Monthly Archives: December 2017

When Memphis took down some Confederate statues:

That law said that “No statue, monument, memorial, nameplate, or plaque” erected “on public property” in honor of certain military conflicts and their heroes may be removed without the permission of two-thirds of the board of the commission. In October, the commission denied Memphis a waiver that would have allowed the city to remove the Confederate statues. The city was in the process of challenging the decision. …

Focusing on the law’s key phrase, protecting statues on “public property,” Shelby County Commissioner Van Turner and others set up a private nonprofit corporation called Memphis Greenspace Inc.

On Wednesday, without fanfare, the City Council approved a measure authorizing the mayor to sell the two parks with the statues to the private group, for $1,000 each, which he promptly did.

In the morning, they were on public property. By the afternoon, they weren’t.

By nightfall, the parks with the statues had been sold to the newly minted nonprofit, which sent in the cranes. …

A cheering crowd sang as Davis was placed in the back of a truck at 10:45 p.m. and driven away. Among the songs, according to the Commercial Appeal, was that old standby: “Na na na na, na na na na, hey, hey, goodbye.” [WaPo]

Needless to say, the Tennessee Division of the Sons were furious. Tough shit, boys. Traitors deserve no honor.

Remember former disgraced Alabama Supreme Court Justice and losing candidate for the Senate seat formerly held by Jeff Sessions? He doesn’t think he lost. From the AP:

In the roil following the decision to recognize the capital of Israel to be Jerusalem, I suppose this constitutes President Trump “hitting back ten times harder.” From The New York Times:

President Trump issued a threat on Wednesday to cut off American aid to any country that votes for a resolution at the United Nations condemning his recent decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Mr. Trump’s statement, delivered at a cabinet meeting in which he exulted over the passage of a tax overhaul, followed a letter to General Assembly members from the American ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley, in which she warned that the United States would take note of countries that voted in favor of the measure.

“All of these nations that take our money and then they vote against us at the Security Council or they vote against us, potentially, at the Assembly, they take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars and then they vote against us,” Mr. Trump said.

“Well, we’re watching those votes,” he added. “Let them vote against us; we’ll save a lot. We don’t care.”

It is difficult to see how Mr. Trump can make good on that threat because it could involve cutting off financial assistance to the country’s most strategic allies in the Middle East. Some of those programs, like Egypt’s, are congressionally mandated. While the president can hold up aid unilaterally as a form of leverage, canceling it would require new legislation.

Just how much, maximally? WaPo had an article on the final Obama budget proposal, from October of 2016, which I can’t resist using as the numbers will be similar to the current budget, and the graphic is astonishing. I mean, I can tell you the entire budget proposal was for $4.15 trillion, of which $42.4 billion was foreign aid – roughly .1% of the budget. But I like the image better.

The inexperience of the President once again shines through. We’ll save a lot betrays his origins in the private sector and his inability to grow beyond them. This results in an inability to see that influence is a far more important commodity than money in the international arena, where the sharks aren’t cruising to make a bigger profit at your expense- but to do real, tangible damage to those seen as standing in the way of their national goals. Some of these attacks are obvious, such as China’s striving to be #1 in Artificial Intelligence, and the consequences of holding such a strategic position – whatever those might be. Others are far more subtle, such as Russia’s attempts to undermine our faith in our system of government.

But it does raise the question of the purpose of foreign aid. Why do we help other countries? Well, we’re not buying control over them. That’d be akin to colonialism, and we generally try to avoid such foolishness.

No, we’re doing a couple of things. First, as WaPo says, we’re shoring up strategic allies. Second, we’re buying good will. We’re showing that we’re willing to help out.

How does this square with the current incident? Friends can have honest differences of opinion. Do they halt the friendship? Of course not. Now, it’s somewhat problematic to use this analogy with nations, but it’s really going to happen anyways. The violent creation of the State of Israel at the end of World War II is not without controversy, especially as it involved the movement of Jewish refugees from Europe to Israel. It should be no surprise that a number of nations with religious or ideological objections plan to vote for the resolution.

And trying to blackmail them into supporting us will simply dissipate all that good will.

He just can’t grow out of his origins, can he?

Former White House Counsel Bob Bauer on Lawfare gets quite exercised about a couple of lawyers who think the proper use of power insulates President Trump from impeachment:

Josh Blackman, in three successive postings for Lawfare, and co-commentators David Rivkin and Lee Casey in a separate piece for the Wall Street Journal, have been developing the case that a president firing an FBI director or other senior law enforcement official may not subject to impeachment for obstruction of justice. Their approaches are somewhat different: Blackman is working out a more fully developed, nuanced theory of how we should see a conflict between congressional impeachment power and claims of executive authority. But these authors have all offered support for the proposition that, however corrupt or (as Rivkin and Casey put it) “nefarious” a president’s motive may be, his constitutional authority necessarily includes removing from office those officials who presumptively answer to him. Congress, they say, must stand down.

Mr. Bauer’s development of his argument is long, I became bored and confused, and then it occurred to me there’s a much more convincing argument, if not entire respectable and permissible in the realm of the law.

It’s an analogy.

Suppose I have a rifle. I operate it in the prescribed manner – turn off the safety, put the stock to my shoulder, do whatever it is you do with your breath, and squeeze the trigger. I own the rifle legally, and I know how to operate it.

And I hit my target, some innocent civilian minding his own business.

My ownership and operation of the rifle cannot be criticized, I do it all perfectly.

But my target was execrable, impossible.

That’s the analogy. Maybe President Trump has the right to fire some of his people. But if that results in shielding him from investigations which may reveal hanky panky by the yankee, then shit, of course it’s impeachable as obstruction of justice. It’s just stupid to think otherwise. The operation and the character of its results are not atomic; each is separate.

Continuing our shamelessly critical coverage of Wells Fargo, now they’ve found another way to cash in: the new tax change bill. From Vox:

Wells Fargo in 2016 was fined $185 million for issuing millions of fake credit card accounts. In 2017, it was caught overcharging clients on currency trades and improperly charging homebuyers to lock into low mortgage rates.

And in 2018, it could be about to get the best tax deal of all the big banks.

The Republican tax bill, which seeks to lower the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent, would lead to an average 14 percent in earnings growth for seven of America’s largest banks next year, according to a Monday note from Goldman Sachs analyzing the plan’s implications. (Goldman does not include itself in its analysis.) The biggest winner: Wells Fargo, which would see its earnings jump by 18 percent thanks to the GOP proposal.

I would not believe this is accidental.

After a dully lit day of clouds and snow, we had a glimpse of glory.

Vox‘s Emily Stewart spends a lot of time speculating on why this tax change bill was rushed so quickly through Congress. This particular quote is an epic shrug of the shoulders:

“This was manufactured urgency,” said Joseph Thorndike, a tax historian and director of the Tax History Project. “There was nothing urgent about this at all, not even the reconciliation instructions required this kind of urgency. The urgency here was completely willful.”

Nowhere in the article do they touch on recent history, which I believe invalidates Mr. Thorndike’s remark.

That history?

Think the last failed Republican endeavour, the AHCA. Remember the townhall meetings which humiliated and pressured Republican Representatives and Senators? For this tax bill, the Republicans learned that even their thumb-puppets could bend and break; and when they didn’t, they tended to look like fools. Remember Rep. Paul Labrador (R-ID)?

“You are mandating people on Medicaid accept dying,” one audience member said.

To which Labrador responded, “No no, you know that line is so indefensible. Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.” [Politifact, and the article goes into more detail on how Labrador defended his remark.]

It made the Republican, and his Party, look like idiots. The Republicans learned their lesson and took away the opportunity for public pressure to interfere with their sordid plans.

That’s the entire reason, in my view. Knowing the demographics are against you, you remove them from the equation. Now the Republicans can rejoice in that, reportedly, their rich donors who desired this tax bill will continue to fund their election efforts.

No matter how wretched and manipulated this bill might be.

Let’s hope the Trump Recession doesn’t come spilling out of it and hurt a whole lot of poor people. While there’d be a silver lining and I personally wouldn’t be hurt, it’d be very rough for the working poor, those hanging on by their fingernails.

I’d rather have an atheist as an elected representative in government than a devout person, because if the atheist is going to make trouble, it’ll almost certainly be towards personal gain or, at worst, deliberate treason; both are detectable and can be punished, and perhaps even remedied.

But the devout? He or she will vote for a bill because God or his pastor or the Party has told him to do it. He doesn’t examine the bill, he doesn’t consider conflicting analyses, because he’s learned, he’s conditioned, by his “spiritual experiences,” to believe and have faith that this is a good law. And if it’s a piece of harmful junk, there’s no real recourse, no restitution, not even, in many cases, a lesson learned. “Because God willed it” conceals a multitude of sins.

And that’s what we are seeing these days.

Every legislator should view every bill that crosses her desk with deep skepticism and demand the author of the bill, or their delegates, make the case for it and to be convincing – and, it should go without saying, have those against it also make their case.

And if it’s a close case, vote against.

A conservative friend of mine likes to always include the concept of “Big Government” in any political discussion; it’s probably his touchstone and may be in his campaign literature (he’s run unsuccessfully for the state House a couple of times). That led me to wonder how the size of government correlates – or should hypothetically correlate – to the size of the population.

But that’s a context-less question, and we know that leads to bad answers, so let’s add a minimal but realistic context – a population in a country with static boundaries.

Let’s set up an analogy. Think of the game Tetris, which is the game where you have a box and an assortment of differently shaped objects are falling from the sky; it’s your task to fit in as many objects in the box as possible. During the early stages of the game – when the population of objects is low – there’s little management necessary. But as the box starts to fill up, more and more work is necessary until the player is overwhelmed and the game ends with your failure.

Similarly, when a country is mostly empty, the actions of the individual only have a local importance, and the Big Government at the national capitol can occupy itself most properly with international affairs, such as foreign invaders and that sort of thing, leaving the citizens mostly alone.

But – and assuming human life is considered to have a certain high value in and of itself, which I think is necessary simply to keep society stable – as the population grows, the actions of the aggregate individuals begin to interact with the supporting ecology in a substantial manner. And, as the ecology tends to diffuse the effects of these activities through its natural processes, such as rivers and air circulation, the effects build as the “box” fills up. For example, consider a coal-fired power plant on the East Coast, spreading its mercury-laced soot to the West Coast via air currents.

A similar argument can be made concerning the natural conflict of individual civil rights and where they end – one’s “nose” tends to get shorter and shorter^[1]. Crowding closer and closer, our “rights” impact other’s more and more. A vivid example is the right to not accept vaccinations. The greater the population density, the less this “right” can be accepted, as it causes epidemics^[2].

Assuming current societal norms, I think that as we near our box boundaries in terms of population, the larger government must become larger to keep the societal piece – and quite possibly at a pace that is greater than our approach to our box limits. It becomes a self-reinforcing loop.

And what happens when the box is full? Rats start eating each other, I’ve read.

¹Referring to the old saying, “Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.” The source appears to be uncertain.

²This, of course, assumes epidemics are bad. I fear I stray out of the mainstream, because I’m willing to consider that an open question in the context of overpopulation, even though its benefits in the improvement of the human condition are obvious and beyond argument. The conundrum is obvious (and worth a novel or two). It occurs to me that humanity is but a single bubble in the foam of evolution.

Carbuncle:

1. Pathology. a painful circumscribed inflammation of the subcutaneous tissue, resulting in suppuration and sloughing, and having a tendency to spread somewhat like a boil, but more serious in its effects.
2. a gemstone, especially a garnet, cut with a convex back and a cabochon surface.
3. Also called London brown. a dark grayish, red-brown color. [Dictionary.com]

Heard during a conversation with my Arts Editor, who, to paraphrase, said “Some Christmas decorations are ‘festoonery’, and some are ‘carbuncles.'” I am unsure just which of the above definitions would apply.

A reader responds to the turf damage the GOP is doing as it does donuts throughout our country:

However, in the mean time, their behavior is dramatically damaging the fabric of society, including the ability of a democracy to exist at all. When facts cease to exist, and no one knows what to believe, and we’ve fractioned into numerous factions, signs all point towards the country becoming an authoritarian, second-rate economy.

Yep. Today Steve Benen suggested that the GOP is practicing “faith-based governance”. I think when we descend into “faith-based arguments”, aka fact-free debates, then we’re well and truly fucked. And that appears to be where the GOP wants to go. Their lust for power is shameless and seems to know no bounds.

A reader remarks on Kim Jong-un’s needs:

Interesting idea but I don’t think Kim will go for it. He obviously doesn’t care about his people or the country’s welfare. His ego requires constant stroking, not unlike 45’s. That, coupled with paranoia, is what drives him. Again, not unlike 45.

Yet his paranoia is not unjustified, given the belligerent tone of the United States and others over the decades. Add in the failure of the United States to continue agreements begun in the Clinton era, and to call him paranoid is to suggest his concerns are unjustified – an argument which I believe is unsustainable.

Intercessory prayer:

Intercession or intercessory prayer is the act of praying to a deity on behalf of others. In Western Christianity, intercession forms a distinct form of prayer, alongside Adoration, Confession and Thanksgiving. [Wikipedia]

Noted in this press release from the Center For Inquiry, which is a Freethought, or atheist, organization:

“And it is the right thing to do, is to pray in moments like this because you know what? Prayer works,” [House Speaker Paul] Ryan asserted. “And when you hear the secular left doing this thing, no wonder you’ve got so much polarization and disunity in this country when people think like that.”

“There is no evidence that intercessory prayer has any effect on earthly events, as numerous controlled studies have shown, and it won’t save anyone from future atrocities,” said Robyn Blumner, President and CEO of the Center for Inquiry. “So instead of dismissing legitimate criticism, the Speaker should work toward evidence-based solutions to the pressing national issue of gun violence.”

This press release has sparked some discussion. Eric Owens in the right-wing Daily Caller, under the headline, “Sad, Lonely Atheists Insist Prayer Is Dumb As They Stare Hopelessly Into Desolate Cosmic Abyss,” remarked:

One of the world’s largest atheist organizations has declared that praying to God or any other supernatural deity is a useless, stupid endeavor that will not lead to “evidence-based solutions.”

And that’s it. I think he’s just lazily preaching to the choir, as there’s no real argument present. Not that there’s likely to be a convincing argument, truth to be told – you believe or you don’t. The fun begins with the material that is present behind each belief system, that is, the system of belief you have towards the structure of the Universe. Ed Brayton on Patheos has a similar, if somewhat nastier, response to Owen as well.

Studies of intercessory prayer are difficult to study at double-blind standards. For one thing, there are religious groups that continuously offer up prayers for the beset world-wide, and persuading them to desist is a fool’s errand. I did a little research and found a few studies. “Intercessory prayer for the alleviation of ill health” concludes:

It is not sensible to interpret any of the interesting results with great confidence. However, for women hoping for successful IVF treatment there are some data suggesting a favourable outcome of prayer but these data are derived from only one of the smaller trials. On the other hand, one of the larger studies suggests that those undergoing operations may not wish to know of the prayer that is being offered on their behalf. Most data are equivocal. The evidence presented so far is interesting enough to justify further study into the human aspects of the effects of prayer. However it is impossible to prove or disprove in trials any supposed benefit that derives from God’s response to prayer.

I am not qualified to interpret their results, so I’m not sure the they’re interesting enough to actually continue investigation. But it seems clear this study has no solid results for the success of prayer. I do recall reading, 20+ years ago, about a study in Skeptical Inquirer in which positive results were reported. However, this was from the perspective of several years later: one author had disowned the study, one had been jailed for fraud, and the final author refused to discuss the issue. The study was considered an example of how not to study intercessory prayer.

Philip Bobbitt of Columbia Law School has a suggestion for the North Korean situation. He published it on Lawfare:

There is, however, an available strategy that has not been considered and may promise success: a nuclear guarantee for the North Korean regime from China. If China were to give a credible nuclear guarantee to North Korea in the case of a U.S. invasion or preemptive strike against Pyongyang, there would be little point in North Korea risking the survival of its regime by developing long-range nuclear weapons. Such a policy should not be confused with the current mutual defense pact between North Korea and China, one cornerstone of which is China’s no-first-use policy. From Kim’s point of view, there is much security to be gained by such a guarantee of deterrence against the U.S. and much security to be lost if North Korea continues its present course when further technological revolutions in the U.S. render the North Korean arsenal ever more vulnerable. Our aim must be to reorient Kim Jong Un’s paranoia, making him more afraid of losing a unique opportunity for security in the eyes of his own people than he is afraid of dependence on China.

I am somewhat dubious that Kim would follow such an option. While it certainly has some positives, it also results in him being disarmed. And from history we know that Communist states do tend to be aggressive towards their neighbors, so what Kim would be doing is casting his lot with a state with an ideology that has a history of gobbling up weaker neighbors: China. China may be today’s sort-of ally, but it could easily become tomorrow’s invading force. Especially with the United States led by a vacillating idiot who has no idea how to operate in the Far East.

There are costs to having nuclear weapons, costs that exist in the diplomatic and technical sectors, and if they are large enough I could see Kim considering such a move. But the fact that they’ve clawed their way this far up the cliff of nuclear weaponry, well, you’d have to wonder if Kim would really want to give up all these gains and make himself more vulnerable to the huge country directly on their northern border.

Fascinating scenes fired by the imagination of Maurice Sendak beset the characters of Nutcracker: The Motion Picture (1986), the classic ballet as performed by Pacific Northwest Ballet. For the most part, this is as  you might have seen it on the stage in all its messy splendor, from the leggy grace of the lead ballerina, to the monsters done up in Sendak’s signature style, prancing to the classic music, although a few attempts are made to take advantage of the fact that it’s a movie.

I’m hesitant to say much more, as I’m not a ballet enthusiast (although I couldn’t resist watching this when I stumbled across it), nor do I know the story of The Nutcracker in any detail. With respect to the latter statement, I must say that the story conveyed through the ballet is somewhat vague and, lacking in interesting thematic material. I see from Wikipedia that I’m in good company:

The Nutcrackers I’ve seen have all been dull. You have a simpering little girl, a Christmas party, a tree that gets big. Then you have a variety of people who do dances that seem to go on and on ad nauseam. Technically it’s a mess, too; Acts I and II have practically nothing to do with each other. … What you don’t have is plot. No logic. You have lots of very pretty music, but I don’t enjoy it because I’m a very pedantic, logical person. I want to know why things happen. – Maurice Sendak

I still found it fun, if sometimes mystifying. Watch at your own risk.

There’s been some puzzlement concerning the about-face of Senator Bob Corker, who had declared he could not vote for a tax change bill which added to the national deficit – and then a few days later executed an about-face and announced his support for the bill without achieving any modifications which would remove the additions to the deficit. But an article in the International Business Times lays bare a possible explanation:

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the majority whip, on Sunday said a tax provision, which could personally enrich key Republican lawmakers, was added to the final tax bill as part of an effort to “cobble together the votes we needed to get this bill passed.” Cornyn was pressed about the provision onABC’s “This Week,” after an International Business Times investigationshowed that Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee suddenly switched his vote to “yes” after GOP leaders added the provision, which could boost Corker’s real estate income. A top Democratic senator, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, responded to Cornyn’s explanation by saying the language put into the bill also “would be a windfall to Donald Trump.”

As IBT first reported, the provision potentially enriching Corker, Trump and a handful of other top Republican lawmakers, was not part of the House- or Senate-passed bill, but was added by GOP lawmakers to the final bill, which was publicly released on Friday afternoon. Corker, who is not seeking re-election and is considered a crucial swing vote due to his criticism of President Trump, suddenly said he would support the final bill. He initially voted against the original bill in the Senate, which did not have the provision. Corker subsequently asserted to IBT that he did not know about the provision being added to the final bill, and he also declared he has not even read the tax bill he announced he is voting for.

Let’s step back. Waaaay back. For the conservative reader who has been sucking down the directives from President Trump about the mainstream media, sit down and think about this. Think about the possible corruption going on here. Think about the whole swamp metaphor. This is what the mainstream media does – it keeps tabs on the swamp, it keeps an eye on the behaviors of the legislative members, regardless of ideology, it keeps you up to date on what’s happening.

If you’re willing to keep up with the mainstream media.

This is what President Trump doesn’t want you to see – members of his own Party behaving badly. Do you approve of being mislead in this manner? If so, please, hit that mail button up on the right and tell me why you approve. (Don’t go off on a tangent, that just irritates me.) I am eternally mystified that any adult would buy into the fake news meme.

And thank you for the explanation.

Murmuration:

1. A flock of starlings.
2. literary [mass noun] The action of murmuring.
   ‘the murmuration of a flock of warblers’ [Oxford English Dictionaries]

Noted in a book review of A New Map of Wonders, by Caspar Henderson, reviewed by Mary Halton, NewScientist (2 December 2017, paywall):

Henderson’s own sense of wonder at phenomena both natural and manufactured is pervasive, from marvelling at a murmuration of starlings to admiring advances in solar power. Wonder, we then conclude, is a very personal experience, while scientific fact is often presented as a very universal one.

We’re all becoming reluctantly accustomed to the lies of and rationalizations of President Trump, and I say that as a political independent. Just seeing this WaPo headline, though, made me speculate what comes after that.

After Alabama loss, Trump has ambitious plans to campaign in 2018 midterms

Indeed, what might happen if Trump does aggressively campaign, and the GOP goes down in flames?

What do you think?

It was my intention all along to wipe out this evil Republican Party!

You just know it, don’t you?

There’s been a recent kerfuffle over the Mueller team gaining access to emails from the Trump Transition team, sent after the election but before he took office. If you’re wondering if Trump is on to something, consider this opinion from a real expert, published in WaPo:

Randall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor who teaches white collar crime at George Washington University Law School, said it was not at all surprising that Mueller’s team sought Trump transition emails. “It would be almost prosecutorial misconduct for them not to,” he said. He said it was also not surprising that Mueller would ask GSA for emails sent using government accounts.

“It’s not your personal email. If it ends in .gov, you don’t have any expectation of privacy,” he said.

But he said if Trump’s team had a valid legal claim, there is a standard avenue to pursue — they would file a sealed motion to the judge supervising the grand jury and ask the judge to rule the emails were improperly seized and provide a remedy, like requiring Mueller’s team to return the emails or excluding their use in the investigation.

“You go to the judge and complain,” he said. “You don’t issue a press release or go to Congress. It appears from the outside that this is part of a pattern of trying to undermine Mueller’s investigation.”

So the question becomes whether or not Trump supporters are naive enough to only get their information from President Trump and his propaganda information arms – aka fake news services. If they are not that naive, then they’ll know that the real experts – and remember, Trump is nothing more than a real estate developer – are just shaking their heads at this latest effort to mislead Trump’s base into thinking Special Prosecutor Mueller – a registered Republican – is somehow cheating.

This is part of a larger pattern that has been commented on extensively in the politically independent as well as, of course, liberal media sources. But it bears repeating that the attempts to dismiss Mueller’s investigation as somehow partisan are also tainting institutions whose political independence are critical to the continuing prosperity of our Republic. To the extent that politicization escapes from its proper corral and either taints non-partisan institutions falsely as political, or actually manages to corrupt them, our Republic is diminished and proper respect is lost to the conclusions of government. The right has spent more than a decade deprecating the conclusions of climate scientists working in government roles as politically motivated, and the result is a climate change debate unnecessarily politicized, resulting in the United States losing the leadership role it should properly exercising with gusto, and, instead becoming a pariah. This example should be a caution to us, not an encouragement to dismiss any agency producing conclusions that we find vaguely distasteful or completely unpalatable.

Our parents and grandparents were willing to swallow sour medicine when it was clear that it was needed. When will today’s conservatives admit that their lust for power has led them to the gates of Hell?

Or is it “aligning one’s model with one’s goals?” The venerable Mother Jones is touting how it’s going to stay afloat in the future in its donations solicitations letter:

But here’s the bottom line: Unprecedented economic problems for media, or unprecedented political attacks on journalism, would be bad enough on their own. But both at once—that’s a synergy so unusual and dangerous that we haven’t even begun to grapple with its implications. And those implications reach well beyond Trump: What happens when future demagogues follow this playbook? What is to stop them from leveraging an increasingly desperate media industry for visibility and power, and then using that power to knock back press freedom? It’s not hard to imagine a death spiral that ends in banana-republic territory.

This is a problem for the media—and news consumers—that can’t be fixed with more creative advertising strategies, or “do more with less” newsroom pep talks. The economics of news simply no longer guarantee the kind of deep, unflinching reporting that we’re going to desperately need. Yes, the New York Times and the Washington Post have been hitting it out of the park—but the vast majority of newsrooms are unable to follow suit. And how long will the likes of Jeff Bezos be willing to subsidize accountability journalism?

We need a different model. And as MoJo readers like you know, we’ve placed our bets on an admittedly radical idea: that journalism is a public service, not a profit center, and that its survival rests with the people it serves. You.

MoJo has been an independent, reader-supported nonprofit since 1976, because our founders knew that car manufacturers were not going to bankroll investigations of exploding Ford Pintos. Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, putting MoJo—and our supporters—on a path that others in the media are just beginning to explore.

What they call radical seems to me to be simply the alignment of the goals of their publication with their funding sources. There’s long been a tension in commercial publishing between the advertisers that often carried the majority of the costs of publishing, from news collection to delivery of the final product, because, as the letter makes clear, any significant investigation into an advertiser will be at risk of suffering pushback from the target.

By secularizing the funding source, by which I mean selecting a funding source generally indifferent to the content of the publication, that risk is removed. Finding enough subscribers is not a new risk, as a magazine has to be able to show it reaches the audience targeted by advertisers; now it must find enough subscribers willing to meet a specified price in order to fund the writers, editors, and sales force for the publication. But at least the risk of catastrophic disappearance of funding will disappear.

It’ll be interesting to see how well this works. In my mind, the free press is, of course, a public service. In a perfect world, it would be completely separate from the commercial interests that characterize the private sector, because the contamination can result in no information, or false information, on a topic. Removal of private sector interests is a step in the journey of delivering truthful news to a citizenry that depends, in part, on truthful news for its continued prosperity.

And long term readers should not be surprised at my sentiments.

Kevin Drum thinks he knows why the GOP is pushing a tax reform bill which doesn’t earn the adjective reform and has hardly had any thought given to it: demographics are pushing the GOP into irrelevance.

Republicans aren’t idiots. They can read a demographic report as well as anyone. They know their white base is shrinking and they know they’ve reached a critical point. The problem is that remaking their party is a long-term project, and while it’s happening they’re going to lose elections. It will take years to regain the trust of communities of color, and efforts to do so will alienate the whites who support them today. They could be in the wilderness a long time while this project is ongoing.

And so it never got off the ground. It was just too hard. It looked more and more as if Republicans would shamble slowly into minority party status for a long time as they struggled to remake themselves.

There’s a hidden assumption here, though, and that’s the idea that the GOP leadership is fixed, or at least has a fixed perspective. I find this dubious, given how FiveThirtyEight has documented the strong rightward slide of the GOP Congressional members over the years (for which I can’t find the link of which I’m thinking). I think that under the influence of ideologically driven radio talk show, Fox News, and other conservative outlets, the leadership, through the process of personnel turnover, has substantially changed. Indeed, I think the late Senator Goldwater was right on the mark:

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.

Back to Kevin:

It’s not using CRISPR – not yet approved for use within a human body – but zinc-finger nucleases (ZFN) to do gene editing. In this case, on a gentleman with Hunter Disease. Why mention it? I like the description of the actual treatment, one of the few attempts at using gene editing on a living human body, as found on D-brief, by Nathaniel Scharping:

Through an IV, billions of copies of a harmless virus loaded with instructions for two ZFN proteins and a gene to produce the correct enzyme were delivered to Madeux’s bloodstream. The virus was programmed to insert itself just into liver cells to ensure that it didn’t begin to edit anywhere else. Once a cell has been implanted with the virus, it begins to make copies of the ZFN proteins and the correct gene. The two proteins then cut apart the DNA at a specific point and insert the therapeutic gene, after which the cell’s natural repair mechanisms bind the double helix back together and the gene can get to work.

Wondering just what literally might come of Special Prosecutor Mueller’s investigation? Carrie Cordero discusses this on Lawfare:

Is the special counsel’s office on a broad search for the “truth” and then charging what they can? I certainly wouldn’t put it that way. The special counsel’s office will investigate what they are supposed to investigate based on the deputy attorney general’s order and bring charges as appropriate. There is nothing in the special counsel regulations or the Rosenstein appointment order that requires the special counsel to create a narrative of what happened, or, to write a public report. The Special Counsel is an investigative and prosecutorial office; it is not a truth commission. …

What might happen with that confidential report became more interesting in light of  the Justice Department’s actions this week. As John flagged months ago, there is no requirement that the special counsel’s report be public. If we ever reach that day, I wonder, will whoever is acting as  attorney general keep the report confidential? Up until this week, that seemed more likely than not. Rosenstein has made the point at his congressional appearances—even this week’s—that: He. Does. Not. Talk. About. Ongoing. Investigations. His views on government officials commenting on closed investigations that are not brought for prosecution are well-established.

And yet, oddly, the Justice Department chose to release the intimate (not “private,” folks, if they were communicating on government-issued devices) text messages of two FBI employees before the DOJ Inspector General investigation into their conduct is complete. That leads me to wonder: Will the department find the special counsel’s final confidential report of lower public interest than the text messages?

Make of it what you will, but I thought the article was fascinating, if not entirely enlightening as to what the terminus of the investigation might appear to be.

Georgy Toloraya on 38 North attempts to discern the most important information in any adversarial relationship – what does the North Korea leadership want?

In recent discussions, North Koreans reiterated Pyongyang’s standard policy goals: reach “strategic parity” with the US by creating a credible nuclear deterrent and compelling opponents to conclude a peace treaty with the North, recognize the sovereignty and independence of the DPRK, and provide security guarantees to enable the country’s further economic development. The North Koreans with whom I spoke with argued that without a “nuclear deterrent,” the hostility of the US and many of its allies toward North Korea will sooner or later result in “crushing down” the country. However, they did nothing to dispel the suspicion that, in fact, Pyongyang might also aim at aggression and concessions extortion from South Korea if it gets a deterrent against the US.

It is my impression that policymakers in Pyongyang believe the only purpose of US policy is to liquidate the DPRK as a state or even “physically destroy” the country and its leadership. The regime does not believe that removal of North Korean nuclear weapons per se is very significant to the US, and rather sees this demand as an attempt to undermine the country’s deterrence and gain advantage for a military solution of the Korean issue or regime change by other means.

It was clear from my discussions with the North Koreans that internal debates over the country’s nuclear doctrine have not yet been settled and there is no clear picture of what a nuclear war-fighting doctrine would look like. Nor did they seem to understand that having an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capability only gives rise to suspicions that the North wishes to unify Korea by force while using its nuclear capability to protect it from US interference (a common theory among South Koreans and Americans). Going forward, a declaration that North Korea does not have these intentions and a codification of this pledge in official documents might be essential along with an explanation of the country’s nuclear doctrine, which seems to have evolved considerably during the last couple of years. But these ideas, from what I heard, have not been considered by the regime.

Reports on the status of the North Korean populace are mixed – and, of course. sources must always be appraised. For example, that North Korean soldier who defected  a couple of months ago was reported to be plagued with parasites, which was interpreted to indicate that the food supply in North Korea is bad. But what if this is a false report? It would be classic propaganda by our own side, meant to manipulate popular opinion.

But how do we know?

In the end, American officials may have to decide if it’s better to try to break the regime through sanctions, or assist the regime through various peaceful means, such as food shipments. In the former case, Americans may be held responsible for the deaths of thousands – yet the latter can be considered assisting an enemy.

This is a subtle conundrum, one for which the current American administration is very ill-suited.