Fired Federal officials: a Trojan horse that the Deep State daren't tackle?

 

Flopping Aces has a very interesting take on the firing of senior Federal officials by the incoming Trump administration.

The President’s enemies are beginning to awaken to the formidible possibility that Trump knows exactly what he is doing and is setting traps for them to fall into. The New York Times covered the story yesterday under the headline, “Trump’s Firings Could Bring Court Cases That Expand His Power.”

Over the past several days, the President has “abruptly fired dozens of officials,” if not hundreds of them. The Times, at least, is beginning to detect a figure of rationality emerging from the fog of administrative war. It claims to have uncovered a pattern among Trump’s firings of powerful federal actors who thought they were safe. These included the 17 aforementioned Inspector Generals ... plus cemented-in officials from agencies like the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

Note that all four categories include officials appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

Astonishingly, Trump’s mass firings of top-level commissioners from the NLRB, the Privacy Board, and the EEOC, were thought to be illegal and impossible. But even more historic and astonishing, Trump has fired so many it leaves those agencies without quora. They are dead in the water. These now-paralyzed agencies literally cannot undermine Trump’s agenda, even if they wanted to, for the practical reason that there simply aren’t enough commissioners left to vote on anything. They’re frozen.

Strikingly, none of the “abruptly fired” officials have yet sued the federal government—even though Trump is trampling on all sorts of precedents, customs, and statutes. Ms. Fong merely staged a bizarre mini-protest rather than assert her legal rights. All this legal restraint is especially strange considering that in at least one agency, the NLRB, federal law expressly limits the President’s ability to fire commissioners except in very limited circumstances.

The Times and the fired officials smelled a Trump trap.

“The prospect of getting dragged into court,” an alarmed Times observed, “may be exactly what Mr. Trump’s lawyers are hoping for.” What terrified and dismayed the far-left Times and its progressive allies was the ghastly prospect that “any rulings in the president’s favor would establish precedents that would expand presidential power to control the federal government.”

In other words: Trump is hoping that they’ll sue him.

There's more at the link.

I highlighted one paragraph in orange because I think it's the "first-stage" fruit of the firings:  neutralizing agencies that would otherwise be certain to try to block President Trump's policies in any way they can.  Until a quorum of senior officials is again established, either through the courts or through new appointments by the Administration, they're going to stay neutralized, too.  Somebody in the Trump transitional team had a brainwave when he/she spotted this possibility.  I hope they get a thumping great bonus for it.

However, the legal implications of the President's use of his authority as head of the Executive Branch are even more intriguing in the long term.  Congress has passed many, many laws over the past few decades that chip away at the power of the Executive, effectively subordinating much of it to the Legislative Branch.  If that can be overturned by a Supreme Court more attuned towards historical constitutional interpretation (as the current SCOTUS appears to be), it might threaten many more than just the laws that apply in this case.  If all the encroachments have to be weighed against a set of standards or tests imposed by SCOTUS, we might see a resurgent Presidency and a chastened Congress.

As another report points out:

Some legal experts say the purges underway appear to be custom-made opportunities for the Supreme Court’s Republican-appointed majority to strike down the statutes any legal challenges would be based on, furthering its trend in recent years of expanding presidential authority.

“On one level, this seems designed to invite courts to push back because much of it is illegal and the overall message is a boundless view of executive power,” said Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard law professor who led the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush administration. “But really, they are clearly setting up test cases.”

Five of the nine Supreme Court justices worked as executive branch lawyers during the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations. Their legal teams were both defined by an expansive view of executive power, including developing theories of the Constitution that would invalidate congressional restrictions on the White House.

The Reagan legal team, for example, created the so-called unitary executive theory. It holds that the president must wield exclusive control of the executive branch, so laws passed by Congress that give independence to other officials are unconstitutional. A key application is that presidents must be able to fire any executive branch official at will.

In recent years, the Supreme Court’s majority — led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who worked in the White House Counsel’s Office under the Reagan administration — has pushed that idea.

Again, more at the link.

And all this within the first couple of weeks of President Trump assuming office!  What's next, one wonders?  Pass the popcorn . . .

Peter

News that makes me very happy!

 

I'm delighted to learn that as one of her first acts upon taking office, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is cutting funds to most of the non-governmental organizations that are the driving force behind much of the illegal migration that's plaguing our country.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Wednesday the department has stopped all grant funding to nonprofits that operate outside of government control, saying they have been "perverted into a shadow government" that feeds illegal immigration.

Noem said some non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which receive millions in federal grants, have been facilitating illegal immigration by helping aliens cross the U.S. border.

"Many of these NGOs actually have infrastructure and operations set up in Mexico, on that side of the border, and are telling those illegal immigrants to come to them, and they will get them across the border," Noem said on Fox News Channel's Will Cain Show. "So they're not just operating in the United States, they're operating outside the United States to help make it easier for those who want to break our laws."

The first step to curbing the issue is to freeze the funds, reevaluate them, and make sure taxpayer dollars are going toward safe causes, she said.

"I think people are curious [to see how] grants that are given out by federal agencies [are] utilized," Noem said. 

Until an evaluation is completed, Noem said the department is "not spending another dime to help the destruction of this country."

There's more at the link.

The Biden administration funneled literally billions of dollars into organizations such as Catholic Charities, HIAS, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services and the like.  These organizations have grown fat by sucking on the government teat, and in many cases have become nothing more or less than an alternative bureaucracy to the government agencies that sponsor them.  I've had extensive contact with many of them as a pastor and chaplain, and regard almost all of them as literal traitors to the United States.  They're perfectly willing - indeed, some seem all too eager - to see our civilization overrun and toppled by a flood of unskilled, semi-literate Third World economic migrants who take everything and contribute nothing to our society.

This news from Kristi Noem should delight everyone who's aware of the migrant threat to our stability and security as a society.  I hope she makes it even more stringent, and of course permanent, as her investigations show the extent of the problem.

(Note that I'm not saying we should not help those less fortunate than ourselves.  That's a basic Christian premise, after all, and I make sure that our family supports others when and where appropriate.  However, helping others does not mean destroying our own society in the process!  We can extend help to countries facing an influx of refugees from their neighbors, assisting with feeding, housing and caring for the refugees until such time that it's safe for them to return home.  If the situation in their homeland(s) does not resolve itself, we can join with other nations to impose a peaceful settlement on the country(ies) concerned, thus creating the conditions for future stability.  All this we can and should do.  It's incumbent upon us, I think, to share the blessings God has given us with those less fortunate than ourselves.  However, that can be done without destroying our own society's foundations, and placing our own countries at risk.  This may look like the irresistible force meeting the immovable object, but it's simpler than that.  Compassion need not equal national suicide.)

Peter

A stark contrast in cost and efficiency

 

I was astonished to read this article in the Telegraph, London (may be paywalled).

A couple flew more than 1,300 miles to Malaga [in Spain] and back to the UK to pick up a new car – as it was cheaper than getting a train.

Mother-of-four Kristina Coulson and her husband, Dan, live in Cornwall and needed to collect a new car near Crewe after Mrs Coulson was hit by a drunk driver.

She “could not believe how expensive” getting a train would cost – up to £200 [currently about US $250] per person just for the one-way journey.

After some research the support worker found it was cheaper to fly from Newquay to Malaga and back to Manchester – with flights costing £54 [about US $67].

There's more at the link.

Of course, UK railroads are in the main very inefficient compared to other forms of transport.  They're running on older infrastructure, much of which has never been fully updated, and using engines and coaches that are far less advanced that modern technology would allow.  They're also crippled by high (often union-driven) salaries and personnel costs.  Even so, that big of a cost difference is ludicrous.  If one calculates it on a cost-per-mile basis, it's so ridiculous it's funny.

I wonder how many similar examples we could find here in the USA?  Have any of my readers compared costs across various means of transportation to get from Point A to Point B?  I've done so a few times, comparing a Greyhound bus ticket to an Amtrak train ticket to an airline ticket to renting a car and driving it myself.  Oddly enough, the car rental option was frequently the cheapest, because I didn't have to use public transport or taxis or what have you to get from the terminus at my destination to the place where I was staying.  Time was also a factor, from the perspective that "time is money".  Airline travel often came off worse than other methods.  Getting to an airport in time to go through check-in and security screening, and at the other end collect one's luggage and take a taxi or other transport to one's actual destination, sometimes could take longer overall than any other way of travel.

How about it, readers?  Have any of you made similar calculations?  If so, please let us know in Comments.

Peter

An Iron Dome for America?

 

I see President Trump has signed an executive order requiring that an "Iron Dome"-type anti-aircraft and anti-missile system be installed in the United States.  Given the sheer surface area of this country, it obviously won't be cost-effective to build a system to cover every square foot of our land;  but that's also not necessary.  Major cities, critical infrastructure and essential facilities can be covered much more easily and cheaply.

The interesting fact, of course, is that Israel's Iron Dome system is largely manufactured in the USA, using our military aid dollars for the purpose.  Those aid dollars can only be spent on American weapons systems.  Israel therefore designs its critical weapons in-house, and when they're perfected, contracts out their manufacture to US companies, thus providing jobs to our people and revenue (and some interesting new technology) to our government.  Thus, America can simply increase the production of Iron Dome missiles and electronics, and divert the excess to our own needs.  I'm sure Israel will be only too happy to approve such an arrangement, given that we subsidize its defense needs to the tune of billions of dollars every year.  (Whether or not we should spend so much on Israel is another matter, producing a lot of very spirited debate in political circles.)

As a matter of fact, we already have a couple of Iron Dome batteries to play with.  Two were activated at Fort Bliss in 2020 to provide the Army with an interim cruise missile defense capability.  By now the US armed forces should have acquired enough operational and institutional experience with them to be familiar with our needs, and has a core of personnel trained to operate them.  That will also speed up the deployment of new systems if they're urgently required.

The US military has traditionally placed less emphasis on anti-aircraft and anti-missile defenses than other countries, because it's relied on the traditional air superiority of the US Air Force to protect the rest of the armed forces.  That air superiority is now increasingly challenged, as witnessed in the efforts to protect ships in the Red Sea area from Houthi missile attacks.  Air raids and aircraft-launched missiles have not stopped enough of them from getting through.  Israel has a ferociously effective air force, but it hasn't relied on that alone to stop incoming fire - hence its development of Iron Dome and other missiles.  If we follow their example, and use their combat-tested technology, I think it'll give us a head start on filling in a capability gap for our armed forces.

Peter

A tasty, healthy fundraiser I'd like to see succeed

 

Readers may remember that in 2023, I wrote about an outfit called Steadfast Provisions, which produces some of the best-quality pemmican I've ever had the pleasure of eating.  I said at the time:

I've been so impressed by pemmican's effect on my own health that I wanted to share some of the results in advance, as it were.  For two weeks, excluding the weekend between, I ate no other solid food at all besides minimal quantities of pemmican.  I found I didn't need much of it at all to satisfy me, along with liquids such as water, black coffee and tea, bouillon, and occasionally some bone broth.  I've used it as part of an intensive weight-loss fasting diet, and the pemmican more than made up (nutritionally speaking) for the "regular" foods that I was no longer eating.  (Yes, I'm checking that through blood tests, which are an integral part of such a strenuous diet for obvious health and safety reasons.)

Steadfast Provisions makes pemmican in one-meal-size 750-calorie bars (in seasoned, unseasoned and "simply salted" flavors) and bricks containing enough nutrition for one person for three days or more (in seasoned and "simply salted" flavors).  I bought the latter, simply salted, because it was the only item available in their online store at the time (they sell out their production runs very quickly, to a dedicated customer base).  As noted above, it appears expensive at $97 per brick;  but when one works out the amount of fresh meat involved, the price is far more justifiable.  At over two pounds in weight, one brick of pemmican contains over ten pounds of lean fresh meat;  then there's the cost and time involved in drying, crushing, preparing and packaging it.  On a pound-per-dollar basis, that's a very reasonable price, IMHO.

On its own, the "simply salted" version of pemmican doesn't taste particularly appetizing, in my opinion (although it's not at all unpleasant - just bland;  the seasoned version might add more flavor).  However, if one cuts a slice and then spreads a little honey on it, or even a fruit preserve, it becomes far more palatable.  (I note that Native American tribes used to eat pemmican with wild honey.). Also, when combined with beef bouillon or bone broth, pemmican adds a huge dose of protein to the drink.  That's mainly how I've been using it.  As part of my liquid fasting diet, I've occasionally used Campbell's Beef Consommé, which has minimal calories and/or carbohydrates but a lot of flavor.  Chopping a small amount of pemmican into it is a great way to increase its food value.

There's more at the link, including the usefulness of pemmican in an emergency or travel situation.  It's amazingly useful stuff, and lasts a long time.  (We've just opened a pemmican brick that's sat in a storage cupboard for two years.  Tastes and looks just fine.)

I recently tried to re-order some pemmican, only to learn that Steadfast Provisions is busy setting up a brand-new commercial kitchen with all the necessary hardware to expand their production.  They're running a KickStarter to fund the new building, and are offering some significant discounts (up to 20%) on their products for those sponsoring it.  They're already well along with the project, and will resume production in their new premises within a couple of months.

I'd love to see them succeed with their fund-raiser.  This is a small company in a remote part of the country, producing a food that's almost unique (at least when done properly, as they do), that offers measurable health benefits and many uses.  (I'm here to tell you from my own experience, it really helps with keto and carnivore diets, and weight loss.)  If you, like me, are trying to follow such diets, and/or would like to help a small business that (IMHO) deserves to succeed, please click over to the KickStarter and contribute what you can.  I've already made my pledge there.

Thanks in advance.

Peter

Medical news . . . not good

 

I had a consultation with my urologist yesterday.  She gave me bad news.  The nuclear medicine test last week revealed that my left kidney is doing 90%+ of the work in my body;  the right kidney is moribund, doing less than 10% of the work.  In so many words, there's nothing more they can do to save it, and it'll have to come out.

I'm disappointed by this news, but I can't say I'm surprised.  Given the amount of trouble I've had from it over the past couple of years, this was always on the cards.  The only thing that makes me mad is that, if I'd had this nuclear medicine test right at the beginning, it might have revealed the dimensions of the problem without my going through four kidney procedures last year, and all the associated pain and extended discomfort.  Unfortunately, the local doctors I initially used did not prescribe that.  If I'd gone to the (much better) urologist in Dallas much earlier, things might have become clearer much sooner, and we might even have been able to save the kidney.

Anyway, onward!  My urologist will be on maternity leave for the next few months, and when she gets back we'll decide on dates, etc. for the removal.  If anything goes wrong in the interim, I'm to contact her and she'll have another urologist (one she would trust to work on her, which is a very good recommendation) do the removal, but as things stand at present that shouldn't be necessary.  Only if the "bad" kidney shuts down altogether will immediate removal be needed, and I'm told the signs of that will be obvious.

However, this means I'm going to have to find more money for the kidney surgery, plus continue saving like mad to put towards a double spinal fusion in the not too distant future.  I'm going to do a GiveSendGo fundraiser soon to help out with that, and my wife and I are in the throes of applying for a second mortgage on our home to raise more.  Fortunately we have a fair amount of equity in our house, so that won't be too difficult - but at today's interest rates, it'll be expensive.  (In brief, I can't rely on medical insurance and/or workers compensation to pay for that, due to a long and complex set of circumstances.  I'll explain more when it comes to the fundraiser.)  I'm not going to do the spine surgery until the kidney surgery is over and done, and I'm fully recovered from it.  Two such operations in quick succession would, I think, be very unwise!  I'll just live with the back pain, as I have for years, and pop a few more analgesics to cope.

Many thanks to all of you who've kept me in your thoughts and prayers, and to the very generous reader who helped to cover an onerous bill last year.  It's a humbling thought to know that so many people care about me.  I'll keep you posted - and please keep the prayers coming!

Peter

Diplomacy in action - pre-Trump style

 

Following this morning's first post, I thought it might be fun to see how "traditional" bureaucratic diplomacy used to work in the USA (and still works in far too many parts of the world).  It's this that President Trump is ripping to shreds with his new approach - and not before time, too.

That pretty much sums up the way the US government's bureaucrats and diplomats have been used to doing things.  I suspect they're in for a few rude shocks, over and above last weekend's little brouhaha over Colombia . . .

Peter

Diplomacy in action - Trump style

 

The diplomatic spat with Colombia over the past weekend about the repatriation of its citizens gave Cynical Publius pause for thought.  He describes the way it would have gone under the old system, versus how it actually went this time.

To fully understand just how remarkable today’s exchange with Colombia was, you need to understand how Washington DC has traditionally worked through these sorts of issues, and the different way it works now under Trump.

I’ll illustrate.

Traditional Approach:

1. Colombia announces it will not take our repatriation flights.

2. On Monday, the State Department convenes an interagency task force with DoD, NSC, DEA, INS, ICE, Commerce, Treasury and Homeland Security.

3. The task force meets for four days and develops a position paper.

4. The position paper is rejected by the Secretary of State, who is unhappy that insufficient equity considerations are built into the process.

5. The task force reconvenes a week later to redevelop three new, equity-centric courses of action and create a new position paper.  

6. The process is delayed a week because Washington DC gets three inches of snow.

7. SecState approves the new position paper for interagency circulation, and considerable input is received from the heads of other departments so the task force must reconvene.

8. The original three proposed responsive courses of action are scrapped in favor of a new, fourth course of action that achieves the worst aspects of the three prior courses of action but satisfies the interagency.

9. Someone in State who disagrees leaks to the Washington Post, who writes a story about how ineffective the Presidential administration is.

10. The White House Chief of Staff sets up a session three days later to brief the President, who approves the new fourth course of action.

11. Over a month after the issue is first raised, the State Department Public Affairs Officer holds a press conference announcing that Colombia has agreed to try to send fewer criminals into the US and everyone declares victory.

Trump Approach:

1. Colombia announces it will not take our repatriation flights.

2. After a par-5 third hole where he goes one under par, Trump uses his iPhone to post on social media as to how the USA will destroy Colombia’s economy if they do not do what the USA demands.

3. By the time Trump gets to the par-4 sixth hole, Colombia’s President has agreed to repatriate all the illegal Colombians in his own plane, which he will pay for.

4. Trump finishes three under par and goes to the clubhouse for a Diet Coke where he posts a gangsta AI image of himself and the new FAFO Doctrine.

5. Winning.

See the difference?  It’s called LEADERSHIP.

And so say all of us!  The reader comments on that thread are worth your time, too.

Peter

That's one way to do it

 

I'm sure many readers have seen photographs of US Navy ships looking rusty, bedraggled and dilapidated as they enter harbor.  That's the result of many years of bad decisions, allocating fewer sailors to ships than they need to care for themselves, and cutting budgetary allocations, time allowed for maintenance, and so on.

John Konrad, the head honcho at GCaptain, has some ideas about how to fix the problem.

We need a Homan for Navy ship painting!

Reporter: Are we going to have Admirals deported every single day?

Yes.

Reporter: is that sustainable?

Yes

Reporter: Do you think it’s safe to have sailors swinging off the side of ships with paintbrushes?

Yes.

Reporter: We hear reports that they are using strong acids that are dripping into the sea.

Yes.

Reporter: You are okay with a fish dying? 

Yes.

Reporter: I’m told these sailors are overworked and tired. Will they be painting every day?

Yes, and we are going to widen the aperture. Next week, we will be clearing out Pentagon desk wieners and giving them paint brushes.

Reporter: Many of the people in the Pentagon are aviators or cybersecurity or other jobs with no painting experience. 

Yes, and they will paint too.

Reporter: But swinging off the sides of a ship is dangerous.

Yes.

Reporter: Might some of them get injured?

Yes, if they don’t follow directions.

Reporter: What about civilian pentagon staff, some of whom are disabled?

Yes, we have the ability to lower wheelchairs down the side. 

Reporter: Are you going to have Admirals and Generals swinging over the side painting too? Some are over 60.

Yes.

Reporter: Are you going to be able to sleep at night knowing half the Pentagon hates you?

Yes, like a baby.

That's telling them!  One hopes the new Secretary of the Navy will take heed.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 246

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

Time for a little-known progressive rock gem.  Transatlantic was a supergroup in that genre, formed in 1999.  They disbanded in 2002, but reformed some years later, and have put out several albums since then.

Their second album, Bridge Across Forever, released in 2001, contained only four tracks.  Here's the longest, "Duel With The Devil", a free-form 26-minute piece in five movements.

It's certainly very different from the mainstream pop and R&B music of its time.  I'm not sure I'd regard it as "pure" progressive rock, as there are many other influences to be heard in it:  but it bears listening carefully to see how the musicians, already seasoned performers in their own right and their own groups, combine their talents in weaving something new to all of them.  That's the essence of a supergroup, after all, isn't it?

Peter

Greenpeace vs. US Navy nuclear submarine. Guess who won?

 

This video (about nine minutes long) is highly amusing, at least to most of us veterans.  It contains a fair amount of bad language (also familiar to veterans), but if you'll forgive that, I think you'll find it entertaining.  The submarine in question was the USS Flying Fish.

I think this encounter with Greenpeace offers an excellent example of what Massad Ayoob calls "a sudden and acute failure of the victim selection process" (by Greenpeace, of course).

Peter

The marvels of modern medicine (not!)

 

Well, I had an interesting afternoon yesterday.

First stop was the nuclear medicine department.  They stuck a needle in my arm and taped it down, for extended use, then administered a dose of some nuclear isotope (it sounded like it had something to do with a neutron bomb at one time).  After twenty minutes or so for it to percolate through my kidneys, they gave me an intravenous shot of a diuretic, to make those organs work overtime, and allow them to monitor how hard they worked in relation to the norm, and to each other.  The only problem with that is that it's a very high dose of diuretic, and it keeps working as long as any of it is left in one's body.  They gave me the shot at mid-afternoon, so it's still doing it's thing.  As I write these words, in the small hours of Friday morning, I'm still having to get out of bed every so often to get rid of excess fluid.  It's hard to sleep when one's bladder is threatening mutiny every time one turns over!

From there it was on to the "regular" imaging department in another building, for a CT scan with contrast to see the current state of my kidneys.  Nothing strange here, of course.  By the time everything was done, it was close to 5 p.m., and the navigation app was showing solid red everywhere on DFW's streets as the rush hour got under way.  My wife and I decided we weren't going to try to drive through that, so we headed for the nearest Trader Joe's store and indulged ourselves in browsing through their shelves and picking up many little luxuries that we can't get up north.  (Let's hear it for smoked trout!  On the rare occasions we manage to get some, Ashbutt, our farm kitten turned monster cat, goes absolutely nuts trying to get his share and more.  We're looking forward to seeing his face as he catches the scent of our latest purchase, when we open it.  His antics trying to sneak some of it away from us are very entertaining.)

Things were still kinda clogged up on the roads when we finished shopping, but we decided to leave anyway, using a different route.  We ended up at Sweetie Pie's restaurant in Decatur at about 7 p.m., and treated ourselves to supper there.  (They're the only place I know that offers ribeye chipped beef on Texas toast with creamed gravy - a very tasty combination that's vastly better than the usual military "SOS".)  Our hunger satisfied, we hit the road again, and got home shortly after 9 p.m. after eleven hours out and about.  Thanks to everyone for your prayers for driving safety.  There were a few narrow squeaks with 18-wheelers driving far too fast and too close for comfort, but nothing hit us and we didn't hit anyone else, for which thanks be to God.

I should be sleeping it all off now, but until the diuretic stops working I'm not going to get good rest.  I'll probably sleep late this morning to catch up with myself.

Peter

On the road again

 

I'm on my way down to the DFW metroplex again, this time for a nuclear medicine test of kidney function and another CT scan to see what's going on after my fourth surgical procedure last November.  (Four in a year is a bit much, let me tell you!)  Here's hoping for positive results all round.  I should know by this time next week.

Meanwhile, please amuse yourselves with the blogs in the sidebar.  Prayers for traveling safety, etc. will, as always, be greatly appreciated.

Peter

An interesting perspective on DOGE

 

The Telegraph in London has an interesting article (which may be paywalled) about how the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has come to this point, and where it'll be going from here.  The author appears to suspect that Elon Musk is up to no good, judging by the headline:

Inside Musk’s White House power grab

Billionaire pushes ahead with plans to infiltrate

all parts of Trump’s administration

after axing of his co-leader at Doge

I think that's overblown, but I daresay we'll see what we shall see.

Of interest is the article's take on how DOGE will operate.

In November, the president had said Doge would advise White House officials from outside government. On Monday, he ordered that it would be part of the federal government itself.

Doge will be part of the Executive Office of the President, which is a group of federal agencies, offices and staff responsible for national security, economic, foreign and domestic policy.

Doge has swallowed the US Digital Service (USDS), which was a White House office set up by Barack Obama, the former president, to be as nimble as possible to respond to tech crises.

It is now called the US Doge Service. The office does not have the usually burdensome federal government rules for hiring staff and Mr Trump has exempted it from a federal hiring freeze he announced in another executive order on Monday.

Jennifer Pahlka, who founded USDS in 2014, told The Washington Post: “It’s a very convenient vehicle for them. If you were trying to do something ambitious across the government, USDS is a good place to do it from.”

Doge teams of special government employees – a category of temporary worker – will fan out and embed themselves in federal agencies to identify spending and red tape for the axe.

The executive order tasks Doge with “modernising federal technology and software to maximise governmental efficiency and productivity”.

Each Doge team, expected to include at least a team lead, engineer, human resources specialist and lawyer, must be given “full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems and IT systems” to the “maximum extent consistent with law”.

There's more at the link.

I note with amusement that, by using an existing White House office and operating from within the administration, rather than as a formal advisory committee, DOGE has neatly sidestepped all the lawsuits trying to demand that it adhere to the provisions of FACA (as discussed yesterday).  Those lawsuits are now moot, as FACA doesn't apply to DOGE in its present form.  Nice legal sidestep there.

The article dwells on Elon Musk's alleged plan to grab unprecedented power in the Trump administration.  I doubt that, for two reasons.  First, President Trump is unlikely to allow anyone to usurp his powers - he saw what happened with that during his first term in office.  Second, Mr. Musk has more than enough on his plate with X, SpaceX, Tesla and other activities.  I doubt whether he has enough time or energy - and certainly not the desire - to abandon or neglect all that in order to become a tinpot dictator!

Nevertheless, I note that many mainstream news organizations seem to be eager to assert that there's tension and/or conflict between Musk and the President.  One might even suspect they want to create such tension and conflict, for their own partisan purposes.  I think we should read such reports with that in mind.

Peter

Is it any wonder that nobody trusts the mainstream media any more?

 

NBC appears to have comprehensively shot itself in the foot (yet again) with its latest hit piece against Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth.  It claimed, in so many words, that he had abused his second wife.  The article took eight paragraphs to lay out the allegations, made by Hegseth's former sister-in-law, described as "an anti-Trump far left Democrat".  It also acknowledged that the allegations were not spontaneous, but were in fact solicited by Democratic Senator Jack Reed, who opposes Hegseth's nomination.  Shades of the Kavanaugh nomination, anybody?

Only after all that, in the ninth paragraph of the report, did NBC admit that Hegseth's second wife had categorically denied all the allegations and referred the matter to her lawyers.

NBC aired all the allegations, painting Hegseth in the worst possible light, before admitting that the person he allegedly abused had said openly that he did not do so.  Fair and balanced reporting?  Not so much.  Political hit piece, slanted, biased and blatantly partisan?  You betcha.

This is just one example of what we've seen in the past few days.  Want another?  How about this headline in the New York Times?

How labeling cartels 'terrorists' could hurt the US economy

I think anyone who's had anything to do with terrorism (and, as I've mentioned before, I have years of experience in that field) will agree that the way the cartels behave is exactly like terrorism.  There's precious little difference in behavior between, say, Hamas in Gaza and the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico.  Does the New York Times acknowledge that reality?  Like hell it does.  Instead, it tries to put the most negative spin it can think of on President Trump's executive order classifying the cartels as terrorist organizations.  It's not interested in the facts, only in propagandizing its readers with a one-sided partisan presentation of them.  "All the news that's fit to print" appears to have become "Only the propaganda we see fit to create".

I have no objection to any news organization espousing a particular viewpoint.  That's their right.  However, when they fail basic standards of honesty and fairness, and deliberately and with malice aforethought set out to deceive, shade the truth, and lie (which can be by omission as much as by commission), they take that altogether too far.  (And if you think that either of the articles linked above was not published "with malice aforethought", I have this bridge in Brooklyn, New York City that I'd like to sell you.  Cash only, please, and in small bills.)

I think the mainstream news media have already shut themselves out of the market for a great many Americans.  Witness the viewership figures for the Presidential inauguration last Monday.  The media trumpeted that viewership was down, implying that this reflected people's lack of engagement with President Trump.  What they failed to mention was the tens of millions of people who watched the inauguration on social media, vastly more than had ever done so before.  (I've seen reports that as many as 75 million users used social media to follow all or part of the proceedings, but of course I can't verify them.)  I was among those using social media in preference to the mainstream news media, and so, I think, were many of my readers here.

Few, if any, of us trust the mainstream media any more - and that's entirely their own fault.  They've brought it on themselves.  Can they win back that trust?  Not without an awful lot of hard work and demonstrated trustworthiness over an extended period.

Peter

An interesting point about Presidential pardons

 

The inimitable Karl Denninger makes a very interesting point about Presidential pardons.  Emphasis in original.

The issuance of a pardon imputes guilt and acceptance of one, which is voluntary, confesses guilt (Burdick .v. United States, 1915.)  The reason you must voluntarily accept a pardon is that once pardoned you cannot assert 5th Amendment protections as the risk of criminal sanction has been removed.  Thus you must accept it voluntarily in that you are giving up Constitutional Rights, but in doing so you also confess to the truth of the offense(s) in question.

. . .

A pardon does not erase an offense -- that is, the offense of "parading" or whatever have you that a person was convicted of from Jan 6 is not "gone", however, it is undisputed, because Biden pardoned all of the Jan 6 committee members, that the government and members of Congress obstructed justice which was used to deny said persons a fair trial.  That issuance of the pardon by Joe Biden imputed said guilt and the acceptance thereof confessed to same by the committee members.

That doesn't make the actions of those who paraded (or stole and destroyed, for that matter) into "not occurred."  They did take those actions, and they were charged or convicted as the case may be.  But the trials were not fair as justice was obstructed so whether the original sentences were reasonable (or whether, for example, probation or a modest fine under misdemeanor penalties was a more-appropriate penalty in the case of someone who's crime was mere presence in the Capitol building) was never lawfully and fairly adjudicated.

Trump's pardons and commutations thus might objectively be considered "wrong" except for Biden's action on the way out of office, in which he pardoned obstruction of justice, witness tampering and willful destruction of evidence by persons who led to those prosecutions, all of which were part and parcel of the original charges and trials and due to the acceptance of Biden's pardons by those committee members is in fact a confession of guilt to those federal offenses.

As a direct result Biden's preemptive pardons make the Jan 6 pardons by Trump not only objectively reasonable they became, at the moment Biden issued them, mandatory.

There's more at the link.

That line of argument had not occurred to me.  I think it's stretching things a bit, because I'm sure President Trump had already decided on who he was going to pardon before he took the oath of office - and before President Biden had issued his last-minute pardons of the January 6th investigative committee.  Therefore, I don't think there was a cause-and-effect relationship between one set of pardons and the other.  However, in an ex post facto analysis, I think Mr. Denninger has a valid point.  Whether it legally justifies President Trump's pardons is open to debate, of course, and I'm sure lawyers will have a fine old time arguing about it.  (Of course, there is no need for such legal justification:  the Presidential pardon power is not based on such justification.  It's the prerogative of the Chief Executive of our Republic to pardon whoever he pleases, which is how President Biden got away with his blatantly self-serving and [in my opinion] dishonest and immoral pardons to begin with.)

This also raises the question of whether the Presidential pardon power should be subject to any restrictions, from the committees in many States that consider gubernatorial pardons before presenting their findings to the Governor, to something like the "advice and consent" of the Senate as required for many senior appointments.  I can see arguments in both directions.  I tend to think that unfettered pardon power is a good thing, as long as it's exercised in an honest, upright, moral manner.  How many of our Presidents can be said to have been honest, upright, moral men?  I'll leave that to you to decide for yourself.

Peter

When you're older, you may not be worth keeping alive

 

All over the world - the First World at least, North America, Europe, Australasia - older people are finding that their government(s) regard them as a burden, not an asset.  Old people cost a lot of money in medical care, pensions, entitlement programs and the like, and governments would really prefer not to have to pay those costs.

Dr. Vernon Coleman writes as an Englishman about what he sees in the UK, but his observations apply very much to other First World nations, including our own.  My thanks to three readers who sent me links to his article yesterday.  Here are a few excerpts.

In Britain, it is now official Government policy to ignore the needs of the elderly. This policy is common throughout the world. Doctors and nurses are told to let old people die - and to withhold treatment which might save their lives.

Hospital staff are told to deprive the elderly of food and water so that they die rather than take up hospital beds. Nursing home staff have even been given the right to sedate elderly patients without their knowledge. The only -ism that no one cares about is ageism ... Anyone over 60 is now officially old, though in a growing number of hospitals the cut off age for resuscitation is 55 or even 50.

. . .

Old people are a burden which the Government cannot afford and so the politicians will continue to authorise whatever methods are necessary to ensure that the number of burdensome old people is kept to a minimum. The existence of an absurd branch of medicine called geriatrics is used as an excuse to shove old people into backwater wards and to provide them with second-rate medical treatment.

. . .

The elderly are classified as the `Unwanted Generation': a political embarrassment ... The elderly are considered expensive, useless and expendable. The theory is that they don't contribute and rarely vote and can, therefore, be disregarded ... The official attitude seems to be that old people don't matter and don't have rights simply because they are old.

. . .

Ageism is, it seems, now endemic in health care. A reader wrote to tell me that when she visited her doctor complaining of painful knees her doctor told her, very abruptly, that her problem was that she was living too long. She was devastated. `It wasn't said as a joke,' she told me. `He meant it.' In the months before he died my father repeatedly complained: `People treat me like a fool because I am old'. A 79-year-old reader told me: `If you are over 55 they want you dead because you're too expensive alive.'

. . .

When doctors are owned by the Government then the Government's priorities take over. And so the elderly, who are regarded as an expensive burden, are considered expendable.

There's much more at the link.  Highly recommended reading, particularly if you're getting on in years (as I am).

We've seen plenty of horror stories about such (mis)treatment of older patients from Britain and Canada.  In the latter country, the elderly are frequently offered "assisted dying" rather than medical treatment, and if they refuse it, their treatment tends to be minimal, delayed, and less than optimal.  In Europe, it's now legal in some countries for doctors to euthanize some patients even if the patients don't want to die, because death is the most cost-effective treatment from the perspective of the government(s) paying for it.  That isn't what the statutes say, but it's certainly what they mean - and if doctors overstep the mark and are too quick to euthanize those requiring expensive treatment, they are seldom if ever prosecuted or called to account.

The problem is rearing its head in the USA as well.  Ten states now allow "assisted suicide", and others are considering it.  Speaking as a retired pastor and chaplain, I've heard from far too many former colleagues and acquaintances that there's increasing pressure from the medical "establishment" against older, sicker patients to take that option rather than opt for much more expensive and prolonged medical care.  Medicare was intended to provide medical insurance to older people, but its coverage is growing less and less for more and more expensive conditions.  Some treatments are not covered at all, even if they're the only meaningful option for the patient concerned.  What's more, patient co-payments are percentage-based, so as medical costs increase, so do patients' out-of-pocket expenses (which many of them can't afford).  The inevitable result is going to be patients who feel they have no option but to die, because they can't afford the medical care they need.

Of course, this is pretty much a First World problem.  I was born and raised in Africa, and spent many years in the Third World.  There, getting older is all too often a death sentence, even if the individual is still relatively healthy, because anything other than primary care is simply not available.  Furthermore, rights are all too often group- or tribe-based, rather than individual.  In tribal society, during times of famine, it was customary for all the older people to simply walk off into the surrounding countryside, sit down under a bush, and wait for death.  That might come through starvation, but it was often enough caused by predatory animals, who weren't about to pass up an easy, defenseless meal if one presented itself.  (That's how many man-eaters got their start;  eating starving or diseased humans.)  In such societies, the thought of socialized, subsidized medicine is laughable to the point of derision.  When there isn't enough to go around anyway, it's reserved for those who can contribute the most to the tribe's or the group's survival.  That does not include the elderly.

I've been facing pretty nasty health issues for a few years now, and I have more major surgery in my future, whether I like it or not.  It's sobering to consider that if I had to rely on government-subsidized care to provide it, in many parts of the First World I'd now be receiving "counseling" about the "benefits" of assisted suicide or euthanasia;  and in some, I might be told flatly that I can't have the surgery I need, so I may as well go home, live with the pain, and get ready to die.  Yes, it's already as bad as that.  I've been able to cover the necessary costs thus far, thanks to (some) private medical insurance and the generosity of friends, readers and others.  Will that continue?  Who knows?

It's a very sobering thought for those of us who are growing older, or who aren't in good health.  Food for thought indeed!  It might be a useful rallying point for older voters, too.  We may be only one constituency in the voting population, but our votes can be enough to sway an election one way or another.  Politicians should be reminded of that.

Peter

Bill Maher brings the smackdown to the politics of the LA fires

 

When even an acknowledged leftist like Bill Maher is so devastatingly sarcastic and caustic in his comments about California politicians, it's clear that politics in that state may be undergoing a sea change.  Can Democratic dominance of politics there continue as before, or will anger and disgust at the mishandling of the fires and their aftermath lead to a new alignment?

This segment is about nine minutes long, and is worth watching.

The image of all those fire engines that were out of service because they hadn't been repaired (due to budgetary restrictions) is very telling indeed.

Peter

I wasn't aware this world record existed...

 

... and I'm relatively certain that if it didn't, we'd be no worse off.  Be that as it may:

Turkish woman establishes world record for watermelons crushed with thighs

A Turkish woman who squashed five watermelons within a 60-second timeframe, using only her thighs, has set a world record ... She is handed a plaque and told she is "officially amazing," becoming the first person to earn the distinction of using the thighs to smash the most watermelons in 60 seconds, in the female category.

There's more at the link.  Here's a video clip of her record-setting performance.

I'm glad her efforts were fruitful, so to speak . . . but if she'd failed, would she have been melon-choly over it?

Peter

The Swamp knows its enemy, and is already fighting

 

The Swamp, or the Deep State, or whatever you want to call it, is well aware that it's fighting for its life against President Trump's agenda.  It's spent months, if not years, preparing its counterattacks against the onslaught it knows is coming.

The first evidence of that occurred literally minutes after President Trump was sworn in yesterday.  No less than three lawsuits were instantly filed against the proposed "Department of Government Efficiency", or DOGE, alleging that it had to comply with the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), but that it had not done so.  Therefore, according to one plaintiff, "This shortcoming renders DOGE’s membership imbalanced and unfit for the function it has been directed to perform".

Sounds impressively legalistic, doesn't it?  The only problem is, DOGE is still conceptual.  It's been proposed, and its agenda discussed, and senior appointees' names have been mentioned:  but as far as I'm aware, President Trump has not yet signed any executive order or other official document that establishes it in law.  It's still only a concept.  In other words, those lawsuits have been filed against a defendant that does not yet legally exist.  Furthermore, FACA's constitutionality has been called into question, so the Trump administration may ask the courts to rule on that issue before anything else is done.

It's also worth noting who filed the lawsuits:  Public Citizen, the American Public Health Association, and National Security Counselors.  Those three organizations, and anyone working for and/or representing and/or supporting them, have thereby publicly identified themselves as members of, or allied with, the Swamp/Deep State/whatever.  Those of us who regard the Swamp as the primary internal enemy of our Republic and its Constitution should take note of that, try to identify links between them and each other and other organizations and individuals, and watch them carefully.  "Know your enemy" remains a cardinal rule, in lawfare as much as warfare, and the Mikado's "little list" is a useful thing to keep up-to-date.

The Swamp knows full well that if DOGE functions as expected, it will dismantle many of the foundational elements of the Deep State, and probably fire many thousands of the employees needed for it to function.  It dare not risk that, so it's trying to derail the process before it can even begin.  It will argule legalese until the cows come home, and seek suitably liberal courts where it can file its cases.  I've no doubt some judges will be found to lend a sympathetic ear to its arguments.

However, this also gives the Trump administration a chance to re-focus DOGE's task, purpose and structure.  If its lawfare opponents are attacking it on grounds A, B and C, DOGE can be reoriented to avoid those legal pitfalls and instead use legal elements D, E and F as its foundation.  Furthermore, it need not necessarily be established as a government department at all.  The Swamp has used non-governmental organizations (NGO's) to do its dirty work for years:  things like censoring public discourse, or indoctrinating the education system, or what have you.  There's no reason (at least in theory) why something similar to DOGE could not be set up by conservative NGO's, existing or new, and its reports submitted to the Administration just as left-leaning NGO's have done.  After all, the three organizations filing these lawsuits advertise themselves as "think tanks", "advocacy groups", and influencers of government policy.  As far as I know, none of them are subject to the provisions of FACA.  Why can't DOGE be set up (under a different name, of course) as precisely the same type of organization, if push comes to shove?  I'm sure the funds needed to do things that way would be forthcoming.  Heck, one might even categorize some of the expenses involved as falling under President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, and use funds already allocated under that Act for the purpose.  (And wouldn't that make the Swamp see red???)

The lawfare lobby is going to try to tie the Trump administration in legal knots in any and every way they can.  It might be time to define the specific area or scope that a given level of federal court can affect.  At present, even an entry-level federal court can issue an order affecting an issue nationwide.  It may be time to codify a system whereby low-level courts' orders affect only that area under their local jurisdiction;  appeals courts affect only the states under their jurisdiction;  and only the Supreme Court can issue an order binding on the entire country.  That would render a lot of low-level cases useless to the lawfare lobby, which would have to appeal cases higher and higher in the system to achieve their objectives.

I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know if that's practical.  Would any lawyers among my readers care to weigh in on the matter?

Peter

Quote of the year (so far)

 

"Woke"-ness, political correctness, sexism and sheer plain daftness are all evident in this one-liner:

“When Black female students are repeatedly disciplined for being social, loud, or goofy in the mathematics classroom, they experience mathematical violence.”

"Mathematical violence"???  What on earth is that?  Perhaps it's a variation on the ancient Roman custom of decimation, where one legionary out of every ten was put to death to punish severe misconduct?  There's certainly mathematics involved in that, and violence too (very much so) . . . but I haven't yet come across any school, college or university advocating the execution of one in ten students for "being social, loud or goofy".  Perhaps someone should try that, on the grounds of being mathematically - albeit not politically - correct?

The toenail-curling stupidity and mindless blathering of the "woke" are still with us, it seems . . .

Peter

Biden's "pre-emptive pardons" and the rule of law

 

President Biden's issuing of last-minute "pre-emptive pardons" to several politicians and bureaucrats is both legal, and a stunning abuse of presidential power.

They're legal because our President does, indeed, have the power to pardon offenses against Federal law - even if those pardons have never been charged with or convicted of such offenses.  The presumption is that they have, indeed, done so;  otherwise there'd be nothing to pardon, would there?

They're also a stunning abuse of presidential power in that those pardoned today, according to all we know of what they did while in their respective offices, did indeed abuse the power(s) of those offices to wage a political vendetta against the man who will succeed President Biden in office later today.  In other words, it's now a matter of fact, if not law, that a President can use "the system" to persecute, oppress and attack his opponents, then ensure that they get away with it and can never be held accountable for what they did.

The only useful thing about these pardons is that they prevent those pardoned from invoking their Fifth Amendment constitutional rights against self-incrimination.  They can no longer be tried for any offenses they may have committed, but they can be subpoenaed to give evidence to any inquiry into what those offenses might have been.  Furthermore, if they refuse to give evidence, or lie under oath, they remain liable to a conviction for contempt of court and/or perjury.  They no longer have the right to keep silent about the actions that were pardoned.  One hopes, at a minimum, that their mendacity, corruption and misuse of their office(s) will be thus exposed.

When the full tale of the Biden Presidency is finally unveiled, I suspect it might turn out to have been the most crooked, corrupt and criminal Presidency in our nation's history.  Sadly, it now looks as if some of those most responsible for that will get away with their crimes, as far as the law is concerned.  One hopes that since our judicial system is now prevented from holding them accountable, they will face justice in some other suitably condign way.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 245

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

How many of you remember the Swingin' '60's?  A familiar voice on British airwaves (and, to a lesser extent, American) at that time was a young lady stage-named Cilla Black.  She was a close friend of the Beatles and many of their contemporaries, and they wrote several songs for her that became hits.  She had a simple, unforced, almost little-girl-type voice that fitted the mood of the time.

To begin, here's my favorite of her songs:  "If I Thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind".

Here's her second No. 1 hit in the UK, in 1964:  "You're My World".

Paul McCartney wrote "The Long And Winding Road" for the Beatles, but he went on record as saying that Cilla's 1972 rendition was the definitive version of the song.

Finally, here's "Something Tells Me (Something's Gonna Happen Tonight)".

Cilla Black died in 2015, aged 72, after a fall at her villa in Spain.

Peter

Useful information and insights for "preppers" and avoiding a disaster

 

We've written a lot about that subject here over the years (see the sidebar for some article links), but we never stop learning - particularly from the experiences of others.  After the Los Angeles fires, there's a lot more of that out there.

Eaton Rapids Joe has just published three articles on his blog that you may find useful:

New "Preppers"

New Preppers: The Time-Distance-Options relationship

New Preppers: Stay or Go?

In the third of those articles, he also linked to a classic article originally published in 1989:

Backpack Fever

It examines the pro's and con's (there are many of the latter!) of "bugging out" with a backpack to avoid a dangerous situation.  There are times when one may have no choice in the matter (the Los Angeles fires being a prime example), but in general it's best to stay put and ride out a disaster in one's home (assuming one has applied basic forethought to one's preparations).

Recommended reading, all of them.

Peter

For the benefit of Californians needing home repair contractors...

 

... here's a helpful tool from cartoonist Stephan Pastis.  Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.

I don't know how many building and/or repair contractors there are in the greater Los Angeles area, but I suspect they're going to have enough work on their plates to keep them fully occupied for years to come.

I spoke with an acquaintance yesterday who's on the brink of abandoning his burned-out Los Angeles home and leaving the state.  It was his grandfather's and his father's home before him.  He had no mortgage on the house, but was under-insured compared to its current market value (or what was its market value prior to the fire).  According to him, he's already been advised that the insurers will apply averaging to what they pay out, considering him to be self-insured for part of the value, so they won't give him the full amount for which he'd insured the house with them.  Needless to say, he's not happy.  However, his place of work went up in smoke along with several thousand houses, so he's suddenly free to consider a move.  All things considered, he's probably going to take the insurance money for his house, sell the land on which it stood (which might still be worth a considerable amount in its own right) and head for a freer state with more opportunities for his teenage children.  He was asking me all sorts of questions about Texas, particularly our housing prices, which are low enough compared to California that he can probably buy something acceptable for cash.  If he can find a job that fits his qualifications and experience, I daresay he'll be heading this way within weeks.

I suspect he's likely to be the first of many . . .

Peter

Recycling... and also nauseating!

 

This is one news story I would never have expected to read.

In a gleaming laboratory in Edinburgh, robotic machines whirr and mix. The final product that they are creating will be a pine-smelling chemical that can be used as an ingredient in perfumes. But the starting point is very different: a brown, gloopy, fat mixture, recently fished out from below ground - fatbergs.

Fatbergs are the foul phenomenon found lurking in (and blocking up) sewers. The development of the technology used to perform this apparent alchemy is being described by some as a new industrial revolution.

. . .

Prof Stephen Wallace from the University of Edinburgh is among those turning the fatbergs into perfumes. "It's a crazy idea," he admits to me, "but it works."

Fatbergs are accumulated lumps of fat from cooking oils, toilet and other food waste that people put down their drains. Prof Wallace gets his from a company that specialises in fishing them out of sewers and turning them into biofuels. They arrive at the lab in a tube.

The first step is to sterilise the material in a steamer. Prof Wallace then adds the specially modified bacteria to the remnants of the fatberg. The bacteria have a short section of DNA inserted, to give the bacteria their particular properties.

The fatberg gradually disappears, as the bacteria eat it, producing the chemical with the pine-like smell - this can be used as an ingredient in perfumes.

There's more at the link, including more maggot-gagging pollutant products that are being "reprocessed" into something useful.

Would you apply a perfume to your body that had started out as a fatberg?  I find the very concept repulsive . . . but I guess it's not much different from drinking recycled, purified sewer water, as millions of us do in many cities every day.  In this day and age, we have so much waste to dispose of that it makes sense to recycle and reuse it, rather than create even more pollution by dumping it somewhere.

Nevertheless, the thought of a fatberg being used as a perfume ingredient is about as cringe-worthy as anything I've ever heard!

Peter