Author Archives: Hue White

Fallibilism:

Fallibilism is the epistemological thesis that no belief (theory, view, thesis, and so on) can ever be rationally supported or justified in a conclusive way. Always, there remains a possible doubt as to the truth of the belief. Fallibilism applies that assessment even to science’s best-entrenched claims and to people’s best-loved commonsense views. Some epistemologists have taken fallibilism to imply skepticism, according to which none of those claims or views are ever well justified or knowledge. In fact, though, it is fallibilist epistemologists (which is to say, the majority of epistemologists) who tend not to be skeptics about the existence of knowledge or justified belief. Generally, those epistemologists see themselves as thinking about knowledge and justification in a comparatively realistic way — by recognizing the fallibilist realities of human cognitive capacities, even while accommodating those fallibilities within a theory that allows perpetually fallible people to have knowledge and justified beliefs. Still, although that is the aim of most epistemologists, the question arises of whether it is a coherent aim. Are they pursuing a coherent way of thinking about knowledge and justification? Much current philosophical debate is centered upon that question. Epistemologists generally seek to understand knowledge and justification in a way that permits fallibilism to be describing a benign truth about how we can gain knowledge and justified beliefs. One way of encapsulating that project is by asking whether it is possible for a person ever to have fallible knowledge and justification. [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

Noted in “Science Does Not Have All the Answers—and This Is Not a Problem,” Guilherme Brambatti Guzzo and Gabriel Dall’Alba, Skeptical Inquirer (January/February 2024, paywall):

Science may be best understood as a continuous process in which inquiries about the world and ourselves hardly, if ever, have final answers. The philosopher Lee McIntyre highlights the open-ended character of science (McIntyre 2019); it operates under epistemic principles such as fallibilism, which demands open-mindedness, skepticism, and the continuous revision of ideas within communities of inquiry. So, when there are answers, they must never be regarded as definitive or beyond all possible doubt.

“Humans can have knowledge of the world, even though such knowledge is imperfect, and reliable comparisons can be made between competing theories or opinions.” That is the essence of fallibilism in the words of Michael Matthews (2014, 70). Fallibilism, in this regard, is a position that is opposed to relativism and absolutism. We may, at the same time, discard the assumption that “anything goes” or that there are no better and worse ways to test ideas, and reject the notion that the current knowledge we have about the world and ourselves is absolutely perfect, incapable of improvement.

There’s been considerable angst, inside and outside of Congress, concerning foreign aid for Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel. Two packages have passed the Senate, one with immigration restrictions demanded by the Republicans, and, when the Democrats came through with a close approximation of the demands, rejected by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Moscow?), while the other, lacking the border restrictions, may or may not have been officially rejected, I’m not sure.

The situation is urgent in all three countries, and Republicans appear distraught with indecision. Indeed, there is subdued chatter about using a discharge petition to force action on the matter. However, that is not a simple matter, and it occurs to me that there is another alternative.

It revolves around the fact a motion to vacate (the House Speaker’s chair) currently requires but a single signature on the petition, a consequence of Rep Gaetz’ (and perhaps others) partial price for voting for then-Rep Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for House Speaker. Yes, a single Republican legislator can trigger a vote on whether the current Speaker should continue to occupy that position.

There are certainly Republicans who wish to pass the Senate’s legislation, although not enough to pass that legislation on their own. I suggest they join hands with the Democrats and make an agreement by which a Republican raises the motion to vacate, all the Democrats and enough Republicans vote to kick current Speaker Johnson out, vote another unnamed Republican into the Speakership, wherein that Republican does whatever is necessary to bring the legislation to the floor for a vote, gets it passed, and resigns the Speaker’s chair.

I don’t know if it’s possible to make that fly, but it’d be a real punch in the nose for both Vladimir Putin and future-Rep Johnson. Hell, he might resign in embarrassment.

For those readers who are vaguely aware of charges that Joe Biden is a corrupt politician, here’s the latest:

An FBI informant has been indicted on two counts for allegedly feeding the bureau false information about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden during the 2020 presidential campaign.

Alexander Smirnov, 43, disliked Joe Biden and was arrested in Las Vegas after returning from a trip overseas, according to the Justice Department. The case grew out of the special counsel investigation being led by David Weiss, who is also leading the case against Hunter Biden. Weiss had been appointed by then-President Donald Trump as the top federal prosecutor in Delaware. [NBC News]

It’s important to notice that the charges are coming from David Weiss, the Trump-appointed federal prosecutor for Delaware, who was retained by President Biden when he assumed office in order to avoid any appearance of impropriety.

That is to say, the guy who was most interested in Smirnov’s claims being true has just charged Smirnov with fabricating those claims and then feeding them to the FBI.

Now, does this prove Joe Biden is not corrupt? Nyaaaah. Proving a negative and all that. However, as Steve Benen points out,

For Biden’s GOP detractors in the House and Senate, Smirnov’s claims were foundational. He was the party’s star witness. Sean Hannity’s Fox News show ran with this informant’s claims in at least 85 separate segments last year. The Republicans’ entire “bribery” conspiracy theory was based on the claims this one “informant” made to the FBI.

And

“In a detailed indictment, Special Counsel David Weiss — who was appointed by former President Donald Trump — has demonstrated how key evidence at the heart of House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry is based on a lie,” House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin said in a statement.

And, more importantly, it demonstrates the basic incompetence of Rep Comer, et Republican al, at this job. Verifying information is Job 1, and they failed it. It’s one thing to investigate allegations; it’s quite another to talk it up, go on Fox News and yammer about it, and, worse yet, take secret depositions and then LIE about them.

This is performative morality.

Involution:

Young [Chinese] professionals trying to support themselves are often stressed and kept busy by “involution,” Hu said, using a popular term for putting in huge effort without seeing any real results. “Involution means less free time,” he said. “Without free time, it’s hard to keep up relations.” [“Young Chinese, fed up with family pressure, opt out of Lunar New Year“, Christian Shepherd and Lyric Li, WaPo]

Just a correction: the previous entry on this thread suggested the contest between Jim Prokopiak (D-PA) and Candace Cabanas (R-PA) was located in New York. It was actually in Pennsylvania. Balled that one right up, didn’t I?

In the continuing saga of using goat entrails special elections to forecast the results of the general 2024 Elections, the Democrats must be elated after last night’s two special elections, both of which were thought to be close races.

In the high profile, but perhaps less significant, election, former Rep Tom Suozzi (D-NY) defeated Mazi Pilip (R-NY / Conservative Party) 53.9% to 46.1%, a nearly 8 point victory; in the parlance of modern American politics in “purple” districts, this does not qualify as close. Reportedly, Pilip did not embrace Mr. Trump until near the end of the race; whether this was important, negative or positive, is hard to say from here in Minnesota.

In the lower profile race, an election to the state House, and again in New York, Jim Prokopiak (D-NY) defeated Candace Cabanas (R-NY), which was important because that leaves the New York state House in Democratic hands; it’s been bouncing back and forth over the years, from what I read. The interesting part? This “close” race had a margin of 35 points in a district thought to be friendly to conservatives (search on “2024 Special Election 140th Legislative District”).

Of course, much of politics is local, and Mr Suozzi is a very well known and liked politician; I know next to nothing about the other race with Cabanas and Prokopiak, although a 35 point loss in a ‘close race’ does speak volumes. In a loud voice.

Ouch.

But it suggests the Democrat remain positioned to outperform expectations set by pundits hesitant to read the political landscape as anything but traditional. Mr. Trump already has a record of being a drag on his Party, and I see no reason to think that won’t continue.

Lux:

The lux (symbol: lx) is the unit of illuminance, or luminous flux per unit area, in the International System of Units (SI). It is equal to one lumen per square metre. In photometry, this is used as a measure of the intensity, as perceived by the human eye, of light that hits or passes through a surface. It is analogous to the radiometric unit watt per square metre, but with the power at each wavelength weighted according to the luminosity function, a model of human visual brightness perception, standardized by the CIE and ISO. In English, “lux” is used as both the singular and plural form. The word is derived from the Latin word for “light”, lux. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “Blue eyes may be better for reading in dim light than brown eyes,” Michael Le Page, NewScientist (6 February 2024, paywall):

After the volunteers sat in darkness for 30 seconds, the researchers gradually increased the brightness of the lighting until the participants were able to read a sequence of letters on a wall 3 metres away. Those with blue eyes needed a light level of 0.7 lux on average, compared with 0.82 lux for those with brown eyes.

A few weeks back Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) raised the call of RINO (Republican In Name Only) hunters everywhere:

PURITY!

Because by eliminating those who are impure, you move up the social power ladder, while reassuring, or at least confusing, the unambitious. Here’s the report from Steve Benen:

All of this came to mind again this week after seeing Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia speak to NBC News Vaughn Hillyard about the state of her party’s presidential race. Ahead of the New Hampshire primary, the right-wing congresswoman said:

“This is a true change for the Republican Party. It says not only do we support President Trump, we support his policies, and any Republican that isn’t willing to adapt [sic] these policies, we are completely eradicating from the party.”

As Benen points out, this results in the shrinking of the Party, not only because the impure are kicked out, but, given the propensity of RINO hunters to mendacity, even the rivals who are faithful get kicked out. Some will still vote for Trump, but others will become embittered and not vote – or even switch Parties.

All of this results in a move up prestige ladder for Rep Greene, but the odds of the Republicans doing well becomes less and less. It’s the self-immolation dance of the Republicans.

And here comes a RINO now!

Wisconsin GOP Rep. Mike Gallagher, who made news earlier this week with his vote against impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, announced on Saturday that he won’t run for re-election this year. [NBC News]

Beyond the Mayorkas vote, this probably put a bullseye on his back:

Republican political consultant Alex Bruesewitz has been mulling a primary challenge to Gallagher and said in a social media post on Saturday that Gallagher was once “considered by many as a rising star in the GOP,” but “instead of embracing the MAGA movement, he decided to betray the grassroots and protect the swamp.”

In the dog eat dog world of Republican politics, Greene was merely taking out a rival – a rising star – early. How do we know she’s involved?

Observers of the political scene may recall that Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) led an effort to write and pass a bipartisan immigration bill back in 2015, right up until his Party told him this was not useful, at which time he repudiated the bill. It failed to pass; it may not have even received a vote.

Why was it not useful? The Republican Party at the Federal level, as many of those same observers will diagnose, is built on grievance, not on accomplishment. Immigration, school vouchers, Christian Nationalism, abortion, the Federal debt – these are the issues that have not been resolved for a very long time. Some, like Christian Nationalism, are belabored by the most difficult of hurdles, a forbidding clause in the Constitution, and only make progress through dubious arguments accepted by SCOTUS. Others, such as abortion, required a decades-long effort to populate SCOTUS with anti-abortion Justices to take away a Constitutional protection.

It’s noteworthy that possibly the greatest mistake of the Republicans in recent memory was the SCOTUS decision in Dobbs, as it inflamed not only the active pro-choice groups, but also conservatives who suddenly discovered an existential risk to themselves and their sisters, and previously inactive voters who, again, discovered an existential risk to them and their sisters. To be succinct, the putative decision puts women’s lives at real, existential risk, thus proving the intellectual winners of the contest are the pro-choice forces, and because the Republicans began losing close elections.

Returning to the point, the parallel of the Rubio experience of almost ten years ago with the Senator James Lankford (R-OK) experience of the last few weeks has seemed only a curiosity. As another brief aside for those readers unfamiliar with Senator Lankford’s work, here’s Steve Benen’s summation:

Lankford spent four months doing real legislative work, forging a multifaceted compromise on border policy, immigration policy, and security aid. Given his credibility in far-right circles, and the strength of the bill, the senator predicted as recently as a month ago that the bipartisan package would receive as many as 70 votes.

A month later, Lankford’s bill is effectively dead — killed by his own party, the day after he and his negotiating partners unveiled it. Donald Trump, meanwhile, is making his displeasure with the senator known, boasting yesterday that he didn’t endorse Lankford’s 2022 re-election bid, despite the fact that the former president really did endorse Lankford’s 2022 re-election bid.

With a key part being:

… of a Fox News interview in which Lankford also said, “The key aspect of this, again, is, are we as Republicans going to have press conferences and complain the border is bad and then intentionally leave it open?”

Well, yes – because Mr. Trump, running for President again, demands it. Of this there is no dispute.

As I said, a curiosity that happens to prove the Republicans operate on grievance, not accomplishment. But, as storytellers and military strategists know, the evil guys in a conflict are those that fight among themselves for personal advantage, leading, often enough, to triumph for the good guys. And, following an article on Daily Kos, a MarketWatch article suggests this may be true again, this time in connection with immigration and the surprising strength, and Biden reelection bulwark, of the economy:

Analysts at institutional brokerage Strategas led by Don Rissmiller agree that what they call “big fiscal” — the large budget deficits being run at a time of full employment — is a major driver of the economy. But they also point to another factor at work: immigration. “There are good reasons to believe the U.S. has benefited from positive supply effects, ie, there’s surprisingly solid real economic growth (~3%) along with more tame inflation (~3%) as we start 2024,” they say in a presentation. And the upside really appears to be specific to the U.S. rather than global.

My bold.

And, I think, it’s a two-fer. Not only is Mr. Trump’s puddle-headed interference in Senator Lankford’s effort leading to a high-performing economy with lower inflation, benefiting is eventual opponent, President Biden, but it also leaves the Republicans with a festering wound in connection with their refusal to begin fixing, whatever that may mean, the immigration problem at the border. This has led to illegal efforts by Governor Abbot (R-TX) and others to resolve the problem, including talk of secession by disgraceful far-right power mongers in the Republican Party.

All of this, properly messaged, may cost the Republicans yet another election cycle.

So it’s rather fascinating to watch the self-immolation of the Republicans, but running a Party on grievance rather than accomplishment is not only an evil thing to do, theoretically, but is proving in real world experience to have bad consequences. Which is sort of definitional.

The Republican leaders remain a hotly corrupt mess, and the base is a pack of marks.

Or hero of the day. Well done!

It appears that many legal observers believe that Trump will triumph in Trump v. Anderson, which is the disqualification suit brought by mainline Republicans and independents to force Trump off the Colorado GOP primary ballot. If this is correct, I think it’ll be an opportunity lost in the wake of the Special Counsel report of President Biden. But nothing is official just yet.

Speaking of the Special Counsel report, reaction to the report on Biden has been more or less as expected. Right-winger Erick Erickson:

Every red flag about Biden is now suddenly up at once. The public thinks he is too old, and the Special Prosecutor thinks Biden is not mentally fit for trial. That raises too many questions.

It was political malpractice for Biden’s team to rush him into a press conference where he confused the Mexican and Egyptian Presidents. It shows Barack Obama’s concerns are well-founded.

For me, at least, it was notable overnight that Democratic strategists who had been open in the past with their concerns about Biden were noticeably quiet. They know they have a problem. They just are not sure how to proceed.

Republicans will try to pounce and probably just break their necks.

Historian and liberal Professor Richardson, based on material from multiple sources:

But in Biden’s case, what followed the announcement that he had not broken a law was more than 300 pages of commentary, including assertions that Biden was old, infirm, and losing his marbles and even that “[h]e did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died” (p. 208).

As television host and former Republican representative from Florida Joe Scarborough put it: “He couldn’t indict Biden legally so he tried to indict Biden politically.”

Liberal Kevin Drum:

It’s instructive that, as far as I know, not a single person who has interacted with Biden personally has ever reported any kind of cognitive decline. This includes Republican leaders who have visited him in the White House, even though they have every incentive to leak dirt on Biden to the press. In fact, I’ve never come across a comment from anyone, even on background, that describes him as anything other than attentive, engaged, and detail oriented.

On a connected note, conservative/centrist/classic liberal Andrew Sullivan, behind a paywall:

And look: neither you nor I know how much dementia is affecting an 81 year old. There are times when Biden seems remarkably lucid for a man his age. My best guess is that it’s patchy: he has good days and bad days. But this much we do know: even if we judge him able to do the job now, what about in three or four years’ time? That’s what we are being asked to judge. Many of us have parents who were fine in their eighties … until suddenly they weren’t — and in the case of my mother, the decline was swift. That’s why in a poll last year, “fully 77 percent said Biden is too old to be effective for four more years,” and 69 percent of Democrats feel this way. Who wouldn’t?

Sullivan strikes an informed balance, as is his wont.

On Lawfare Chuck Rosenberg critiques the process:

But a special counsel must write a report in a way—if possible—that gives no advantage or disadvantage to any one person, apart from the consequences that flow naturally from the factual findings of the report. It is one thing to explain in a neutral way why evidence exists—or does not exist—in a case (such as Biden could not recall) and another to use language that is arguably disparaging (such as that Biden is “an elderly man with a poor memory”). It is one thing to suggest that a defendant could come across to a jury as sympathetic and another to suggest that a defendant is utterly incapable of forming criminal intent. Political opponents will turn the latter characterizations into political capital. A special counsel report should avoid providing that sort of ammunition to either side (and I believe Hur could have threaded that needle here) while still adequately explaining a declination decision to the attorney general.

Although I do not believe his final recommendation was politically viable:

If you do not want to pour the fruits of sensitive investigations (with their attendant impressions and assessments) into the public domain, then handle these investigations through normal channels at the Department of Justice, and do what prosecutors always do when they decide not to charge a case: nothing.

Doing nothing is still politically sensitive in an atmosphere that is as charged as it is today. An old-fashioned phrase for that is the fix is in.

So what is a slightly bored independent like me – and maybe you – to do in November? Sure, past performance is no guarantee of future achievement, but it’s indicative of how to bet, so I suggest evaluating Biden on the last four years, and in that respect, Biden’s running on a superb record. Sure, he had a bit of inflation, but it’s relatively easy to deduce that inflation was an unfortunate side effect of cleaning up the mess left by the Republicans. Unemployment has fallen to shocking lows, wages are up, inflation is back under control, and supply line issues have been managed, sometimes by Biden personally. The predicted recession never made an appearance, much to the flustering of Republicans and economists. He’s put outstanding personnel in charge of the various departments and then helped only where necessary. Indeed, he’s shown a highly mature understanding of the job, a matter that escaped, and, given his recent comments, will continue to escape Mr. Trump.

Speaking of the former President, treat every claim of Mr. Trump with regard to the achievements of his Administration with skepticism. His inclination to make any claim that he believes will benefit him results in mass mendacity that you may not suspect. And remember: a healthy chunk of the Federal debt is due to the 2017 tax reform bill, passed by the Republicans and signed enthusiastically by President Trump, which did nothing for the economy while reducing tax revenues, causing the annual deficit, and therefore the debt, to skyrocket.

Based purely on economic achievements, it’s clear that Biden has Trump beaten, hands down.

Is Biden declining cognitively? Could be. As Sullivan notes, some cognitive declines are sudden and definitive. But a disabled President, unlike most disabled dictators, such as Brezhnev, has specified processes for transfer of authority, its return etc. If Biden becomes cognitively disabled, we take him out and put in VP Harris, who will be supported by Biden’s various appointees, and we continue, presumably with most or all policies intact.

Mr. Trump’s judgment in the selection of most appointees proved defective during his Administration, to judge from the numerous scandals attending them, and there’s little reason to think his judgment will improve. What scandal came in with Biden’s appointees?

Well, despite the nattering of House Republicans over the President, his son Hunter, and Department of Homeland Security’s Alejandro Mayorkas, there hasn’t been much in the way of scandal. Right-wing extremist Erick Erickson claims the Administration has been infiltrated by Iranian agents, but I’m not even going to link to those claims as I’ve seen no corroborating reports. It sounds like Erickson is repeating something he saw on a blog.

Now, there was the loss of thirteen service members during the Afghanistan withdrawal, but there are two points of importance in the matter that are often glossed over. First, it was President Trump who signed the legally binding document that we would withdraw by the target date, not President Biden. True, Biden could have ignored the matter, but there is value in upholding promises, even those with which we personally disagree or find politically inconvenient. Second, it was not the Taliban who claimed to have killed the Americans, but a Taliban opponent seeking to gain an advantage of some sort. Stopping the attack used is difficult. Less defensible aspects might include treatment of Afghan translators, and the equipment, damaged, worn out, outdated, etc, that was left behind. And keep in mind that both Trump and Biden wanted the United States out of Afghanistan – and I suspect that, if Mr Trump managed the withdrawal, it might have been a disaster.

But if this incident, which is only a scandal for a far-right extremist, in truth, is the worst it gets, then, at least so far, Biden is doing as well as President Obama, who also had no scandals. And there’s some value, for the voter, in that. Almost as much as the recovery of the economy, as managed by the Democrats.

From WaPo’s reporting on Robert Hur’s Special Counsel report President Biden’s retention of classified documents:

“We also expect many jurors to be struck by the place where the Afghanistan documents were ultimately found in Mr. Biden’s Delaware home: in a badly damaged box in the garage, near a collapsed dog crate, a dog bed, a Zappos box, an empty bucket, a broken lamp wrapped with duct tape, potting soil, and synthetic firewood[.]”

It reads like a labored metaphor, which had me both sad and laughing for some reason.

I received this bit overnight from a friend up north, with the subject line, misspellings and all:

Want your blood to boil?d

Rather bald-faced manipulation, isn’t it? Here’s the body:

Heard on the news tonight that Minnesota is putting forth a bill to make MN a “sanctuary state” !!!!!  Good grief!  The dems control governorship, and noth the house and senate in MN.   We’re doomed.

https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/lawmakers-push-north-star-act-in-effort-to-make-minnesota-sanctuary-state-republicans-warn-of-economic-burden/

or how about this:

www.startribune.com/hennepin-county-minneapolis-leaders-back-minnesota-sanctuary-state-proposal/600340789

If this doesn’t make you panic, nothing will.  Disgusting.

So I glanced through the StarTribune article and then replied to the sender:

“Uh huh. From the cited article:

It says the board supports “efforts to ensure that non-citizen residents are assured due process in the criminal legal system, be free from harassment, and supported in their efforts to remain in Minnesota and contribute to community vibrancy.”

Terrible? Horrible? The doom of society?

Hysteria.

Here’s the problem with the far right conservatives: Manipulation. They take serious discussion and turn it into The End Of The World. And they do it again and again and again, all while sticking their hands out.

And everyone’s learning this is how they operate. You can’t have a serious debate with them, you – or rather they – won’t compromise unless it’s an overseas issue, and even that is beginning to become infected with this sickness.

So we don’t have as serious of debates as we might. I have a conservative friend with whom I dined a month or so ago. He runs an organization that keeps an eye on the Legislature, and he expressed concerns about the Democrats’ control of all both wings of the legislature and the governorship. Not that they are Democrats per se, but the potential, partially fulfilled, that bills are now sailing through the legislature and becoming law far too quickly, without the substantive and respectful debate that society should require.

And that, by and large, is the fault of conservatives who have suffered the manipulative grifters to not only live, but to hold positions of power and influence. Names such as Trump, Gingrich, Greene, Gaetz, for everyone who is paying attention knows they are clowns, absolutists and grifters.”

There ya go.

The 2022 Senate race was interesting for what it said about polling. I noticed that pollsters with lower FiveThirtyEight ratings tended to skew a trifle conservative, both during and afterwards, as did other pundits. For example, in my post-mortem summary, I said this about Senator Hassan’s (D-NH) reelection bid:

In New Hampshire, some conservative pollsters gave challenger Don Bolduc (R) a small lead over Senator Hassan (D), while others called it a dead heat. Then pollster Lowell Center gave Hassan a ten point lead, pointedly out of step with everyone else. Hassan’s final margin of victory? 10 points.

This was echoed in a few other races, such as Fetterman/Oz in Pennsylvania. It was as if the conservative pollsters were trying to generate enthusiasm for their ideologically aligned candidates, rather than just reporting their findings.

Maybe their adjustment models reflected a poor understanding of electoral realities. Or perhaps the electorate came late to the realization that Bolduc, Oz, et al, held deeply inappropriate views for Senators from those States.

So how is this playing out in the 2024 Presidential election? On Daily Kos, Kerry Eleveld has an observation on recent polling:

The Economist published a welcome reminder Sunday that not all polls are created equal. The outlet parsed the 538 aggregate of national polls, dividing them up by pollster ratings between the very good, good, decent, poor, and unranked. Generally speaking, the worse the pollster’s ranking, the better Trump performed in the survey.

• Very good (13 polls): Trump +.15
• Good (eight polls): Trump +2.4
• Decent (30 polls): Trump +1.7
• Poor (four polls): Trump +5.3
• Unranked (two polls): Trump +6.5

So it may be that, once again, the lower quality pollsters are trying to incline the playing field to the far-right candidates. Keep that in mind when my reader sees a poll. Here’s the FiveThirtyEight ranking of pollsters, dated late January of 2024. They’ve apparently switched from a letter grade system to a star system, 0 to 3 stars. And the above mentioned dead-eye Lowell Center? They have a 2.9 stars rating. Trafalgar, who had given Bolduc a small lead? Less than a star at .7.

Steve Benen has had lot of good stuff of late, but this made me grin:

If you want to get an ugly look, call a [US S]enator “congressman.” Lasers practically shoot from their eyes.

I see Robert Hur, Special Counsel investigating President Biden’s possession of classified documents from his time as Vice President, chose today to release his report. It tries to be damning:

• The investigation found Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified military and national security information, but he will not face charges. [CNN/Politics]

However, this is not only mitigating, but even contradicts the above findings:

• In the report, Hur noted that Biden cooperated with the investigation and returned the classified documents once they were discovered — noting the significant differences between this case and the one against former President Donald Trump, who was charged last year in relation to his handling of classified documents after he left the White House.

Naturally, the White House and Biden’s personal lawyer ripped the report. I’m not in a position to judge the report, although the above contradiction seems obvious.

But I will note this: There may be an opportunity to reset our politics.

How so? Today was also the day SCOTUS heard arguments as to whether Mr. Trump engaged in insurrection on 6 January 2021 and, if so, is he then disqualified from the Presidency and all other offices. I tried to listen to the arguments, but, being a working dude in a job consumed with details, I found their nattering and nitpicking both irritating and, due to their unknown references, incomprehensible. No offense. And I’ve noticed pundits are already opining that Trump will win this fight, which will be a rare victory for him.

But this can be changed.

Keep in mind that a widespread complaint among the electorate is that both Presidential candidates, Biden and Trump, are, really, way too old for the rigors of the job; I disregard Haley as it seems unlikely that she’ll win the GOP nomination. The electorate, outside of the evangelicals on the right, really would prefer someone younger, even though Biden has done far better than we could have expected, foreign and domestic, when he was elected, despite frantic GOP stonewalling and denial. And as a manager responsible for picking his subordinates, he has done very well.

Also, Biden has said that if Trump was out of the race, he’d be tempted to step out as well. He knows he’s too old, I think.

So here’s what Biden might consider doing: open a line of communications with Chief Justice Roberts, and suggest that if Trump is found to be an insurrectionist and disqualified from office, Biden will cancel his reelection run. Trump will scream, but most everyone else will sigh with relief. There’ll be a mad scramble on both sides of the aisle.

Naturally, Roberts would have to find a confederate, assuming the liberal wing is willing to find for the plaintiffs (Norma Anderson is lead plaintiff in Trump vs. Anderson), to gain the necessary 5-4 advantage. He might try to intellectually convince one of the six conservatives to join him, or he might just lay it on the line. But it’s noteworthy that there’s really no precedent at stake here. As Tristan Snell points out, it’s awfully darn clear that Trump’s politically an insurrectionist. The 1314th Amendment very clearly states that insurrectionists are ineligible to occupy elective offices. If they choose to find for Anderson, it’s not likely to result in damage to the polity in the future.

And the Republicans will find some of the pressure is off them. As anyone paying attention to politics knows, the border problem persists because of the GOP absolutely refusing to do anything about it; it’s the new abortion issue, if you accept that abortion was the issue with which the GOP kept their base in line for decades. But it’s also the Trump issue de jour; if he is forced to trundle off and just whine about the unfairness of the world, perhaps we can make progress on the border issue, Ukraine assistance, Taiwan assistance, and Israel assistance, all of which are tied up in the GOP fourth-rater incompetence vortex.

There’s a lot to like in a deal like this: younger, if inexperienced, candidates. Haley, as nominee presumptive, will get vetted, as will Democratic nominees. Maybe some new ideas will pop up. Younger voters may find new candidates more attractive. President Putin of Russia will be disappointed, of course, as Trump is widely viewed, correctly in my opinion, as Putin’s patsy – but if Trump cannot deliver, then Putin will have to make a move, such as sue for peace with Ukraine. And with Trump forced out, Ukraine funding might open up.

My oh my. I wonder if Biden’s discussing this idea with his advisors, because this may be win-win-win, the third being for voters.

Author and lawyer Tristan Snell points out that SCOTUS, and everyone else, shouldn’t try to hide behind the declaration Let the voters decide!, because, well, they already have:

Fortunately, the Supreme Court need not look far for answers to these questions. They can simply look across the street at the Capitol, where majorities of both chambers of Congress already found that January 6 was an insurrection and that Trump not only engaged in it but “incited” it.

This may come as a shock. When, one might ask, did Congress ever hold such votes?

Those votes came in the second impeachment of Trump, in January and February of 2021, in which majorities of both the House and the Senate backed an article of impeachment against Trump for “incitement of insurrection.”

This was a finding of fact, by majorities of our elected representatives, after a full public trial in which Trump was able to mount a defense — and it should be deemed persuasive, if not conclusive, in answering the factual questions before the Supreme Court. Indeed, for the more right-wing justices, who are often fond of pontificating that courts should not make policy judgments and should instead defer to legislatures, one would think that such a clear public pronouncement from Congress on Trump’s engagement in insurrection would be a compelling precedent. [CNN/Opinion]

Are we seeing the end of Senator and long time GOP leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)?

Senate GOP leadership screwed this up—and screwed us. Even while refusing to let us see the bill they claimed to be negotiating on our behalf—for MONTHS—they were never in doubt, insisting we’d be dumb and even unpatriotic NOT to support it. This is a disqualifying betrayal. https://t.co/PZnI6KorFK

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) February 5, 2024

Senate GOP leadership screwed this up—and screwed us. Even while refusing to let us see the bill they claimed to be negotiating on our behalf—for MONTHS—they were never in doubt, insisting we’d be dumb and even unpatriotic NOT to support it. This is a disqualifying betrayal.

Posted just a few days ago, it’s one of several signifying instances collected by Steve Benen. But he doesn’t think McConnell’s yet near the cliff’s edge:

My point is not that members like Cruz and Lee will successfully soon replace their party’s Senate leader. That’s unlikely. But the fact that this far-right duo is going after McConnell, against a backdrop of setbacks, challenges, partisan infighting, and congressional dysfunction, leave little doubt that the minority leader’s power has diminished, and McConnell’s influence appears to be ebbing away.

But I’ve noticed that shifts in power in the GOP do happen with some rapidity. My guess is that, soon enough, someone in the GOP will decide that McConnell is a liberal, start shouting RINO! because they want to be a Kentucky Senator, and McConnell’s age and general decrepitude will work against him. He may gracefully retire rather than fight it.

It’ll be Another RINO run out of a position of influence, and someone, probably more than one, will prance about proclaiming victory, that they’ve purified the Party.

The ironic part of the deal, of course, is the complete ignorance of history. If it weren’t for McConnell’s dishonorable leadership when Justice Scalia died, and, later, when Justice Ginsburg died, SCOTUS would be short two conservative Justices, probably Kavanaugh and Barrett, Roe vs. Wade would still be shielding Republicans from the mistake of pushing anti-abortion legislation, and the USA would be in a far better place. But McConnell couldn’t make himself lead his caucus in voting for impeachment on either occasion, seriously miscalculating the depth of Trump’s pathological narcissism, and, having followed Gingrich’s proclamations for the Republican Party, is faced with a Party getting ready to kick out a loyal Party man, so loyal that he dishonored himself, for Not Being Loyal Enough.

Poor guy. And it’s not even clear, at least to me, that he’s smart enough to realize he’s been playing a leading part in the stage drama The Dissolution of the Republican Party, and The Reduction of America To Second Rate Status.

And now a third-rate McConnell will soon be replaced by some fourth-rater extremist, who’ll fight for Trump’s favor.

I seem to be cranky tonight.

Steve Benen gives a casual summary of Republicans nation-wide:

While the GOP’s self-imposed drama [concerning border security] unfolds in the Senate, elsewhere on Capitol Hill, Republicans are poised to impeach the Homeland Security secretary for reasons they’re struggling to explain, knowing that their Senate counterparts intend to ignore the entire fiasco.

The impeachment vote later failed. Maybe they’ll try again!

Meanwhile, Donald Trump appears to be throwing his handpicked chair of the Republican National Committee [Ronna Romney McDaniel] under the bus for reasons he also hasn’t explained.

It’s against this backdrop that the state Republican Parties in Florida, Arizona, and Michigan have recently parted ways with their chairs; the chair and vice chair in Oklahoma don’t appear to be on the same page; and Nevada is holding a presidential primary and caucus on the same week for a series of confusing reasons that have left local voters baffled.

Yep, that sounds like arrogant amateurs at work.

Which all reminds me: a few years back I went to a birthday party where I met a lady who had helped run elections in a number of roles. While she was obviously of a leftish inclination, she seemed quite honestly bewildered when discussing the lawyers who represented the right over election night issues, who she described, if I remember rightly, as becoming more and more stupid as the years passed.

Perennial award hopeful Rep Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has submitted a House Resolution for approval that gives him another nomination for the Earl Landgrebe Award:

Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that former President Donald J. Trump did not engage in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or give aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.

Just the sort of thing you’d expect from someone whose only strong leg is the one to which he clings.

What’s he going to do when Mr. Trump becomes a political non-factor? Retire?

Meme coin:

A meme coin (also spelled memecoin) is a cryptocurrency that originated from an Internet meme or has some other humorous characteristic. It may be used in the broadest sense as a critique of the cryptocurrency market in its entirety—those based on particular memes such as “doge coins”, celebrities like Coinye, and pump-and-dump schemes such as BitConnect—or it may be used to make cryptocurrency more accessible. The term is often dismissive, comparing the value or performances of those cryptocurrencies to that of mainstream ones. Supporters, on the other hand, observe that some memecoins have acquired social currency and high market capitalizations.

That could be an expensive joke. Noted in “Solana-based GameStop meme coin gains traction after retailer pulls plug on crypto,” SlamAI (oh, great, now I’m quoting fucking AI writers), yahoo!finance:

A Solana-based meme coin inspired by GameStop’s GME shares has surged to over US$31 million in market capitalization in just three days.

The new cryptocurrency, which also has the GME ticker, rose by more than 285% in the past 24 hours, echoing GameStop’s headline-making stock market saga.

In January 2021, GameStop experienced a dramatic stock surge due to a short squeeze largely driven by users of the Reddit forum r/wallstreetbets, inflicting heavy losses on hedge funds and short sellers.

Surely it’s a sign of the apocalypse.

Which itself will be memorialized by the Apoca-coin. Its mascot will be the alpaca, its fruit will be the opalka, and its dance?

The polka. Music provided, naturally, by “Weird Al” Yankovic fronting The Ramones. Because.

And we’ll all die dirt poor and bewildered on while our schemes bore fouled fruit. Except Weird Al. He’s too smart for that. He’ll die in a stampede of alpaca, or maybe smothered in opalka.

One way Mr. Trump is keeping attention focused on his campaign is by not naming his VP pick. Now, I don’t envy him that particular task, as former VP Mike Pence (R-IN) has too high of moral standards to use again, and your replacement pick is always ticklish.

But he’ll have a few eager volunteers to pick from: Rep Stefanik (R-NY) and Mace (R-SC) have reportedly waved some flags, for example. But here’s the guy I’d put my money on … if I really had to. From Maddowblog:

In the same interview, Stephanopoulos reminded [Senator J. D. Vance (R-OH)] of a 2021 podcast in which Vance suggested that Trump can and should defy court rulings. Evidently, the Ohioan hasn’t changed his mind.

“The Constitution says that the Supreme Court can make rulings, but if the Supreme Court ― and look, I hope that they would not do this ― but if the Supreme Court said that the president of the United States can’t fire a general, that would be an illegitimate ruling and the president has to have Article 2 prerogative under the Constitution to actually run the military as he sees fit,” Vance said, suggesting politicians should decide which court rulings are and are not “legitimate.”

But I was especially interested in an exchange in which the ABC News host asked, more than once, whether Vance would’ve agreed to certify the 2020 presidential election had he been the vice president at the time. It led to this answer:

“If I had been vice president, I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia, and so many others that we needed to have multiple slates of electors and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there. That is the legitimate way to deal with an election that a lot of folks, including me, think had a lot of problems in 2020. I think that’s what we should have done.”

Hey, look at Vance’s qualifications:

1. He blows with the wind. He used to be a Trump critic, now he’s a Trump lover. Moral flexibility – ironic from a guy against divorce – is an important quality when working for Mr. Trump.
2. Senator Vance has held the title for 1 year, with no other elective experience; by inauguration, he’ll have another year under his belt. No real accomplishments in the Senate, which are hard to come by for newcomers to the chamber.
3. His foreign affairs experience appears to consist of opining that Ukraine will just have to give up territory to the aggressor, Russia. Perhaps we should ask him if he’d prefer to fight the Russians on the fields of Ukraine, or at Niagara Falls.

These are dream qualifications for Mr. Trump, as it discourages the use of the 25th Amendment to remove Trump, as Vance would be just about as ineffectual as Trump.

And possibly as ambitious, but more for power than prestige or flat-out wealth.

My Arts Editor tried baking muffins on the new stove this morning.

Clearly, we’ll have to practice a bit.

This report from ABC News is intriguing for both the alleged behavior and its implications:

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team has questioned several witnesses about a closet and a so-called “hidden room” inside former President Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago that the FBI didn’t check while searching the estate in August 2022, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

As described to ABC News, the line of questioning in several interviews ahead of Trump’s indictment last year on classified document charges suggests that — long after the FBI seized dozens of boxes and more than 100 documents marked classified from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate — Smith’s team was trying to determine if there might still be more classified documents there. …

As investigators would later learn, Trump allegedly had the closet’s lock changed while his attorney was in Mar-a-Lago’s basement, searching for classified documents in a storage room that he was told would have all such documents. Trump’s alleged efforts to conceal classified documents from both the FBI and his own attorney are a key part of Smith’s indictment against Trump in Florida.

To be sure, this is an unverified report. But I think if it’s found to be true, immediately put Mr Trump up on charges of obstruction, as a signal to the American electorate that one of the prominent figures in the Presidential 2024 election is apparently guilty of illegal behavior.

Next, determine, if possible, the contents of all of these hidden rooms, and if the release of those contents could be damaging to the security of the United States.

And if this report is not verified, then “never mind.”