The Bridge To Nowhere–Creative Infrastructure For Biden’s $1.2 Trillion

Capital projects are notorious for their graft, cost overruns, and unofficial benefits.  The most recent and most obvious is the corruption scandal announced by Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy who couldn’t account for all of the billions of dollars in arms, materiel, infrastructure, and operational support generously provided by the United States and Western Europe.  “It must be here somewhere”, he said as he launched an investigation.  Some local contractors will swing for their immoral diversion of military and civil resources needed to defeat Russia and rebuild homes, roads, and bridges; but in the main everyone will look the other way.  The fight against imperialist hegemony is simply too important to worry about ‘minor accounting errors’, said one official in Zelenskyy’s inner circle, and the West nodded in generous support.  The pipeline would remain open and the flow uninterrupted.

The monsoons are Biblical in many parts of India, washing away the dirt, ordure, and dead things that collect in the hot weather.  They are also known for exposing the corruption of public works.  A major portion of the road between Bombay and Ahmedabad was a potholed, impassable stretch of rubble  Months of overloaded trucks, slamming and banging over the road, wreaked havoc.  Potholes became craters.  Shoulders were scarred, mounded, and split.  Since it was the only road between the two cities and both relied on it for the delivery of supplies and provisions, it was used and overused until the government decided it was time to repair it, and shortly before the onset of the monsoon it has been fixed, regraded, paved, and lined.

The rains that year were particularly heavy , and water quickly filled the new potholes and seeped under the shallow coating of tar into the ground below, and within weeks the road had returned to its rutted, impassable state. 

No one was surprised.  The network of diversion, kickbacks, and undercutting had once again been put into place.  Second-rate contractors were hired thanks to generous kickbacks to the State Department of Public Works.  Their subcontractors, engineers, and laborers all paid their dues to work.  Purchases of sand, gravel, asphalt, and concrete were far less than stipulated but the bills of sale reflected the higher amount.  The material was impure, adulterated, and second-hand.  The road, inaugurated by both the Gujarat and Maharashtra Secretaries of Public Works was no more than a dump for the rubble of other, older roads, collapsed buildings, and irregular mining. 

America, of course is nothing like the Third World, nor has it ever been victim of the endemic corruption and mismanagement as Ukraine; but human nature being what it is, no municipality, contractor, or public interest group could possibly ignore the free flow of unlimited, unaccountable finances pouring in from Washington.  It was a largesse never before imagined, a goody bag of immeasurable proportions.  Anything which even smacked of infrastructure was possible.  The President knew that the country’s nuts and bolts were rusted, and everything that underlay the country’s vital economy was broken, so fiscal restraint was an obstructionist non-starter.  The Treasure was instructed to open the floodgates, and municipalities, counties, and states were told to open their coffers to receive their share of federal generosity.

Because the United States is a nation proud of its honest, fair and universally applied democratic principles, jurisdictions were far more cagey than their Third World and Ukrainian counterparts.  Contracts were simply given to favored contractors for unnecessary projects.  The repair and refurbishing of the Paul C. McCarter Bridge over Baldwin Creek in rural Kentucky was a good example. The McCarter Bridge was a century-old, vine-covered, rusted hulk of iron and wood that had remained unused for decades.  Residents of the county had long given up the treacherous passage across the creek and drove the extra few miles over a state-maintained highway that avoided the creek entirely.

Paul C. McCarter was a slave who had won his spurs in the famous Baldwin Creek Uprising of 1843, a bloody affair that had been put down by local militias and reinvigorated the slave-owning sympathies of the county.  McCarter had faded from memory until a local legislator realized that his name would ring loud bells in Washington, and millions of dollars could be secured for the renovation and preservation of what would be named the Paul C. McCarter bridge.  The application was quickly drawn up, submitted to Washington and a green light given for work to begin. 

The country executive and his board had, of course, no intention of seriously repairing, or rebuilding the old iron wreck across the creek; but would do enough to make it look like a deserving project.  The executive drew up a list of his most important political contributors, and ticked off their names against monies to be allocated.  Behind closed doors they were told in carefully worded but transparently obvious language that they were free to use the federal monies ‘as you see fit’, and he could assure them that he would not bother them with unnecessary, intrusive oversight.  Cost overruns in a project like this were to be expected he said, so don’t be shy about requests for more money, for all such petitions would be received without contest.

With much fanfare, balloons, and speeches, work on the bridge was inaugurated.  The black community was delighted that the government had finally recognized them and their native son; contractors were salivating over the open purse handed to them by the government, and the county executive got easily reelected because of overwhelming support from all sides.

Because the executive got the bridge designated as a historical monument, extra work would be required to respect its original design; and although a new bridge would have been much more lucrative, the state had nixed the idea, suggesting that the current Interstate option was just fine.   So contractors were instructed to tear down the bridge and to rebuild it using some of the girders from the old one.  Preservation law as very clear on this point – if the historical profile of the bridge could be retained and some of the original materials used, then anything else was possible.    So cuts, kickbacks, payoffs, friendly money and favors were doubly insured – tearing the old wreck down, and painstakingly rebuilding it.

The most creative use of Biden money was The Bridge To Nowhere in a remote Inuit region of Alaska.  The indigenous population had long lobbied the state for a bridge over the I’k’oolik River connecting their small igloo community with their cousins on the other side.  Although the river was frozen for much of the year and crossing by dogsled, foot or jet ski was a simple matter, a bridge was a matter of pride.  For too long the state had treated the Inuit as second-class citizens and discriminated against them as badly as the Boers had treated their aboriginal brothers in Australia, and this modern bridge would serve as a monument to indigenous rights, culture, and longevity. 

The state and its North Slope Borough county executives saw a rare opportunity now that the Biden Administration had allocated so many funds for infrastructure within a diverse, inclusive framework.  Although they knew that the bridge was entirely unnecessary and there were as yet no passable roads on the other side of the I’k’oolik River, it would be a goldmine.  Not only would a new bridge have to be built, but a new, paved, all-weather road constructed on the other side.

With fanfare, festoons, and dignitaries, work on the bridge was begun.  It proceeded slowly, partly because of the nasty weather in that part of the country, but primarily because  delays meant cost overruns which, in light of no work actually being done, meant money in the pockets of contractors.  The ‘work’ went on and on with little visible progress when, in a surprising and uncharacteristic moment of pique (“Enough is enough”, said the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior), the funding flow from Washington was dammed, and contractors went home, the bridge one-quarter finished, with cables, guy wires, and struts dangling from its leading edge over the river.  No one except the older Inuits were disappointed.  State, county officials, and contractors were very happy indeed with this windfall, this unexpected but very welcome generosity from President Biden.

The Perks Of Office–How A Savvy Congressman Had His Sexual Escapades And Made A Fortune Too

Addison Farley (not his real name) was a newly-elected Member of Congress from a liberal district of a populous Midwestern state.  His district had been gerrymandered to guarantee the election of Democratic candidates, but Farley was applauded for his record in the state legislature, his tenure as Attorney General, and his successful campaign for a naval air station that employed hundreds.  Farley to all observers was a man of rectitude, moral propriety, fidelity, and trust; and the voters in his state felt lucky that they had elected a man who would assure a generous flow of treasury dollars and would be free from the scandals that had followed his predecessor.

John Boy Nichols, Farley’s predecessor, had been a populist politician who had been elected on great promises and an outsized personality.  John Boy was a dandy, never without arm candy and a shiny new car,  a man who spent walkin’ around money like it grew on trees.  He was famous for the no-show jobs he handed out, and the electoral sweeps that were assured every two years.  Until he was caught in flagrante delicto with Pilar Spanner, formerly Pike Spanner, hook-and-ladder commander, local hero, former football captain, but now a femme fatale more famous for the runways of Las Vegas than the burning silos, warehouses, and migrant housing of Farley’s  district. 

John Boy’s constituents were by and large progressive, not surprising for an urban, upper middle class area of a prosperous state; but they drew the line at such sexual exposure.  They loved Bill Clinton even after Monica Lewinsky, forgave Martin Luther King for his stable of mistresses, John F. Kennedy for his shady Dominican lovers, and Lyndon Johnson for his tomcatting; but somehow they could not turn the other way when their man’s affair with Pilar, formerly Pike Spanner, came to light.  Not only was Nichols consorting with a tart, but he had chosen a sexual double-dealer, a ‘woman’ with a fullback’s shoulders, stiletto heels, acres of false eyelashes and painted nails, and a come-hither pout that had become a legendary trademark.

His electorate may have debated before pulling the lever for Addison Farley – after all, John Boy had brought home the bacon like none other – but they felt that it was the right thing to do.  Farley would refurbish the image of the district, reset the moral compass, and continue to flush millions its way but with transparency, honesty, and careful accounting.

For all intents and purposes Farley was a progressive’s progressive, a man who, devoted to civil rights, gay rights, the rights of women, and the environment, was tireless in the pursuit of justice.  Although he argued in favor of the gender spectrum, sexual choice, and the demise of heterosexual oppression, he skirted skirt the issue of transgenderism and trod very carefully when it came to drag queens and cross-dressers.  He became very agile at preaching inclusivity and sexual diversity without going overboard, for which his constituents were more than satisfied.

Once he took his seat in Congress, he immediately joined every radical progressive caucus and became a tireless supporter of their fights for liberation, social reform, and the dismantling of capitalism.  At the same time, he was a canny compromiser, and was able to trade favorable farm subsidies for urban infrastructure.  For a House freshman, he was surprisingly adept at such negotiations, and was treated as one of the boys before a year of his two had passed.

However, somehow undetected by a credulous liberal base, Farley was also a consummate con artist, a shell game wizard, a well-dressed and high-toned snake oil salesman who could sell the Brooklyn Bridge.  He was progressive because his district was progressive.  He saw on which side his toast was buttered, endorsed every popular notion of social ‘justice’ and radical reform without an iota of real commitment, and cruised along with a very shallow wake.

He was re-elected without fuss or fanfare, and settled into his second term.  Republicans were gaining a surprising foothold in the rural constituencies of his state, took power in the legislature, and rescinded the gerrymandering of Farley’s district.   It became more imperative that he hold on to his seat, given the slim Democratic majority in the House, and he found himself a favorite of Party leaders.  With their support and largesse, even despite the reconfiguration of his district, a win was guaranteed, and Farley became an indelible feature on the political scene.

As his political future became more and more secure, he found himself less and less eager to break his neck over issues on which he had run but which had become old chestnuts.  He never abided the received wisdom that the black man’s African civilizations were superior to those of Louis XIV, Henry VIII, or Augustus, Trajan, and Claudius; that women’s combination of compassion and intelligence made them the superior sex; and that socialist wealth distribution and exaggerated populist rule were worthy successors to capitalism; but now he felt comfortable enough to let them slide.  It was enough to provide a slice or two of bacon every so often without the fol-de-rol of idealism and faux notions of Utopian progress.

Farley had been elected in a time of severe censorious Puritanism.  The MeToo movement had all but neutered men and sent them scurrying for the exits the minute an attractive woman entered the room.  Language was cleansed, social discourse reprimanded for the least infraction of approved nomenclature and historical reference, and behavior whipped into 17th century Salem order.

Yet real men paid this absurd anti-naturalist cloture of sexual expression no mind; and to a man, machismo was the ethos of Type A Washington.  There was no way that Senators, Congressmen, K Street lawyers, high-flying land developers were going to keep it in their pants.  Henry Kissinger said what every politician knew – power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.  There wasn’t a president who didn’t have sexual dalliances or fantasies about them; not one politician, not one man on the political make.  The peculiar Puritan wet blanket thrown over Washington made it difficult to operate, but operate they did.  Men had to be more careful, more judicious in their absences, and more recondite in their explanations, but nothing stopped them.

Farley who had never had an ounce of the moral probity for which he was famous had no trouble picking up where his Lothario brothers left off.  However, whereas the likes of Clinton, John Edwards, and Mark Sanford got caught with their pants down, Farley was too smart for that.  He used every trick of the trade to escape the moral police, had his seductions and pleasures, and returned to his district with earnestness and infrastructure projects galore.

“You’re wasting your time”, said one of Farley’s House colleagues.  “There’s money to be made”.  Farley had been spending all this time and energy exercising one minor perk of power – sexual adventure – without even a second thought to the major one, immense wealth.  It wasn’t for nothing that Congressional finance committees sat in judgement of the likes of Bernie Madoff, the Enron Five, and Crypto Crook Sam Bankman-Fried.  The savviest and most ambitious members of these committees learned something useful.  Most were lawyers who had already learned how to skirt the law, and their legislative tenure taught them how to work the system of derivatives, off-shore accounts, and creative financial instruments.  No member of Congress should ever leave office empty handed.

Politics was the ultimate shell game.  Farley could go before his constituents and preach probity, social justice, and progressive reform and make hay while the sun shone on his corner office in the Rayburn Building.   The notches on his sexual belt increased geometrically while his bank account swelled.  When he retired – better safe than sorry, and better hang up your spurs before it is too late – he was feted by his constituents, fellow members of Congress, and the President of the United States.

“it’s been a good run”, he said in his farewell speech, and few in the audience knew exactly what he was talking about.

A Sexual Free For All At The White House–When Gender Appointments Get Into A Cat Fight

Joe Biden wanted to be known as the sex change president.  He and his advisors had whole-heartedly embraced transgenderism, the gender spectrum, and the concept of free sexual choice.  They has tirelessly promoted radical gender education in the public schools and quickly formulated a K-6 curriculum focusing on the new sexuality.  Kindergarteners would be taught basic principles of transformative sex – cross-dressing fairy tale role plays would illustrate how easy it was to change one’s sexual identity – and in every successive grade education would become more specific.  By the sixth grade students would know how to apply for gender transformation, where to go, and what it would entail.

The new curriculum met with significant opposition from parents who, although committed progressives were a bit skittish of having their boys twirl in hoop skirts, so the adoption of the new course of study took longer than administrators had expected.  Nevertheless it was approved in the Spring of one year and put into place in the Fall.  The teachers union in consort with school officials rushed their charges through a crash course in gender transformation and they were ready for class by September.

The Administration did not stop there.  The President felt it imperative to make his staff look like the new America, and he began the recruitment process to reflect the gender spectrum and everyone from swishy gay boys to Bernal Heights tough girls, to transgender men and women, from Aliander to Xanith, from the deepest ebony to the lightest coffee-and-cream.  Whites were not included. “They’ve had their day”, said the President.  The only thing white about the White House was the house itself.

So the White House became the nation’s citadel of gender diversity, a collection of proud individuals who would show the force of sexual determination, the rightness of gender choice, and the final demise of antiquated notions of heterosexuality.

As in all animal societies, diversity breed suspicion, outsiders dunned, and skirmishes to determine who rules the roost as common in human society as in a hen house; so it was not surprising that few people were happy in the West Wing.  Everyone began scrapping for access to the President, wheedling and cajoling their way past the Chief of Staff – the only straight person on call and the only exception to the ‘queer only’ rule  because of his gender neutrality – and  trying every trick of the trade to move up the power echelon. The President had naively thought that there would be solidarity among all non-binary people.  They would be united in their fight against the white, male oppressor and form a phalanx of gender righteousness.

He was wrong, of course  No matter the color, the junk, the sexual profession, the ethnic origin, age, politics, and religion, human beings will always grapple and claw their way up from where they started.   Pike Spanner, a former hook-and-ladder commander, a big brute of a man who had saved lives on the job, but was an off-duty a lonely, frustrated woman in a man’s clothing.  Despite is ur-maleness on the job, he was a pussycat at home who cried over his fate.  With great determination, will, and purpose, he began his transition, and within a year he had become Pilar Spanner, a beautiful although somewhat imposingly tall and unfortunately muscled woman.  He assumed that as the White House Advisor for Gender Affairs, he would indeed rule this particular roost, and every neutrois, transvestite, and tri-gender appointees would fall under his jurisdiction.  The Chief of Staff, following his boss’ directives never specified chain of command  or never drew up an organization chart.  In the new gendered society, there would be no lines of authority, for all would be pulling oars on the same boat. 

The mistake showed up at the very first briefing session.  According to the inclusivity ethos, pre-assigned places were not assigned.  Staff members would simply seat themselves around the table, expressing unity, camaraderie, and collective duty.  At a round table there is no head, but Pilar Spanner felt it important to demonstrate her primus inter pares authority.  There is, in fact, a de facto head of any round table, a position if not numbered or identified, is quickly established by a show of initiative.  Pilar took a seat facing the large portrait of Thomas Jefferson, and was the first to speak.  She did so impressively.  Her strong, stertorous voice resonated in the high-ceilinged, formal room especially chosen by the President for this inaugural event.  She thanked the President, the Chief of Staff, and the diverse assembly before her. 

Brooklyn Peters, Biden’s choice for his lesbian appointment, had always been an outspoken gay woman.  She was a tough cookie, first at the ramparts, first on the steps of City Hall, first in the Castro, and loud supporter of lesbian rights on the City Council.  There was no getting by Brooklyn Peters.  Passes were only given with interest, pay back expected, and whipping post discipline expected.  It was obvious that she wouldn’t sit still for some Johnny-come-lately trannie who arrogated faux authority to himself.  After Pike (Pilar) had finished his remarks, she stood up, and ginning up every ounce of acid, irony, and put-down invective, let him/her have it.  She, accustomed to leadership, obeisance, and allegiance, was the natural leader of the pack.  She was the Alpha person, and would brook no challenges.

The roundtable erupted with cheers and jeers from all sides.  Each one of the energized, privileged, and uppity men and women (sic) in the room let others know their claim to authority.  Only when the Chief of Staff walked in the room and signaled for order (he had respectfully remained in the cloak room, given the President’s order for spontaneous inclusivity) did the squabbling stop. “Time for tea” he said as he rang for the Presidential butler, quieting the group who settled back into their chairs as the butler served the tea, crumpets, and scones. 

Now, these gender-diverse members of the White House staff had nominal professional responsibilities.  One was in charge of the new gender curriculum, another a liaison to the gay members of Black Lives Matter, a third to gender diversity among California migrant farm workers, etc.  They all had work to do, but their primary agenda was to promote the cause of their particular gender which, like all non-binary genders, had suffered heterosexual oppression, disdain, and outright hostility.  Cesar Chavez wetback aside, Luisa Sanchez, ombudsman to Mexican immigrant labor, had more important maverique gender rights to fight for.

Although the President had been extremely generous in funding the various gender claques within the White House, monies were not limitless; and the genders had to scratch and scramble for funds out of a common pot.  Not only were they concerned with power, status, and access to the President, they had to fight for money. 

As a result, nothing got done.  The howling and mewling of cat fights could be heard up and down the corridors of both the East and West Wings.  Meetings were little more than food fights and were discontinued until further notice by the Chief of Staff.  He – a  white, male heterosexual it must be remembered – had had enough.  “Shut up you bitches”, he shouted at the last of the meetings and was pelted and abused as the walked the gantlet out of the room. 

Resignation in hand, he barged into the Oval Office, and said, “I quit” leaving the President nonplussed and at a loss for words.  The banging on the doors of the Presidential Suite went on for days, as each member of the gender coalition, outraged and insulted, demanded an audience; but since there was no longer a Chief of Staff, the doors never opened and the President came and went through a back door.

“So much for diversity”, the President said sadly to his wife, Jill, as they climbed into bed that night.

“Yes, dear, but you tried”, and with that the whole sorry, misguided, misplaced affair became  a thing of the past.