race.

All this makes the Swiftboating of John Kerry in 2004 look more like the highest level of forensic debate by comparison.

Oh, hell. I’ll admit it. I, too have awkwardly stepped off the curb and fallen into the slime. But the murky waters are deep and I really can’t swim so I am about to drown in this torrent I am now a part of.

In splashing around for survival I might occasionally send splurges of nastiness into the open mouths of others, but they were there first voluntarily.

HOMES OF THE MAYBE RICH AND WANNA BE FAMOUS

We are rapidly, or maybe not rapidly enough, moving towards the 2016 Presidential election. The house pictured above is the residence the announced candidates aspire to inhabit. But what about their current residences? How do they compare?

We are blessed by this article which gives us pretty pictures of the house or houses owned by some of the candidates, but limited to only Trump, Bush, Clinton, and Sanders.

http://www.homes.com/blog/2015/09/presidential-candidate-homes/

I have not been able to obtain photographs, but I am assured by reliable sources that the following descriptions are accurate depictions of their living spaces for some of the other candidates.

Mike Huckabee—a little warren within some evangelical church, away from the riff-raff whom he has time for only to deliver his latest irrational screed. Inside his personal area the walls are plastered with pictures of various acts of sado-masochism performed by him with waitresses from Hooters. Oh, and a portrait of Soupy Sales.

Rick Perry—His house is built to emulate the Allan B. Polunsky Unit in West Livingston, Texas which contains the state’s Death Row. Inside, Perry’s great room contains plenty of loungers with wrist, waist, and ankle straps and IV poles ready to deliver his guests’ beverage of choice.

Scott Walker—-Surprisingly he lives a very ascetic life in a bare bones home. After all, even in these times it’s difficult to fully furnish and decorate a house without objects that were union made. Obviously he has no car.

Rand Paul—Designed by renowned architect Howard Roark Paul’s home has a small but comfortable library which holds only the works of Ayn Rand…oh…and the Gideon Bible he brought home from his last national Ophthalmology Convention, aiming to use it for guidance when advising Kentucky County Clerks on their job duties.

Ben Carson—A comfortable but not ostentatious home in which his favorite room is the one where he displays mementoes of his life. Among thse are a brain preserved in formaldehyde complete with electric stimulators he can operate for old times’ sake, a sonogram of the pre-aborted fetus he later used for stem cell research, and an unused booklet of Food Stamps from his childhood.

Martin O’Malley—He lives in a house that formerly housed one of those crab shacks like you find dotting the Maryland shore. He maintains a supply of wooden mallets, a stack of old newspapers (each containing a report of one of his speeches) used to cover the wooden picnic table where his family dines, and a to-the-ceiling pile of O’Malley For President bumper stickers that no one has accessed his web site to request.

Rick Santorum—Since his unpublicized divorce and remarriage, he had to move into his new spouse’s dog house.

Chris Christie—Has houses all over the country. You can recognize them by the Dunkin Donuts logo outside.

Carly Fiorina—Her house is an nondescript suburban block and brick building, miles from public transit, part of which she leases to the local unemployment office serving laid off tech workers.

Jim Webb—A 3476 sq ft Virginia Colonial, indistinguishable from most of his neighbors save for the electric message sign in front displaying a continuous loop reading “I AM NOT THE JIM WEBB WHO WROTE THAT ATROCIOUS SONG MACARTHUR PARK. There is currently a class action by his neighbors pending in which they seek damages for the ear worm they cannot get rid of.

Jeff Boss, Harry Braun, Lawrence Lessig, Robby Wells and Willie Nelson (not the singer) , a bunch of unknowns seeking the Democratic nomination, who reside jointly in a suite at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia.

Bobby Jindal–He used to live in a home resembling the Taj Mahal, but Trump evicted him for nonpayment of rent after he gambled all his money away in the building’s casino.

Ted Cruz—Rumored to reside just outside Winnipeg.

Marco Rubio—Lives very modestly in the rear of a Cuban sandwich shop in Miami’s Little Havana.

John Kasich—Currently living in the Ohio Governor’s mansion in Columbus, but preparing to move to a mountainside cabin on Denali. when his term expires.

Lindsey Graham—Once his objective of attacking Iran to end its nuclear program is acheived, he is going to retire from the Senate, and move into the penthouse condo he has already purchased overlooking the grandest boulevard in downtown Tehran.

Considering our options, would it be possible to change the locks at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. before January, 20, 2017?

 

UPDATE. The original version mis-stated Martin O’Malley’s first name as Michael. The text now reads as corrected.

THE CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN

The past few years a number of media pundits have come to refer to members of The Republican Party, especially those seemingly with Presidential aspirations, collectively as a clown car. Mostly because so many of them make clownish statements or have clownish rhetoric that is very difficult to take seriously.

As of now the list of possible candidates has grown to the extent that not even a clown car could hold them all. Thus, I have come to rename that as the Clown C-17 Globemaster III, itself with barely the capacity to transport them all to the inevitable debates.

Last weekend in Des Moines, Iowa Congressman Steve King hosted the Iowa Freedom Summit which some pundits consider to be a precursor to the race for the Republican nomination for President for 2016.

As such the nationally known Republicans who attended and took advantage of an opportunity to speak to what they see as important issues for our nation gave us this roster.

• Chris Christie——-The New Jersey Governor was late due to traffic jams on bridges as he wended his way Westward, WHOA!
• Scott Walker——–The Wisconsin Governor likewise met delays, in this case due to his own intransigence. It seems not only were the employees of the airline he flew unionized, but they also earn more than the minimum wage. He refused to board until the flight attendants promised not to perform “Look For The Union Label”  as part of their pre-flight routine.
• Carly Fiorina——-The former CEO of Hewlett-Packard is perhaps best known for her forced ouster from that post, at least partly due to the somewhat contentious merger of H-P and Compaq (one of which computers is processing this for your viewing pleasure). Her political experience consists of working for the campaign of John McCain in 2008, receiving the endorsement of Sarah Palin, during her primary run for the GOP nomination for Senator in California in 2010, and her subsequent election loss to Barbara Boxer by ten percentage points. If, by some chance she could get elected as President, expect her to emulate her idol end endorser and resign in 2018.
• Mike Huckabee——The former Governor of Arkansas resigned from FOX (hey, if the White House won’t put news with their name, neither will I) to test the Presidential waters. He made headlines by calling Eastern/New York women “trashy” due to their constant cursing, among other faults. Were he to become the candidate and have to face a national audience of women, in light of his positions on many women’s issues, the resultant cursing from every corner of America will be deafening.
• Rick Perry———-The former Governor of Texas is a repeat visitor to this lineup but essentially doomed his own campaign in 2012 when during one debate he forgot one-third of his platform for reorganizing the federal government. But were he to be elected, Perry may not be happy in office as he would have very few opportunities to sign death warrants for convicted felons.
• Ted Cruz-———–The current Senator from Texas, as wild and crazy as he can be at times, may be the sanest member of his family if you look at him alongside his father. If elected one would fervently pray that the trickle down theory will not suddenly manifest itself by his father’s ravings trickling down to him.
• Rick Santorum—–The former Senator from Pennsylvania might better represent his true self if he would don either the starched prim garb of a Puritan or the formal religious regalia of Torquemada with the appropriate tonsured head.
• Ben Carson——-The renowned retired neurosurgeon to date has exhibited an extraordinary lack of understanding of Americans and what the country needs as well as characterizing what he finds wrong with our nation (and in some cases he has a point) as the most extreme and pointless and offensive analogies possible. Perhaps his own brain has suffered some damage in which case I would offer this admonition, “Physician, heal thyself.”
• Donald Trump—–The renowned mogul…just ask him…( and is he a mogul as businessman or a mogul as in a series of bumps on a skiing trail, which merely delays a downhill trip?) keeps threatening to toss his wig in the ring. TV comedians are breathless with anticipation with the wealth of material his candidacy would provide.
• Mitt Romney——The former (take your pick——money grubbing venture capitalist; job destroyer; promoter of a socialist health insurance plan; chauffeur of rooftop dog carriers on family cars) did not appear in Des Moines and has since announced that, coincidentally, he has realized that the percentage of Americans he excoriates equals the percentage of votes he received in 2012 and will not be running.
• Jeb Bush——–The former Florida governor was another no-show, biding his time to announce until he has a firm rationale in place to uphold the Bush family legacy to justify an invasion of Iraq.
• Sarah Palin—–The indescribable (at least in a blog intended for family reading) Palin did speak…sort of. One would assume she now knows how misplaced it was for her to mock President Obama’s use of a teleprompter. That assumption is almost itself certainly misplaced.

As this circus moves from town to town I just hope the Koch brothers can afford the jet fuel expended.