CBP contracting in need of overhaul?

 A recent article in The Washington Post states that a medical services company that is under federal investigation after the death of a child in U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) custody, has been selected as a finalist for a $1.5 billion government contract to provide medical services to CBP.

The particular company, which has been the primary medical services provider for CBP since 2020 and has worked on CBP contracts worth around $700 million since 2015, has been accused of failing to staff their facilities with qualified doctors and nurses and has been warned by CBP as recently as August 2023 about less than satisfactory performance. This includes chronic staff shortages, excessive travel expenses, and poor record keeping. Such letters of warning to contractors are usually used to alert them that they are in danger of suspension or termination of the contract.

Most alarming, though, was the death of an 8-year-old child from Panama who died after being held in CBP custody for nine days after she and her family illegally entered the country in May 2023. After being taken into custody, the child became ill, but medical staff of the contractor denied requests from her mother for urgent medical treatment until it was too late, and she died. An investigation showed that staff of the contractor mishandled records showing the child’s pre-existing condition.

Despite this, the company was added to a list of six companies that are finalists under consideration for the five-year contract to provide medical screening and services for migrants detained along the southern border. The company was added to the list by the CBP procurement office which overruled the findings of a CBP advisory board that did not recommend it be considered. One of the arguments put forth is that this particular company is the only one large enough to provide the required services—notwithstanding the fact that it has apparently not been providing those services in a satisfactory manner since 2020.

According to the article, the contract selection process in this situation was structured in such a way that a company’s past performance could not be considered as a factor in the first phase, but it becomes a part in the second phase. As someone who has had federal procurement training and who was involved with procurement for over 20 years, I find this astounding. That a company with a track record of shoddy performance can be considered a finalist makes a mockery of the contracting process. While it appears that this process is being conducted legally, insofar as current established procedures require, the procedures themselves are called into question. Failing to consider past performance of a bidder makes no sense, and makes the process take longer than it should have to take. Procurement officials are often pushed into a corner by the tendency of losing bidders to challenge decisions in court, often for the flakiest of reasons, forcing them to make compromises, or allow less than qualified contractors to compete.

The contracting regulations have been modified many times over the years in response to clear deficiencies. This seems to me yet another deficiency that needs a remedy.

No more children need to die because of inefficient, uncaring bureaucrats who are focused more on the financial bottom line than fulfilling the core mission.

BREAKING: Trump gets the news he’s been dreading in Georgia trial

When presidents are treated like kings

   

With the end of the American Revolution on September 3, 1783, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris, not only was the independence of thirteen former British colonies recognized, but it signaled, in effect, the end of monarchical rule in those colonies as well. The people of the new United States of America wanted to have a president rather than a king because they believed that the king hadn’t represented their interests and had imposed taxes without their consent. They believed that they (at least the propertied White, male Protestants) should have a say in how they were to be governed.

 

But just wishing away a monarch as head of state, or even enshrining it in our founding documents, hasn’t entirely eliminated the human desire to rule, or the human weakness that causes some people to look to a strong ruler when they feel threatened. Contrary to the popular rumor, our first president, George Washington, was never offered the role of king of the country. There was a rumor that some of his army officers wanted to make him a monarch in 1782 because they were frustrated and dissatisfied with the weak and ineffective Congress, but Washington dissuaded them. Whether that second rumor is true or not I don’t know, but I do know that we’ve had presidents over the two-plus centuries of our existence who have acted like kings, or have been accuse of acting like kings.

 

During the 1830s, when Andrew Jackson was president, there was concern that he was grabbing too much power and centering it in the office of the President. Abraham Lincoln, using his executive power to hold the Union together, was criticized for acting ‘too much like a king.’

 

In the early 20^th century, Theodore Roosevelt greatly expanded the power of his office by exploiting his ‘bully pulpit’ to take up the ‘white man’s burden,’ and expand the ‘American Empire.’ Later, Teddie’s cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had a powerful sense of dynastic identity, even marrying a cousin to ‘keep it in the family.’ The only president to serve more than two terms (elected a total of four times), he died in office, effectively making him America’s only ‘president for life.’

 

Even Barrack Obama, America’s first African American president, was accused of ‘behaving like a king or emperor,’ for his use of executive orders to get around an obstructionist Congress that was determined to see his presidency fail.

 

What gets missed in all this is that when the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution and were deciding what powers to give the newly created office of president, they gave the position the same powers that they had (erroneously) believed that King George III had possessed and misused – to appoint and dismiss cabinet officers, to make war and peace, and to veto bills sent to the president from the legislature; in other words, the president had been given monarchical authority, making the president, in effect, an elected monarch.

 

Despite the way things look, or the accusations, most of our presidents have at least tried to act as if they didn’t have monarchical authority. Then, along came Donald J. Trump.

 

Here was a president who openly claimed such authority on more than one occasion, and not enough people were apparently paying attention.

 

In 2019, for example, when speaking to a group of young conservatives, he said, “Then I have an Article 2, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.’ There are those who argue that this is an incorrect interpretation of Article 2 of the Constitution, but just as many who argue that as the president is ‘alone the Executive branch and as such he is the sole repository of all Executive powers conferred by the Constitution.’ The Supreme Court has not issued a decision on this, but Trump’s subsequent actions while in office and afterwards (such as his claim that he has the authority to declassify documents simply by thinking of it, or that he’s not bound to support the Constitution) illustrate that he firmly believes that he has the powers and authority of a king, and the resistance on the right to holding him accountable for his crimes would appear that there are those who view him as an emperor with the mandate of heaven. One noted White Nationalist, Nick Fuentes, even called Trump the ‘rightful king of America.’

 

Now, all this might seem like interesting but otherwise meaningless fodder for the tabloid press, but I think that such a point of view ignores the clear and present danger this man and his supporters pose to the democracy that is so fragile that Benjamin Franklin once said, when asked by a lady if we had a republic or a monarchy, “you have a republic if you can keep it.” Before you turn the page and go back to watching the football game, check out what Trump and his supporters plan should he win he 2024 election. Among other things, mass deportations, a new Muslim ban, and tariffs on all imported goods. Oh, and he’s made it clear that he’s going after his political enemies and anyone else who hasn’t ‘supported’ him. These are just a few things that have been openly discussed and if they don’t make you nervous, stop taking your Zantac and pay attention.

 

The king is not dead—long live the republic.

I played in Peoria

 

Why I don’t like bureaucracies

  Counting my time in the army and my years as a diplomat I was part of the government bureaucracy for over fifty years. You’d think after all that time I’m a dyed-in-the-wool, hard-core bureaucrat. You’d be dead wrong. I don’t like bureaucracy, in fact, I absolutely hate bureaucracy. It’s said that bureaucracy is necessary to keep organizations from making rash decisions. The problem is that it often keeps them from making any decision or causes them to make some really stupid decisions.

 

Reading my Sunday, November 26, 2023, edition of The Washington Post reminded me of just why I have such a jaundiced view of bureaucracies and bureaucrats.

 

The story was about a 61-year old doctor who applied to renew his passport, something he’d done several times in the past without a hitch, and now that the U.S. Passport Office is getting its act together and beginning to issue passports in a more timely manner, he expected no problems this time. He was, after all, applying early just to be on the safe side. Hah! Was he in for a surprise. Instead of a notice of his appointment for getting his new passport, he received a letter from a State Department official informing him that he was no longer a U.S. citizen.

 

This was a man who had been born at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC nearly 62 years ago. He attended Georgetown Preparatory School, George Washington University and Boston College, and got his medical degree from Georgetown Medical School. His older brother, born in Kansas, ran for the U.S. Senate from Maryland in 2012. For more than sixty years the US government has been documenting this man as an American citizen, even though at the time of his birth, his father was working for the Embassy of Iran and had diplomatic immunity. Okay, so sixty-one-plus years ago, someone screwed up and issued a US passport to someone who wasn’t entitled to it, and over the years they kept renewing that person’s passport because someone was too lazy to check the records, or too stupid to understand the regulations.

 

So now, some sharp-eyed bureaucrat does check the record and says, ‘oops, we screwed up, but you’re screwed.’ You can apply for permanent residency, but who knows how long that’ll take, or whether or not the bureaucrats who handle that will know what they’re doing or even care that you’ve served the community for decades, including risking your health and safety during the Covid pandemic? The problem here is that the bureaucrat who sent the letter is within his legal right to do so—but because he’s doing it right and according to the rules, it doesn’t make it right. Sometimes, before you blindly follow the rules, you need to look at the circumstances and see if there might not be a kinder, more humane way to handle the situation.

 

In this case, my sympathy is with the passport applicant and I hope it gets settled in a way that’s legal but at the same time fair.

 

But, I’m not holding my breath for that to happen. It is, after all, a bureaucracy.

Getting over shyness

 

Art Prints for sale!

 Prints and other articles that show case my photography can be purchased in my store, CharlesRayDesign's at https://charlesraydesigns.threadless.com/ 

Here are a few sample items:

Reflections on Leadership

For several months now, I’ve been thrust into situations where the subject of leadership has come up. No longer in government, and engaged in work-from-home freelance tasks, I’m no longer in a traditional leadership environment, but as I reflect on those times when I was, I’m now able to see more clearly the ‘why’ of many of the leadership decision I made. 

As I wrote in my book on leadership, Things I Learned from My Grandmother About Leadership and Life,  being a leader is all about putting other people and things ahead of yourself. It doesn’t require being in a formal position, or having direct control over others to be considered a leader. Put more simply, a leader is someone that other people follow. As Colin Powell once said, “a leader is someone that people follow out of curiosity,’ not because they feel they have to, but because they want to see where that leader is going, and they want to go along for the ride. 

Leadership is also not about bossing other people around. I got a message from a person who worked for me over thirty years ago that touched me to the core because it reminded me what real leadership is all about.

 

“I need to mention this before we both get senile dementia and neither one of us can remember the event. Which may be difficult even now... You came down to the ACS Unit, which I was managing, one afternoon, sometime probably in 1998, to see how things were going. I was dealing with the proverbial “difficult customer”. Short version: You stepped up to the window, and said something like (not an actual quote): “I am the Consul General here, and I’m responsible for all of the actions of the officers at this Consulate…” And, by that action, you saved me the whole time for the conversation, “I want to speak with your supervisor, I want to speak with the Consul General…etc.” “Well…you just did.” Obviously, there’s a larger lesson here. I’m just recounting the “micro experience”…ha-ha.”

 

There is, as he wrote, a larger lesson there. That lesson is, a leader puts people first, because without the people behind you, you are not a leader. There’s also more here than just the larger lesson of ‘putting your people first and taking care of them.’ There’s the lesson of taking responsibility for all that your organization does or fails to do. My grandmother taught me that in the form, of ‘if you have the job, you have the responsibility and you can’t dodge it.’ The army also taught me as a young lieutenant that the leader is where the buck stops—period. The other lesson is to make sure your people know that you value them and what they do. 

As I look back on this and other incidents, I remember that this wasn’t something I had a script or instructions to do. It just felt like the right thing to do. 

And that is the most important lesson in leadership and the thing that distinguishes it from management. Managers do things right, but leaders do the right things.

Some traditions aren’t really worth keeping

 

What follows is very likely to upset a lot of people, so consider this a warning. If you’re a Thanksgiving turkey fan who gushes over the fact that the President (and several governors of our states) pardon one (sometimes two) turkeys just before Thanksgiving Day, then stop reading right now. If you don’t, remember that you were warned that you won’t like what I have to say.

 

I think this archaic (albeit sometimes cute) tradition should be replaced. In the first place, I’m not a fan of turkey for any holiday. I much prefer honey-baked ham for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. Turkey is much harder to cook and serve, and there’s always leftovers for days that get drier by the day. Secondly, I grew up in East Texas, and during junior high and high school worked nights for a poultry company. My job was to go into chicken houses late at night after the birds were settled down for the night and remove them ten to fifteen at a time to crates on a truck for transport to the processing plant. Chickens were smelly, but relatively easy to deal with, but I always hated it when, a few months before Thanksgiving we’d have to go to a farm that raised turkeys and load several thousand turkeys into crates.

 

You see, unlike chickens that might squawk when you hoisted them upside down, but would otherwise remain fairly quiet and still, turkeys are evil birds. When you grab the first two or three, the rest wake up and take serious issue with being carted off to their doom. They scratch and peck, and I’ve even been dive-bombed by a malicious bird that flew up into the rafters of the structure. I still have a dimple on the back of my right hand from being speared by a turkey beak when I was fourteen.

 

The other thing I don’t like about the tradition of pardoning a few birds while thousands of others are going into ovens or fryers and then into the guts of indolent football fans, is the hypocrisy of the whole thing. Take the governor of Arkansas, for example. She pardoned the turkey in a nice ceremony but refused to pardon a mentally deficient inmate who was coerced into confessing to a crime he didn’t commit to avoid the possibility of the death penalty. The judge who sentenced him to life in prison said maybe someday a governor would pardon him or commute his sentence. Not the current governor, that’s for sure. She’s more sympathetic to turkeys than her fellow humans.

 

There’s no doubt that many people like the symbolism of this essentially meaningless act, but wouldn’t it be more heartwarming if instead, the president and the governors who do this identified some poor unfortunate prisoner who’s spent a good stretch in lockup and who poses no threat to anyone and pardon him or her instead?

 

Just saying.

Blueprints for a More Modern U.S. Diplomatic Service with Ambassador Dan...

Welcome To Vietnam HD Air America (1990) the Vietnam Air War in Laos

Trying to whitewash history

 

SCOTUS Code of Ethics

 

BREAKING: BOMBSHELL update in Trump’s Georgia trial

South Africa: Key opposition party lobbies for US support to dethrone ANC in 2024

 

The poison of privilege

 

NPR Interview: What diplomats actually do for Americans

 Following is the link to an NPR interview done during a visit to Springfield, Illinois in October 2023.

https://www.nprillinois.org/government-politics/2023-11-10/ambassador-charles-ray-shares-insight-into-what-diplomats-actually-do-for-americans

Lauren Boebert CAN'T identify what’s in her OWN bill when confronted on it

Visit to Atlanta

 On Nov. 1 - 3, I visited Atlanta, GA, where i spoke to the World Affairs Council of Atlanta on a Blueprint for a Modern American Diplomatic Service, and to students at Georgia Tech on careers in foreign affairs. Discovered while I was there that Atlanta has built an amazing rapid transit system that makes getting from the airport into the city and getting around the city a snap.

Sam Nunn School of International Relations at Georgia Tech, Atlanta

Street art near Georgia Tech campus, Atlanta

Stop using 'Karen' as a noun!

 

Trump’s Late Night ALL CAPS Rant, DeSantis’ Boot Lift Mystery & We Prank...