Archive: Author: rkwallace

Chapter 5 of the “Mandate for Leadership” calls for dismantling the Department of Homeland Security. You may recall that this newest department was created after the attacks of 9/11, hoping to coordinate several otherwise unrelated agencies like immigration, Coast Guard, Secret Service and Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Mandate suggests a more logical, mission-oriented regrouping, but in the meantime advocates death by thousand little cuts. 

      Clearly, the object of the chapter is to strike out against immigration, but not the straight-forward deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants as touted so often by the current Republican Presidential candidate. Instead this chapter lists devious ways to get rid of LEGAL immigrants. For instance, eliminate  visas currently granted to victims of human trafficking who are serving as witnesses for the authorities. Or limit the H-1B visa most often used by university graduates to extend a student visa by qualifying for a specialized job. 

    These limitations are worded so that the impact is not immediately clear. For instance, the Mandate calls for the Secretary of Homeland Security to not update the list of countries that can participate in the H-2 Seasonal Worker program. But since the list is only valid for a year, failing to update the list at the end of the year is the same as shutting the program down entirely. 

          The Mandate would remove Temporary Protected Status, which was established in 1990 to protect immigrants from war-torn countries. An estimated 700.000 who have been living and working legally in this country for decades would be deported.

        Punishing immigrants is not all. Although illegal aliens don’t qualify for federal school loans, the Mandate wants to deny federal aid  to ANY student if their school allows  “illegal aliens”  to qualify for in-state tuition, which 26 states have approved. Never mind that this would be a grave violation of the state’s right to determine its own rules for in-state tuition.   

      And when it comes to state’s rights this chapter goes to the other extreme as well.  Disaster preparednes should be on the states, the Mandate says. The Federal Emergency Management Agency needs to respond only in the most severe emergencies and should reduce the amount of grants available. That advice should be well received by conservatives in Florida and Texas, the two states that receive the largest portion of FEMA funds thanks to frequent hurricanes. 

  “Personnel is Policy” is an oft repeated maxim in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.  The people you hire determine the policy you get. You know, like appointing someone who has never been to public school to head the Department of Education. That’s a pretty good indication of your education policy. 

             The first section of the “Mandate on Leadership” is all about managing personnel from details of who reports to whom in the White House Office, and what agencies need to be eliminated in the Executive Office of the President, to the vast civil service system. 

         If you remember your American History, civil service used to be the domain of political cronies, jobs determined by who you know, not what you know. But that all changed after a disgruntled worker who lost his job assassinated President James A. Garfield. The Pendleton Act, passed in 1883, established the merit system where civil service jobs were based on qualifications, not political favors.

        The Mandate claims that the non-partisan, “merit” system became out of control over the years, so now it is virtually impossible to fire civil  servants even if they aren’t doing the job. Several presidents going back to Jimmy Carter tried to update hiring practices and employee evaluations, but cost-of-living pay increases have overrun merit increases. That seems to be the Mandate’s real complaint against civil service jobs — pay and benefits are equal to Fortune 500 companies and exceed that of smaller businesses.

         Let me get this straight, the Mandate thinks the greatest country in the world should not compete with the biggest companies for the best employees.Surely that’s not the point this section is supposed to be making. 

        The Mandate solution is to make sure every agency and department is headed by a political appointee–not as a political favor you understand, but just to insure that the President’s policy is being carried out and appropriations are properly approved. 

    Is this what they mean by “dismantling the administrative state”? Returning to the cronyism of 150 years ago?

   Before I leave Kevin Roberts’ introduction to Project 2025 I must mention a major contradiction in terms — that is all about terms. 

   “America’s corporate and political elites do not believe in the ideals to which our nation is dedicated—self-governance, the rule of law, and ordered liberty,” he writes. “They certainly do not trust the American people.”

    Wait a minute. Isn’t it the conservatives, the group he champions, that doesn’t trust a woman to make choices about her own medical care? That doesn’t trust people to choose who they want to marry? And refuses to hear the wails of a teen struggling to accept a gender that just doesn’t fit? They certainly don’t want to allow self-governance for anyone whose choices don’t agree with their own. 

    And how does Roberts suggest we deal with this disparity? By eliminating certain terms from “every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.” Those terms include:

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• sexual orientation and gender identity (“SOGI”)
• diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”), 
• gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive,
• abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights

   Roberts equates transgender ideology with pornography, as addictive as any drug, he says.

   “Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders,” he suggests. 

      It’s no surprise that a few pages later in the section examining the executive office of the President, the Mandate for Leadership advises elimination of the Gender Policy Council and replacing it with a special advisor to the president on family life. 

   As long as that family’s life doesn’t have any of the terms that have been eliminated.
 

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            Having an artist in the house puts everyday items in a new light. 

            Take my son Ryan’s painting of the American flag. He created it with a digital watercolor program, but his magic touch breathes life into the design.  Country singer Van Zant croons “These Colors Don’t Run.”  The colors in Ryan’s flag aren’t running away, but they are on the move. That’s what makes this flag jump off the page as if it were alive. You can hear the heart beating, smell the sweat.

            Ryan says it’s just his messy style. But to me it looks like the stars in this flag are starting to cry. Maybe they’ve heard the hateful shouts of protestors. The stripes are smudged with blood stains from all those who have died to keep this flag flying. A chaos of blue storms behind the flag. And yet the work is more star-spangled than ever. Strong, confident in spite of all it has been through.  

           Happy Fourth of July.