Monthly Archives: February 2017

Mustafa Akyol notes Turkey’s slide away from liberal democracy and into the cult of the strong man in AL Monitor:

Another dramatic scene is set in the year 1961. Turkey is under the rule of a secularist military junta that has overthrown the democratically elected Democrat Party government. The young boy who bravely recited the Arabic call to prayer is now a pious Islamist with a “cause.” A truck full of soldiers heads into his modest neighborhood, where they break down his door and arrest him as he is praying. For added drama, the man’s aged parents try to stop the soldiers and save their son. They are viciously thrown to the ground, in a scene reminiscent of Nazis in Holocaust films.

Meanwhile, a young boy in the neighborhood has been watching all this with sadness, but also with a certain wiseness, knowing that these dark days will pass. At that point, Erdogan’s voice is heard reciting a line from a famous poem: “Don’t leave this nation without a hero, my God.” That boy is the young Erdogan, the very hero that “this nation” — Turkey’s religious conservatives — has been waiting for for a century. That, apparently, is the message of “The Chief.”

A certain irony, since apparently Erdogan had faked his diploma in order to begin his ascent to power. Akyol’s conclusion?

Many of Erdogan’s supporters will likely be moved by the eagerly awaited film, whose trailers have had more than 130 million hits. The historical irony will probably be lost on most of them that the early Turkish Republic that they so despise was characterized not only by a heavy dose of secularism, but also by a cult of personality, not unlike their own, around Kemal Ataturk. In the 1930s, when Ataturk dominated Turkey, statues of him were erected across the country to the extent that the words “statue” and “Ataturk” became synonymous in the public’s mind.

Now, a century later, Turkey has another cult of personality in the making, at the hands of the very people who for decades ridiculed the cult of Ataturk. Statues are out of fashion these days, but a much more influential form of art is available for the mission: film. “The Chief” is just the beginning. The producer has proudly noted that “The Chief II,” “The Chief III” and several other films are being planned for the series. They will all be launched on Feb. 26, Erdogan’s birthday. After all, his birthday must be a special day for the entire nation.

I don’t know enough about Turkey to really comment, but it sure sounds like a nation with a significant number of frightened people who want someone to protect them – at any cost.

I hope they don’t end up with a cost that cannot be borne.

Some people like horror movies, and some people like dinosaurs, probably for the same reason. NewScientist (4 February 2017) reports on a new discovery which makes me shudder even as it delights me:

The newly unearthed fossils from the Transylvania region of Romania date from 70 million years ago. They reveal a little-known azhdarchid, Hatzegopteryx, with a short, massive neck. Much stronger than others in the same family, it probably feasted on bigger prey, such as dinosaurs the size of a small horse (PeerJ, doi.org/bxvs).

“The bones we are taking out of Romania show a much more robust and massive animal than we previously imagined,” says Mark Witton at Portsmouth University, UK. Hatzegopteryx would have been an apex predator, a bit like T. rex. With a jaw half a metre wide, it could have swallowed a small human or a child, says Witton.

A small horse!

An azhdarchid is part of the Pterosaur family, the big gliders you often see in various dinosaur movies and documentaries. One, in fact, shows up The People That Time Forgot, trying to get at the people in the flying machine (I shan’t grace it with the more modern appellation airplane), although they made the mistake, I think, of calling it a pterodactyl – if I remember my childhood model building proper, the pterodactyls had the tails with the diamond-shaped bone mass at the end, while pteranadons did not, so I think it was a pteranadon.

The azhdarchid even have a blog dedicated to them, Azhdarchid Paleobiology, although it doesn’t appear to have been updated since 2008, sad to say. The lovely illustration to the right comes from that blog. A quick perusal shows some comparative illustrations. An illustration on a Scientific American blog shows them the size of giraffes! Now I’m feeling small. And helpless. Maybe I shouldn’t sleep tonight.

Casuistry:

1. a resolving of specific cases of conscience, duty, or conduct through interpretation of ethical principles or religious doctrine

2.  specious argument :  rationalization

Noted in this 9 Chickweed Lane comic.

A reader comments on possible impeachment:

I doubt he’ll fire Bannon, since Bannon is the guy actually running the show. The Republicans just need to gird their loins and impeach him, knowing that Pence will give them just about everything they want anyway, with a lot more stability and professionalism. Or at least, I sure hope. How does a new VP get appointed?

This is controlled by the 25th Amendment. Short version: any nominee must be approved by both Houses. From Wikipedia:

Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.^[3]

I’ve wondered if a President could dismiss a Vice-President. No mention here.

A President Pence would also require a lot of supervision, but at least, from the debates, it sounded like he has a proper wariness of Russia.

My Arts Editor and I had a discussion of the situation and I raised the point that a positive of all this is to wake up a lot of people who prefer to ignore politics, get them involved, maybe even up the quality of candidates running for office. All speculation on my part, of course – but I can hope!

I’ve encouraged friends to run from time to time, and have encountered some quaint rejoinders, along the lines of I’m too shy to Are you kidding? No, I’m not.

Professor Eric Posner of The University of Chicago Law School speculates on the impeachment of Trump, and gives the current attitude of the court system:

If Trump was trying to intimidate the courts, he failed. They are openly contemptuous of Trump. Here is Judge Robart, the “so-called judge”:

As the government argued for postponement, the judge referenced Trump’s tweet reacting to the 9th Circuit ruling saying he would “see you in court.”

“I’m a little surprised since the President said he wanted ‘to see you in court,’” Robart said, later adding, “Are you confident that’s the argument you want to make?”

DOJ lawyer Michelle R. Bennett said: “Yes, your honor.”

Robart is mocking the president. Meanwhile, a district judge in Virginia has found that Trump likely acted out of animus when he issued the travel ban. Passages in her opinion and the Ninth Circuit opinion brim over with disgust at the Trump administration’s lack of professionalism. The respectful formalism of traditional presidential power opinions is gone.

He notes Trump’s problems with other critical institutions: the press, government agencies, various civil society groups, and Congress. He thinks impeachment may come before the end of his first term.

NewScientist (4 February 2017) reports on progress in communicating with people with “locked-in” syndrome, which can be brought on by ALS and other neurological diseases. This caught me by surprise:

The team used the device to ask the four people if they were happy. “They say that life is wonderful,” says Birbaumer.

Many people, including some medical professionals, assume that paralysed people have a low quality of life. Birbaumer says that in his experience, this isn’t true.

Some research suggests locked-in people are unable to process negative emotions, says Chaudhary. “They’re only processing positive emotions, and if that happens, you’re basically happy all the time,” he says. “We don’t know why that is, but it seems as though the brain is trying to protect itself.”

I’ve often felt – along with many other scientific types – that Near Death Experiences (NDEs) are merely the result of a malfunctioning brain. I had never thought of a malfunction which simply kept the consciousness happy, though.

Here’s a quick summary of the story:

Smoking saved my life!

(From a colleague who went in to CAT scan of his lungs to check on the progress of COPD caused by smoking earlier in his life, and came out with a diagnosis of a thoracic aortic aneurysm, for which the usual symptom is the victim drops dead. He’ll be having surgery.)

I see CNN is reporting on its Politics blog (which does not appear to permit linking to individual entries) that Trump will be holding a rally in Florida this weekend:

Trump will hold a campaign-style rally Saturday in Melbourne, Florida.

Trump will rally supporters at an airport hangar at the Orlando Melbourne International Airport, the same venue where he held a campaign rally in September.

This may be an attempt by Trump to rejuvenate enthusiasm for his tenure in the White House – and his own self-image.

This may be more than just a curious side item. This may be pivotal (and it seems so strange to say that before an entire month has passed in Trump’s tenure) for Trump.

I’m reminded of something I read long ago (possibly in this, but I’m uncertain) about the iconic German arms maker Krupp. They were one of, perhaps the, major arms manufacturer for the Kaiser during World War I. Keeping in mind this may be an apocryphal story, very, very near the end of World War I, Kaiser Wilhelm II came to the main Krupp plant and gave a speech concerning the war. He was met, if memory serves, with utter silence. Not a speck of enthusiasm was shown.

He abdicated not long after, shocked by the response and discouraged.

If Trump doesn’t see excited crowds, happy & supportive, he may fall apart and resign – or change his role within the White House from chairman of the board to … something else.

If he’s recharged by the visit, on the other hand, then no major changes are likely.

But it’s worth keeping an eye on it. My guess is that someone will arrange to have a big, happy crowd show up, and Trump will charge away happy as a clam, reassured of his magnificence.

In the meantime, I note the withdrawal of his nominee for Labor Secretary and boss of CKE Restaurants, Andrew Puzder, who apparently had his own set of ethics questions which he couldn’t overcome. Does this count as a scandal, or just another dumb idea from Trump? But Trump’s Gallup approval rating remains stuck at 40%. What else will it take to see that break through into the thirties?

As the great GOP hope executes a flaming dive into the ocean, the GOP political machine bumbles on. I received an email accusing Landrieu (of Louisiana), the Clintons, Obama, and Sanders of misuse of funds recently. Not having a lot of patience for this sort of thing, I decided to pick only Sanders to do the usual additional research; I will just assume this previous post will cover Clinton. Here’s the outtake from the mail concerning Sanders

Source: my mail. Gotta like his grin.

… and Bernie Sanders who shortly after ending his 2016 presidential bid bought his third home a $600,000 lakefront vacation house<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__heatst.com_politics_bernie-2Dsanders-2Dbuys-2Dhouse_&d=DwMFAg&c=clK7kQUTWtAVEOVIgvi0NU5BOUHhpN0H8p7CSfnc_gI&r=nAkEahZnmPDovIEQUz2sMw&m=kKweGL9U_hYpOMS0DXDyIxP5x1UGtBH5w-x5hjBzuFU&s=tDiY3bbwAjnzNzQHNI2FQcmFjnVJOpVb8q8e2i5trdY&e=>on

Bernie Sanders Buys $600K Lakefront Summer House in Vermont

urldefense.proofpoint.com

Feel the bling.

Jack Goldsmith on Lawfare is worried the Trump Administration will be too weak to deal with crises, rather than too strong (that is, autocratic):

In November I argued that “the permanent bureaucracy, including inspectors general and government lawyers; the press; civil society; Congress; and courts … will operate in much more robust fashion to check President Trump than they did to check President Obama,” and that “Trump’s seeming indifference to the rule of law and his pledges to act unlawfully will cause the checking institutions to judge all of his actions with much greater scrutiny and skepticism.”  That is precisely what has happened.  Consider just a few events:

The Flynn resignation.  The Flynn resignation was the consequence of two vital checks on the presidency.  First is the “powerful permanent bureaucracy in the intelligence and defense communities that transcend administrations” and that consists of individuals with “deep expertise, trans-administration interests and values, and deft infighting skills that enable them to check and narrow the options for even the most aggressive presidents.”  These officials have been pushing back against Flynn (and Trump) since November, most recently (at least before Flynn’s resignation) in their refusal to grant a security clearance to one of Flynn’s closest deputies.  The Flynn resignation never would have happened absent leaks by “current and former U.S. officials” in numerous agencies and the White House that laid out the whole tawdry affair, at least as we know it thus far.  Given Trump’s manifold heresies, it is not surprising that “national security leaking, already widespread, [would] increase a lot under Trump” since the “vast majority of the permanent corps in the intelligence and defense bureaucracy [are] on edge to ensure that Trump does not violate the law or their values (and, ultimately, their institutional self-interest), and it will leak at the slightest hint of illegal action.”

A more comprehensible statement with regards to Obama might have been interesting. From my point of view, which (for new readers) sees Obama as a President very much in the mainstream of America, the bureaucracy didn’t have to check Obama; his list of mistaken uses of American power, inside and outside, is probably exceedingly short.

From reading Mr. Goldsmith, one might say that leaks to the press have a valid role to play in a functioning democracy, and from that it leaves the problem of leaks in quite an ambivalent light. I can easily feel sympathy for any Administration that has possibly critical plans exposed by leakers out for personal gain; but when an Administration is caught indulging in an unethical or illegal ploy, then we see the value of leakers.

Mr. Goldsmith explains his point:

But these days I am more worried about—and I think we should all to some degree be worried about—a too-weak Trump presidency.   Arthur Schlesinger Jr. is (as usual) quite right when he says that “The American Constitution … envisages a strong presidency within an equally strong system of accountability.”  The accountability system is working in overdrive; it is the presidency I am worried about. …

The U.S. government cannot work well to respond to society’s many complex problems—many things that need to get done cannot get done—without a minimally staffed, well-organized, energetic, and competent Executive branch.  Right now we don’t have such an Executive branch.

In combination with Quinta Jurecic’s piece on government by troll (Bannon), it does make clear that the chronic disorganization wrought by Trump is not working well so far; it may not last long enough to ever achieve positive results.

But then, it’s never been clear that Trump has ever been a wildly successful individual, despite his bombast.

Julian Pecquet publishes an article in AL Monitor on the US nominee for the Israeli ambassadorship and his links to an Israeli settlement, using the financial disclosure form the nominee submitted to the Senate:

The form’s most interesting feature is Friedman’s role as president of the American Friends of Bet El Yeshiva, a West Bank outpost of 1,300 families a stone’s throw from Ramallah. The hilltop settlement was first established in 1977 near the biblical Bethel, where Jacob dreamed of a stairway to heaven.

Friedman, the son of an Orthodox rabbi, has called Bet El a “critical component in our collective battle for the safety, security and unity of the State of Israel” and poured millions into developing the township. Plaques with his name and those of family members adorn buildings throughout the town. …

The disclosure form obtained from the Office of Government Ethics merely lists Friedman as the president of American Friends of Bet El Yeshiva, with no description of the nonprofit’s purpose. Separate tax filings with the federal Internal Revenue Service simply describe its mission as aiding “the students, faculty and administration of Bet El Yeshiva.”
The nonprofit’s main annual expense, according to its IRS filings, is its annual fundraising dinner for Bet El. In 2014, American Friends of Bet El Yeshiva spent $171,000 for the dinner and sent $2 million to Israel under the rubric of “general support for school.” …

Those records suggest that Friedman’s nonprofit is deeply involved in supporting the Israeli settler movement beyond merely helping students with their religious studies. A website for the dinner, a $500-per-couple affair touted as “the largest and most prestigious New York dinner of any Israel organization,” confirms that impression with a long list of causes that stand to benefit from the glitzy fundraiser: from the settlement’s Israel Defense Forces preparatory academy, to a family tourism operator, to a 120,000-circulation newspaper.

For me, there’s a line between expertise and special interest, and this appears to suggest that Mr. Friedman has a special interest in the politics of Israel and Palestine, and this is inappropriate in an ambassador because it appears to be religiously based – and the United States is a secular nation. If we were a religious nation, and the religion of Mr. Friedman was congruent with the national religion, and his views congruent with the current leadership, he’d be fine.

But this is not so in the first instance. Our national interests, which he would naturally represent and promote, may be at variance with his deeply held opinions – thus representing a certain lack of trust, since ambassadors also report back to the President. President Trump has already shown unexpected plasticity in his positions, such as the One China Policy which he had earlier disdained, but has now endorsed. It would ill-serve President Trump to deploy an ambassador who may be working at cross-purposes with the President.

Collateral estoppel:

Collateral estoppel (CE), known in modern terminology as issue preclusion, is a common law estoppel doctrine that prevents a person from relitigating an issue. One summary is that, “once a court has decided an issue of fact or law necessary to its judgment, that decision … preclude[s] relitigation of the issue in a suit on a different cause of action involving a party to the first case”.^[1] The rationale behind issue preclusion is the prevention of legal harassment and the prevention of abuse of judicial resources. [Wikipedia]

Used on Lawfare by Samuel Bray:

Many other objections to the national injunction exist (some are raised in this article). It is an end-run around the requirements for class actions. Notably even in a class action, the remedy is supposed to protect the plaintiff class, not other people. National injunctions are also in tension with a number of technical doctrines of federal courts. These include doctrines about collateral estoppel against the government, limited authority for a single district judge to make precedent or “clearly established law,” and the narrow scope of who can bring contempt proceedings to enforce an order.

South Korea announced the detection of a recent change in the North Korean leadership, which Michael Madden on 38 North puts under the microscope, from alleged event to even the motivations of South Korea mentioning it:

If General Kim [Won Hong] has actually been removed from his position and is eventually replaced, it would represent a departure in how Kim Jong Un treats his most loyal aides and supporters. While several members of the elite have fallen by the wayside during the last five years, Kim Jong Un has not demoted, dismissed or “disappeared” this small cohort. If he has fired Kim Won Hong, it would mean that he has now turned on “his people” in the leadership. Interpretations of this are subjective. To some Pyongyang watchers this will only reaffirm their view that Kim Jong Un’s leadership of the DPRK is unstable and that Kim himself might be mentally unstable. Other Pyongyang watchers will interpret this as a sign that Kim Jong Un has cemented his power and dominance in the country’s political system; in this view, by dismissing someone so closely tied to his own rise to power he feels sufficiently secure to send a message to other DPRK elites that none of them should feel safe in their jobs.

Possible conclusion?

If Kim Won Hong has been dismissed, it means that Kim Jong Un is now laying into a group of previously untouchable loyalists. Internally, it signals to other senior elites that their jobs may not be as safe as they thought. It would indicate that Kim Jong Un is more isolated from North Korea’s power structure[10] than it seems, and works through a group of largely unnamed and unknown close aides[11] in the Personal Secretariat. While his father may have been physically distant from various officials, cadres and functionaries, Kim Jong Il maintained a flurry of contacts and communications with subordinates of varying ranks and stations. Kim Jong Un has a berth to reinvent the reporting and control channels in the regime, but it isn’t a wide berth.

Which suggests we may know less about how Kim Jong-un runs his bureaucracy than we thought, which makes me wonder how much we can really say we know about the entire setup? But Michael is very cautious about this announcement:

As always, reports of a senior North Korean official’s dismissal or death come with caveats. In contrast to previous occasions, the South Korean government has been rather candid about Kim Won Hong’s dismissal. Rather than let something float in the ether of anonymous sources and a competitive media market, they clarified and contextualized the available intelligence. And yet, one cannot ignore the correlation between the [Republic of Korea] President’s Office refusing to honor a search warrant at the Blue House and the [Ministry of Unification]’s announcement on Kim Won Hong; to deflect attention from an ongoing corruption investigation, perhaps someone in Seoul decided to officially leak a bit of intelligence on North Korea’s internal political affairs.

The President of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) has been engulfed in a nasty scandal – WaPo published a report back in October of 2016 on the problems of Park Geun-hye, who apparently is stubbornly holding on:

The essence of the scandal is this: It has emerged that Park, notoriously aloof even to her top aides, has been taking private counsel from Choi Soon-sil, a woman she’s known for four decades. Despite having no official position and no security clearance, Choi seems to have advised Park on everything from her wardrobe to speeches about the dream of reunification with North Korea.

Calls for her resignation — and even impeachment — are resonating from across the political spectrum, and her approval ratings have dropped to a record low of 17 percent, according to two polls released Friday.

If she’s refused a search warrant, it’s easy to see how the release of information about the war machine to the north – accurate or not – would be used to deflect and obscure criticism about refusing a search warrant.

It’s soap operas all over the world, folks. I see Russia may have broken a treaty today, too. I’m heading for bed.

FiveThirtyEight provides a handy chart of how legislators are voting with respect to Trump’s preferences. Naturally, this provides a splendid measure of the team politics meme and how it’s destroying our political culture. I see that, up to today, Rand Paul, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski are the only GOP Senators who are not 100% in with the Party line. I wonder if they’ll end up paying for that, or if the Trump era will end before vengeance can be exacted.

The House, being much larger, has more opportunities to step out of line. Right on the first page of 8 Republicans I see two who don’t toe the line with enthusiasm, and paging along I see several more. But it’s a little incautious to read much into this, since we’re not talking about nominees, and we may be seeing minor legislation on which Trump has an opinion, but not a strong one.

Still, quite interesting.

A reader reacts rather grumpily to Flynn’s exit:

Liberal chatter, the man did wrong and then did the right thing, he resigned. Enough.

Unfortunately, he indulged in denials and then forgetfulness. Perhaps that can be ignored.

However, if I may borrow a conservative trope, where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and I see this as one of the first flames of this forest fire. There are actually a lot of concerns.

First, as the top National Security Advisor, he had incredible access to intelligence resources. Was he compromised? Or, how badly was he compromised? How much do the Russians now know because of the foolishness of hiring Flynn?

Second, he needs to be replaced. I’ve already, to my amazement, heard the name General David Petraeus mentioned. He indulged in an extra-marital affair and, according to Wikipedia,

Eventually, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information Petraeus allegedly provided to his mistress and biographer.

If he’s really in serious consideration, a responsible conservative should be asking about the processes being followed by the White House, and particularly that of the guy at the top. This is one of the most serious positions available, and Trump fouled it up once already. Flynn’s indulgence in conspiracy theories was no secret; indeed, that may have attracted Trump’s interest in him.

The third point follows from the second: how do we know that any of Trump’s nominees are trustworthy? So far we have evidence of one appointment failing spectacularly. Why did it fail? Have those errors in process been corrected? Why should we assume this is a one-time failure when the majority of the nominees (Tillerson, Sessions, DeVos, Puzder, Carson) are either complete novices in their area, are right-wing extremists – or both? And I don’t speak as a liberal, unless you are referencing such liberals as Washington and Jefferson, who greatly valued experience and good judgment; I really speak as the American independent that I am. And let’s not forget his senior advisors such as Conway, Bannon, and Miller – none of which have made a good showing.

The resignation of Flynn indicates that those others selected by Trump may be of a dubious nature. Any good conservative should be gravely concerned at the poor quality of Trump’s personnel. Particularly as more than once he promised he’d get the best.

WaPo notes the reluctance of Congress to exercise oversight powers on the President, a responsibility of Rep. Chaffetz (R-UT):

Chaffetz never met a probe he didn’t like during the Obama administration, from Benghazi to the IRS. In September alone, Democrats complain, his committee held five days of “emergency” hearings probing Clinton’s emails and issued 12 subpoenas.

Now, as my Post colleagues have reported, several U.S. officials have confirmed that national security adviser Michael Flynn discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with the Russian ambassador in the month before the inauguration — contradicting public assurances by Vice President Pence and other administration officials. But Chaffetz has showed no curiosity about that, nor about Russia’s attempts to tilt the election in Trump’s favor, nor about much of anything Trump-related.

Instead, Chaffetz is targeting the head of the Office of Government Ethics for questioning the Trump administration’s conflicts of interest.

Chaffetz thought Clinton’s use of a private email server threatened national security. But over the weekend, Trump proved more brazen: He plotted his response to North Korea’s latest missile test from the main dining area of his Mar-a-Lago Club. Club members posted photos on Facebook of Trump and Japan’s Shinzo Abe discussing the matter and poring over documents in proximity to waiters, club members and guests.47

I’ve discussed the problems of politics as a team game here and here, but this is one facet I’ve missed – when team politics persists post-election, until one’s loyalty to the Party leader are greater than to the responsibilities you’re assigned, that you’ve titularly earned, then that’s another mark against politics as a team game. As any number of pundits, political junkies, and PoliSci professors will point out, our political system is built on checks and balances. When the key guy is asleep at the switch – or, worse yet, has a deliberate ethical failing – then the country is endangered.

Utahans, it’s time to consider recalling Rep Chaffetz. His failures over the years, from repeated investigations that come up empty (the first is fine, but when you run a bunch on Hillary Clinton and they all fail, this indicates an attempted lynching and an innocent victim), to the recent passes he keeps handing out to his own Party leadership, indicate he’s incompetent and, in the interests of providing for a better country, the good people of Utah should withdraw their support for Chaffetz and find someone better.

A hint: the first question you should ask of candidates is whether or not they believe politics is a team game, and if the answer is Yes, then tell that candidate to move on.

Are you an environmentally conscious sports car driver with a spare $125,000 to drop on your next car? Derek Markham on Treehugger.com reports on your dream car:

The Tomahawk
Source: Dubuc Motors

The Tomahawk, which is most certainly not going to fall in the category of affordable for most people looking for a new car, is described as “The most practical and high end sports car approved by Mother Nature,” and promises to be one fast and furious electric machine.

It’s a four-seater (or 2+2, for the gearheads) sports car, which some might argue makes it not a sports car, by definition, and it’s designed to be comfortable for the big and tall crowd, which is also something that seems at odds with the classification of sports car. However, no matter what the “right” classification is, there’s no mistaking the fact that the Tomahawk is a sleek and sexy clean machine that is sure to turn heads.

And with a range of 370 miles. Derek includes an interview with the company founders.

What sets the Tomahawk apart from the other high-end EVs?
The Tomahawk comfortably sits in a class of its own for several reasons.
1) It’s the only 4 seater ALL electric sportscar available on the market
2) Catered to the big’n’tall
3) It can be as practical as a sedan
4) There is practically NO maintenance
5) Much more torque thus extremely fun to drive
6) Fully connected, intelligent
7) Finally cargo space!
8) Appeals to modern families much more
9) Sick look
These are some of the characteristics, but the key word is VALUE.

Goodness, now I want one. But none for me, I fear, unless the lottery finally quits teasing… and then I’ll want a different color scheme.

Quinta Jurecic on Lawfare indulges in a bit of snark in this piece on the self-destruction of evil, in the form of Trump senior advisor Steve Bannon:

Over the first few weeks of the Trump administration, Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon has worked hard to establish himself as the would-be Grand Vizier of the White House. Bannon, the former executive chair of the winkingly white nationalist website Breitbart, was the driving force behind the executive order banning entry into the United States of immigrants and refugees from seven majority-Muslim countries and now sits on the Principals Committee of the National Security Council.

Quinta is far too subtle to actually beat the point home, but I am not: applying “Grand Vizier”, a quintessential Islamic term from the Ottoman Empire days, to a self-proclaimed Islamaphobe of Bannon’s stature is quite satisfying.

Leaving aside the fun, I find her emotional mood is paralleling mine:

Three weeks ago, my libertarian panic was full-throated. I speculated that we had cause for concern that Trump might be our first president in the mold of the fascist thinker Carl Schmitt, who notoriously wrote that the “sovereign is he who decides on the exception.” In the worst-case scenario, I worried that we would see the executive branch directly rejecting the authority of the courts.

 To be sure, I’m still concerned about how the country will fare under the presidency of Donald Trump. But Steve Bannon has proved himself to be so monumentally incompetent that I am fairly certain the Republic is safer than I could have believed three weeks ago, at least from Bannon’s flailing efforts to maximize whatever supposed contradictions he believes he has identified.Bannon isn’t an arch-villain. And he’s not the guy who’s going to destroy American democracy. Instead, as I’ll explain, he’s just an internet troll.

Mesoscale:

of intermediate size; especially :  of or relating to a meteorological phenomenon approximately 10 to 1000 kilometers in horizontal extent <mesoscale cloud pattern> [Merriam-Webster]

Noted in “How Moore’s microchip law is still shaping our world,” Regina Peldszus, NewScientist (28 January 2017, paywall):

Mody’s book concentrates on the mesoscale of organisations involved in developing microelectronics because he argues it helps us get a sense of how the semiconductor sector influenced scientific knowledge-making. He shifts fluidly between detail and contextual currents, capturing the coalescence of individuals and institutions into configurations. These groupings splinter, disband and regroup after massive or minute changes, like IBM’s foray into circuits involving superconducting materials, the drying up of funding sources or the exit of a key team leader.

While perusing material on worries concerning the former National Security Advisor’s General Flynn, I ran across this exceedingly cute typo on NBC News:

Don’t miss these comments that former Gen. Barry McCaffrey made to NBC News about Trump’s pick to be his national security adviser, former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. “You know, I was very strong of my endorsement of him when he was first announced for the NSA position. I said he was correctly probably the best intelligence officer of his generation. But I must admit I’m now extremely uneasy about some of these tweets, which don’t sound so much like political skull drudgery, but instead border on being demented. I think we need to look into this and sort out what is going on here.” More McCaffrey: “I think that we need to aggressively examine what was going on with Gen. Flynn and his son dealing with these transparent, nearly demented tweets that were going out. I think it needs closer scrutiny.”

Bold mine! Although, on review, I’m not sure what Gen. McCaffrey was actually trying to say.

Which is to say, the value of the variable X is currently unmeasurable. Sure, it’s good that General Flynn is no longer occupying the post of National Security Advisor. An Islamaphobe with a reported predilection for conspiracy theories, he was worrisome because it was not clear he understood the dangers posed by the Soviet Union; indeed, General McCafferey, who had endorsed him, indicated worry about his sanity.

But the other side of the coin is: who will replace him? Will it be someone who’s respectable? Or will Trump be looking for another conspiracy theorist who looks the part of a National Security Advisor? That’s the real worry, because going through another dubious background is a wearisome task, and we’re talking about national security here – not some minor nomination (the President must make 1200+ nominations).

But, I suppose, a step in the right direction is a step in the right direction. I know the entire liberal side of the political battlefield will rejoice, which, respectfully, is a sad thing. We’re not in a war, we haven’t knocked off the Colonel in Stratego. We’re talking about a 3 star General, a man with a great career behind him, who should have known better (he was under pressure for talking to the Russian ambassador about sanction relief before the Trump Administration took power, which may be illegal). In some ways, it’s inexplicable; he may come to a very sad end, medically speaking, based on his behaviors.

But as he takes to the sidelines – and perhaps gets himself examined – we must continue to march onwards. Let’s hope the next selection for National Security Advisor is a lot more respectable. And conventional.

Roberta Cohen on 38 North presents a negotiation analysis with North Korea by analogy with Cold War negotiations with the Soviet Union. This caught my eye:

During the Cold War, the United States did not limit its discussions with the USSR to one subject—arms reduction. Instead, it insisted upon an expanded information flow between the communist bloc and the West and a more open society; and advocated for core human rights concerns—Soviet Jewish emigration, the protection of Pentecostals and other Christians, the release of political dissidents, the unification of families and the formation of human rights organizations to monitor the Helsinki Final Act. It raised these concerns in bilateral discussions and in the multilateral Helsinki process.

Non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, a doctrine espoused by the Soviet Union to shield itself from criticism was not accepted by the US in its negotiations with Moscow. Neither should it be in the case of North Korea, as increasing numbers of policy experts now point out.[3] A recent Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Task Force report suggests that nuclear negotiations could expand into broader talks and that a peace agreement and normalization of relations will have to depend on both “nuclear disarmament” and “progress on human rights.”[4] Even more cautious strategists also acknowledge that human rights must be part of any future negotiation.[5]

Of course, the Soviet Jews, the Pentecostals, perhaps it could even by argued the smaller nations, all represent homogenuous groups which presented problems for the Soviets, because they had their own power structures, their own customs, and therefore presented a danger – however limited – to the ruling authorities. I must confess that in my limited reading I haven’t really seen anything analogous in North Korea, with the exception of the families torn apart by the partitioning of Korea, and the concomitant closing of the border. I know occasionally there are attempts to evangelize North Koreans by Christians, but whether that has any impact on North Korean citizens is not in the least clear.

In a fascinating – if true – article in The Observer, John Schindler, reportedly a former NSA analyst, discusses a trend within the Intelligence Community (IC): withholding information from President Trump:

There is more consequential IC pushback happening, too. Our spies have never liked Trump’s lackadaisical attitude toward the President’s Daily Brief, the most sensitive of all IC documents, which the new commander-in-chief has received haphazardly. The president has frequently blown off the PDB altogether, tasking Flynn with condensing it into a one-page summary with no more than nine bullet-points. Some in the IC are relieved by this, but there are pervasive concerns that the president simply isn’t paying attention to intelligence.

In light of this, and out of worries about the White House’s ability to keep secrets, some of our spy agencies have begun withholding intelligence from the Oval Office. Why risk your most sensitive information if the president may ignore it anyway? A senior National Security Agency official explained that NSA was systematically holding back some of the “good stuff” from the White House, in an unprecedented move. For decades, NSA has prepared special reports for the president’s eyes only, containing enormously sensitive intelligence. In the last three weeks, however, NSA has ceased doing this, fearing Trump and his staff cannot keep their best SIGINT secrets.

Since NSA provides something like 80 percent of the actionable intelligence in our government, what’s being kept from the White House may be very significant indeed. However, such concerns are widely shared across the IC, and NSA doesn’t appear to be the only agency withholding intelligence from the administration out of security fears.

Kevin Drum:

“Inside” reporting about the intelligence community is notoriously unreliable, so take this with a grain of salt. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. But just the fact that stuff like this is getting a respectful public hearing is damning all by itself. For any other recent president, a report like this would be dismissed as nonsense without a second thought. But for Trump, it seems plausible enough to take seriously.

Schindler writes an interesting and, if accurate, somewhat chilling piece. But how will we ever know? All you can do is stipulate it and then draw conclusions, and, frankly, with something like this, it’s hard to draw conclusions without one’s mind returning to “but…” every ten seconds or so.

Put it in the “gee, maybe” category.

Lithium-ion batteries may be getting a companion – or competitor – at some point, based on seawater. From UNIST:

Seawater batteries are similar to their lithium-ion cousins since they store energy in the same way. The battery extracts sodium ions from the seawater when it is charged with electrical energy and stores them within the cathode compartment. Upon electrochemical discharge, sodium is released from the anode and reacts with water and oxygen from the seawater cathode to form sodium hydroxide. This process provide energy to power, for instance, an electric vehicle.

While seawater batteries are more cost-effective than lithium-ion batteries, they are not quite ready for commercial distribution. Part of the reason is that these batteries have relatively low electrical power. output. To overcome this, UNIST will help design a more optimized cell geometry and standardized procedures for the battery. Together with KEPCO, the research team at UNIST plans on building cells with various sizes and shapes, thereby enhancing the charge rate of the battery by 20 Wh. Generally, a small smartphone lithium-ion battery stores about 10 Wh.

Hope they have a battery disposal plan in place before they go big-time.