(02-19-2020 11:18 AM)mrbig Wrote:  

(02-19-2020 09:43 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Sorry, I guessed I have missed that. But I have serious doubts that any group/board, even if apolitical when constituted, would stay that way. SCOTUS, FBI, DOJ, NLRB, IRS. Feel free to change my mind. i just am not a believer.

I don't know anything about NLRB or IRS. I don't think the FBI or DOJ are political as organizations or at the line-agent/attorney level. But I have less than zero interest in getting into an argument with you about it.
If you have any interest in my USSC thoughts, my initial post is here. You replied a couple times but didn't engage as much as the other conservatives on the board. Also, after more thought, I think there should be 12 justices on the USSC, each with a 24-year term (one nomination every 2 years). This means each President would get 2 nominations per 4-year term and each Senate would review 1 USSC appointment per congress. After 24 years, the current president could either re-appoint the same justice or that justice could move to a federal appellate court of his or her choice to fulfill the rest of their lifetime federal appointment to the judicial branch. I think this is a better approach than the 27-year terms with 9 justices that I suggested in my initial post.

I think NLRB is very political. I don't know that IRS is inherently political, but Lois Lerner certainly was (of course, that requires believing the line that Lerner was a rogue agent that initiated it, which I find somewhat unbelievable). I don't think FBI or DOJ are politically-motivated at the field level, but the events of the past few years cause me to have a different belief about the people at the top of both--the Comeys, Strzoks, and "Andys" of the world.

Mueller was a republican, but he is very much an old-line elite establishment republican. I have friend who was an FBI field agent, and the field called him "Bobby Three Sticks" because he always signed everything Robert Mueller III, a sarcastic reference to his extremely patrician manner that angered a lot of folks. And of course, Mueller populated his investigative team almost entirely with democrats, so there was clearly some potential for bias there. How much that potential manifested itself is probably a matter to be determined, like beauty, by the beholder.

I think people go to those agencies, at the lower levels, determined to do the right thing. But as they climb up the bureaucracy, they develop a vested interest in preserving the bureaucracy and growing its headcount and budget. Finally, they get to the top by being good bureaucrats, and then ego takes over as the primary motivator. So they go to do good, and stay to do well.