25 July 2025

TFR And Coupling Rates

The total fertility rate (TFR) is a point in time estimate of the number of children that the average woman has over a lifetime, compiled from a population weighted average of the number of children born to women of each age.

The "coupling rate" is the percentage of adults who are married to, or cohabit out of marriage with, a partner.


Note that these are trend line figures and not absolute numbers with 2010 set at 100.

The strong implication of this data is that in the last thirty years, in developing and developed countries, declining rates of child bearing are mostly a product of declining rates of couples living together (whether or not they are married), rather than being mostly due to couples having children at a much lower rate due to wider use of contraception (which probably is the biggest factor in undeveloped countries).

The Recent History Of Russian Military Aggression

Russia has been trying to rebuilt its Soviet era empire for a while, but the Ukraine War and the defeat of Syria's regime, has forced it to back off.
As the Russian military’s demand for weapons has left Moscow unable to fulfill promised exports, countries such as Armenia are turning to other suppliers in Europe and India; other regional states are purchasing weapons from Turkey and even China. And as Russia has withdrawn forces and equipment from its military bases in the Caucasus and Central Asia to redeploy them to Ukraine, countries in both places are resolving conflicts that Russia has long exploited for its own benefit. Improved cooperation within the wider region is also creating new opportunities to enhance trade connectivity and build alternatives to transit through Russia. By reducing the dependency that once defined their relationship with their former hegemon, countries in the region have become increasingly capable of engaging Russia (and other powers) on favorable terms.

And yet if history is any guide, Moscow could go to extreme lengths to preserve its regional dominion. In 2014, before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia annexed Crimea and intervened in the Donbas region; earlier, in 2008, it invaded Georgia. Today, the Kremlin maintains a proprietary view of not only Ukraine but also many other countries. Ukraine and Belarus remain Moscow’s top priorities, but the Kremlin also aspires to a kind of suzerainty over Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Moldova and maintains a more distant post-imperial regard toward the remainder of Central Asia. 
The 2023 Russian Foreign Policy Concept, the strategy document outlining parameters and priorities for Russia’s foreign policy, resurrected the term “near abroad” to describe these countries, pointing to their “centuries-old traditions of joint statehood, deep interdependence … a common language, and close cultures” as a justification for efforts to keep them within Moscow’s sphere of influence. Once the fighting in Ukraine winds down, the Kremlin will almost certainly ramp up its attempts to coerce other neighbors to join Russian-backed multilateral bodies, strengthen economic ties, adopt Russian-style laws targeting civil society, and accept a larger Russian military and intelligence presence on their territory.

The Proportion of Two Parent Families Has Been Rising Since 2005

According to this source replying on U.S. census data, the percentage of children living with two parents (71.1%), as of 2023 (the most recent year for which final figures are available), is the highest it’s been since 1991 (34 year ago).

This is unsurprising given record low teen pregnancy levels.

At the low point, in 2005, this percentage was 67.3%. In 1970, it was 85.2%. It was 87.7% in 1960.

The Air Force Plans To Phase Out B-2 Bomber By 2030

In a continuing reshuffling of Department of Defense procurement under the Trump Administration, the Air Force now wants to retire the B-2 stealth bomber with the similar, but smaller and more modern B-21 stealth bomber, in just five years, rather than its previously planned 32 years from now. 

The current plan is to buy far more B-21s (at least 100) than the current fleet of B-2 bombers (which is under 20).

The B-21 is almost ready for prime time, having made its first flight in 2023,  and almost unprecedentedly for a project of this scale, is under budget. The lower cost is a result of accepting the limits of current technologies (which have still advanced significantly from the B-2) rather than trying to push beyond them, and of resisting the temptation to make the bomber supersonic or giving it air-to-air missile capabilities. It's smaller size also reduces the per bomber cost.

The B-21 will have a smaller bomb payload than the B-2, the B-1, or the B-52, despite having a similar global range. While the B-2 Bomber can carry two 30,000 pound GBU-57 MOP bunker buster bombs (the largest in U.S. service which it entered in 2011), a capability highlighted in a recent B-2 bomber strike on nuclear facilities in Iran, it will carry, at most, a single 22,000 pound "next generation penetrator" which can be delivered from a greater distance, from a platform that is more stealthy in the first place, and is more accurate, but has a smaller warhead. The 22,000 pound NGP is about the same size as the C-130 delivered MOAB GBU-43 bunker buster bomb.

Does this moderately degraded capability, that has been used only once and didn't exist until 2011 matter?

It would take about three B-21s to deliver the same amount of ordinance as one B-2. But the plan is to buy more than three times as many B-21s as the current fleet of B-2s. Even the 30,000 pound MOP bombs used in pairs in Iran did not, however, as briefly claimed after the strike, decisively destroy the deep nuclear facility bunkers there anyway.  

A tactical nuclear weapons, like the Cold War 51 pound Mk-54 Davey Crocket with a yield of 10-20 tons of TNT, could do the same, but would require crossing the threshold to using nuclear weapons. 

This would be a yield about 1,000 times smaller than the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan in World War II. The Hiroshima A-Bomb weighed 9,700 pounds (including 64 kg of Uranium-235) producing a 13-18 kiloton yield, and the Nagasaki A-Bomb weighed 10,300 pounds (including 6.2 kg of Plutonium-239) producing a 19-23 kiloton yield.

Realistically, one of the main missions of the B-21 would be to launch anti-ship missiles against a feared large Chinese fleet trying to invade Taiwan, and for that mission, a 22,000 pound bomb load is more the sufficient and quantity matters more than quality.

The Air Force has just announced an earlier retirement of the B-2 bomber by 2030. This is the second time that this has happened. This budget driven decision means that “…new B-21 must replace—and not be additive to—much of the existing bomber fleet. The Air Force had previously planned to operate the B-1 and B-52 until 2040, and the B-2 to 2058.” In addition, the Air Force has almost zeroed B-2 modernization.  
This may eliminate the U.S. ability to deliver the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (GBU-57/B or MOP) which is by far the most effective U.S. conventional weapon against hard and very deeply buried targets. The B-2 bomber is the only U.S. bomber cleared to deliver the MOP. It is also the only current U.S. bomber that can penetrate advanced air defenses. 
At about the same time, the Air Force accelerated the development of the Next Generation Penetrator (NGP) which would be carried by the new B-21. The NGP will be significantly lighter (no more 22,000 pounds) compared to the MOP’s (30,000 pounds). It will be superior to the MOP in some important respects. It will have a standoff capability, which is very important against advanced air defenses and substantially greater accuracy. However, it is unclear that it will be equal much less superior to the MOP in attacking and destroying large, hard and very deeply buried facilities such as Fordow in Iran. Moreover, at this point the NGP is untested. 
. . . 
The NGP has 8,000 pounds less weight available for high explosives which is only about 20% of the weight of the MOP. This is usual for penetrators which have to be built very heavy and strong to survive rock and reinforced concrete penetration. In addition, a significant part of the NGP weight will be the rocket motor which will further reduce the weight available for high explosives. Thus, it is possible that the NGP will be less effective than the MOP against large, hard and very deeply buried targets such as Fordow.

The B-21 bomber, the world’s first sixth generation aircraft, is an enormous improvement over the B-2 in most respects. It clearly has much greater stealth. The Air Force has characterized its stealth level as “extremely low observable.” Reportedly, its radar cross section has been reduced from .1 square meter in the B-2 to either .0001 or .0004 in the B-21. This would greatly increase its ability to penetrate advanced air defenses. Its stealth is much more robust than the much older technology which was used in the B-2. This will substantially increase bomber combat availability. The aircraft carries advanced sensors and electronic warfare capabilities. The B-21 has an open systems architecture which will facilitate future upgrades. Northrop Gruman has done an incredibly good job in bringing the B-21 into existence actually under budget. When the contract award was announced in 2015, many doubted whether this was possible.

However, the B-21 was designed in a period of defense budget starvation under the Obama Administration. It was deliberately made less capable than it could have been. Retired Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz, wrote in his memoires that the Next Generation Bomber (NGB, sometimes called the 2018 bomber) “‘…had grown too big’ and was carrying too many missions and requirements. It was to have an air-to-air missile capability for self defense.” This original concept for the NGB was de facto terminated in 2008 although it was described as a delay. The need to minimize B-21 costs (no more than $550 million per aircraft in 2010 dollars) resulted in an adoption of a low technical risk strategy, a smaller bomber, no possibility of it ever having a supersonic capability and a production equipment limitation on the possible production rate. Some analysts believe that stealth must be combined with supersonic speed to deal with the long-term projected threat environment and that the number of penetrating bombers must be doubled.

The size and weight of a bomber has a significant impact on its costs. For most missions the B-21s bomb load is sufficient. However, good capabilities against hard and very deeply buried facilities require the maximum practical bomb load. 
. . . 
It is clear that the B-21 is significantly smaller and lighter than the B-2. (The B-2 itself is also substantially lighter and smaller than the other U.S. heavy bombers, the B-52s and B-1s). According to noted aviation journalist Bill Sweetman, “The B-21’s resemblance to the original B-2 bomber design is close, but it is a smaller aircraft, with a wingspan estimated at 132 ft. compared with the B-2’s 172 ft., and is approximately half the empty weight.” If so, this would make it an advanced medium bomber with intercontinental range. The payload of the B-21 is clearly limited compared to the bombers it is replacing. Sweetman and a number of other aerospace journalists have reported that the bomb load of the B-21 is about 20,000 pounds. Christian Orr, editor of the National Security Journal, writes, “If Mr. Sweetman’s estimates are accurate, that would cast serious doubt upon the newer warbird’s ability to carry the 30,000-lb. (14,000 kg) GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bomb immortalized by its usage in the Midnight Hammer strikes.”

There are many reports that the B-21 can carry a single MOP, but this appears to largely be speculation. There is no official confirmation of this and it appears unlikely. If the weapons load is limited to about 20,000 pounds, it cannot carry even a single MOP. There are reports of higher bomb load numbers for the B-21 but the limitation of the weight of the NGP to 22,000 pounds suggests that the lower estimates of the B-2 bomb load are more accurate.

Even if the B-21s were able to carry the MOP, they certainly would be unable to carry more than one compared to two on the B-2. The MOP was originally designed to be used two at a time to maximize the probability of target destruction.

From here

In other military procurement news, the U.S. Navy is extending the life of three cruisers from 2026 to 2030. The U.S. Army is adding four new Patriot Missile battalions. And, the U.S. Marine Corps has ordered 44 of its new air defense systems for about $32.52 million:

The MRIC (Medium-Range Intercept Capability) is a mobile and modular air defense system developed specifically for the U.S. Marine Corps to provide a medium-range intercept capability against a wide array of aerial threats. Designed to operate in expeditionary and contested environments, MRIC fills a critical capability gap between short-range systems like the Stinger missile and long-range assets such as Patriot. The system is capable of intercepting cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and indirect fire threats such as rockets, artillery shells, and mortars.

Education Reduces Poverty

Education reduces poverty through economic development in economies that use this resource to make its economy more skilled. Specifically, it helps the poor in developing countries and not just a wealthy elite.
This article quantifies the role played by education in the reduction of global poverty. I propose tools for identifying the contribution of schooling to economic growth by income group, integrating imperfect substitution between skill groups into macroeconomic growth decomposition. I bring this “distributional growth accounting” framework to the data by exploiting a new microdatabase representative of nearly all of the world’s population, new estimates of the private returns to schooling, and historical income distribution statistics. 
Education can account for about 45% of global economic growth and 60% of pretax income growth among the world’s poorest 20% from 1980 to 2019. A significant fraction of these gains was made possible by skill-biased technical change amplifying the returns to education. Because they ignore the distributional effects of schooling, standard growth accounting methods substantially underestimate economic benefits of education for the global poor.
Amory Gethin, "Distributional Growth Accounting: Education and the Reduction of Global Poverty, 1980-2019" The Quarterly Journal of Economics, qjaf033 (July 22, 2025).

Macroeconomics Is An Art Not A Science And Is Influenced By Politics

Don't trust Republican economists when it comes to GDP during Republican Presidencies or the benefits of tax cuts.
Using a novel dataset linking professional forecasters in the Wall Street Journal Economic Forecasting Survey to their political affiliations, we document a partisan bias in GDP growth forecasts. Republican-affiliated forecasters project 0.3-0.4 percentage points higher growth when Republicans hold the presidency, relative to Democratic-affiliated forecasters. Forecast accuracy shows a similar partisan pattern: Republican-affiliated forecasters are less accurate under Republican presidents, indicating that partisan optimism impairs predictive performance. This bias appears uniquely in GDP forecasts and does not extend to inflation, unemployment, or interest rates. 
We explain these findings with a model where forecasters combine noisy signals with politically-influenced priors: because GDP data are relatively more uncertain, priors carry more weight, letting ideology shape growth projections while leaving easier-to-forecast variables unaffected. Noisy information therefore amplifies, rather than substitutes for, heterogeneous political priors, implying that expectation models should account for both information rigidities and belief heterogeneity. Finally, we show that Republican forecasters become more optimistic when tax cuts are salient in public discourse, suggesting that partisan differences reflect divergent beliefs about the economic effects of fiscal policy.
Benjamin S. Kay, Aeimit Lakdawala, and Jane Ryngaert, "Partisan Bias in Professional Macroeconomic Forecasts" SSRN (2025).

10 July 2025

Making Enemies

One of the big problems facing the GOP is that it is making enemies fast. Furthermore, Trump relies almost entirely on fear and greed to hold onto power. When that works, it works. But the moment his threats prove hollow and his promises are no longer credible, many of his elite level supporters will turn on him in an instant and disavow him as quickly as he has disavowed a huge share of his minions.

Also, now that Trump has delivered on creating an ultra-conservative U.S. Supreme Court (both due to their abortion politics and for other reasons) and permanent tax cuts for the rich, many supporters who collectively held their noses to back him predominantly for those reasons, no longer need to support him.

* First and foremost, the Roman Catholic Church has started to seriously mobilize against their anti-immigration efforts. They have picked a fight with the largest religious denomination in the nation, led by a Pope who understands American politics at an intuitive level, which includes an important share of their base and of their elites. While White Evangelicals are realistically going to continue to be Trump and the GOP's do or die supporters, they need the political support of conservative white and Hispanic Catholics as well to secure majorities.

So far, the Catholic Church in the U.S. has only taken some baby steps to accommodate a heavily immigrant group of parishioners. But the Pope has an immense capacity to turn up the heat, and Trump has denied himself a key tool to fight that by having the IRS take the position that churches can endorse candidates in our elections from the pulpit.

What happens if Catholic justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, in Congress, and in the Trump Administration are denied communion, or even excommunicated? What happens if Pope Leo declares that Trump and his minions are servants of Satan?

The Papacy hasn't tried anything like that for centuries. But there are precedents for a Pope doing so. If Pope Leo sees Trump acting increasingly like Hitler towards a population that is mostly Catholic, the Pope has plenty of room to escalate and the institutional capacity to coordinate that effort in a way that few other movements in the U.S. can. 

Even if the Pope and his bishops and clergy do nothing more than throw shade at Trump, that's something that could flip a lot of swing voters (and not just Catholic ones).

* Southern voters burned by hurricanes, floods, tornados and other natural disasters and denied the federal disaster relief assistance that they've become accustomed to are another set of enemies who will burn hot to oppose Trump and weren't expected what they got, even if Trump campaigned on it. It isn't even just a matter of the economic substance of it. A big part of Trump's appeal in Red States was the perception that he cared more about people like them than the Democrats did. His indifference to their suffering during disasters undermines that perception.

* Veterans tend to vote conservative, but have received almost no respect, with Trump repeatedly disparaging them, and have seen programs for their benefit cut mercilessly. Some veterans will see this as breaking faith with them and dump him. Veterans disproportionately subscribe to a culture of honor, something utterly foreign to Trump.

* Farmers  and small business owners, especially in rural America and small towns, who have been badly hurt by Trump's trade policies, the deportation of their workforces, the imminent shutdown of their local hospitals, and deep cuts to their community schools are another set of potential enemies.

* Everyone involved in the healthcare industry has been alienated by Medicaid cuts, immense threatened pharmaceutical tariffs, indiscriminate cuts to medical research that weren't telegraphed on the campaign trail, and the utter insanity of RFK, Jr.'s pseudo-scientific approach to public health, even wealthy doctors who benefit from his tax cuts.

* The tax cuts Trump has provided to Wall Street and big business are meaningless if they are losing money, which his disastrous trade policy, threats to the independence of the Fed, and the damages he has done to the value of the dollar and the credit rating of the United States has done.

* Trump has flipped Elon Musk from being "co-President" to his enemy. The richest man in the world is a formidable foe, and is the leader of the coalition of tech billionaires that backed Trump. Musk's proposed "American Party" could also split the conservative vote and hand victory to Democrats in many races.

* Non-MAGA smart conservatives from federal judges, to think tank figures and professors, to older generation Republican leaders, to pundits, to military officers, are not keen on some of the directions Trump is taking, such as disregard for rule of law, civility and respect, and his anti-intellectualism, even if they like many of the changes he has made in substance.

* Federal employees are the source of every federal elected official's power. And, Trump has done everything he can to purge civil servants who won't be loyal to him and to cow those who are left with fear. But he's shed a lot of competent seasoned officials, made life very hard for those who are left, and betrayed the longstanding trust of almost every federal employee. So undermined, the federal government is going to be a lot less competent and effective, and federal employees will be looking for passive-aggressive ways to undermine him at every turn. no matter how hard he tries to assert control. And, a large percentage of federal employees who have abruptly seen their secure, high prestige futures shattered are now on a singular mission to use their insider knowledge and connections to fight him with all of their being.

* Educators from every school and higher educational institution in the country now see Trump and the GOP as their unequivocal enemies. While this was never an industry that strongly backed the GOP before, their long standing efforts to be neutral towards the GOP have been shattered now that the GOP has declared outright war on all of them. These institutions are strong not only in their own right, but also because they have a carefully cultivated and nurtured alumni base who will be willing to go to bat for them that includes many powerful, rich, and influential people.

DOD Abandons Cargo Seaplane Program

Aurora Flight Sciences tweaked its original Liberty Lifter design to move floats to its wingtips and adjust its tail to better accommodate its aft cargo door. (Aurora Flight Sciences)

The Defense Advanced Research Program Agency (DARPA) developed an inexpensive, long range, C-17 sized cargo seaplane, tentatively called the "Liberty Lifter" which could land even in rough seas and would allow airlifts to many places that large, long range cargo planes could otherwise not go, filling an important gap in U.S. military capabilities. But, despite the project's success, the program has been abandoned:

The nearly three-year-old Liberty Lifter program was intended to design and build — and possibly float and fly — a long-range, low-cost seaplane that could take off and land in rough seas. DARPA said in 2023 that it wanted the plane to have roughly the same size and capacity as a C-17 Globemaster, which can carry more than 170,000 pounds of cargo such as M1 Abrams tanks.

In a statement to Defense News, DARPA confirmed it had concluded the Liberty Lifter program in June. Aviation Week first reported the ending of the Liberty Lifter program.

“We’ve learned we can build a flying boat capable of takeoff and landing in high sea states,” program manager Christopher Kent said. “The physics make sense. And we’ve learned we can do so with maritime building techniques and maritime composites.” But DARPA said it will not move forward with building an aircraft, which would only be a demonstrator.

“We think our findings validate the hypothesis we had going in: you can build platforms that fly significantly cheaper and at significantly more locations than we do today,” Kent said. “This opens up a pathway for next generation aircraft to be built using far more efficient construction technologies.” DARPA also said more work needs to be done to blend maritime construction with aircraft certification. . . . 

“Through the Liberty Lifter program, we were able to show the viability of the design and the feasibility of novel manufacturing techniques,” Aurora said. . . . 

DARPA hoped creating a cargo seaplane could lead to new opportunities for the military and commercial organizations to conduct fast logistics missions, as well as develop innovative manufacturing techniques and materials to bring down the cost of building large aircraft. . . . . Aurora and DARPA used simulations and tests of scaled models to demonstrate the seaplane’s technical design, as well as building and stress-testing examples of the new methods and materials intended for the plane. . . . DARPA confirmed it spent about $98 million in all on Liberty Lifter.

09 July 2025

Midweek Rants And Observations

* It was 101º F today in Denver. Fortunately, we have a brand new swamp cooler, so this is survivable. I'm honestly a little surprised that our power stayed on. We've had two power outs for more than an hour each on hot afternoons in the last few weeks.

* My office suite is having a potluck next week. There was a sign up sheet for names and what you are bringing. A majority of people who signed up said they were bringing "TBD". Suck it up my office neighbors. Commit to something.

* Why does it take the City of Denver weeks for a deed that is recorded and digitally processed by the Clerk & Recorder's office weeks to be reflected in the Assessor's Office records?

* A recent new report stated:

Church stands by call to execute gay people: “I will not apologize for preaching the Word of God.”: A men's night sermon said gay people should "blow yourself in the back of the head."
Just what I would expect a Baptist church in Indiana to say. The most vile people in America are Christians.

"Not all Christians are this bad" you say? Then why aren't they picketing outside the steps of this church for heresy and blasphemy? It isn't my place to do that. Not my monkeys, not my circus. But it is hard to take any Christians seriously when this isn't the instant and vigorous response of Christians who say they're wrong.

* There is a tornado warning in Washington D.C. right now. WTF?

* There are too many crazy people in this country, and not just in the White House.
A group that calls itself an anti-government militia told News 9 it’s “absolutely” targeting Oklahoma weather radars, claiming they control the weather. The warning comes just days after a vandal knocked out News 9’s live radar.

* I don't doubt for a minute that the allegations of this complaint, which was later dismissed (not on the merits), were true:

May be an image of text

* The people who leave anti-immigration comments on social media posts and news story (and there are lots of them) are among the most vile people you'll see on the Internet. These people would have been pro-Holocaust, pro-segregation, pro-slavery, and pro-witch burning.

It is a reminder that the evil that is Donald Trump runs deep. There are there millions, if not tens of millions of these monsters in the United States.

Stupid hurts people. But this level of vile goes far beyond that. They are as bad as the most culpable violent criminals in our prisons. Where do these people come from? What can we do about them?

* It just doesn't stop.


* Anti-aging, life extension drugs are a real possibility, if not in my lifetime, in the lives of my children.

A simple monthly injection allows mice to live 25% longer and free from diseases: The strategy — the injection of a simple antibody — has already begun to be tested in humans in an attempt to cure age-related illnesses.

* The Texas floods have are already the fourth most deadly floods in Texas history. There are still 161 people missing, so they could easily rise to #2, and floods in San Antonio are ongoing.

May be an image of text that says 'FOX4 STORM 1900 GALVESTON DEADLIEST FLOODS TEXAS DEATHTOLL DEATH TOLL 12,000* 220 1921 SAN ANTONIO 1913 SAN ANTONIO 2025 2025TEXAS TEXAS 180 HARVEY 2017 109* 68' 

Most of these deaths were preventable. The part of Texas hit has consistently had the highest concentration of flood deaths in the United States since the 1930s. State and local officials rejected a proposal in 2017, in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, to install flood detection devices and warning sirens but weren't willing to spend the money to do so. Trump's cuts to NOAA and the National Weather Service impaired the warning that people at risk in the flood received. Trump gutted FEMA which only started to take action to help 72 hours after the floods when it was already too late (the U.S. Coast Guard, in fairness, stepped in anyway and saved about 165 lives at the insistence of a brave rookie over the indifference and waffling of his supervisors). The Texas Governor and its top emergency response official have urged Trump to cut or eliminate FEMA.

* Gun homicides are down, but gun suicides have reached a record high.

The CDC reports 27,300 gun suicides in 2023, constituting 58% of all gun deaths, a record high. Wyoming led the nation with about 19.9 gun suicide deaths per 100,000 residents — nearly 10 times the rate of Massachusetts, which had the lowest at about 2.1 per 100,000.
Gun homicides fell for the second year in a row, dropping from 20,958 in 2021 to 19,651 in 2022 and 17,927 in 2023. Despite the decline, the 2023 total ranks as the fifth highest on record for gun homicides.

08 July 2025

Why Is David Brooks Wrong About Why People Admire Donald Trump?

Brooks On Why People Admire Trump

David Brooks, a pundit who also writes for the New York Times, who is a former conservative who later in his career transitioned to being a moderate, has a new article today in the Atlantic magazine, entitled "Why Do So Many People Think That Trump Is Good?" that is also an engagement with the life work of philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, who recently passed in May at the age of 94.

MacIntyre argued that from at least the time of the classical period, communities ("a dense network of faily, tribe, city, and nation") created duties and expectations about how to live your life and act morally according to your social role ("soldier, farmers, merchants" and mothers), which people generally accepted and made it their life's work to live up to as well as you could. Judaism, Christianity and Islam tweaked these duties and expectations to give greater weight to compassion and humility, but through the Middle Ages maintained the same social structure in which morality and your duties in life were societally imposed. The wars of religion at the end of the Middle Ages convinced people that maybe religion was not the best thing to organize societies upon and in reaction to that came the Enlightenment period of the 18th century centered upon reason and science, and relegated morality to a matter of individual choice.

MacIntyre argued that this produced a decline in shared morality, although Brooks himself would put this moment in the mid-1960s. The narrative continues with Nietzsche famously saying that "God is dead" because we'd killed him and made ourselves our own gods. In this narrative, Hilter, Lenin, and Mao fill that moral vacuum with narcissism, fanaticism, and authoritarianism, "and the cure turned out to be worse than the disease."

At this point it becomes less clear whether it is MacIntyre or Brooks talking. But the two solutions to a moral vacuum that Brooks presents are coercion or manipulation. Either coerce others to believe what you believe, e.g., with corporate DEI, or manipulate people with the kind of lies and sleaze that Trump and Fox News are known for utilizing. The battle of these methods in the 1980s and 1990s "looks like a golden age of peace and tranquility compared to today", Brooks argues, because in the last thirty years people have sought righteousness instead through their political identities and politics permeates everything.

Without a firm universal ground in "the virtues that are practical tools for leading a good life: honesty, fidelity, compassion, other-centeredness", "People are rendered anxious and fragile" and without a moral foundation, they "fall apart when setbacks come."

He sees Trump as a man "who doesn't even try to speak the language of morality", doesn't care about weakening "our shared moral norms" with his example, speaks a language of preference "I want" and a language of power "I have the leverage", and a language of self, of gains of acquisition, of benefitting himself, instead.

Brooks argues, within the framework of MacIntyre's philosophy that Trump is "just an exaggerated version of the kind of person modern society was designed to create." He also argues (inaccurately, in my view) that if Trump was on their team, most Democrats would like him too, and that you're lying to yourself if you deny it.

Brooks argues that pluralism is the answer to to resolving the tension created by incommensurate values, but that we need to recalibrate it to make people "more willing to sacrifice some freedom of autonomy for the sake of the larger community" and to provide rigorous moral education to the next generation (which sounds a lot like the coercion he condemned earlier in his argument).

Why Is Brooks Wrong?

I don't think this rings true, and find better answers in psychology and economics than in philosophy, which I've always considered something of a dead end and historical curiosity that recalls long since superseded proto-science, than something of real value today as anything more than intellectual history.

In my view, Trump, a psychopath rich in "dark triad" traits, is an archetypical figure familiar to observers of politics and public affairs and history since classical times, if not earlier, who is a constant threat to every organization from families to empires. There is nothing novel or surprising about him, himself. 

Demagogues were something that the Founders of the United States, at the pinnacle of the Enlightenment, worried about. Democracy and the Bill of Rights were their answer to the narcissistic mad kings and equally dark leaders of established religions with whom they were very familiar, both from the 18th century world and from the history that they knew from the classical era through the Middle Ages. The Founders were familiar with Roman Emperor Nero. Machiavelli in "The Prince" wrote about how dark triad tactics might be advisable to a leader seeking to gain power for his people. They were intimately familiar with the tyrants of British history, right up through King George. The believed that people whose rights were guarded by law would not vote for such scoundrels. Lest we forget, George R. R. Martin, in his Game of Thrones series, a fantasy series that draws heavily on the War of the Roses, history that was much more fresh in the minds of the Founders, reminds us of what that was like and why it is best avoided.

It wasn't a bad plan. 

The Constitution adopted in 1789 lasted without an insurmountable constitutional crisis for 72 years, when Civil War broke out. After the crisis over slavery that manifested in the Civil War was overcome in 4 years of brutal deadly fighting (that still leave the nation deeply divided) was over, followed a 12 year Reconstruction period, and in turn followed by 77 years or so of de jure segregation but a fragile peace. We then went on to have another 70 years or so of the constitution working more or less as intended. 

We are in the midst of another constitutional crisis now, which their plan may or may not be good enough to overcome. 

The United States of America, including its 13 years before the current constitution was adopted, is 249 years old, making it the oldest fully non-hereditary democratic governmental regimes still in existence on the scale of a large nation. But the Founders, as one of the first countries to have a full fledged democratic Republic at a large national scale, lacked the historical experience or foresight to plan for every potential eventuality and their plan is now clearly not the optimal design, although it may be that our Republic's woes are such that no formal constitution would have been sufficient to prevent them.

The times and places in history where tyrants arose also doesn't match up. MacIntyre's framework suggests that we should have seen a breakdown in a sense of duty and morality in the Enlightenment. But we didn't see this happen across the board. Yes, the moral divide in the U.S. may be traceable to the moral fight over slavery that emerged in the Enlightenment. But, this was not a general, individualized loss of community norms, it was a divide that arose between two coherent and vital cultures, that of the slaveholding South on one side, and of the abolitionist North on the other, sustained, as much as anything, by the perceived economic needs of each region, with clergy serving of cheerleaders of each side and framing these economic imperatives with moral justifications.

Why did we get Hitler in Weimar Germany, and Lenin in Russia, while France, England, and the United States were not similarly afflicted?

Hitler is the clearest example. Germany's defeat in World War I, the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles, hyperinflation, and economic collapse, radicalized many Germans, making them crave an authoritarian strong man to save them, and causing them to abandon the luxuries of caring for their fellow man whom they saw as their competitors, or as a drag on their society's ability to overcome the malaise that they faced.

Similar economic forces drive American politics today. After a couple of decades of remarkable shared prosperity, economic growth, which make the liberalism and the care for their fellow man of the Civil Rights movement possible, ceased to be shared starting sometime around the early 1970s. Since then, mostly educated, urban elites have captured almost all of the economy's economic growth for a half century, while less educated folk in rural areas and small towns have seen their economic prospects stagnate. The Civil Rights movement improved the economic lot of non-whites and women. New immigration laws welcomed foreigners. Free trade allowed manufacturing to be offshored to markets with lower wages, fewer labor protections, and weaker environmental laws. The U.S. de-industrialized and the Rust Belt came into being. Free trade rules, environmental rules, protections for unions, automation, birth control and abortion have, in their view, destroyed an economy fueled by domestic manufacturing and fossil fuels, in which men received good pay that made them heads of their families.

Half a century later, counties that vote blue have more than double the per capita GDP of those that vote red. Red America has captured almost none of the economic growth of the last half century, while Blue America is more prosperous than almost any other place on Earth. Prosperous Blue America extended its inclusive shared affluence mindset to allow the LGBT community to live publicly and in dignity, and to make it safe to be openly secular. 

Straight white Christian men in Red America without much education have seen every other demographic but them improve their lot in the last fifty years, while they have seen almost no improvement in their real wages, increased unemployment, and an inability to maintain stable and solid marriages and families. In relative terms, they seem themselves, and the rural and small town communities that they live in, as the losers, and see the economy as a zero sum game in which non-whites, foreigners, and women have taken what was theirs, and in which atheists and gays have ripped apart the moral framework that held their parents and grandparents families together. They want to throw out everything that they see as having driven their half century of eroded status with no end in sight, and return to the days when their relative status was vastly greater, no matter how unfair that may seem to everyone else. 

They are so frustrated over this sustained defeat that they are willing to turn to an indiscriminate authoritarian who breaks the rules that they see as having held them back, and are even willing to resort to violence, to get it. Their concerns about good character and process values and fair play have dissolved in the face of falling life expectancies, deaths of despair, regular unemployment, disability from the manual work that they are qualified to do with the economy doesn't need anymore to same extent, and their inability to hold onto wives and children that really arises not from an immoral society but from their own failures of economic providers. Faced with their conditions, they want to burn the system down and start over from new foundations that elevate their relative socio-economic standing.

Not everyone who votes for Trump has experienced this, and not everyone in red counties and red states has supported him. Some have supported Republicans simply out of thoughtless, long ingrained habit, or because they think that they are among the rich who will benefit from tax cuts. But peer pressure from enough people who matter in their little small town and rural communities, and in the working class underworld of Blue America, have made their political views (stripped of any reasoning behind them) normative in their communities, won over their wives, and caused religious congregation to which these men have been drawn because they are saying what these men want to hear to thrive and reinforce these men's views.

What we see today is more a product of capitalism, appropriately regulated but with only modest redistribution, doing what it does naturally: increasing GDP as fast as it can, while leaving the productive better off than the less productive who are worse off. But capitalism has done its thing to an extent greater than the political system is willing to bear, bringing us to a breaking point. 

It's worse in the U.S. because we have done less to cushion the blow for those who are less productive either by finding them places in the new economy or redistributing wealth and creating a stronger social safety net (in part, because racism has left the U.S. with a weaker sense of solidarity). But the same pressures are present in Europe, with somewhat different targets to fit local changes over the last half century, and are strongest in the places that are economically struggling.

Democrats Are Predominantly More Correct Than Republicans

The main sin that the Democrats have committed is not taking seriously enough the grievances of the working class, especially working class white Christian men, who have not shared in the improvement in relative or absolute prosperity that much of the rest of the nation has enjoyed, and who are lashing out at people they see as competitors or as people undermining morality, when neither of these things is the real problem. 

Despite adopting many policies that substantively benefit Red America more than their own base, they didn't go quite far enough, and left this constituency economically struggling, and equally importantly, feeling like they didn't matter and were neglected.

Progressives gets this and have tried to secure radical economic reforms to address this problem, so they don't have to resort to the injustices towards innocents that Trump has inflamed his supporters to think they want. But progressives do not make up a majority of the American public, and the bigger tent necessary to secure the majorities needed to reach a position of power where change can be enacted, and a constitutional framework and political system that tends to create gridlock and too strongly defends the status quo, has thwarted their efforts to secure more than incremental change, which has not been enough. Sometimes the frustration of progressives over their insufficient clout and numbers to achieve the full measure of their goals in a system that already makes it too hard to do so, when they rightfully believe that their proposals are urgently needed to keep far right tendencies at bay and secure economic justice, even boil over into claims that Democrats are no different than Republicans, since both are controlled by big business, despite the fact that this just undermines their own cause.

Contrary to Brooks' assertion, Democrats wouldn't fall for a Trump. They aren't desperate in the way that the MAGA Republican base is, and so they are happy to purge people like him from their ranks when they are caught. The Democratic Party isn't full of criminals, and is much less corrupt than the Republican Party which has had vastly more criminals and is now openly corrupt. 

Democrats and progressives are right that a manufacturing based fossil fuel economy isn't coming back, and that even if manufacturing did come back that 21st century manufacturing is so automated and skill intensive for most jobs, and so unproductive and low paying for others, that it wouldn't restore the economy and related societal consequences that flowed from it anyway.

Democrats are right that the rich aren't taxed enough, although they are mistaken that unions are a leading cause of the shared prosperity benefits that came from a tight labor market, rather than a symptom of that tight labor market that more efficiently utilized economic power that workers already had.

The Democratic effort to create working class clean economy jobs was the right idea, but was too little, too late.

Republicans are wrong in thinking that putting the Ten Commandments in schools, embracing religion, restricting abortion and birth control, making it legally harder to divorce, and squashing gay rights and transgender rights will restore morality and strengthen working class families.

Republicans are wrong in thinking that economics is a zero sum game, in which gains for non-whites, women, educated people, and immigrants, and imports leave white native born men without higher education, their communities, and the U.S. economy, generally, worse off.

Republicans are wrong in thinking that taxes and government spending are bad for the economy or bad for them. They are particularly wrong in thinking that reducing social safety net spending which disproportionately benefits them, will leave them better off, or that tax cuts for the wealthy, big businesses, and people with high incomes weaken the economy or leave them worse off. They have also forgotten (or never knew) that the era they seek to return to "when America was great" was characterized by high taxes and lots of government spending (as well as a very militant union movement).

Republicans are wrong in thinking that they don't benefit from the world order that foreign aid spending and our historical military alliances supported, and are a waste of money, and in thinking about military strength purely in terms of U.S. military might standing alone when wars are almost always won by the side with the most allies and "soft power."

But It Takes More Than Facts And Logic To Change Minds

Of course, as we've learned very painfully, mere facts and logic are enough enough to change political views, and in particular, are not enough to change the political views of a base that holds those views precisely because it has not prospered in an economy based upon knowledge and intellectual ability, and has had wealthy, amoral elites manipulate the information that has been imparted to them.

People's political identities are fundamentally social and are deeply shaped by economics and the information, however untrue it may be, that they have chosen to listen to when forming their world views (something that is itself influenced by their economic circumstances, as well as their ancestral culture).

You have to quash fountains of disinformation and fact resistance that have been gradually taking hold for decades. You have to either get people to admit that they have been conned, or find a way for people to change their political views that allows them to deny that this has happened. You have to make their views uncomfortable for them to hold in their own personal lives, but must do so in circumstances where converting from them is less painful than retreating into their denial with likeminded victims of the con. You have to be able to show them in terms that they understand and believe that your proposals are better than MAGA's and to back that up with an ability to produce tangible results for them. You have to address their needs and hardships, and not merely show that the other side is worse.

Those are tall orders, and it isn't clear that Democrats are up to the challenge. 

Democrats best hope is really that the Republicans, at a time when they are undeniably in complete control, are making the lives of the MAGA base tangibly worse, or convince the MAGA base that this is imminently about to happen, and to undermine any hope that they have that burning everything down will lead to a future that leaves them better off in relative terms, if not in absolute terms. Trump and his allies, as they attempt to govern in a purely ideological manner, are their own worst enemies here.

The GOP's hold on Congress is tenuous. In 2026, flipping 4 seats out of a 53 GOP seats would flip the Senate, and flipping 3 seats out of 220 GOP seats in the House (and reclaiming three currently vacant democratic seats in vacancy elections) would flip the House. Trump is the least popular President since Trump, and many of his particular policies, including his recently passed budget, are wildly unpopular with voters. The public is no fan of Congress and a lot of Republicans in Congress have voted for measures that are unpopular with the people who elected them (even though the final budget bill retreated from many of Trump's demands) and will actively hurt the people who elected them. Some of the gerrymandering that influenced the results of the 2024 election will also be remedied in 2026. Elon Musk's proposal to create a new "American Party", even if it wasn't terribly successful, would split the conservative vote in a way that could benefit Democrats immensely. The U.S. Supreme Court has also never had less popular support in the history of modern polling, and conservative voters no longer need to support Trump and the GOP to keep in that way (or to have their tax cuts for corporations and the rich made permanent).

It is unlikely that Republicans will hold both Houses of Congress in the 2026 election. They will probably lose control of the House and at least lose ground in the Senate, barring a major escalation in the steps that Trump has tried to take to erode democracy in the last sixteen months, with lukewarm but significant support from the Supreme Court's conservative supermajority which has significantly impaired the ability of other federal courts to restrain Trump.

Time will tell how it turns out in the midst of the constant political chaos and societal unrest that Trump have actively stoked.

Left leaning forces don't have to keep MAGA's dictatorial power grab at bay forever. The MAGA base is in demographic decline. The Democratic base is growing. If the left can endure this crisis and thwart full on totalitarianism until Trump is dead and his MAGA agenda has been discredited by its own failures severely enough, for enough years, the crisis will be overcome and the Republic can be saved. It may be bruised, battered, and irrevocably harmed in many ways, but it would not be beyond all saving. 

But history is also not without precedents, like Iran, Afghanistan, and North Korea, where progress is dramatically reversed when totalitarians succeed, and this backward state continues for forty years or more with minimal progress. And, unlike the case of people subject to the Axis regimes in World War II, no other country or alliance will be coming to rescue us, because we are too big and too militarily mighty. Another civil war might save us if that happens, but that would be a horrible price to pay.

07 July 2025

Twenty Years Of Blogging

The first post on this blog was made on July 3, 2005. In the first twenty years, I made 9,558 posts (an average of about 478 posts per year), and has generated 6,411 comments. This blog has been viewed 6,704,836 since tracking started on the site.

I also made 2,882 posts in that time period at sister blog "Dispatches At Turtle Island" and has generated 6,128 comments in those twenty years. It has had 3,073,337 views. 

Combined, I have made a combined 12,440 posts over twenty years, which is an average of 622 posts per year. The blogs have generated a combined 12,539 comments over those twenty years, which is an average of about 627 per year (both the posts and the comments omit posts and comments made after July 2, 2025). There have been a combined 9,778,173 views of the two blogs over twenty years, which is an average of about 1,339 per day.

Both blogs remain active. A third blogger blog, a serial novel I was working on, set in the near future, with the tentative name "Water Witch" is no longer active. If I were to start fresh today, I'd probably do so on the Substack platform, but I'm not bothered to migrate.

I have no illusions regarding its impact, although it did win one "Best of Denver" award from Westword. But it's still better than my previous habit of simply writing ideas down on scraps of paper and clipping physical newspaper articles and storing them in banker's boxes that no one but me could read.

Some of the writing that I would have done here in the early days has been replaced by posts on Facebook (which is especially suitable for short current events and politics oriented posts and for humor and connecting about personal life events with friends and family), posts on several Stack Exchange Forums (especially Law.SE and Politics.SE), and posts at the Physics Forum. I also comment regularly on a variety of other blogs and forums. 

In the early days, I made quite a few posts at DailyKos and dKospedia and several other online forums. For a while, I was a part-time professional journalist for the Colorado Independent (now defunct) where I wrote five to seven articles a week on a mostly law and politics and courts beat. 

I'm also a long time, moderate volume, continuing contributor to Wikipedia. And, of course, I've also kept a paper journal all of this time, not necessarily on a daily basis, where I record things like my weight, the books I've read, ideas generated when I don't have good access to a computer or don't want to make ideas public, and various other observations. I also write for my personal life in word processing files and Xcel spreadsheets, mostly about personal scientific theories that aren't solid enough to blog about, analysis of big data sets that I don't have a take on yet, and not particularly good fragmentary fictional sketches and fiction concept ideas written in one or two sessions and then let be. 

Obviously, as a lawyer, I have an ample annual output of professional written work of motion, briefs, trial preparation materials, notes from meetings and research, forms, and transactional practice instruments and contracts.

In those twenty years, my children have gone from being little kids, not yet in the first grade, to young adults who have finished college, found good jobs, found good significant others, and who have gotten their own apartments and health insurance. I had been married for ten years then, and now I've been married for thirty years. My kids are as old now as I was when I started this project.

On the whole, it's been a worthwhile hobby.

U.S. Guided Missiles And Bombs

The following is from the July 3, 2025, Congressional Research Service report, Defense Primer: U.S. Precision-Guided Munitions via this source (it lists many, but not all, of the U.S. guided missiles and bombs currently in service):
Air-to-Air Precision Munitions
  • Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM). The Air Intercept Missile (AIM)-120AMRAAM is an air-to-air missile in service with the Air Force and Navy and produced by Raytheon, an RTX Corporation subsidiary. The AIM-120D3, the latest AMRAAM variant, includes upgrades for obsolete components, according to the DOD Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E). The AirForce and Navy are developing a successor to the AMRAAM, the Joint Advanced Tactical Missile (JATM), or AIM-260.
  • Air Intercept Missile-9X (AIM-9X). The AIM-9X Sidewinder, a Navy-led program with Air Force participation, is a short-range air-to-air missile produced by Raytheon and a modified version of the AIM-9Sidewinder. The latest version of the missile is the AIM-9X Block II, production of which began in 2011. The Air Force has reportedly tested the AIM-9X in an air-to-surface role, and the Army has evaluated the AIM-9X as a surface-to-air missile.
Air-to-Surface Precision Munitions
  • Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile–Extended Range (AARGM-ER). The AARGM-ER, a Navy-led program with Air Force involvement, provides hardware and software updates to the Air-to-Ground Missile (AGM)-88 High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM), an air-launched ground attack missile designed to target radar-equipped air defenses. TheAGM-88G, the latest variant of the missile, is an extended-range (ER) variant that is produced by Northrop Grumman.
  • Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM). The AGM-179JAGM, an Army-led joint service program, is an air-to-ground guided missile produced by Lockheed Martin and a replacement for the Hellfire and Longbow missiles. The JAGM combines the warhead, motor, and flight control systems of the AGM-114R Hellfire missile with a upgraded seeker, according to the DOD DOT&E. Designed primarily for attack helicopters, the JAGM is also compatible with some fixed-wing aircraft.
  • Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM). TheAGM-158 JASSM is a family of cruise missiles comprised of baseline and extended range configurations and compatible with a variety of fighter and bomber aircraft. The JASSM program is Air Force-led with Navy involvement. The JASSM-ER AGM-158B-2 is the latest fielded variant and produced by Lockheed Martin; a successor, the AGM-158B-3, and an extreme-range variant, the AGM-158D, are underdevelopment, according to the Air Force’s FY2026budget submission to Congress.
  • Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM). The JDAM, a joint Air Force and Navy program, provides a tail-mounted, bolt-on guidance kit for various 500-, 1,000-, and 2,000-pound unguided bombs. The Air Force first used JDAMs during 1999 Operation Allied Force. The latest version of the JDAM, which is produced by Boeing, is equipped with a military-code (M-code) GPS receiver for operations in denied environments, according to the Air Force.
  • Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM). The AGM-158C LRASM is an air-launched anti-ship cruise missile. The LRASM shares a production line with the Air Force’s JASSM and is part of the Navy’s Offensive Anti-Surface Warfare (OASuW) program. The Navy approved the start of low-rate initial production of the missile in 2016. The Navy is developing a LRASM variant, the AGM-158C-3, that will reportedly feature an extended range and improved communications, according to the DOD DOT&E.
  • Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP). The Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or Guided Bomb Unit (GBU)-57, is a “30,000-lb class precision-guided penetrator designed to defeat hard and deeply buried targets,” according to the Air Force. The Air Force launched the MOP program in 2004; the MOP became a program of record in 2017. Produced by Boeing, the MOP is reportedly equipped with a GPS guidance package and compatible with the B-2 Spirit bomber. The United States first used the MOP in strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in 2025.
  • Small Diameter Bomb I and II (SDB). The SDB Increment I and II are air-launched guided bombs produced by Boeing and Raytheon, respectively. TheGBU-39B SDB I is equipped with a GPS-aided inertial navigation system (INS) for guidance and designed primarily for striking stationary targets. The GBU-53/BSDB II features a multimode seeker with millimeter-wave radar and an infrared sensor. The Air Force began fielding SDB I in 2006. DOD approved the start of low-rate initial production of the SDB II in 2015.
Surface-to-Air Precision Munitions
  • Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM). The RIM-162ESSM is a sea-launched anti-air missile produced by Raytheon. Based on the AIM-7 medium-range air-launched anti-aircraft missile, the ESSM is a variant of the RIM-7P Sea Sparrow that features upgrades designed to improve its performance against anti-ship cruise missiles. The U.S. Navy first deployed the missile in 2004. The ESSM Block 2 features an upgraded guidance section, according to the Navy.
  • Standard Missile-6 (SM-6). The SM-6, or RIM-174Extended Range Active Missile (ERAM), is a multi-mission missile produced by Raytheon. The SM-6,which began development in 2004, combines elements of the SM-2 Block IV with the guidance system of a medium-range air-to-air missile. It is designed to be launched from AEGIS cruisers and destroyers and intercept aircraft, drones, and cruise missiles. The Navy is reportedly developing an air-to-air variant, the AIM-174B, for Super Hornet fighters. The Army has selected the SM-6—and the Tomahawk—for its Typhon Mid-Range Capability system.
  • Stinger. The FIM-92 Stinger is a fire-and-forget surface-to-air missile designed to intercept low-flying fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, cruise missiles, and drones. Produced by Raytheon, the Army first fielded the Stinger in 1981, and it has since invested in upgrades to the missile, including, most recently, to its propulsion system. Several U.S. military air defense systems are equipped with the Stinger, including the Army’s SGTSTOUT maneuver short-range air defense system.
Surface-to-Surface Precision Munitions
  • Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). The MGM-140 ATACMS, an Army program, is a ground-launched missile produced by Lockheed Martin. The Army developed the ATACMS in the 1980s to replace the Lance missile. In 2017, the Army launched a service life extension program to modernize the warhead and seeker on aging ATACMS munitions.
  • Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS). The GMLRS is a guided artillery rocket produced by Lockheed Martin. The Army approved the low-rate initial production of the GMLRS in 2003. In recent years, the Army has acquired standard- and extended-range variants of GMLRS rockets, each with two different types of warheads: a unitary warhead, a 200-pound high explosive warhead, and an alternative warhead (AW) that is designed to “engage area or imprecisely located targets,” according to DOD.
  • Naval Strike Missile (NSM). The RGM-184 NSM is a low-observable anti-ship cruise missile developed by Kongsberg Defence Systems, a Norwegian defense company, in the early 2000s. In 2018, the Navy awarded a Kongsberg-Raytheon team a contract to provide the NSM for the Navy’s Over-The-Horizon Weapon System (OTH-WS), an armament on the Littoral Combat Ship. The Navy Marine Corps Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS), a ground-based anti-ship missile system, also features the NSM. The Air Force is procuring an air-launched version of the NSM, the AGM-184 Joint Strike Missile, for the F-35A fighter.
  • Precision Strike Missile (PrSM). The PrSM, an Army program, is a ground-launched missile produced by Lockheed Martin. The PrSM is designed to replace the ATACMS and to strike targets approximately 400 kilometers (249 miles) away, according to DOD. The Army announced in 2023 that it had accepted delivery of the first PrSM Increment 1 missiles. Increments 2 and 3, which will reportedly have a modified guidance system and longer range, respectively, remain under development, according to DOD. 
  • Tomahawk. The Tomahawk is a long-range cruise missile produced by Raytheon. It is designed to be launched from submarines (UGM-109) and surface ships (RGM-109) against fixed and mobile targets. The Navy reportedly announced in 2020 that it would convert all Block IV Tomahawk missiles to the RGM/UGM-109E Block V, which features upgrades to its communications, according to the Navy. Since its first combat deployment in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the Tomahawk has been a fixture of various U.S. military actions, including the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in 2025.

05 July 2025

Paradise Lost

You have to go back at least 60-70 years to reach a time when the ideal of "Liberty and Justice for All" was less true in the United States.

03 July 2025

The GOP Budget In Charts

The Republican budget passed today passed the House initially by 215-214, passed the Senate in a 51-50 VP tie breaking vote, and passed the House the second time around by 218-214 with no amendments from the Senate version (which was slightly better than the original House version, mostly because bad non-budgetary riders were stripped from the bill). These razor thin majorities, however, have made immense changes to U.S. tax laws and federal spending that are unrivaled since the War on Poverty during LBJ's administration.

This will do irreparable harm in the next couple of years, at least, disproportionately suffered by Republican controlled areas and Republican voters, and the bill's provisions are wildly unpopular with the American public.

The big question is whether this bill, along with Trump's other horrible steps in governing, will lead to a catastrophic defeat for Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections as backlash, or whether the usual partisan tendencies will remain unchanged. Have Republicans committed political suicide? Or will the MAGA cult remain strong after encountering the "find out" part of the FAFO adventure.

I can't imagine how any decent person could sleep at night backing this proposal, and struggle to discern any values other than massively transferring wealth from the poor to benefit the rich, are served by it. But Republicans never cease to surprise me.

The big messages about the budget are that: 

(1) the tax cuts in Trump's budget are driving up the national debt immensely (more than any other bill in the Biden or Trump Administrations by a lot) and will drive up interest payments as a drain on tax revenues, 

(2) the number of people without health insurance will grow from about 25 million (out of a U.S. population of about 340 million) to more than 35 million due mostly to Medicaid changes and there will be a massive disinvestment in health care, 

(3) student loan payments for new college graduates will soar, 

(4) the clean energy investments that are eliminated will mostly hurt people in Republican Congressional districts, 

(5) the bottom 20% are much worse off, the next 20% break even very rich are much better off, while the poor are much worse off, the next 59% are modestly better off, and the top 1% and big businesses are vastly better off, and

(6) any improvements to economic growth are exceedingly small.

One key impact that the charts don't note is that many hundreds of rural hospitals (maybe more than a thousand), almost all in Republican dominated areas, will close. 

It also doesn't really capture how deep cuts to federal spending programs will be, except for defense and funds to carry out mass deportations which get big budget boosts.

The charts via the New York Times: