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History, Immigration, Law, Liberty

Trump Surrogate Defends Precedent of Internment Camps

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Carl Higbie, a Trump surrogate, while speaking to Megyn Kelly on Fox News suggested the internment of the Japanese during the Second World War as a precedent for a registry of Muslim immigrants to America. Kelly rightly rejected the precedent, as the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War and the Korematsu decision upholding that internment have been considered – at least until recently, it seems – among the worst civil liberties violations of that era.

What was unmentioned only weeks ago is now part of our political discussion; what is part of our political discussion now may yet become policy in the new administration.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.17.16

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Good morning.

Thursday in this small Midwestern city will be unseasonably mild, with a high of sixty-nine under partly cloudy skies. Sunrise is 6:50 AM and sunset 4:29 PM, for 9h 38m 12s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 87.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

Worth reading in full —

Leonid Ragozin contends that The ‘us and them’ divide worked for Putin and it will work for Trump: “I can see how Trump can appeal to African-Americans, Jews and Hispanics. I met members of these communities at Trump rallies while driving through the midwest swing states the week before the election, and I am now writing from Brighton Beach, a Russian-speaking Jewish district of New York that is overwhelmingly and vehemently pro-Trump. The local residents, mostly ageing Soviet-era immigrants who have switched from voting Democrat to Republican in the past 10 years, love the new president-elect for the same reason their former compatriots in Russia love Putin: he makes them feel great and important again, while legitimising their hatred towards liberals. The likes of Putin and Trump don’t create ethnic movements, they create gangs in which the only criterion that really matters is whether you are “with us” or “against us”, whether you are ready to insult or hurt the “others” no matter who they are and what you used to feel about them. They are mob artists, they are majoritarians or – translating the latter term into Russian – Bolsheviks. Their advantage is that they are not bound by logic or intellectual decency.”

Graham Vyse believes that Libertarians and Democrats Need to Fall in Love Again: “American liberty faces unprecedented peril. President-elect Donald Trump is so indifferent to the Constitution, when he’s not openly hostile to it, that there’s reasonable discussion of liberal democracy collapsing during his tenure. Democrats need all the allies they can find to fight him, and many Americans with genuinely libertarian values could be part of an opposition coalition….[Cato Institute Vice President Brink] Lindsey’s dream of a permanent fusion between liberalism and libertarianism may be impossible, but this is another moment when issue-based cooperation between these two factions is vital. If they unite where they agree—organizing together and pressuring Washington—it could help to neutralize some of the worse of Trump’s authoritarian agenda.”

Senate Democrats have other ideas, including a Surprising Strategy: Trying to Align With Trump: “On infrastructure spending, child tax credits, paid maternity leave and dismantling trade agreements, Democrats are looking for ways they can work with Mr. Trump and force Republican leaders to choose between their new president and their small-government, free-market principles. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, elected Wednesday as the new Democratic minority leader, has spoken with Mr. Trump several times, and Democrats in coming weeks plan to announce populist economic and ethics initiatives they think Mr. Trump might like.”

Local governmemts aren’t a refuge from closed-government policies, but often these Local governments hide public records, face few consequences: “But when residents asked for those documents, they hit a wall: Montgomery County [Maryland] government officials said they could not find many emails, letters and calendars related to their search. This seemed preposterous, so the residents took the only route available to them — they went to court. A skeptical county judge urged the government to look anew for missing documents. Officials soon managed to find most of what the residents had sought. The details weren’t pretty. Documents showed that County Executive Isiah Leggett, a Democrat less than a year from his next election, had been pushing behind closed doors for the private soccer club to take over the site and attempting to pressure a reluctant school board, even though in theory he had no power over school system decisions. The Maryland Open Meetings Compliance Board also found that the school board had violated the state’s open meetings law by discussing the lease deal in closed session.”

How big are big things? Here’s some perspective:

Press, Trump, Twitter

Blaming the Press Won’t Slake Trump’s Thirst

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CNN Money’s Jill Disis writes that Trump attacks ‘fools’ at The New York Times.  There’s a short self-life to attacks on the press.  Admittedly, the attack’s good for a headline, and similar insults probably helped in his campaign.  Yet, all campaigns blame the press, and the blamecasting is like a narcotic to which addicts slowly become both addicted and inured.

Trump – unlike a conventional leader of conventional appetites – will soon need more tangible targets than the New York Times.  The Times?  In six months the high from complaints against that paper won’t quicken the political pulse.  Few will show up at the rallies he plans to keep holding to hear Trump rail at the Times.  They’ll want more; they’ll want a list of tangible results, a list of particular names.

Trump will move on to much stronger stuff than Twitter.

Federal Government, Trump

Eliot Cohen’s Wise Advice: Don’t Serve Trump

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Conservative foreign policy scholar (and member of the Bush Administration) Eliot Cohen admits, “I told conservatives to work for Trump. One talk with his team changed my mind” —

Nemesis pursues and punishes all administrations, but this one will get a double dose. Until it can acquire some measure of humility about what it knows, and a degree of magnanimity to those who have opposed it, it will smash into crises and failures. With the disarray of its transition team, in a way, it already has.

My bottom line: Conservative political types should not volunteer to serve in this administration, at least for now. They would probably have to make excuses for things that are inexcusable and defend people who are indefensible. At the very least, they should wait to see who gets the top jobs. Until then, let the Trump team fill the deputy assistant secretary and assistant secretary jobs with civil servants, retired military officers and diplomats, or the large supply of loyal or obsequious second-raters who will be eager to serve. The administration may shake itself out in a year or two and reach out to others who have been worried about Trump. Or maybe not.

By staying away, prospects will preserve their integrity while in opposition; those who join will prove to be – or soon become – as unsuitable as the man they serve.

Alt-Right, Bigotry, Politics

Trump’s Surrogates Know Exactly What the Alt-Right Is

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A few days ago, during a panel discussion, New York Times columnist Charles Blow and Trump surrogate former Congressman Jack Kingston clashed over the racism of Trump’s alt-right supporters.  Kingston claimed not to know what the term alt-right meant, and Blow scolded Kingston for Kingston’s professed ignorance.  (Their exchange begins after 6:30 on the video.)

As a rhetorical matter, Blow’s response (‘your deficiencies of understanding are not my problem’) works well; but one should be plain that Kingston, a longtime politician with close ties to the Trump team, surely knows what alt-right means.

Kingston’s either a liar or an ignoramus to profess ignorance of the alt-right.  Breitbart Media, of which incoming Trump strategist Steve Bannon is CEO, published a guide to the alt-right in March (see, An Establishment Conservative’s Guide To The Alt-Right).

The so-called guide begins as an exoneration of the alt-right from charges of racism, but quickly elides into praise for white nationalists, racial supremacists, and their publications.   The whole purpose of the guide is to acquaint traditional Americans with an ideological future under the alt-right: “[a] specter is haunting the dinner parties, fundraisers and think-tanks of the Establishment: the specter of the “alternative right.” Young, creative and eager to commit secular heresies, they have become public enemy number one to beltway conservatives — more hated, even, than Democrats or loopy progressives.”

The authors (Allum Bokhari and Milo Yiannopoulis) aim to shock conventional sensibilities; they aim to awe a traditional audience.

One will excuse me if, upon considering all this, I don’t find myself shocked or awed, let alone haunted: the last century was filled with false theories of racial supremacy, and this new clique pulls from those ideas, while pulling any number of obscure theorists to power.  (In any event, the play on Marx’s famous lines from the Communist Manifesto doesn’t shock, either: a theorist whose entire work went to the dustbin presents no insurmountable threat.)

This is how Trump surrogates will begin: denying connections while simultaneously appointing a few alt-rightists (like Bannon) to high posts. In six months there’ll be no denying – there’ll be celebrating by the same ilk while they simultaneously welcome more into the government.

Politics, Trump

Forget the Tactical (For Now)

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This year hasn’t been a great one for polling, data operations, or vaunted GOTV efforts.  If it had been so, then Hillary Clinton would now be president-elect.  So much conventional tactical analysis (much of which I accepted) has proved erroneous.

There’s no gain, and much harm, in focusing on the tactical now.  Even if one were to overcome the deficiencies of previous analyses,  tactical considerations matter little at the moment, and won’t matter much in the next two years or so.  Where one places the chairs, how one sets the table, and whether someone wins an upcoming state or local election (as a supposed portent of something) is mere banality.

One reads that Trump’s transition team is filled with backbiting and disorder.  Yes, of course: did one expect otherwise?  His claims to competency were a confidence game, and what one sees now is like a an imitation of a mafia family’s squabbles.  (Not an actual mafia family, perhaps, but more like the kind one would see on B-grade television show or film.)

The fitting critique of Trump, apart from upcoming elections or single events, is a substantive, principled, ideological one.  Before one builds a house, there are blueprints to draw, and materials to ponder and collect.  We’ve years of critique and rumination ahead, and deep rumination is more than a consideration of which cog fits where in the Trump wheel.

It’s the grinding and direction of the wheel that matters.  Trump’s rise to federal power is not an abomination because of small matters of style, or even larger ones of self-promotion; Trump’s an abomination because he’s a mediocrity, a liar, and a bigot (in order of moral severity, from least to worst failings).

In fact, that’s probably the easiest way to describe him, a description the Ancients would have understood well from their own observations of human nature, without need to consider an unconscious mind or complicated psychoanalysis: mediocrity, liar, bigot.

Such a man can, and will, do much damage, but his early fumbling will scarcely be the half of it.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.16.16

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Good morning.

This small city will see abundant sunshine and a high of thirty-six today. Sunrise is 6:49 AM and sunset 4:30 PM, for 9h 40m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 94.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Parks & Recreation Department meets this evening at 6:30 PM.

Worth reading in full —

Jennifer Rubin offers conservatives opposed to the incoming administration The independent center-right’s Trump survival guide: “First, tell the truth. Bret Stephens, a #NeverTrump journalist, explains:

What a columnist owes his readers isn’t a bid for their constant agreement. It’s independent judgment. Opinion journalism is still journalism, not agitprop. The elision of that distinction and the rise of malevolent propaganda outfits such as Breitbart News is one of the most baleful trends of modern life. Serious columnists must resist it. …

Many things explain Mr. Trump’s unexpected victory, but not the least of them was the ability of his core supporters to shut out the inconvenient Trump facts: the precarious foundations of his wealth, the plasticity of his convictions, the astonishing frequency of his lying. Mr. Trump attracted millions of voters thirsty to believe. That thirst may hold its own truth, but it doesn’t lessen a columnist’s responsibility to note that it won’t be slaked by another hollow slogan of redemption.

This is the distinction between cheerleaders (e.g., Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity) and actual journalists. The former’s loyalty is to a person, the latter’s to intellectual integrity and accuracy. It will be more important than ever, as Stephens says, for the latter to remain stalwart, calling it as they see it. The instinct to “give him a chance” and “pick your fights” may apply to activists, lawmakers and interest groups as part of strategic calculations; there is no similar obligation for journalists to suspend judgment or be lenient on liars.”

Tyler Kingkade considers What A Trump Presidency Could Mean For Combating Campus Rape: “Now, many are bracing for Donald Trump’s administration to take a more conservative approach to addressing to sexual assault on college campuses, largely due to the people he’ll appoint to lead the US Department of Education.  Policy wonks, higher education consultants, and rape victims’ advocates tell BuzzFeed News they are preparing for possible changes under Trump. Many expect the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights — the agency investigating more than 200 colleges, and nearly 100 K-12 school districts for mishandled sexual assault cases — to be less active. Republicans will also likely try to roll back a consequential “Dear Colleague” letter issued to schools by the Obama administration in 2011. The letter detailed what the gender equity law Title IX requires schools to do about sexual assault reports, including what standard of evidence should be used in campus disciplinary cases.”

Andrew Flowers writes that Most Welfare Dollars Don’t Go Directly To Poor People Anymore: “The 1996 reform didn’t result in a reduction in total spending on welfare, now known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Since 1998, the first year for which we have complete data, total TANF spending — both from federal block grants as well as required state matching funds — has remained essentially flat, after adjusting for inflation,1The monthly average of the Consumer Price Index was used to deflate the annual spending statistics. according to data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank that is critical of welfare reform. Per-person spending has fallen, however: In 2014 there were about 12 million more people below the poverty level than in 1998, according to the Census Bureau. The U.S. population has grown nearly 20 percent during that time….The result has been a dramatic shift of resources away from cash assistance and toward spending on other programs. In 1998, nearly 60 percent of welfare spending was on cash benefits, categorized as “basic assistance.” By 2014, it was only about one-quarter of TANF spending. That shift has happened despite a burgeoning economics literature suggesting that direct cash transfers are in many cases the most efficient tool to fight poverty.”

George Selgin’s started the countdown (3, 2, 1…) until Trump blames the Federal Reserve for Trump’s own ignorance & policy failures: “A newly-elected president Trump will quickly turn from making the Fed a scapegoat for his own campaigns’ tribulations to blaming it for his economic policy failures — starting with the equities market nose dive that’s likely to follow his surprise victory. But instead of continuing to rail against the Fed’s supposedly easy policy stance, you can bet that president-elect Trump would soon be blaming it for keeping money too tight.  In any event, a newly-elected Trump administration, through its unveiled hostility toward the Fed, could not fail to make that already “political” institution even more so, for the Fed knows very well that, if it wants to preserve its vaunted independence, it had better heed the administrations’ wishes. That’s what former Fed Chairman William McChesney Martin, who understood the true nature of the Fed’s independence better than anyone, meant when he explained that the Fed was independent, not “from,” but “within,” the government.”

What if everything worked backwards? That would be Preposterous:

History

Weaving the Threads of History

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At one point, Venice, Italy, was famous around the world for producing some of the finest textiles. Velvet—woven from thousands of fine silk threads—was especially desirable. In 1500, the clatter of 6,000 enormous looms echoed through the streets of the ancient canal-lined city. Today there is just one company left producing velvet in the traditional way; the Luigi Bevilacqua Company. The Bevilacqua family can trace its weaving lineage back to the 1400s, and remains entirely family owned and operated.

Freedom of Speech, Politics, Trump

Of Course Most #NeverTrumpers Will Capitulate

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Thousands who (admirably) devoted themselves to the #NeverTrump movement have already (sadly) begun to second-guess their opposition now that Trump’s heading to federal power. Ben Terris nicely describes the impulse – the natural reaction to yield to power – in Welcome to NeverTrump Grief, Stage 3: GOP skeptics bargain with Trump — and themselves.

One can be libertarian and yet admire – easily and truly – those conservatives who opposed Trump.

And yet, and yet – within a week or so, most of the formerly committed #NeverTrumpers have become #WantToKeepMyNewspaperColumnAndRadioGigPleaseForgetWhatISaid. One should not be surprised that capitulation took a mere week: politics has a social aspect, many of its practitioners are socially needy, and these same practitioners will do whatever they must to stay close to power, or at least close to a nice table, a nice party, and a nice private club.

Here’s Erick Erickson, formerly a #NeverTrump leader, seven days after the election:

Erick Erickson, a conservative pundit who served as an outspoken critic of Trump from the right, is pushing back against what he sees as a lot of “crying wolf” about the president-elect. So he says he’s giving Trump the benefit of the doubt. Even about controversial decisions such as hiring Bannon.

“If Obama got [Valerie] Jarrett, Trump can have Bannon,” he wrote for the Resurgent. “And when the alt-right goes marching through Washington or people start trying to round up Jews because of it, then we can raise the issue and provide shelter to those in need. But there is no guarantee that will happen.”

It’s hard to overstate how craven this is: Erickson doesn’t have a guarantee (to his satisfaction) that the alt-right won’t round up Jews, and if they were to do so, then Erickson promises he will be sure to “raise the issue.”  Perhaps he’ll send them a cautionary memo.

If the difference between peace and a pogrom depends on the lack of a guarantee of a pogrom, it’s an uncertain peace. A man walking down the street would like more than the lack of a guarantee that he’ll get attacked (“you’re good, buddy, ’cause there’s no formal assurance that you’ll be shot”).

Be not surprised: most people will initially rationalize – and thereafter accept and even celebrate – myriad transgressions and impositions. Yesterday’s abnormality will become tomorrow’s normality.

Weeks will become months, and months years, before we will see the collapse of this way. The coming period will mean loss for many, with lives disagreeably altered or wholly ruined. For those so injured, these months and years will seem an eternity.

What, though, of those who are by nature unyielding? Weeks, months, and years will effect no alternation in their opposition, in either intensity or duration.

We will carry on, waiting patiently until others, some returning and many new, in numbers exceeding our hopes, join us in a common cause. 

Cato, Environment, Federal Government, Trump

The Next Secretary of the Interior?

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While there is much talk about high-profile cabinet posts like State, Defense, and Justice, there are lower-profile posts that will still attract both interested parties and occasional controversies.  The Department of the Interior is among them.  Prospects for that cabinet secretary include  oil baron Forrest Lucas (a big contributor to Mike Pence’s gubernatorial campaigns), venture capitalist Robert Grady, Donald Trump, Jr., and Sarah Palin.
Randall O’Toole spots much better picks, with a better strategy, than the leading contenders:

As Secretary, either Palin or Lucas would be likely to try to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration and extraction. Bush tried this in 2001 and the environmentalists successfully prevented it. Instead of going after the most controversial piece of ground in the nation, Bush should have–and Trump should–start with opening less controversial areas to show that oil development is compatible with wildlife and other resources.

In the same way, instead of controversial figures like Palin or Lucas, Trump could ask Gary Johnson to be Secretary of the Interior. As a former western governor, Johnson is more familiar with public lands than Lucas. As a dedicated free marketeer, Johnson won’t be committed to one resource over all others; instead, he will try to find ways to maximize the value of all of them together.

Johnson’s Libertarian candidacy shouldn’t make him unacceptable, but if it does, how about current Arizona Governor Doug Ducey? As former CEO of Cold Stone Creamery, Ducey isn’t identified with one natural resource or another. As a fiscally conservative Republican, Ducey should fit right in with Trump’s agenda.

See, A Non-Polarizing Secretary of the Interior @ Cato.

I would be stunned if Johnson got an offer, let alone took the job, but then being stunned isn’t so rare as it once was.  O’Toole’s right, though, to expect better than the conventional options (or certainly the unconventional option of Trump’s namesake.)

Bigotry, Politics, Press

‘Critics Say So’

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Is Stephen Bannon, newly-appointed chief strategist to Donald Trump, a racist.  A headline to a story on that subject comes with a limitation: critics say so. (See, Is Trump’s new chief strategist a racist? Critics say so.)

There’s the weakness of a legacy press: big money, high self-regard, but a small appetite for declaring definitely the character of a person’s views on a well-considered topic.

Is it so hard for a powerful paper to give readers an up-front answer?  Yes, it is, as a combination of past journalistic traditions, present need for readership, and an eternal desire to ingratiate with the next administration.

Reporter Weigel mostly exonerates Bannon of the charge of racism, relying in part on Morning Joe Scarborough’s exhaustive study of ‘like five different people’ that Scarborough happened to choose:

More importantly, Bannon helped shape a Trump message that won the condemnation of the Anti-Defamation League — and helped him in swing states. Trump’s closing ad, a two-minute edit of a speech he had given attacking the “global financial powers,” struck the ADL as hitting “anti-Semitic themes.” In the wider media, it was seen as stirring and populist.

“I played the clip for like five different people and I said, ‘Is that anti-Semitic?’” said MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough last week. “No. There are dog whistles, but .?.?. play that ad to 100 Americans in middle America, 99 of them will go, ‘That’s cool.’?”

(Weigel’s ‘in the wider media’ claim is both vague and false.  The Trump ad to which he refers drew considerable media criticism.  For a detailed assessment of the ad’s anti-Semitism, see Josh Marshall, Trump Rolls Out Anti-Semitic Closing Ad, with a scene-by-scene analysis.)

For an answer to the question of Bannon’s racism, see David Corn’s excellent Here’s Why It’s Fair—and Necessary—to Call Trump’s Chief Strategist a White Nationalist Champion: Stephen Bannon said he was.

Elections, Law

Getting Protest Hashtags (#NotMyPresident) Half Right

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Columnist Paula Dvorak, writing at the Washington Post, contends that saying “saying #notmypresident is the same as saying #notmyconstitution or #notmycountry or #notmyAmerica.” See, Stop protesting democracy. Saying #notmypresident is the same as saying #notmyconstitution.

Dvorak is only right about the first two hashtag phrases – she overreaches on the others. It’s true that #notmypresident is like saying #notmyconstitution, as the first depends on the constitutional order of the second.  That’s the reason that I have not, and will not, use #notmypresident: Trump was elected lawfully the 45th president of the United States on November 8, 2016.  Defending the constitutional order is a worthy defense (and a needful defense as Trump is likely to threaten constitutional norms many times while in office).  That defense begins with a fair acknowledgment of who has been elected.

Dvorak’s wrong, however, to think that #notmycountry or #notmyAmerica are somehow impermissible: those terms describe what someone thinks of the society more broadly, apart from a legal or political understanding.

She’s also wrong to think protests against Trump are undemocratic.  In fact, they’re democratic both broadly and narrowly.  Broadly, one should be able to protest lawfully as one wishes.  Narrowly, Trump wasn’t elected by a majority of voters, or even a plurality of them.  A plurality went to Clinton, and a majority went to all the alternatives to Trump.  If one thinks that democracy – rule of the demos – is what should matter, then one would be protesting for democracy by protesting against Trump.

One may accurately say that Trump’s election was constitutionally permissible at the expense of both the majority’s wishes and those of a plurality.  Lawful, to be sure, but by design with a limitation on majoritarian wishes.

This might all be a mere exercise in terms, were the consequences not so large: hundreds of millions, across a vast continent.  Define legitimate protest as narrowly as Dvorak does (so that it’s somehow out of bounds to say #notmycountry or #notmyAmerica) and one denies those millions something more meaningful than a single, lawful election’s result.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.15.16

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Good morning.

Here in Whitewater we’ll have cloudy skies giving way to sunshine and a high of fifty-six. Sunrise is 6:48 AM and sunset 4:30 PM, for 9h 42m 21s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Common Council meets at for a public hearing on the 2017 municipal budget, 6:30 PM, and there will be a Fire Department business meeting at 7 PM.

Worth reading in full —

Kurt Eichenwald lists Two Myths Democrats Swallowed That Cost Them The Election: “1. The Myth of the All-Powerful Democratic National Committee. Easily the most ridiculous argument this year was that the DNC was some sort of monolith that orchestrated the nomination of Hillary Clinton against the will of “the people.” This was immensely popular with the Bernie-or-Busters, those who declared themselves unwilling to vote for Clinton under any circumstances because the Democratic primary had been rigged (and how many of these people laughed when Trump started moaning about election rigging?). The notion that the fix was in was stupid, as were the people who believed it….2. The Myth That Sanders Would Have Won Against Trump….”

Fiona Hill describes how Putin and the Kremlin are experts at reading the popular mood. And they were watching America: “Putin does not have deep knowledge of the intricacies of U.S. party politics. He cares little for the mechanics of the American electoral system and its complexities, and is disdainful of the messy nature of democracy in general. But one thing he does know well is how to gauge the national mood, play with emotions, and manipulate people. He also knows how to take the measure of individuals and exploit their flaws and weaknesses.”

Nelson Schwartz reports on Trump supporters’ hopes that he’ll save their jobs: “He cited Carrier again and again on the campaign trail, threatening to phone executives at the company and its parent, United Technologies, and to hit them with 35 percent tariffs on any furnaces and air-conditioners they imported from Mexico. To the cheers of his supporters, he predicted at rallies that Carrier would call him up as president and say, “Sir, we’ve decided to stay in the United States.” Now his supporters expect action. “If he doesn’t pass that tariff, I will vote the other way next time,” warned Nicole Hargrove, who has worked at Carrier for a decade and a half and is not certain what she will do if and when her job goes to Mexico.”

Trump moves to make government business his family’s business: “The Trump team has asked the White House to explore the possibility of getting his children the top secret security clearances. Logistically, the children would need to be designated by the current White House as national security advisers to their father to receive top secret clearances. However, once Mr. Trump becomes president, he would be able to put in the request himself.  His children would need to fill out the security questionnaire (SF-86) and go through the requisite background checks.  While nepotism rules prevent the president-elect from hiring his kids to work in the White House, they do not need to be government officials to receive top secret security clearances.”