From Spaceweather:
Observers of Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3), by far the finest comet in years, have had just one complaint. You have to wake up at the crack of dawn to see it! Not anymore. NEOWISE is now visible in the evening sky, too.
We’re not in an optimal location, as our northwest includes streetlights and neighbors’ houses. Still, we’ll try to take a look.
Jonathan Chait in New York’s Intelligencer:
Politics is a matter of life and death. If you start with the premise that one side has a monopoly on truth, you inevitably land on the conclusion that questioning its ideas is dangerous.
There are two important truths in those two sentences.
The first is that politics matters. A common, allied aphorism is Elections have consequences. From the system of governance we use to how a member of society fulfills the responsibilities which that system of government thrusts upon them, these will have consequences in our lives, from bringing them prosperity to, yes, premature deaths for them and their loved ones – maybe burned at the stake, even. See English monarchical history – and that of today’s Saudi Arabia.
In American society, meaning a political system of representative democracy, I’ve repeatedly advocated that voters must bring more to the table than ideological allegiance. I argue that integrity and competency should play a far greater role than they do, while strongly suggesting that simple electoral victory via team politics is actually a net negative, not a net positive, due to the incompetent and radical personalities that gain power through their adherence to the ideological themes of the day. Enough. Search on ‘team politics’ on this blog if you want more thoughts on the matter.
The second truth? The observation concerning, well, truth: “If you start with the premise that one side has a monopoly on truth…” Implicit in that premise is that we can know truth, with complete certainty, a priori. I have become convinced that one of the key foundations of our nation is the incorporation of the concept of We’re not sure. It may not be inspirational, but the honest acknowledgment that we don’t know on a huge variety of important subjects has guided us to more wisdom than we’ll ever know. It has nourished the decision that we are a secular nation, not Christian, Muslim, nor Scientologist, and has led to untold numbers of legislative compromises which have kept governments from local to national running, rather than hung up in staring contests, and, from the consequences of those compromises, positive or negative, led to shared agreements on the truth or falsity of the propositions underlying the positions of the compromisers.
What happens in the absence of compromise? Think of the “government shutdowns” to which we’ve been subjected recently as extremist politicians stamp their feet and shout NO!, secure in the knowledge that only they are right. I shan’t point fingers, as I’m sure all those who are guilty would be outraged at being accused of engaging in such hubris, but I think most government observers will have strong opinions.
Chait’s opinion piece is quite long, and I think it qualifies as self-criticism, where self refers to the political movement to which you belong. Much like Andrew Sullivan, he’s critical of recent leftist intellectual trends that he perceives as illiberal; I haven’t the time nor formal training to really come to a conclusion, and I don’t travel in circles where I’d encounter those he discusses. But I found this statement fascinating:
Without rehashing at length, my argument against the left’s illiberal style is twofold. First, it tends to interpret political debates as pitting the interests of opposing groups rather than opposing ideas. Those questioning whatever is put forward as the positions of oppressed people are therefore often acting out of concealed motives. (Even oppressed people themselves may argue against their own authentic group interest; that a majority of African-Americans oppose looting, or that Omar Wasow himself is black, hardly matters.) Second, it frequently collapses the distinction between words and action — a distinction that is the foundation of the liberal model — by describing opposing beliefs as a safety threat.
His first argument is straightforward and, I think, stands a good chance of being correct. Ideas & principles drive actions when people act individually. However, when we coalesce into groups, ideas, principles, and rationality are subsumed, and the ideas and principles of only the leaders become the guiding lights of our actions, for good and bad.
This, not so incidentally, is why I am hardly ever a joiner. The idea that blindly following some leader about and committing a moral, if not legal, crime because of the leaders’ mistaken, but unchallenged, ideas makes me positively ill. I read too much history as a kid.
Now, I recognize that I refer to a caricature of a group; the best groups engage in extensive discussion, tolerate dissension, do not show deference to the leadership’s ideas, and if someone chooses to walk away in protest, they are not taking their intellectual or physical lives in their hands by doing so. But not all groups are “best,” as illustrated by the simple existence of the word apostate, a word with a definite denigrative connotation. Many groups, placing survival above idea excellence, punish dissension and either bar exits, or, contrarily, kick out the blasphemer.
But, returning to Chait, when we substitute groups defined by anything but shared ideas & principles, arguments based on ideas are forever in danger of illicit rejection, by which I mean they are correct arguments, in correspondence with reality and all that rot, but not accepted by some or all of the groups in question. Idea-based arguments are, in the liberal tradition, the only arguments that may lead to compromise, and then onwards to agreements concerning reality, without violence. To give a counter-example, grouping us by skin color and then asserting that one group is better than another is, in the end, a fool’s errand that can only be resolved by violence, not by peaceful resolution on some rational point. It’s madness personified.
But I found his second argument more interesting:
Second, it frequently collapses the distinction between words and action — a distinction that is the foundation of the liberal model — by describing opposing beliefs as a safety threat.
I’m not sure how he means that the distinction between words and actions are a foundation of the liberal model. Does he mean that we can argue over a beer about them, rather than pikes and pitchforks at dawn? I must meditate on this.
Hubris:
a way of talking or behaving that is too proud [Cambridge Dictionary]
Defined for a future post. I might have defined it as talking or behaving with unwarranted, even divine, certainty. Which reflects my understanding of the word up ’til now.
Remember when the Cathedral of Notre Dame was badly damaged by fire all those decades ago?
The spire of Notre Dame cathedral, which was destroyed in a fire last April [actually, April 2019], will be restored according to the original Gothic design.
French President Emmanuel Macron announced the decision, putting an end to speculation that the spire would be rebuilt in a modern style. [MSN]
Which was a pity. I was quite taken by this proposal to replace the spire with a swimming pool, as reported by Architectural Digest back in 2019.
The thought of the Pope going for a swim while blessing the faithful fills me with awe. Pronounce that as you will.
Andrew Sullivan expresses relief here (third part of the diary entry). He’s quite the traditionalist.
This is not new, but I just happened to run across it and I am morbidly amused by it. From Retraction Watch:
We have a new record for the longest time from publication to retraction: 80 years. It’s for a case report about a 24-year-old man who died after coughing up more than four cups of what apparently looked — and smelled — like pee.
According to the case report titled “Een geval van uroptoë” published in 1923, an autopsy revealed that the man had a kidney that was strangely located in his chest cavity. A case of pneumonia caused the kidney to leak urine into the space around his lungs, leading to the perplexing cough.
If that sounds too crazy to be true, you’re right: This man never existed. The case was retracted in 2003. (Yes, we are a little late to this one — it recently popped up in one of our Google alerts.)
In case you thought those pictures of grave men in old fashioned clothing showed they took their lives seriously, here’s the editors of the journal publishing part of the letter admitting to, not fraud, but hoax:
The editors found the definitive answer about the truth of the case in the autobiography of someone named Prof. Dr. A. Querido (1901-1983), emeritus professor of social medicine at the University of Amsterdam, who was a medical student in 1923. He and some of the students had some down time after they had finished studying for an exam, and so turned to hypothetical medical conditions:
Taking it easy at the start, but growing more enthusiastic as time went on, we started to make up diseases and forms of illnesses: “If one was suffering from this disease, what would be the symptoms?”
“If kidney growth (Mesonephros) continued to exist due to an embryological error”, said one of them, “you would see a working kidney across the spine, into the thorax.”
“Indeed”, said another, “that side would then have to lack a testis, because the mesonephros forms the efferent ductules of the testis.”
“That’s right”, said a third, “and if that half-man suffers from a lung infection, the infection spread into the primitive renal pelvis, resulting in the patient suffering from…”
“Piss cough.”
The students decided to try to get this made-up case published: …
Troublemakers!
News and pundits everywhere have already commented on the important part of the SCOTUS decision in Trump v. Vance, in which the District Attorney of New York subpoenaed accounting firm Mazars USA for the President’s tax returns, and Trump sued to quash the subpoena on the grounds that …
… a sitting President enjoys absolute immunity from state criminal process under Article II and the Supremacy Clause.
Given that appalling assertion – and Justice Kavanaugh’s assertions, prior to his appointment to SCOTUS, that President’s are far too important to actually subject to investigation, it was quite reassuring to see this:
Given these safeguards and the Court’s precedents, we cannot conclude that absolute immunity is necessary or appropriate under Article II or the Supremacy Clause. Our dissenting colleagues agree. JUSTICE THOMAS reaches the same conclusion based on the original understanding of the Constitution reflected in Marshall’s decision in Burr. Post, at 2, 5–6. And JUSTICE ALITO, also persuaded by Burr, “agree[s]” that “not all” state criminal subpoenas for a President’s records “should be barred.” Post, at 16. On that point the Court is unanimous.
As I’ve argued before, the President remains a citizen subject to the same laws as everyone else. That SCOTUS unanimously agrees on this point, even if the final outcome of that particular case was 7-2, is reassuring that some obvious bedrock principles are shared across the political and legal spectrum. There is no blanket immunity available, nor is it justified.
If the President is thought to have committed a serious crime, that’s why we have vice presidents.
Matrilocal:
The definition of matrilocal refers to a custom or culture where the husband goes to live with the wife’s family.
When the custom of a tribe is for a man to marry and then go live with his mother and father-in-law, this is an example of a matrilocal tribe.
[YourDictionary]
Noted in “[Review of] Authority, Autonomy, and the Archaeology of a Mississippian Community, By Erin S. Nelson“, Jessica Crawford, American Archaeology (summer • 2020, print only):
Like later historic societies, they would have been matrilineal and matrilocal, and thus made up of house groups of related women, their children, and husbands all living in close quarters and using the shared space of the courtyards.
All typos mine.
When I bought this place, there were hollyhocks in place – bi-annuals, which is to say they reseeded and took two years to flower. Eventually, they failed, so more seeds were obtained, and now we have some lovely examples again. First, the purples, much like the initial inhabitants.
And then these pale pink jobbers:
Scofflaw:
A person who flouts the law, especially by failing to comply with a law that is difficult to enforce effectively. [Lexico]
Noted in “Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer toughens mask mandate and orders businesses to reject scofflaws,” Kim Bellware, WaPo.
I particularly appreciate the refinement clause concerning difficult to enforce laws.
Here’s another Covid-19 tracker that demonstrates the resurgence – or perhaps first peak – of the disease throughout the United States:
It also includes a state listing sorted on the rolling 7 day average of daily new cases / 100K people, which may be even more useful. As you can see, at least by new infections, Arizona’s doing poorly.
New infections are a mediocre proxy, I suspect; the real question is how many hospital beds will be consumed by these new infections, especially in ICUs. That, after all, was the entire point of the shutdown: conserving those beds. It might be a useful exercise to make this a predictive exercise, based on whatever characteristics are available in the data feeds.
But, as predicted, we can see those southern states that reopened earlier than the rest of the country are experiencing new infections in greater quantities than the rest of the question. Some states are reporting hospitals are under a lot of strain in Florida, Texas, and Arizona. If we start digging mass graves again …
We sort of like the icky black spots seem to hover over the rest of the putrefaction. First pic is without the flash.
And the second is with the flash.
I presume the black specks each have their own little stalk that I couldn’t really see. I suppose I should have taken much better pictures over a few weeks to document any growth patterns.
And, one day, I would have simply disappeared.
SCOTUS came through for a long-oppressed minority yesterday in McGirt v. Oklahoma:
In a 5-to-4 decision, the court said that Congress “has not said otherwise” and that the land promised to the Creek Nation is still a reservation. [WaPo]
And this means what?
For Oklahoma’s criminal-justice system, the ruling means that federal officers, not state officials, have the authority to prosecute major crimes committed by tribal members. Less certain is how the decision affects the authority of state and city leaders when it comes to imposing taxes, zoning laws and other regulations.
Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter and leaders of five tribal groups issued a joint statement after the ruling indicating they have made “substantial progress toward an agreement” to submit to Congress and the Justice Department that would put in place a “framework of shared jurisdiction.”
In practical terms, what’s the impact? An experienced local attorney thinks Oklahoma may have overstated it:
Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling that the Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s original reservation boundaries were never legally disestablished ranks as one of the most important court decisions in Oklahoma history, according to a Tulsa attorney with extensive experience in federal tribal law.
“I think this is the most important decision in Oklahoma history in terms of sovereignty for the state of Oklahoma and sovereignty for the five tribes,” said Mike McBride III, an attorney with Crowe & Dunlevy. …
The state of Oklahoma claimed in Supreme Court filings in Murphy’s case that thousands of cases would be subject to being overturned if the court ruled against the state, McBride said.
“They really backed off of that (claim) in the McGirt case.” McBride said. “It appears there are considerably (fewer cases) than that.” [Tulsa World]
In my view, and without relevant legal training, it seems to be a victory that will have long term consequences and is a signal victory for the tribes involved.
But what really interested me was a small bit in the ruling. The conservative Justice joining the liberal wing was Justice Gorsuch, and, in the ruling, I have to wonder if he relished writing this rebuttal to the dissenters:
In the end, only one message rings true. Even the carefully selected history Oklahoma and the dissent recite is not nearly as tidy as they suggest. It supplies us with little help in discerning the law’s meaning and much potential for mischief. If anything, the persistent if unspoken message here seems to be that we should be taken by the “practical advantages” of ignoring the written law. How much easier it would be, after all, to let the State proceed as it has always assumed it might. But just imagine what it would mean to indulge that path. A State exercises jurisdiction over Native Americans with such persistence that the practice seems normal. Indian landowners lose their titles by fraud or otherwise in sufficient volume that no one remembers whose land it once was. All this continues for long enough that a reservation that was once beyond doubt becomes questionable, and then even farfetched. Sprinkle in a few predictions here, some contestable commentary there, and the job is done, a reservation is disestablished. None of these moves would be permitted in any other area of statutory interpretation, and there is no reason why they should be permitted here. That would be the rule of the strong, not the rule of law.
Permitting the fact that there may be large practical consequences to the application of the law modify a decision is a dangerous precedent, and so it’s good to see at least one conservative Justice recognize that permitting an injustice to occur simply because some members of the dominant community might be discomfited was, itself, an injustice.
This decision will reverberate for a long time to come.
Gary Larson may be off to a rocky start, but his resumption of The Far Side is now begun. Hopefully, he’ll master his new pen soon enough.
Or all of his late fans will rise from the grave and
… was never this sweet.
The documentary Fabergé: A Life Of Its Own (2014) has three phases: the historical phase, detailing the chronology and personalities among both creators and its consumers; its pop culture phase, characterized by the scavenging of the famous name by popular culture in order to engage in the capitalistic practice of monetization; and the collectors phase, which explores the brand’s resurrection within the connoisseur set. Each has a lesson to teach.
An Imperial gift, with a visage to remind you just who’s in charge.
The historical section, which I found the most interesting, covers the early history of Fabergé, as well as its peak period: objects produced, methods of the workshops, and surrounding society. From his humble beginnings to his death as a Russian Revolution refugee in Lausanne, Switzerland, Carl Fabergé takes a remarkably quiet center stage. He appears to have been an alert businessman, yet perhaps unaffected by the lure of wealth. His most famous patrons, of course, symbolized the importance of deft diplomacy, even in a merchant: the Imperial Russian family. Being alert to the preferences and currents of the high Russian family may have meant it was critical that he produce great and unique art rather than mass production and maximization of profit; after all, the peasants could not hope to afford even his cheapest product. There is no denying that he had wealth, but the documentary chooses not to emphasize it; whether that’s a choice reflecting reality or the movie makers’ preferences is not clear.
He may have been simply dedicated to his end product. In the end, though, most of his artisans, drafted into the army, died at the front, whether from combat or disease, and that was the beginning of the end for Fabergé, an end which was given an exclamation mark by the end of the Romanov dynasty.
The second phase, perhaps purposefully, showcases the use of the Fabergé name to promote many modern products. It’s crass, it’s vulgar, and while interesting in showing how the pursuit of wealth results in quite ridiculous uses of the old brand, in the end it’s repugnant. It’s a lesson in 1960s-1970s American bad taste.
A late period egg by a rare female artisan.
The final phase gives us more views of the artifacts of Fabergé as the initiation of the period of collecting them is covered. A number of collectors are interviewed, although it seems a bit flat. However, at least for me, that all faded away in one interview. The context I brought to the moment was this: I was musing on the disaster that befell the Russian Imperial family at the hands of the Soviet usurpers, and wondered if the situation that led to their terminal predicament was the fault of a family convinced that it had the blessing of Heaven on it to rule Russia, or if the situation was simply intractable and their doom sealed no matter what they might have done, other than flee. As I thought about that, I was struck by a collector’s awestruck remark that the object he held in his hand was absolutely perfect.
The death of Imperial Russia dreams.
In my mind flashed scenes of peasants dying of famine, Russian soldiers slaughtered at the front as their weapons didn’t work, the mutiny of the military, bloody revolution, the revolution being co-opted by opportunists, all the elements of dystopia.
For a surrealistic moment, I wondered if that exquisite piece had, in its very fashioning, drained all around it of right and goodness, leaving little but dross in its wake. To understand that these artifacts, as well thought out and made as they were, were created in the dusk of a once-mighty empire makes for an admiration that is bittersweet.
If you enjoy the beauty and intricacies of Fabergé work, the artifacts and the history are fascinating. But, as one of the experts remarks, nearly all of them are about the past, not the future. In a sense, those made for the Imperial family were, like much artwork throughout history, about justifying the positions the owners, as well as those celebrated in that art, held in society. In the case of the Russian Imperial family, they inadvertently become markers on the path of doom and disaster.
National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman Jesse Hunt:
Republican senators have incredible records of accomplishment on behalf of their constituents and it’s important they tell that story. Those accomplishments stand in stark contrast to the disturbing pattern of scandal and extremism that’s engulfed Democrat campaigns. [WaPo, edited]
Given that Republican senators have lamented how this Congress’ Senate, under the leadership of Senator McConnell (R-KY), has done virtually nothing beyond confirm conservative judges, their “incredible” accomplishments will be confined to those four years prior to to 2018. The 2016-2018 period of accomplishments consisted of a failed effort to replace the ACA with an inferior bill in which most Senators did not participate in writing that bill, and the ineffective 2017 tax reform bill, which gifted higher profits to corporations, while doing diddly-squat for everyone who was not an investor.
The two years before that was the end of the Obama Administration, in which McConnell, once again, permitted very little to happen.
I fear these campaigns by GOP incumbents will be a great tax on their storytelling capabilities. Much of it will be justifying their votes on the Kavanaugh nomination and, even more painfully, the Trump impeachment trial.
And Hunt will be desperate to justify a remark which appears to be ridiculous, if only to their family.
Benjamin Radford of the Center For Inquiry (CFI) addresses recent rumors concerning Covid-19 Parties:
So what about the widely-reported recent covid parties in Kentucky, Washington, and Alabama?
Well, evidence of the coronavirus parties that Kentucky governor Andy Beshear mentioned never materialized, and Beshear never provided any follow up information or details on what, exactly, he was referring to.
The reports from Washington state turned out to be a mistake. As The New York Times reported, “officials retracted those comments and said the so-called Covid-19 parties may have been more innocent gatherings. Meghan DeBolt, the director of community health for Walla Walla County, said county officials were learning more about the cases that have emerged from the recent social gatherings. She said they were still hearing reports of parties where infected people were present but do not have evidence that the people who became ill after the gatherings had attended out of a desire to be exposed.” In other words, young people were recklessly gathering at parties—something happening all across the country and having nothing to do with covid parties. …
The reports have all the typical ingredients of unfounded moral panic rumors: anonymous sources sharing stories and warnings online, soon legitimized by local officials (teachers, police, school districts, governors, etc.) who publicize the information out of an abundance of caution. Journalists eagerly run with a sensational story, and there’s little if any sober or skeptical follow-up.
It’s important to note that Radford doesn’t deny they may occur, but rather, to use his words: Is it a Thing? If it follows the usual pattern, this is more about the people in power, whether political or moral, thinking perhaps a little less of their people than they should. It happens.
The folks at CFI, now publisher of Skeptical Inquirer, are more than just buzz-kills for UFO groupies and Sasquatch lovers. They actually publish studies and articles on the sociology behind many of these phenomena in an effort to understand why people sometimes believe the silliest things. Bradford’s article a good take on moral panics and Covid-19.
And I always enjoy each issue of Skeptical Inquirer.
The Trump critics seem to have stretched their critiques a little thin when it comes to the Russian bounty scandal, and it’s been bugging me since yesterday. Here’s Steve Benen:
There are a few relevant angles to this. Right off the bat, it’s worth emphasizing by Donald Trump’s reasoning, there are no leakers to uncover because, as the president put it last week, the entire story was “made up” by journalists as part of an elaborate conspiracy to “damage” his re-election campaign and his party. The “secret source” behind the reporting, Trump added, “probably does not even exist, just like the story itself.” The president concluded that the entire matter is “just another hoax.”
If Trump were right, then why would the White House seek out a leaker who doesn’t exist? How could officials “narrow down the universe of suspects to fewer than 10 people” if the underlying claim was manufactured by nefarious reporters? It would seem the investigation itself debunks the president’s claims.
I don’t agree. What if the story was made up, not by the newspapers, but by someone in the Trump Administration? That hypothesis would certainly justify an investigation.
And while it might seem vengeful, the Obama Administration was also known for going after leakers. No Administration likes them, so this is no surprise.
And while Benen says, “Soon after, most of the nation’s leading news agencies confirmed the story …“, I would prefer corroborating information on a story like this by something stronger: a senior intelligence official speaking in public, perhaps. Or an ambassador admitting to it after a fair bit of prodding … or have we used that plot device too many times already?
All that said, I’m not twisting myself into a pretzel to be fair to a President who hardly deserves it. No, being scrupulously honest when evaluating situations is a way to keep yourself from being trapped by gambit by an adversary. Just as taking that apparently wayward knight will cost you your queen two moves later in chess, this apparent leak could be a trap waiting for credulous reporters to stumble into, making the press vulnerable to charges of bias and thus discrediting them.
Sure, maybe I don’t know enough about this particular scandal – but, from here, I’d like to see a bit more evidence that there’s really a bounty before I’d get too het up about how the Administration is dealing with it.
It’s a gorgeous color combo.
The race for the open Senate seat in Kansas is becoming more and more interesting, and primaries are still to come on August 4. But this development seems a little baffling as to what it may portend:
Kansas Democrat Barbara Bollier raised more in a three-month period than any candidate in Kansas history for federal, state or local office, her campaign announced Wednesday.
Bollier’s U.S. Senate campaign took $3.7 million in contributions from April through June, a quarterly record in the state. The Mission Hills doctor and state senator hopes to be the first Democrat to win a U.S. Senate race in the GOP-leaning state since 1932. Her campaign said it has more than $4 million cash on hand. [Kansas City Star]
But it doesn’t say if those contributions are from state residents, or out of state contributions, nor the median size of these contributions.
Even more interesting is that Bollier is a former Republican who switched parties while a member of the State legislature. How that will play with a conservative State that has suffered through some of the Republican fantasies regarding taxation and had to be rescued by a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans should be quite interesting. There are several scenarios waiting on the primaries:
In the end, the Kansas Senate race may be the closest thing to a true referendum on Republican politics in 2020. The two most likely Republican candidates represent far right conservatives, and if Bollier survives the primary and then wins the Senate, this may be a decisive step in the repudiation of the current Republican Party.
On the other hand, a victory by the GOP isn’t necessarily a victory for the ideology, especially if it’s a razor thin victory. A big victory, sure, the GOP rides high in Kansas – but I’m not expecting that. I expect Bollier to make this a close race regardless of the identify of her opponent.
But using money as the metric seems dubious.
Following up on this rhetoric-heavy post concerning lack of follow through in this Administration, the World Health Organization (WHO) is finally in receipt of a letter announcing the American intent to withdraw in a year from the organization:
The United States officially notified the United Nations on Tuesday of its withdrawal from the World Health Organization, a White House official said.
The notice, which comes as the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread around the globe, was submitted to the U.N. secretary-general and to Congress. The withdrawal is expected to take effect July 6, 2021.
A spokesperson told NBC News that the WHO was aware of reports but declined to comment further. [NBC News]
I was wrong; sometimes this Administration does what it says it will do. Note the date when it becomes effective; any country withdrawing from the WHO requires a year of delay from date of notification.
I’ll omit passing judgment on this move, because the Republicans are doing it for me:
Lawmakers from both parties, including Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., swiftly criticized the move.
“I disagree with the president’s decision,” Alexander, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said in a statement. “Certainly there needs to be a good, hard look at mistakes the World Health Organization might have made in connection with coronavirus, but the time to do that is after the crisis has been dealt with, not in the middle of it.
“Withdrawing U.S. membership could, among other things, interfere with clinical trials that are essential to the development of vaccines, which citizens of the United States as well as others in the world need,” he added. “And withdrawing could make it harder to work with other countries to stop viruses before they get to the United States.”
Hopefully, a vaccine or treatment for Covid-19 will have been developed before a year has passed. However, Senator Alexander may be referring to other hypothetical new pathogens.
If President Trump wins reelection in November, will the letter be withdrawn?
The result of Magical Thinking is when reality reaches up and slaps you, much to your surprise.
The result of Science is the same as Magical Thinking, without the surprise.
You may or may not have heard that SCOTUS ruled, 5-4 along ideological lines, that President Trump may fire the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) at his discretion, contrary to the legislation that created it.
As may any future President as well, as former CFPB head Richard Corday points out. And, further, that by only addressing that issue, SCOTUS may have implicitly signaled that the CFPB is not a zombie agency, soon to be removed by the judicial eraser, but still alive and waiting for an activist leader to be appointed once again.
But behind this issue is the deeper issue of just who should have the right to watch over the shoulder of such leaders, and remove them when they don’t perform well. It’s an important but complex and subtle question, and on Lawfare law professor and historian Jed Handelsman Shugerman thinks the conservative justices, in their textualist, originalist glory, are fudging the record. It’s a long article, but if this is an issue that interests you …
These events reveal mostly the complexities of collective decision-making—an example of how Congress is often a contradictory “they,” not an “it.” Refocusing attention from a deliberately muddled legislative debate to the actual statutes that the first Congress passed, it becomes clearer that—if there was any decision of constitutional significance from these debates—it was that Congress had broad powers to regulate, delegate and distribute removal powers.
It’s also an important topic, because who fires these people is determined on the legal consensus behind the unitary executive theory. For those who are not intimate with this theory:
The unitary executive theory is a theory of US constitutional law holding that the US president possesses the power to control the entire executive branch. The doctrine is rooted in Article Two of the United States Constitution, which vests “the executive power” of the United States in the President. Although that general principle is widely accepted, there is disagreement about the strength and scope of the doctrine. It can be said that some favor a “strongly unitary” executive, while others favor a “weakly unitary” executive. The former group argue, for example, that Congress‘s power to interfere with intra-executive decision-making (such as firing executive branch officials) is limited, and that the President can control policy-making by all executive agencies within the limits set for those agencies by Congress. Still others agree that the Constitution requires a unitary executive, but believe this to be harmful, and propose its abolition by constitutional amendment. [Wikipedia]
And, as we’ve seen, a corrupt Executive can wreak real damage when the theory of a strong unitary executive holds sway. I tend to not give it much credence myself, although for reasons that are virtually irrelevant to governmental theory, but instead going back to the days when I helped run a number of BBSes and a network connecting them by deliberately devolving as much authority and responsibility to my co-hobbyists as I possibly could. That experience, seeing as it was partly of a governmental form, was instructive as to the strength and competence of many vs the strength of just one.
It may be helpful to consider why the strong unitary executive theory is conducive to corruption. First, we need to realize that it means that, as with the CFPB director, the leaders serve at the pleasure of the President, once they are confirmed; that is, they have to keep the President happy. Now, that’s fine if the President is a fine, upstanding politician, as many have been. But when the leaders are faced with a President that is motivated by personal, rather than State-interests, and the leaders in question quite naturally would prefer to stay in their positions, then their performance can be impaired and even corrupted.
I find I far prefer a model in which, as now, the President nominates candidates, and the Senate confirms or rejects. But, post-confirmation, these folks, from Cabinet level on down, may operate as they wish, so long as they are in conformance with their duties and those are performed to the best of their ability, and no corruption occurs, (which may be redundant with performing their duties).
If the President wishes to remove a confirmed candidate from their position, then they must submit a request to do so to the Senate. In an emergency, they can submit a request for an immediate trial and decision, but then the President must come to the trial and present the evidence. Whether a super-majority of the Senate is required is an important detail.
In either case, the person to be removed may present contrary evidence, as can the investigative arm of the Senate. There should be a process for Congress to remove a poorly performing or corrupt person as well.
It seems far more sensible than this flawed unitary executive theory. Oh, and for those who wonder about the Department of Defense, the President is explicitly named as the Commander-in-Chief of the military by the Constitution, so we shouldn’t need to worry about an out of control military.
One more little tidbit from Shugerman:
Here comes the incorrect part of this story. According to the unitary executive theorists, this last bloc prevailed in the House, with Madison crafting language designed to imply that the power originated from the Constitution. Then the Senate split 10-10 on the subject, and Vice President John Adams broke the tie in favor of presidential power. And thus the first Congress confirmed, fixed, constructed or “liquidated”—as various judges, scholars and officials have put it over the years—a unitary executive as a matter of constitutional law. Like Roberts, many lawyers and judges rely heavily on this story to explain why the Constitution shields presidents from congressional limitations on their power.
There’s just one little problem with this founding myth of the unitary executive: The story is wrong. In fact, this story never made sense. But the unitary interpretation really unravels with newly identified evidence from the Senate. The Senate was closed and did not officially record debates. But a senator’s diary recorded a far messier reality: The first Congress actually retreated from the argument that the Constitution vests sole removal power in the president, even for the Department of Foreign Affairs (the equivalent of today’s Department of State) and Department of War (the equivalent of the Department of Defense), which would have been the strongest domains for presidential power. It settled on deliberately vague language instead, because doing so was necessary to get sufficient votes to establish the first executive departments.
Which is fascinating. Sometimes obscure political machinations will echo down the centuries until they impact us, hard, right between the eyes.
Heather Cox Richardson’s overnight summary of the Trump Administration’s apparent management goal of Covid-19 has been stuck in my brain:
Looming over Trump’s portrayal of his version of America, though, was the coronavirus. While other advanced countries have gotten the virus under control and are cautiously beginning to reopen, we are moving the opposite direction. As of today, we have almost 3 million confirmed cases and more than 130,000 deaths. In a number of states, especially in the South, cases are hitting new highs. Europe has banned American visitors, and Mexico and Canada have both closed their border with the U.S. Rather than trying to stop the crisis, the White House is launching new messaging about the coronavirus: “Learn to live with it.”
Trump is doubling down on the idea that the United States must simply reopen, and take the resulting deaths as a cost of doing business. Three people who have been privy to administration thinking about the issue told reporters for the Washington Post that officials are hoping “Americans will go numb to the escalating death toll and learn to accept tens of thousands of new cases a day.” Advisors have urged Trump to try to avoid responsibility for the administration’s disastrous response to the pandemic by simply blaming China for it. Their goal is to try to repair the economy before the election, recognizing that economic recovery is the only way to make up the gap between Trump’s poll numbers and those of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
I finally found a suitable analogy: a mechanic on a Formula 1 race car, upon discovering his car’s engine has a broken piston, insists he can carve a new one out of wood and it’ll be better than ever.
And if that doesn’t work, well, the remaining pistons will cover it fine and, ya know, last place isn’t that bad if we don’t acknowledge there was anyone else in the race and … add your favorite strident self-delusion here.
Look. All it takes is comparisons, honestly done, to show how poorly this Administration has performed. That’s it. We can always talk about how much we hate our grandparents, our friends with health conditions, and all the folks who have heart attacks and can’t be treated at the local ICU because the Covid-19 patients are using all the beds, all with great sarcasm.
But we may, tragically, end up having all this magical thinking terminated by the great head slap of reality. Hospitals overflowing with patients, friends and family dying when they could have been saved.
If the GOP falls in line behind this rationale, they will have truly become the Party of Death. Historians will point out that this never had to happen.
