Yearly Archives: 2018

Jeff Rosen has been guest-blogging on The Volokh Conspiracy, presenting parts of his new book, William Howard Taft, a biography of the late President. From what I’ve read so far, WHT was a Constitutional scholar who, as President, used that knowledge to guide himself with regards to what actions he could and could not take as President. I found this bit on a potential dustup between the United States and Mexico in 1911 both interesting and revealing:

But although [Mexican] President Diaz expected an invasion, Taft carefully instructed his commanders not to cross the Mexican border, believing that the President lacked the constitutional authority to declare war without Congressional approval. In the end, Congress refused to authorize an invasion and Taft kept the troops waiting at the border as a deterrent, resisting populist cries for war.

In acting with constitutional restraint at the Mexican border, Taft was putting the national interest above his partisan interests. When he read that four Americans had been killed in Mexico, his wife asked if there would be war. Taft replied, “I only know that I am going to do everything in my power to prevent one. Already there is a movement in the Grand Old Party” — he intoned the words sarcastically — “to utilize this trouble for party ends…. I am afraid I am a constant disappointment to my party. The fact of the matter is, the longer I am President the less of a party man I seem to become…. [I]t seems to me to be impossible to be a strict party man and serve the whole country impartially.”

Taft’s legalistic precision at the border evoked our greatest constitutionally minded president, Abraham Lincoln. In 1846, President James K. Polk sent troops to the Mexican border, in response to what he claimed was a Mexican invasion. Lincoln — elected later year as a young Whig Congressman — would introduce his famous “spot resolutions,” demanding that Polk identify the precise spot where blood had been shed, to establish it was on U.S. soil. (This earned him the nickname “Spotty Lincoln.”)

It’s a reminder that both party and citizens pay scant attention to the restrictions placed on us by the Constitution and Laws, no matter what the era. That’s why it’s important that we elect law-respecting citizens to all such positions, as they are the first and most important gate-keepers for such matters; laws are only as good as the people who are in charge of enforcing them.

I think Taft’s election to the office of the President forced him to look beyond his Party’s interests, because it became apparent the disasters which awaited the United States if he followed the self-centered interests of the Party. Would that Trump could learn such a lesson, eh?

Following up on the Nevada State Senator recall effort, plural, The Nevada Independent reports that the Nevada GOP has failed in its attempt to qualify for a special election to recall two Democratic State Senators:

Nevada election officials say that signatures for the two recall campaigns targeting Democratic state senators have failed to trigger a special election, though an appeal is possible.

According to correspondence sent to District Court Judge Jerry Wiese, the secretary of state and Clark County registrar of voters have determined that signatures submitted to recall state Sens. Joyce Woodhouse and Nicole Cannizzaro do not meet the threshold necessary to trigger a special election.

The full review also indicates that even if a higher court reverses Wiese’s earlier decision to count a batch of signature removal requests turned in after the recall petition was submitted, the number of valid signatures would still be too low to qualify for a special recall election.

I doubt the Nevada GOP has learned anything from the experience. That lesson, if there is one, will come at the next Nevada State Legislature election.

Carolyn Fiddler @ The Daily Kos has more.

The sun, the most massive object in the solar system, the source of the biggest wrinkle in the fabric of space, you’d think it would be easy to approach. Not so, as NewScientist (31 March 2018, paywall) makes clear in this interview with the planners of the Parker Solar Probe:

“When you launch a spacecraft from Earth, it possesses Earth’s orbital velocity, about 30 kilometres a second. To get to the sun, you have to cancel out most of that, slow it down so it can fall in under gravity. That takes a lot of energy. If you want to launch directly from Earth to the sun, you need 55 times more energy than to get to Mars. It’s more than twice even what you need to get to Pluto.

For five decades, we had been studying this problem on and off, and had come to the same conclusion: to get to the sun you need a Jupiter gravity assist. Instead of going directly to the sun, you launch out to Jupiter, and use its gravity to reduce the spacecraft’s speed so it falls inwards.

But at Jupiter’s distance, solar power won’t work: you need nuclear. Everyone said the problem was impossible, but I started looking at whether you might use the gravity of the inner planets instead. Venus is much smaller than Jupiter, so its gravity assist is much less. You can flyby multiple times, each time losing some velocity and falling in closer to the sun, but that means manoeuvring to pass Venus in the right orbit each time, which is tricky and uses up fuel.

Eventually, I found a trajectory with seven Venus assists that passes the sun 26 times, each time closer. The closer the probe falls, the faster it gets. At its fastest, it will be travelling at 200 kilometres a second – the fastest spacecraft ever.”

The spaceflight folks do get to work on some fascinating problems, don’t they? Sure wish I had been smart enough to give it a swing when I was younger. From the NASA introductory page:

Credit: NASA

Parker Solar Probe will use seven Venus flybys over nearly seven years to gradually shrink its orbit around the sun, coming as close as 3.7 million miles (5.9 million kilometers) to the sun, well within the orbit of Mercury and about eight times closer than any spacecraft has come before.

Parker Solar Probe is a true mission of exploration; for example, the spacecraft will go close enough to the sun to watch the solar wind speed up from subsonic to supersonic, and it will fly though the birthplace of the highest-energy solar particles. Still, as with any great mission of discovery, Parker Solar Probe is likely to generate more questions than it answers.

Which is not what this Senator is doing, whoever he is. Erick Erickson, the conservative who founded RedState, relays in The Resurgent an interview he conducted with an unnamed GOP Senator while treading the aisles of a grocery store:

“I say a lot of shit on TV defending him, even over this. But honestly, I wish the motherf*cker would just go away. We’re going to lose the House, lose the Senate, and lose a bunch of states because of him. All his supporters will blame us for what we have or have not done, but he hasn’t led. He wakes up in the morning, sh*ts all over Twitter, sh*ts all over us, sh*ts all over his staff, then hits golf balls. F*ck him. Of course, I can’t say that in public or I’d get run out of town.”

Sigh. Misplaced loyalty, party over country. If this politician really wants to look like a leader, then do what Senator McCain does – criticize the President when he screws up. If the GOP leadership would do that instead of simpering, the GOP would be in a lot better shape for the upcoming midterms.

But they’re caught up in their right-wing psychosis, and don’t really get what it means to lead in a democratic republic.

The rest of the interview is a bit of a hoot, I must say.

The announcement by Speaker of the House Ryan (R-WI) that he’s retiring at the end of this term suggests that the most extreme Speaker we’ve seen in a century has discovered the party is zooming along to the right, and has passed him by.

One of the attributes of a right-wing extremist party is the hunt for a strong-man to lead them in preference to the complex, slow-moving structure of a democracy or republic. After all, the end point of the right-wing, the terminus of the right side of the political spectrum, is fascism, wherein the strongest person who, non-incidentally, happens to be best at ignoring all rules and conventions and laws in their relentless gathering of power, becomes the all-powerful leader who can do things for his followers.

In this case, the extremist base of the GOP has, ironically, selected one of the weakest Presidents in modern history as its flag bearer, and left Speaker Ryan with little power or influence. Since his position as Speaker is being steadily diminished, mostly through is own inadequacies as a leader as shown at the House’s non-contribution to the failed AHCA bill, and its irresponsibly rushed passage of the Tax Change bill, he might as well leave. His inability to bring his caucus together, and the low quality of the legislation which passed through the House, will forever be on his name.

No doubt the polls showing a disastrous upcoming mid-term election for the Republicans is also influencing his decision, as serving in the minority would be a distinct ego-deflator – if, in fact, he achieved re-election at all. He would be facing challenges from both sides, as I’m sure he would have had a serious primary challenge from those who view him as a RINO (!), and then faced the problem of an energetic Democratic candidate and backers who might very well overwhelm him.

So Speaker Ryan has chosen to exit with some shreds of dignity, rather than be ousted in much the same way as former House Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) failed in an upset primary loss 4 years ago. This is a signal to contemplate two thoughts.

First, is this the beginning of the end of the United States as a democratic republic, or is it another marker of the end of the GOP as a valid American political party?

Secondly, this should be a big red flag to the moderate Republicans who belong to the Party and insistently vote for the GOP candidates blindly. Your party is not anything near what it used to be, and it’s walking away from Democracy itself. Is this a path you really want to walk down?

Black Panther (2018) asks the question What do the well-off owe those less well off, and how should they deliver? The country of Wakanda appears to be another backward, poverty-stricken African nation, but hidden behind illusions, both technical and cultural, is a technologically advanced society, careful of its secrecy, monarchical, well-off, and happy. The King is known as Black Panther, not just a title, but a description of his physical prowess, enhanced through a secret botanical concoction, as well as some fun technological aids.

But the plight of African Americans is a troubling issue for the King in the abstract, an attribute soon transformed into the personal when an hitherto unknown American relation, appalled at the condition of the people of Africa in America, and knowledgeable of the true nature of Wakanda, appears with a claim on the throne.

A deadly claim, which he asserts with skill.

The King gone, the usurper gives full vent to his emotional fury at how his fellow Africans have been treated, vowing to arm them and subjugate the descendants of the colonialists and slavers. Orphaned, and then abandoned by his extended family, he has little respect for limitations or morality, only for vengeance over the past abuses which still echo through today’s society. Wakanda’s leadership is torn between loyalty to the throne and horror at this departure from Wakanda’s chosen path of withdrawal from the greater world. Soon families are disputing over the proper path to take.

But at the point of no return, Wakandan society plunging into civil war and advanced weaponry about to be delivered into the hands of the oppressed, a savior appears, and the usurper meets the personification of a mature leader, congnizant of his responsibilities to both Wakanda as well as greater humanity – not just oppressed African descendants, but everyone else as well. The usurper, soaked in his emotional rage, is swallowed by it, and lost.

The victor now must choose whether continued withdrawal is best for Wakanda, or a move designed to ease oppression wherever it exists. What will they choose?

This movie is an embodiment of the real-world questions mentioned above, leading to both intellectual and emotional meditations of great relevance to today’s various societies concerning wealth, poverty, and responsibility. The Wakandan leadership’s various discoveries concerning the world skillfully introduce us to the issues at hand, and more importantly the possible reactions, from vengeance to defense of the status quo to the difficult quest of reducing the oppression without setting off a world wide war, as those who hold the power are usually loathe to let it go.

The acting is excellent, the story well-constructed, and thankfully not interlaced with sex, which would have been distracting. There are some very good special effects, and also some reminders of the world as it is today: African landscapes, a link to our past that reminds us that the past is not necessarily something to be forgotten, but remembered for the lessons it can bring to our world today.

Recommended.

A reader’s remarks concerning corporate behaviors and government which I’ve neglected:

I’ve always agreed that the good of the people is the remit of government. Where I’ve changed my view over the past decades of railing against various kinds of malfeasance and misfeasance by groups is I think the corporate form of business with its near personhood is now antithetical to civilized society and any kind form of democracy. The ultimate end of that kind of lack of personal responsibility is that it will grow and grow to the point of becoming powerful enough to change laws to allow itself more freedom to behave horribly while claiming larger profits in a self-reinforcing cycle.

To my mind, it’s the misfeasance of government. The government is responsible for ensuring the health of the marketplace, and part of that is the breakup, or exceptional regulation, of monopolies, which are definitionally a malevolent entity in a system dependent on competition in order to provide choices and progress in products and services. By avoiding partition, monopolies, can utilize their outsized products to produce leverage on the government, usually through undue influence on individuals elected representatives and appointed officials, although the messaging element over the long-term has, I think, also had results unappreciated by most folks.

As we are more productive when working in teams, there’ll always be organizations, and I have no desire to outlaw corporations. I simply want to limit them, as we have done so in the past through anti-monopoly efforts, and move further into the realm of understanding the limits of corporate entities so that we no longer have to puzzle over rulings that seem to indicate that corporations have personhood.

Paul Rosenzweig on Lawfare gives an overview of the crime-fraud exception used in yesterday’s FBI raid on President Trump’s personal attorney’s office. Once he elucidates that for the non-specialist, he gives his opinion:

You can readily imagine other examples of when and how a lawyer’s services might be used to commit a crime. The lawyer helps set up a shell corporation (perfectly legal generally) and the corporation is used to foster a Ponzi scheme. The lawyer is asked about how to secure insurance, but the insurance is then used to collect on an insurance fraud. And so on. In other words, the crime-fraud exception applies when an attorney’s advice is used to futher the crime. Or, as the Supreme Court put it in Clark v. United States, 289 U.S. 1 (1933), “A client who consults an attorney for advice that will serve him in the commission of a fraud will have no help from the law. He must let the truth be told.”

And that, one suspects, is where the rubber meets the road. It may well be that President Trump sought Cohen’s legal advice regarding the Daniels affair for an illegal purpose (e.g. to avoid federal campaign-finance laws or to conceal the true source of the funds with which she was paid or to threaten her). In that circumstance, it seems clear that the crime-fraud exception might apply—and it appears highly likely that the FBI and the lawyers in New York have made that showing to a federal magistrate. Or, as one observer put it: “Michael Cohen is in serious legal trouble.” President Trump may be as well.

I keep trying to imagine seeing President Trump led off in handcuffs, but I’m not reasonably getting there. Still, as Steve Benen notes, President Trump is facing a tidal wave of scandals, so it may happen. You have to wonder how much of his base would take that to heart, and how many would remain convinced that bumbling, ill-advised amateur is being railroaded – and become embittered.

It’s best to keep in mind that the Democrats are forced to sit on the sidelines and merely offer advice and observation; the key people, the sandpaper on Trump’s ass, are all Republicans or ex-Republicans.

Republicans who remember their first allegiance is to the United States, not to the Presidency. In that respect, they are all truly equals before the law.

Derogation (derogate):

1. To take away; detract: an error that will derogate from your reputation.
2. To deviate from a standard or expectation; go astray: a clause allowing signers of the agreement to derogate from its principles during a state of emergency. [The Free Dictionary]

Noted in “Michael Cohen, the Attorney-Client Privilege, and the Crime-Fraud Exception,” Paul Rosenzweig, Lawfare:

Let’s begin with a seemingly obvious question: Why do we have an attorney-client privilege in the first place? After all, the privilege is nothing more, nor less, than permission for an attorney to withhold truthful information from investigating authorities. There aren’t many other situations in which we say “you know the truth but you don’t have to tell us.” Quite to the contrary, the general rule is that federal grand jury investigations are entitled to “every man’s evidence.” (Apologies for the traditional, gendered phrase.) As the Supreme Court has put it, the exceptions to this general rule are: “not lightly created nor expansively construed, for they are in derogation of the search for truth.”

Over the weekend The Denver Post, the 125 year old newspaper, winner of multiple Pulitzers, basically revolted against its ownership after yet another round of layoffs came down the line. The New York Times reports:

Angry and frustrated journalists at the 125-year-old newspaper took the extraordinary step this weekend of publicly blasting its New York-based hedge-fund owner and making the case for its own survival in several articles that went online Friday and are scheduled to run in The Post’s Sunday opinion section.

“News matters,” the main headline reads. “Colo. should demand the newspaper it deserves.”

The owners are Alden Global Capital, and you just have to wonder what they’re thinking. My suspicion is not that they don’t understand the business they’re screwing into the ground, although more conservative readers might think so. It’s that they don’t understand the sector with which they’ve foolishly encumbered themselves.

I think the Mayor, probably unconsciously, gets it as well:

“Denver is so proud of our flagship newspaper for speaking out,” Mayor Michael B. Hancock said in a statement. “The Denver Post said it best — they are necessary to this ‘grand democratic experiment,’ especially at a time when the press and facts are under constant attack by the White House. For a New York hedge fund to treat our paper like any old business and not a critical member of our community is offensive. We urge the owners to rethink their business strategy or get out of the news business. Denver stands with our paper and stands ready to be part of the solution that supports local journalism and saves the 125-year-old Voice of the Rocky Mountain Empire.”

Right, “… or get out of the news business.” Alden is not going to revive The Denver Post by downsizing or rightsizing. All they’re doing is throwing away talented members of the reporting staff, and at some point the qualities of the newspaper that made it great will be gone – and they’ll be out their investment.

I’m not a knowledgeable member of the free press sector, so the strongest prescription I can give is that the Post needs more knowledgeable, loyal subscribers who understand that having a talented, dedicated staff requires more than a willingness to look at, or around, ads – but to actually pay up front.

Whether that will actually happen is up in the air for me.

In the third part of Andrew Sullivan’s tri-partite column, he bemoans the tendency of today’s political class to pick sides in foreign disputes and rivalries, between Trump and his autocrats of whom he speaks so highly, and the liberals being sucked in by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince’s charm. Then he mentions, almost in passing, one of the most important principles of foreign relations management:

I have no time for the despicable Iranian regime, although the gamble that it could be forced to abstain from nuclear brinksmanship has been proven right. But the case that it is in America’s interests to take a firm side in the Sunni-Shiite feud in the Middle East — and simply back the Sunnis — makes no sense to me. American power is, in my view, best wielded through playing the two sides off each other, and providing some way for co-existence without devastating conflict. We have no interest whatever in the Shiite-Sunni theological struggles which now go back centuries. Yes, we should cautiously encourage any kind of democratic opening in Saudi Arabia (though count me super-skeptical), just as we should (and have) in Iran. But another war — this time for the Sunnis? Led by the neoconservatives? In defense of an absolute monarchy? In a cynical alliance with the Israeli far right? This is what this Saudi charm offensive is all about. And all of Washington seems to be falling for it.

Right. The danger of backing one side over the other is that we then inherit their sins – and, especially in the Middle East, there’s plenty of sin to go around. I don’t mean this theologically. I mean this in the practical sense that other nations will notice who we back and what we’re willing to tolerate, and our reputation will suffer accordingly.

Let them use themselves up between each other, and provide mediation services when possible. Putting our troops in harm’s way is the option of the man ambitious for legacy – or money.

I was fascinated to see what is generally considered body paint in the archaeological record may have been far more functional, as noted in Discover (April 2018):

Riaan Rifkin, an archaeologist at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, has been one of the leading proponents of a new, functional interpretation of ochre in the story of human evolution. For nearly a decade, his experiments, along with those of colleagues, have pointed to prehistoric use of the material not just as a sunscreen and adhesive but also an insect repellent and leather preservative.

Rifkin believes, in fact, that ochre’s functional applications may have contributed directly to H. sapiens’ greatest early achievement: spreading across the world. “The use of red ochre as a sunscreen must have enabled humans to traverse longer distances without getting excessively sunburnt. This was an amazing adaptive advantage. They could forage longer and explore further,” says Rifkin. He suspects ochre sunscreen evolved about the same time humans began using ostrich eggshells as containers for water and other provisions, about 65,000 years ago. “As soon as we could carry water with us, had a good [ochre-based] sunscreen and mosquito repellent, and warm [ochre-tanned] clothing, we were able to expand from Africa.”

It’s not a generally accepted theory just yet, but it’s most interesting, not only for what it says about ochre, but also what it says about scientists’ interpretations of evidence. It speaks to the quality of the evidence as much as the preconceptions of the interpreters.

And it sort of thrills me, as well.

E. J. Dionne of WaPo thinks the GOP and President Trump are in trouble due to their selection of tactics:

A fifth of the country can provide an ample audience for a cable network and a lot of radio hosts. It is not enough to win an election. In the nominally nonpartisan Wisconsin judge’s race, as Michael Tomasky noted in the Daily Beast, several counties that had moved from Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016 swung back to Rebecca Dallet, the choice strongly endorsed by Democrats. And this came in a low-turnout race. In the Obama years, small turnouts benefited Republicans. The energy gap means that this pattern is now reversed.

A Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll released Friday brought home additional concrete results of this imbalance. It found an astonishing 1 in 5 Americans reporting that they had joined protests and rallies since the beginning of 2016 — and that 70 percent of them disapproved of Trump.

The dilemma for Republican politicians tempted to cut and run from Trump is that doing so might only further dispirit the party’s core and diminish Trump’s already parlous popularity. For his part, Trump knows only the politics of outrage. It is looking like a strategy with a very short shelf life.

But for me, there’s 7 months left before the mid-term elections. Will those who’ve been stirred up by Trump’s incompetence remain politically engaged for those seven months? For that matter, for the next 2 years and 7 months?

It’s one thing to have become interested because you had to, which means speaking out and voting. But how about running for office? If you’re frozen out by the local politicos because you’re the newbie on the block, will that alienate the public-spirited citizen, and will she then broadcast her negative experience with (presumably) the Democratic machine that disallowed her desire to serve? The Democrats are going to need to make the new guys welcome.

This may not be difficult in districts where the Democrats have not been noticeably active, i.e., those districts dominated by the Republicans. The Democrats may welcome anyone willing to invest their time and energies in a possibly fruitless run for a seat, be it at the state level or the Federal level, just so they can say they competed. But if the novice wins? Can the Democrats stomach that, work with the new legislator? I’ve been wondering about recent unexpected special election victors Senator Doug Jones (D-AL) and Representative Conor Lamb (D-PA), who are reportedly both relatively conservative Democrats. Can the progressive wing of the Democratic Party temper their leftward, and allegedly intolerant, lean enough to work creatively and positively with these two on projects of importance?

These are just two of the questions which face the Democrats over the coming months.

Betsy DeVos, Secretary for Education, has a long history of advocating for private, for-profit schools – and that implies a dislike for teachers’ unions. That would explain this rather ridiculous remark concerning the current Oklahoma school teacher walkout, as noted by WaPo:

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said Oklahoma teachers who walked out of their classrooms to protest school funding cuts should “keep adult disagreements and disputes in a separate place.”

“I think about the kids,” DeVos said Thursday, according to the Dallas Morning News. She had been touring a middle school and meeting with leaders of an anti-violence initiative in Dallas. “I think we need to stay focused on what’s right for kids. And I hope that adults would keep adult disagreements and disputes in a separate place, and serve the students that are there to be served.”

One of the most potent weapons in a unions’ armament is to stop working. Secretary DeVos, by implying that, somehow, children may be terribly injured by a strike, is trying to stack guilt upon teachers who, quite frankly, are hardly making poverty-line wages for a job where they are both teaching and helping raise children.

But it’s not going to do that much damage to kids; in fact, it’s a civic lesson in action. If it takes a couple of weeks of no teaching by the teachers in order to get better wages and more support for the educational sector from a government that is far too fixated on low taxes, then fine – have them, and the students, make it up at the end of the school year. Let the kids learn that Americans can be flexible, that education is important, and that they, too, can be important parts of societal improvements.

DeVos, as Secretary of Education, should know all this and not engage in fallaciously guilt-inducing remarks that are designed to defang the teachers.

Geophagy:

In fact, geophagy, or intentionally consuming dirt, has been documented in multiple historical and present-day cultures, many of which ingest specific soils medicinally to prevent diarrhea or increase iron intake.

“People certainly engage in geophagy all over the world, especially while pregnant,” Zipkin says. “But I think it’s very, very hard to demonstrate in any meaningful way consumption in the archaeological record.” [“Pigment of Our Imagination,” Gemma Tarlach, Discover (April 2018)]

Andrew Sullivan is outraged at the thought that Gina Haspel, chief of staff to Jose Rodriguez, who was in charge of “enhanced interrogation” of prisoners gathered up in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and chief advocate for destruction of the tapes of the actual torture sessions, has been nominated for the post of CIA Director, assuming current Director Pompeo is confirmed for the Secretary of State position. After covering her heinous alleged acts and how their there is no defense for them, Andrew concludes:

In a fateful decision, President Obama decided to give complete legal immunity for war crimes committed by agents of the CIA. Haspel then cannot be prosecuted, as she should be under domestic and international law. She was not fired; no one, in fact, was disciplined for these atrocities. But to actually reward someone who has committed war crimes with promotion, and then to elevate her to the highest position in Western intelligence, is a whole new level of depravity. It sends a very clear message: that anyone committing war crimes in the future will be celebrated, not disciplined, rewarded, not punished, that torture is justifiable, even worth reviving, as our future secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, opined only last year. It would amount to a full-on endorsement of torture by the United States, and a signal to the entire world that it can be justified. This is a profound threat to human rights globally and to the long tradition of American warfare, initiated by George Washington no less, in which the use of torture has always been regarded as exactly the kind of barbarism America was founded to overcome. It would be the final nail in the coffin that used to be the West.

Maybe in the era of Trump, that coffin is already covered in dirt. But if senators want to retain any semblance of the notion of American decency, if they are to honor the countless men and women in the CIA and military who for decades have resisted the impulse to torture, if they are to respect those who fought the torture-states of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and if they also want to remember those Americans, like John McCain, who were once subject to exactly the kind of torture Haspel authorized, they will vote down the nomination. If this line of defense falls, we are truly lost in a vortex of self-perpetuating evil. We will have abolished something deep and essential in the soul of America.

We will be a dungeon on a hill.

It’s difficult to argue with Andrew’s position, and I have no intention of doing so. I’ll simply add this is a blot on the honor of every Trump supporter of every stripe. As we can see, that group is actually growing, according to Gallup, which now has him over 40% approval. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’m appalled, and can only attribute these disgracefully high numbers to ignorance. In a sea of information, it can be difficult to find the critical information.

The inability to bring these war criminals to justice is one of the most galling decisions of President Obama.

Steve Benen notes that Trump’s EPA Administrator is not only pursuing corrupt practices, but he’s also not effective at destroying environment regulations:

The hype surrounding the EPA chief is starting to unravel. The New Republic’s Emily Atkin explainedthe other day that Pruitt has been prolific in attacking environmental protections, “but so far, Pruitt’s biggest achievement is that he appears successful.”

The piece went on to note that “at least ten of Pruitt’s intended regulatory rollbacks, in fact, are on hold due to lawsuits,” and given the EPA’s recent track record in the courts, those lawsuits against Pruitt’s moves stand a decent chance of success.

Politico’s Michael Grunwald added over the weekend that despite the Trump administration’s regressive efforts, Pruitt “has not yet killed or rolled back any significant regulations that were in place when President Donald Trump took office. While Pruitt is often hailed (or attacked) as Trump’s most effective (or destructive) deregulatory warrior, the recent spotlight on his ethics … has arguably overshadowed his lack of regulatory rollbacks during his first 15 months in Washington.”

It’s true that the damage he’s done to the agency is real and substantial. But given his rampant abuse of power as well as his amazing ineffectuality, one has to wonder:

Is Pruitt a mole, a Democrat under deep cover?

If we’re lucky, he’ll poop in my hand!

It’s a visual treat, but at its heart it’s a little empty. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) has a constant kaleidoscope of vistas, sometimes as background to the action, other times as the focus of the scene. Colorful and imaginative, they easily outclass the story.

The referenced City is a former Earth space station, grown so huge that the Earth chose to push it out into intergalactic space. Along with its original human inhabitants, many other species have colonies, some numbering in the millions. But a mysterious zone of radiation has appeared in its midst, and probes to discover the nature of the problem never return to report. As the zone expands, the commander of the City calls in Major Valerian and his teammate, Sgt Laureline. The Major and Sergeant have recently retrieved a converter, a living creature capable of reproducing whatever it is fed, and a pearl of immense power.

The Major is romantically interested in the Sgt, who spends half her time fending him off, but when a high level Security Council meeting is crashed by mysterious beings who kidnap the Commander of the City. Valerian pursues, with Laureline monitoring, but when Valerian enters the radiation zone and disappears from the monitors, Laureline disobeys orders and goes in to find him. After a successful rescue, though, she is caught and kidnapped by one of the more barbaric species of the City, who plan to make a meal of her brain. Valerian and a quickly recruited sidekick arrive just in time to rescue Laureline, but the sidekick dies during the operation.

This little spaceboat must have had a helluva kick to ti. See that planet below? It’s soon going to be nachos.

Valerian and Laureline discover that at the center of the radiation zone, of which there appears to be no radiation, is a force field through which they penetrate and find another species, this one totally unknown. They are the survivors of the collateral damage of a space war, the original owners of the converter and the pearl, and now attempting to build their own spaceship. The converter and the pearl are the last keys they needed.

And they are the kidnappers of the Commander of the City.

While the team negotiates with this new species, the temporary commander of the City has dispensed a battalion of troops to the force field, preparing to blow it up. With the battalion is a robotic force of soldiers as well, provided by the Commander of the City. When the temporary commander aborts the sequence to blow up the force field, the robotic force abruptly mutinies, cutting up the battalion as well as the City’s command area.

Valerian destroys the mutinous robotics force, of course, and soon we discover the Commander of the City was also responsible for destroying the planet of the survivors – with full knowledge of what he was doing. In the end the survivors of the war get their converter and pearl, the Commander gets his arrest, and Valerian gets his girl.

As I said, the visuals are imaginative and breath-taking. The story, sadly, has its problems. It’s hard to imagine a soldier with the rank of Major acting in such a childish, self-centered manner. The thematic material is erratic and, so far I could see, nearly trivial – act like a grownup and you’ll be a chick magnet. For all the imagination and amusing details and well-thought out scenes, there’s a hole at the center of this story, a failure to identify a compelling problem which we can recognize and evaluate as to its solution, or lack thereof, in this movie. Perhaps emblematic of the problems in this story was the reaction of the Major and Sergeant to the complete loss of their support team during the retrieval of the converter and pearl – none whatsoever. The sacrifice of brave men to a veritable monster warrants nothing more than a wisecrack about the altitude at which the monster was shaken loose from their spaceship.

Is this how much empathy and loyalty we have for team members in the future?

See it for the visuals, but try not to pay much attention to the story.

Well, let’s — let’s be, again, clear-eyed about this. It’s one thing for the Chinese to admit publicly to a policy. It’s another thing for the Chinese to actually implement that policy. We had, a number of years ago with President Obama, agreements about not stealing our intellectual property through cyber theft. How’s that working out? Not very well. I mean for the American people, and I don’t think, Mr. Todd, there’s any disagreement between you and I about the fact that China is engaged in these egregious practices. The only debate is over how we go about solving them. But every American understands that, every day of the week China comes in to our homes, the businesses, our government agencies, and the damage is on the order of about $1 billion a day. – Dr. Peter Navarro, Director of the White House National Trade Council. [Meet The Press]

Hold on there, Dr. Navarro. I’d be amazed if 10% of Americans had any clue that the Chinese are engaged in IP theft or other unfair trade practices. I’d be surprised if the number exceeded 1%.

Or, for that matter, whether we do the same things to China.

But when I read this report from early March in HuffPo, particularly this passage, I had to draw a conclusion:

“Evangelicals still believe in the commandment: Thou shalt not have sex with a porn star,” Robert Jeffress told Fox News on Thursday. “However, whether this president violated that commandment or not is totally irrelevant to our support of him.” …

“Evangelicals knew they weren’t voting for an altar boy when they voted for Donald Trump,” he said. “We supported him because of his policies and his strong leadership.”

Conclusion: No, you support him because you’ve abandoned God. (OK, so that’s cheeky coming from an agnostic.)

Look, the reason we embrace our various ethical, philosophical, and religious systems is because they should increase our survival and reproductive potential. There may be a circuitous route to that conclusion for any given system, but it should be there; conversely, those that do not have long-term survival benefits will self-extinguish. Including a trope that even pre-dates the Web (yeah, we did this back in the old BBS days of the 1980s), consider the Nazi philosophy. It brutally pursued goals that it perceived as beneficial to itself – and in its best known incarnation, lasted hardly 12 years and was thoroughly extinguished and discredited. In fact, this effort led to international efforts to build and agree upon an ethical framework, in order to understand and repudiate those who would ally with Nazis and other such barbarians.

The point of such systems should be that they are applicable to all situations we’re likely to encounter. When extremists on the left or the right advocate for exceptions to our generally accepted framework of laws, they are implicitly stating that our set of laws, our shared and agreed upon philosophy, is not applicable to all situations, and by further implication, they are incomplete and thus our system is inferior to what it might be.

It’s possible, even probable, that our extremist du jour will argue that their favorite exception should, in actuality, be part of that philosophy, but that argument is, by definition, in fact a contradiction of one of the guiding principles of the framework, and generally not a contradiction which can be intellectually argued around. A fine example was the advocacy and use of torture by the Bush Administration during the Iraq War. A few of those victims, innocent or guilty, died under torture; the United States’ honor sustained a disastrous blot; and the CIA declared that no useful information was gained from the exercise, former Vice-President Cheney’s protestations notwithstanding. The uproar over the discovery of the use of torture was motivated by the anger over having some of our strongest moral principles contravened; those who argued torture was a valid response revealed themselves as morally corrupt. The results were predictably useless or replicable through more honorable means.

When the Evangelical movement’s leaders declare that Trump is their preferred candidate, and they acknowledge that he’s no altar boy, they have presented a situation with one of two interpretations for non-Evangelicals.

First, they have acknowledged that their philosophical system is incomplete and inferior. Maybe they’re personally good people, but their willingness to vote for someone who has little congruency with their religious system, who is an adulterer with no regrets, who lies and hollowly boasts and swaggers belligerently, suggests their philosophical system, their religion, the values they live their lives by, does not create good leadership skills outside of the religious context^[1].

Or, secondly, they’re a bunch of fucking hypocrites, unable to put forth a viable candidate of their own into the fray, and too hungry for power to wait for the next election.

If the Evangelicals want to know why a large portion of the United States does not consider them to be an admirable sect with respect to their adulation of President Trump, I think that’s why. We look at folks like Jeffress, and we don’t see a moral religious leader, but just another power-junkie, hungry for the prestige and adulation which goes with being in the inner circle of the powerful.

And that’s not only repulsive, but dangerous to the souls of the Evangelicals, as well as the standing of the United States as Reagan’s City on the Hill.

¹In recent years, Presidents Carter (D) and Bush-43 (R) were considered Presidents from the Evangelical movement. Neither is thought to be an outstanding or even mediocre President, but, instead, ineffective. Carter has certainly rehabilitated his personal reputation with his many good works, but that doesn’t really improve his Presidential standing, which is a probably too-high 26th in this survey of historians. Bush-43 is rated at 30th in the same survey, which is far too high for obvious reasons, but probably a comparative reaction to Trump’s debacle, who incidentally is rated DFL.

“This thing is going to me on my head, isn’t it?”
And then it does.

Bringing drama to dry scientific process, even for exploration, can be difficult, and Riders To The Stars (1954) struggles with that problem. A test rocket, penetrating into space, returns to Earth with its metal parts deeply compromised, such that they can be shattered by a simple blow. The hypothesis is that cosmic rays are damaging the metal. Yet, meteorites survive the trip through space unscathed, but whatever may preserve them burns off in the atmosphere. If we’re to explore space and other planets, we must solve this mystery. How?

By capturing a meteorite before it enters the atmosphere.

This is the story, from the recognition of a solution to the selection of the pilots, to the capture and safe return to Earth of a meteorite. In order to spice it up, the storytellers withhold information as with any mystery, although, truth be told, there’s no reason that the candidates to pilot the rockets have to hold doctorates – nor is it clear why the candidates are told not to share the nature of their specialties with each other during the testing period.

But the story, given its subject matter, is told in an adequate, if not exciting, manner. A little bit of broken romance is thrown in to symbolize the sacrifices the pilots are making, and some new romance to indicate that those who are brave are presented with interesting opportunities.

And it was refreshing to see two strong female characters (one only briefly, though), including a doctorate-holder on the launch team (but I don’t recall if they actually specified her area – it might have been astrophysics), although she’s stuck with a boring communications job during the actual launch – but the studio’s budget may have been stretched a bit thin at that juncture.

The special effects ranged from awful (why are the rockets and meteorites dancing a jig out there?), to a bit beautiful in a scene where passing meteorites are seen through a telescope, all the way to borrowed footage from actual rocket launches, both outside and inside views, which gives us some of verisimilitude. The acting was also good.

But, despite a fairly good climax, it’s all just a bit dry, perhaps a trifle too didactic, even if sometimes the science is absolutely wrong.

Call it a good college try at a tough subject.

Politico reports on the latest bit of political drama to pop up in Washington:

Rep. Blake Farenthold announced Friday he would resign immediately from Congress, after an ethics inquiry was opened into allegations of sexual harassment and other inappropriate behavior from former staff members.

The Texas Republican had said he would not run for reelection, but he had previously resisted calls to step down.

Source: Ballotpedia

Possibly a special election will be held in order to fill his seat for the remainder of the Congressional term, which lasts until November. If this holds true, I think this is important because the outcome of such a special election will give both parties a preview of how the mid-term elections may turn out for the entire House and the third of the Senate seats up for election (+2 more than usual, the extras being Franken’s and Cochrane’s seats, and even possibly McCain’s if his illness becomes too severe for him to continue to serve effectively). Such information can be used to improve messaging and other campaign tactics. In fact, if Trump comes to town to the district to campaign on behalf of the GOP candidate, then the candidate’s performance becomes important data for other GOP candidates with regards to Trump’s reputation.

Unfortunately – for the GOP, in my opinion – a source told Politico that there may not be a special election:

Farenthold’s seat leans Republican, and [Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee] expressed confidence the GOP would hold the district in the fall. A GOP source familiar with the matter said a special election before November was unlikely.

But suppose there was a special election – what are the chances that voters will deliver a whack to the nose of the Republicans in Texas for the special election? Since the redistricting in 2011, according to Ballotpedia Farenthold has won his district with never less than 56% of the vote, and twice more than 61% of the vote. In other words, he’s been dominant. It seems unlikely that the Democrats will be able to quickly rally to select a candidate acceptable to Texas independents and Democrats. Still, if Texas Republicans in the 27th district are sufficiently deflated by the sudden collapse of Farenthold into a puddle of ethical mush, they may have a chance. In fact, that latter possibility applies for the usual election if the special election is not held.

Incidentally, Ballotpedia had this delightful note concerning the 2011 redistricting:

Texas was redistricted in 2011. The controversial map, approved by the Texas Legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Perry, was appealed up to the U.S. Supreme Court before going into effect.

In redistricting, The Hill published a list of the Top Ten House Members who were helped by redistricting. Farenthold ranked 1st on the list.

The fact that a seat is safe for a party doesn’t mean the member who holds it is a safe office-holder. Indeed, because of its status as safe, it’ll attract cockroaches. Now, I don’t know if Farenthold was categorically a cockroach – but clearly, if he resigns just as the Ethics Committee is revving up its engines, there might be something to the suggestion that he has a relation to an insect.

While reading in AL Monitor about Middle Eastern reaction to Trump’s desire to pull out of Syria, I was struck by the following rhetoric from Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yildirim:

Talking to reporters on March 31 as he was flying back from a visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim complimented Trump on his “courageous decision.” He added that although different branches of the US government were saying they knew nothing about plans to withdraw from Syria, it was Trump’s words that Turkey looked to.

It occurred to me to wonder, Does Trump actually take boilerplate speeches like this seriously? Personal compliments of this sort are meant to manipulate weak leaders, and U.S. Presidents understand this. But does Trump? One of the reasons he engages in those “ego-rallies,” as one friend terms them, is because he is continually seeking reassurance and positive feedback. So he says he doesn’t want to stay in Syria, even though various advisors say that’s where we should be. Will the words of the Turkish Prime Minister manipulate him into leaving, despite the best advice from his own government?

I have no opinion on the Syrian conflict myself, I should add. I haven’t studied it, and it often seems like any action taken – or bypassed – in the Middle East comes at some unanticipated cost.

But Trump should act with the best advice of his long-time foreign relations and diplomatic experts in mind, not the words of a foreign official with his own country’s agenda in mind.

If you’re a new investor, you’re a little jumpy. Today the markets – the American markets – took a tumble. The Dow Jones Industrial was down 2.34%, and the others were comparable. The chart illustrates the neck-breaking ride:

But what really caught my eye was the reaction of the Asian markets to the latest threats in the trade war. From Daily Record News:

Most Asian stock markets turned higher Friday as investors brushed off initial worries about the Trump administration’s latest threats of yet more tariffs on Chinese imports, indicating concerns were easing about a brewing trade battle between the world’s two biggest economies.

KEEPING SCORE: Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index edged 0.1 percent higher to 21,672.94 while South Korea’s Kospi slipped 0.4 percent to 2,427.21. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 crept 0.1 percent higher to 5,783.40 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 1.1 percent to 29,852.93 after trading resumed following a holiday as investors caught up with the previous day’s global gains. Singapore’s share index rose while Indonesia’s fell. Mainland Chinese markets remained closed for a holiday.

My suspicion is that the Asian markets recognize that the biggest local force is China, not the United States. That’s natural. But they also recognize that China, whatever you think of its trade policies or its political system, is stable and will respond to all tariff threats only after due consideration.

American markets don’t have that level of confidence in President Trump, or the balance of the GOP leadership in Congress.

I can’t prove this supposition, of course. But it’s congruent with the evidence. And it leaves Trump looking weaker and weaker. What if Kudlow turns out to be wrong again, and China refuses to knuckle under and come to the bargaining table? Does Trump eventually backtrack because the agricultural portion of his base is hurting too much? Or does his ego lead him down the path of not backing down either, until we’re staring a global depression in the eye again?

And how ever will he blame Obama and Clinton for that?

Nor are GOP leaders happy. WaPo reports:

In a rare moment of agreement between the ultranationalist Chinese paper and a Republican lawmaker, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) responded to Trump’s move using similar language.

“Hopefully the president is just blowing off steam again,” he wrote in a statement Thursday. “But if he’s even half-serious, this is nuts.”

Not that it matters. Until Trump’s base finally cracks up – if ever – he’s safe from a GOP revolt, it seems.