Three-Point Shots, Vol. 3, No. 2: February 22, 2025

Whether internationally, nationally, or here in Texas, our country seems to be falling apart before our eyes.

This edition of Three-Point Shots demonstrates the breadth of knowledge, depth of analysis, and intellectual nimbleness that have been the trademarks of Your Humble Correspondent. I discuss international affairs, the state of our national government, and the health of my beloved Texas in one swell foop. This would not be possible without your subscriptions, especially the small but potent paid subscriptions which allow me to live in the manner to which I wish to grow accustomed.

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Saturday, February 22, 2025

1. Ukraine

In 1938, England and France allowed Germany to take over a part of Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland. This was the Munich Agreement, which British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain said would guarantee “peace in our time.”

No one from Czechoslovakia was allowed to participate in the negotiations. Within months Hitler had annexed the rest of Czechoslovakia and was preparing to invade Poland.

Sound familiar?

It’s said that history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes. No American familiar with history or concerned with learning its lessons can or should deny the similarities to Chamberlain’s appeasement policy and our current posture vis-à-vis Ukraine.

Consider the similarities:

• Germany had previously annexed Austria (the Anschluss) in 1938. Russia installed puppet governments in Belarus and Georgia during the early 2000s;

• Germany made provocative, nationalist claims to the Sudetenland, just as Russia made to the Crimean region of Ukraine in 2014;

• Hitler did not allow Czechoslovakia’s leaders to participate in negotiations over the future of their country, just as Putin (and Trump) have not allowed Ukraine to participate in the so-called “peace talks” last week in Saudi Arabia.

(What’s wrong with this picture?)

There is one important difference. With Chamberlain, his appeasement was part of a foreign policy strategy praised at the time; in essence, “let’s pick our battles.” But with Trump there is always the whiff of corruption and self-dealing in his abandonment of Ukraine.

Mark my words: the decision to abandon Ukraine to the Russians, currently unfolding in real time before our eyes, will be a stain on America’s reputation in the world and a dark time in American history.

I am not an expert on foreign policy. I do not even play one on TV, and it’s been years since I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express. But it doesn’t take an overeducated genius to know that America sticks by its allies and that the Russian effort – abetted by unpatriotic Americans – to retcon its own vicious and unprovoked attack on Ukraine as some sort of struggle for freedom is a load of bullshit.

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2. The “Unitary Executive” and Other Fantastic Beasts

Over the last hundred years or so, the Congress has created a number of agencies tasked with regulating the increasingly complex business and technological forces impacting the American people. Examples include the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) – to rein in the excesses that caused the Depression, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) – to regulate the powerful medium of radio and the emerging colossus of television.

In its wisdom, the Congress established these and others as “independent regulatory agencies” within the executive branch. Unlike Cabinet departments, their leaders do not serve at the pleasure of the President. For example, officers of such agencies may be protected from removal by the president, they may be controlled by a board that is appointed to staggered terms (on the theory that no one president can appoint all its members), or the board can be required to be bipartisan. This is intended to prevent presidential overreach in, say, the stock market by putting undue pressure on the SEC.

Sooner or later, every president chafes under the restrictions on his power, but the guardrails hold. Until now, of course. The other day, our Dear Leader issued an executive order (with the Orwellian title “Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies”) declaring that he was our sovereign lord and master had absolute authority over each and every executive agency, regardless of the intentions of Congress when it created said agency.

(The White House retweeted this Trumpian image. I am not making this up.)

This is part of Trump’s effort to break the Congress as an independent branch of government – an effort at which, I am sad to say, he has been remarkably successful. He has made the Senate’s “advice and consent” powers meaningless in appointing the steamiest load of crap to key Cabinet positions. He has withheld monies appropriated by the Congress with no justification and little pushback. And he has dared the feckless Republican majorities of both chambers to do anything about it.

This is unsustainable, and the American people will soon be letting him know. His approval ratings are cratering, and the bottom line is that he and co-President Musk are overreaching.

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3. Measles Outbreak Coming to a Town Near You

Texas is at the start of the worst measles outbreak in 30 years. As of yesterday, there are already 90 confirmed cases centered southwest of Lubbock. All but four of the sickened people are – surprise! – unvaccinated.

The Texas Department of State Health Services had the temerity to include the following in its report: “The best way to prevent getting sick is to be immunized with two doses of a vaccine against measles, which is primarily administered as the combination measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. Two doses of the MMR vaccine are highly effective at preventing measles.”

There is only one way the measles outbreak will not reach further into Texas (and New Mexico, which has already reported three cases): it runs out of people to infect in sufficient quantities to continue to spread. How does that happen? Near total immunization rates. Want to bet on whether that’s the case?

On, and guess which agency just laid off 10% of its frontline workers? Hint: they combat disease. That’s right, the CDC.

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Your weekend reading …

My friend Misti Little posts in her On Texas Nature blog about the cuts made to the National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and other federal custodians of our shared environment. If we don’t act as stewards of the bounteous beauty we’ve been given, who will?