How Many Justices can Squeeze onto a Bench?

At first retrospective glance, the Senate GOP seems to have established a new norm over the past year: no sitting President can seat a Supreme Court Justice without controlling the Senate. Any notion of the GOP's refusal to consider Garland as being based on vacancy occurring in the final year of a President's term is hogwash. The President got his appointees confirmed when he had a Democratic Senate; when he didn't, he didn't even get a hearing.

The establishment of this norm, while emblematic of our political dysfunction, does not represent a true threat to the independence of the judiciary. It just seems to assure periods of gridlock, of 4-4 decisions, of understaffed courts.

But I don't think the "no Senate control, no hearings" norm is the one being applied. I think the GOP is applying a much older one: might makes right, or the acceptability of doing anything that they can get away with. If this is the norm being applied, the Senate GOP may very well end the fillibuster and pack the Supreme Court with enough justices to dilute the power of the ones that are seated.

I don't think that the principle of an independent judiciary is what might prevent this from happening. The only thing that gives principles any power is the expectation of consequences - inflicted by others or one's conscience - if they are broken. Events over the last year have me sadly suspecting that the whole notion of principled action is becoming outdated as I've watched the extent of the unacceptable wane exponentially.

The only thing I see preventing this from happening is if the GOP can forsee itself out of power in the near future. If they were to pack the court now, the Democrats could just pack in more later. The Supreme Court might have to convene in RFK Stadium. I think that the GOP might have considered the "no Senate control, no hearings" norm and decided they could live with it if they had to bear the brunt of it. I just hope that those in control of that faction are still expecting to be out of power - at least in the Senate and the White House - at some point.

Dear Foreign Leaders,

Please understand that, having elected a buffoon who never does his homework, actions that upset delicate diplomatic balances established over the last 50 years should just be understood as the behavior of a drunk and incurious mascot rather than the steward of our foreign policy. Just because he doesn't understand our pretty much bipartisan-for-50-years foreign policy (whether or not either party wants to admit it) doesn't mean he gets to erase it by virtue of his ignorance upon taking office. Well, unless everyone in D.C. is so frightened for their job security that they let him.

FBI–King suicide letter reconsidered

I wonder if Obama got one of these letters two weeks ago. I wouldn't be surprised if he's been getting them for eight years.

Anyway, try not to puke if you read a 2014 New York Times Magazine article describing how "[t]he current F.B.I. director, James Comey, keeps a copy of the King wiretap request on his desk as a reminder of the bureau's capacity to do wrong."

A Forgotten Coup

I was depressed in the week before the election because - regardless of the ensuing outcome - an executive agency took a shameless hit on its non-preferred candidate at precisely the moment it could have the greatest impact on the election. I will go to my grave believing that it cost HRC the election but that's really beside the point. The points are that a domestic law enforcement agency more or less staged the closest thing it could to a coup. That this "executive" agency operated independently from the President that supposedly controlled it. And that, a week or so later, nobody, including that President, really seems to give a shit about it.

The Best Disinfectant

I remember watching videos of protesters being attacked by dogs and firehoses in Birmingham in 1963. I remember learning that this footage prompted a domestic and international shift in support for the Civil Rights cause. But I also remember drawing my own conclusion: if those photographers and cameramen hadn't been out there, it would have likely been bullets, not water and dogs, set upon the protesters.

There are many parallels between the rise of Trump and the rise of Hitler and Putin. But there are at least two important differences. The first is that the USA has a much older and more established government/institutions than the young Weimar and Russian republics. The second is that it is now possible for individuals to document their lives through photo and video without having to devote much attention to the task.

The ability to serve as one's own cameraman has important consequences. One, it protects the individual. If someone can stream video of their whereabouts and make it available to many others than they cannot just be "disappeared" without some documentation of it. This makes their disappearance or unlawful treatment less likely. When/if such things do happen, it makes it much more difficult for others to deny. (In Russia, for instance, motorists have turned to dashboard cameras as their best form of protection from corrupt officials and criminals.)

People have already been dismissing hateful acts and protests in the wake of the Trump election as fabrication, the work of hired protesters, etc. More than ever, people will believe what they want to believe. But, if a picture tells a thousand words, the content of a photograph or a video is 1000-fold harder to deny or ignore than a verbal account.

It is the task of those who feel vulnerable or threatened to document their lives electronically and make this documentation available. Sunlight is the best disinfectant; communication is antithetical to the control of perception and the atomization/isolation of the individual upon which totalitarianism/authoritarianism feeds.

The Dog who Caught the Car?

I've encountered some apparent-Trump-supporter sentiments amounting to "he didn't mean any of the shit he said so stop losing your mind" since the election. I've argued against this assumption before but I gotta admit, there's some merit to the claim. Trump, as I have explained here, is the platonic bullshitter. Bullshit is speech without its truth or falsehood on the speaker's radar. Bullshit usually has an ulterior motive. In this case it was clear: become President.

But I don't think he ever expected to be President. And I hope that now that he has ended up as President, like a dog that has caught a car, he decides that he wants to be regarded as a good President. It may involve a lot more bullshit, even in the best case. Trump is a bullshit artist. But he also seems to care about his daughter Ivanka's opinion and that of her husband, who as far as I know is involved in finance and thus wouldn't want to see American withdrawal from NATO. I think it will matter a great deal who gets his ear, and my best hope is that it's those two and that they have a moderating influence.

"Lessons from Mr. Rogers, Relevant Still"

http://millercenter.org/ridingthetiger/mr-rogers-newtown

Our Cold Civil War

I truly hope that Trump changes before the inauguration, that he develops some principle beyond his own profit and glorification, that he learns enough about the Constitution and our national workings for his Oath of Office to mean something, that he learns to listen to those that know more than he does, that he learns to take criticism without tantrums. I wish for his success, to quote George H.W. Bush in his letter to Bill Clinton, to be America's success, despite the vile persona that got him elected. If this gets him two terms then so be it.

And that is where I depart from the personnel of the current right wing faction in this country, whose Senate leader vowed to do everything in his power to keep Obama from getting a second term, cost to the nation be damned. One political faction in our country has rejected the legitimacy of and sought to undermine every President outside of it for the last 20-odd years, has rejected duly respected Constitutional procedures (hearings for SCOTUS nominees recently), has invited foreign heads of state into the Houses of Congress to rail against the President and has held the international economy hostage for political ends. In sum, the current right-wing faction has demonstrated a consistent willingness to spite this country's well being, in hitherto unprecedented ways, in order to further its own power.

I have a family history of Republican party affiliation. My great-grandfather chaired the party back when Roosevelt was king. I still can't bring myself to identify as a Democrat. But I'll be damned if I'm going to sit here and act like we should all just get along in America regardless of what happens going forward. The current right wing faction has declared cold civil war and has been waging it for two decades. I would be happy to see Trump try to end it - really. But I expect this cold war to be just heating up.

Yesterday and Today

Yesterday, I woke up at 5:30, dry heaved, got to the hospital and staggered around, white as a ghost, trying not to think.

When I did think, I thought of the soldiers in my family. The Union Major, wounded at Gettysburg, who refused to have his leg amputated and was later eulogized by Oliver Wendell Holmes. The veterans of World War I. The South Pacific. Vietnam. The Cold War. I thought about how honorably and professionally they conducted themselves (bravery just being a part of professionalism). I thought about our military, how its personnel have conducted themselves with such restraint and professionalism under rules of engagement more stringent than any governing domestic police force use, and how these professionals will come under the command of a vindictive child with financial obligations to foreign powers and there's not a goddamn thing they can do about it because they're good professional soldiers and they respect the chain of command. I thought about them having to raise a glass to this abominable embarrassment.

I thought about the women in my family, and how they must feel about a man that treats and speaks of women like Trump defeating a woman who was infinitely better for the job. I thought about the poor women who will have to choose between chastity and childbirth going forward.

I thought about ways to avoid televisions. I didn't think about how the news media had vigorously maintained a false equivalence between Trump and Clinton and acted in every way for their financial interests. I had no desire to read the news, to read some studiously detached analysis as if nothing happened yesterday and the NYT didn't have anything to do with it.

The only thing I hoped for in a moment of involuntary and misguided reflection was that, if it came down to it and the thought police came after me, I could die fighting rather than in acquiescence.

Today, there is some hope.

I have hope that there will be another election in 4 years. That Elizabeth Warren will run for President.  That she will not be hampered by the juvenile sanctimony, partisanship and gullibility that led so many to abdicate their civic responsibility to choose a President despite showing up at the polls by either voting 3rd party or not voting for President at all.

I have hope that the CIA or other shadow powers will not let Trump dismantle checks on Russia that are vital to the stability of Europe.  I have hopes that the groups oppressed by the most authoritarian elements of domestic law enforcement will be motivated to turn out to the polls. I hope that those of us not so oppressed will stand up for those who are in the mean time. I have hopes that John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy will not let the Supreme Court turn into an authoritarian or theocratic rubber stamp. I have hope that we will withstand the tide of authoritarianism and theocracy that will wash over us the next four years, that this nation will have a new birth of civic engagement to counter this tide, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this land.

Election-eve ramblings

1) I appreciate this for some reason during impending-apocalyptic-feeling times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAzaaqXFpRM

2) If you're voting in hopes of expediting the end times or to spite elites that you despise you're not voting for the right reasons.

3) If you despise the elites - whoever they are - consider how much power they've lost. The Republican elites couldn't push their 1st, 2nd, 3rd . . . they ended up choosing between Ted Cruz, whom everyone who knows him hates, and the tangerine abomination. In 2008, the Democratic establishment's choice was defeated by a charismatic first-term Senator; this year, she was nearly defeated by a cranky septuagenarian Independent self-described socialist.

In a sense, our Republic has never been more democratic, in both the positive and negative senses. Yes, HRC is an establishment figure. But the "establishment" is losing the ability to dictate our choices to its satisfaction. So please don't use your vote this year to kick the elites while they're down; use it to keep a man who can't be trusted with a twitter account from the nuclear codes.

4) We're either getting a female president or someone who treats and speaks of women like Trump and who would appoint SCOTUS justices who would seek to reinstate government regulation of a woman's personal life.

5) I dictated this while walking in the woods the other day. Here is what the phone decided I said:

I am walking in the woods alone right now. Among the fallen leaves, at the end of the day. With the wrens singing. I think to myself: this woods will be here after Tuesday. These woods will be here after America, whatever that means.

America has not been alive for half the lifespan of the Roman Republic. Already, we are showing the signs of a decadent Republic or an empire that is dying. We have lost a sense of what civic virtue is. We have gotten into foreign wars for the glory or profits of men despite the lessons that history tells us about overextending a sphere of influence or occupied territory. And most importantly, I suppose leaders seem to have been compromised. We have investigative and intelligence agencies that go without supervision or consequences to their actions, giving them more or less the ability to do what they want. I cannot imagine what kind of explicit or implicit threats an incoming President might receive from the agencies that they supposedly control. The FBI director's leakage of "more Hillary Clinton emails to be looked at" and the public reaction to it illustrates the above concerns. It was a shameless hit job on the agency's non-preferred candidate, in favor of a more authoritarian candidate who will likely give them more power or let them do what they want unimpeded. And we have a public that can't differentiate smoke from fire.

We see the decline of civic culture and public spiritedness in our politicians, who do what they do need to do in order to ensure a good and steady income and whatever they define as personal success, and a news media that is much more interested in profit then in providing any public service in their reporting. We have two political factions, there's an industrial complex for each of them, and members of each will do what they need to do in order to toe the line and stay within the good graces of the faction. Toeing the line is much more important on the right wing of the spectrum, though. The right wing has acted with more political discipline among its voters. And they have finally expressed a desire for an authoritarian. And an executive agency that has acted with periodically authoritarian ends for decades has openly tried to get the authoritarian elected with less than a week to go.

My attention returns to the wrens as the dusk falls. They remind me that no matter what happens, America is temporary. We are temporary. That the world is temporary.That everything, even America, must die. I will I wish that my late mother were here to talk to me about this, but her unexpected and recent demise says everything to me. Enjoy good things while they last. Take nothing for granted.

Authoritarianism has been the default for most of history. Our avoidance of it is what makes us special, and whats so sad about seeing a boot coming down on our face. Even if it doesn't land this time, the future of America, as O'Brien claims, does look like a boot on a human face. Maybe it won't be. But if it is, I do not think, unlike O'Brien, that it will be on the face forever. Attempts at governments that are based on and seek to enable our best nature will fledge, and sometimes, if only for a while, they might soar. We must savor the times at which we are at our best; we will not be anything forever.

Choose Wisely

I have asked two Trump supporters if they really trust him to command the U.S. Military and conduct foreign affairs on our behalf. In each case, the answer eventually got to "not really, but the [military/state department/Washington establishment] won't let him do anything too rash."

That's not how it works.

Most of us have lived in an era of relative global peace and American prosperity that has depended on the (mostly) judicious use of American military force and diplomacy. To vote for an unjudicious man atop the military and diplomatic chain of command with (likely) undisclosed financial obligations to foreign powers is to risk great disturbance in the balance of global powers, with consequences we cannot forsee nor imagine. For what it's worth, it's absolutely unconservative to vote in such a way: conservative philosophy was largely born in response to the upheavals of the French Revolution.

But, to pay some attention to a Trump supporter's unphilosophical concerns: things over your lifetime may not have turned out the way you thought they would for you. Maybe you do not like the way the country has turned out and would like to see it be made "great again." Whatever that means to you, I promise you one thing: one man cannot do that. He can either tread water - like the alternative - or make things worse than you've ever imagined they could be. I ask for y'all to join me in doing the most moderate, prudent and, yes, conservative thing on Tuesday.

One of two people will be President next year. Choose wisely.

Civilization and country

We have a candidate running for our highest office who has bragged about sexually assaulting women, promises to jail his political opponent should he win and acts out like a spoiled child when he doesn't get his way. Before they learn to read and write, children go to kindergarten to learn not to act like Donald Trump. 

I despair because a Presidential nominee has contempt for the things that make our country different and good. Peaceful transfer of power. The rule of law, not men. The maintenance of international obligations and agreements. 

The only person running for President who could have both Houses of Congress controlled by their own political party is Donald Trump. The commander in chief of the U.S. Military would be Donald Trump. Can you imagine him using American forces as a means of acting in rage? Can you imagine being a soldier charged with carrying out such orders? 

But this despair gives way to something more basic. Someone dear to me had to deliver a mundane request to someone this morning at work. The voicemail in reply threatened that he'd "do like Donald Trump and hang them." 

The internet and the multiplication/factionalization of "news" sources has allowed people to validate distorted views of reality. See the refusal of some parents to vaccinate their children for a not-so-political example. This has allowed flickers of individual delusions and rages to join bonfires. But we are now at a critical point. The ascendance of an uncivilized man in a Presidential contest has validated uncivilized behavior. 

And I feel the tug of ascendant barbarism. I want to fight to defend what remains of our civilization.  Many will vote for a horrible, uncivilized man because he represents their political tribe. The tribe increasingly cries for blood in its rage. I feel like I'd rather give them my blood than live to see them conquer this country. But my political beliefs are not based on allegiance to a party but to an enlightenment era notion of bettering ourselves through reason and discourse. I will resist being transformed by encroaching uncivilization, by the barbarians - the terrorists - emerging among us. 

For this is the nature of the threat our country faces. No power will defeat us militarily on the field of battle. Neither China nor ISIS will march into Washington D.C. having vanquished our military forces. If America is conquered, it will be conquered from within. Saving this country requires understanding it as more than a flag, a song and a place to live. It requires understanding it as a sanctuary for our best way of being - for men and women of reason, who value learning and curiosity and the diversity of beliefs and creeds, to work together to maintain a place where these values can thrive. But it also requires caring enough about such a place to defend it. 

The best thing we can do to defend our country now is recognize the risk it faces and vote accordingly. 

What can a President do?

Appoint people (such as SCOTUS justices). Conduct foreign policy. Command the military. Veto legislation. But not control the economy. Yet "the economy and jobs" consistently tops "most important issue" polls. Entities that have the power to steer discourse should do so regarding the things that the President can and will do, which does not include strengthening the economy and adding jobs.

Positive and Negative Freedom, Separation of Powers and Global Security

As a voter, maximizing freedom is my most important issue.

This, especially in today's political discourse, doesn't reveal too much about me.

First, when I refer to freedom I refer to "negative freedom": freedom from external restraints. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy refers to it like this:

"The negative concept of freedom ... is most commonly assumed in liberal defences of the constitutional liberties typical of liberal-democratic societies, such as freedom of movement, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech, and in arguments against paternalist or moralist state intervention. It is also often invoked in defences of the right to private property, although some have contested the claim that private property necessarily enhances negative liberty."

One can also refer to "positive freedom": the possession of the capacity and the resources to do what one wishes to do.

My prioritization of negative freedom over positive freedom as a voter doesn't mean that I neglect the latter notion. Assuming that negative and positive freedom can even be distinguished in the first place, negative freedom depends in some ways on positive freedom. I think that the necessary relationship can be understood in terms of separation of powers.

In the American system of government, power is divided among legislative, judicial and executive branches. It is also divided between state and federal governments, although power has weighed heavily towards the federal government since the Civil War.

In the American system of government, power is supposed to be vested in "the people." Power among the people has become less "separated" since the turn of the century. A small percentage of our society has proportionately more "positive" freedom than it has for about a century. Positive freedom has a lot to do with the power to acquire things (I'm putting aside the objections of ascetics for now), and this power (in terms of real wages) has declined for the left side of the income bell curve.



Our society is beset by unrest among those whose "capacity and the resources to do what they wish to do" is less than they ever expected it could be. Many have found a champion, a demagogue who threatens both forms of liberty in a way that Americans haven't considered in their lifetime.

Among global states, it is America that enjoys disproportionate positive freedom. With some exceptions, America has been an almost unprecedentedly good steward of this capacity over its seventy or so years of supremacy: America has generally projected its power without reducing the freedoms, positive or negative, of non-American individuals. But the preservation of America's capacity relies on relationships and alliances that America has built and nurtured over the span of its dominion. The demagogue, a Presidential candidate, threatens to discard these relationships and obligations at a time when we need them to be strongest. Russia is testing our alliances in Europe, and China wishes to force its will in the South China Sea.

No man is an island, and this has never been truer than today. In at least some substantial sense, our negative liberties rely on the positive liberties of others in our state and of our own state on the global stage. As long as we maintain our system of government, a tide that raises a few boats and sinks many will threaten the stability of our nation. And at this point in history, that threatens the stability of the world.

Points of view

When I was a kid, I read somewhere that the universe was fated to keep expanding until, at some point, it started contracting again. In other words, the universe seemed to be fated to an endless, infinite succession of big bangs.

This was exciting to me because it seemed to imply that all the possible outcomes in this universe were going to happen over the course of the universal contraction/expansion cycles. Among other things, this implied to me that everyone would eventually be everyone. We're all individual points of view oriented to the outside world. Somehow this seems to be connected to the matter that makes up our minds and bodies. If every possible arrangement of matter happens, then it just made sense to me that individuals who have existed were less like a one-time event and more like a slot, a role, that keeps getting filled. The matter associated with one person would one day be associated with another.

I don't know if scientific consensus leans towards an expanding and contracting universe these days. Last time I checked, the informed money seems to be on universe just continuing to expand and eventually burning out.

But there's also no assurance that ours is the only universe. They could be many. I would bet against the notion that all we can sense is all that there is, and that things don't keep getting born, in some way, forever, as other things die - things like points of view.

Krzyzewski, Trump, Bullshit, Lying and Candor

Mike Krzyzewski, the iconic Duke University basketball coach, recently lied about an exchange with a college kid, thus implying the kid was a liar. This is made more notable by Krzyzewski's frequent representation as some sort of paragon of virtue. West Point, for example, has issued a "Coach Krzyzewski Teaching Character Through Sports Award."

What I find particularly notable is that the journalism about the incident seemed to focus on the propriety of Coach K giving unsolicited "character teachings" (i.e. a scolding) to opposing players in the handshake line. The issues of Krzyzewski's 1) lying about his exchange with a kid, 2) bringing the kid's character into question, and 3) only owning up to it after audio of the exchange surfaced and then 4) only really apologizing for what he said, not lying about it - "It is not my place to talk to another team's player and doing so took the focus away from the terrific game that Dillon played" - did not deserve top billing.

It doesn't take this incident to show that our culture has a serious problem with its valuation of honesty. Donald Trump, praised for his "straight shooting" by his supporters, revels in his disregard for the truth.

Most everyone, I guess, thinks it's ok to lie sometimes. To protect someone's feelings over an insignificant matter ("That dress looks great!") This is not depraved. Maybe fewer people think it's ok to protect one's livelihood or finances, even if they will when they have to. Maybe the lies of politicians - more or less accepted as a fact of life - fall into this category.

Lying isn't explicitly OK, but maybe candor has become of questionable value. This certainly makes sense if evaluating reliable candor as a quality from an employee's perspective. What if I'm honest about the product I'm trying to sell? What if I'm honest about my satisfaction with my work? Today, consistent candor, more often than not, will imperil your employment prospects rather than strengthen them. Even if someone would rather not lie, they're surely not going to voice a belief that might draw rebuke from someone that could fire them. Even if you're careful to toe the line at work, a reputation for candor outside of the workplace isn't going to make you more attractive for most job positions.

The devaluation of candor and the resurgence of lies might be better understood as a side effect of the expansion of bullshit - communication crafted and understood to avoid dealing in easily verifiable truths or falsehoods - in our lives. Private bullshit has been around forever. That, after all, is what we're engaging in when we ask someone "how they're doing" when we really don't want a detailed answer, and it's what the other person is doing when they say "fine" - no matter how they're "really doing."  I do this, we all do this, and it's ok: we're just, in this example, trying to communicate some mutual care and respect without getting bogged down in the semantics of expressing this. And, when we say that "the dress looks great" when we actually believe it's heinous, we're answering a perceived appeal for support, not an opinion-request on the aesthetics of a dress, with an answer that provides support. This example is tougher for me to swallow (if you guessed it took me a bit longer than most to figure out how this works you're right) but it's nothing new. It's also private - it is a way that someone in a close or intimate relationship tends to the emotional needs of another person.

Public bullshit - someone who's stuck in a shitty sales job having to say drivel about a product to keep their job - is not new either. And advertising has always, more often than not. been obvious bullshit, less an attempt to impart information about a product than to make the target associate it with something. But, as the 20th century witnessed advertising turning into a profession, then "marketing" and the M.B.A. (Master of Bullshit Articulation?), bullshit has expanded, risen in status and become the normal mode of discourse. The most surprising thing about the Coach K incident wasn't that he was misrepresenting himself but that he was careless enough to actually lie and actually get caught.

Whether they know it or not, people are sick of the omnipresence of lies and bullshit, and they have been, as David Foster Wallace described:

Because we’ve been lied to and lied to, and it hurts to be lied to. It’s ultimately just about that complicated: it hurts. We learn this at like age four—it’s grownups’ first explanation to us of why it’s bad to lie (“How would you like it if … ?”). And we keep learning for years, from hard experience, that getting lied to sucks—that it diminishes you, denies you respect for yourself, for the liar, for the world. Especially if the lies are chronic, systemic, if experience seems to teach that everything you’re supposed to believe in’s really just a game based on lies. [ . . . ] It’s painful to believe that the would-be “public servants” you’re forced to choose between are all phonies whose only real concern is their own care and feeding and who will lie so outrageously and with such a straight face that you know they’ve just got to believe you’re an idiot. So who wouldn’t yawn and turn away, trade apathy and cynicism for the hurt of getting treated with contempt? And who wouldn’t fall all over themselves for a top politician who actually seemed to talk to you like you were a person, an intelligent adult worthy of respect?

The above was published 16 years ago. It was prescient: people have "fallen all over themselves" for someone who "seems to talk to you like you were a person." The problem is that Trump's talk is the talk of a hustler to his mark: its only concern is its appeal to its target, reflecting a virtually unprecedented lack of concern for truth, falsehood or coherence in U.S. national politics. Sure, there have been lies and liars, but politicians usually think about the truth or falsehood of what comes out of their mouth before letting it fly. Not Trump.

Maybe people have lost the ability to distinguish false candor from the real thing, the kind that treats
its recipient "like an intelligent adult worthy of respect." Or maybe people have accepted perceived success as the only real value, and managing to lie and get away with it just as another skill of the successful. Whatever the array of reasons for it, our acceptance of lies and liars and bullshitters as a society, if continued, will tear us down. If nothing else, a government like ours requires some degree of mutual respect among those living under it. And obviously denying someone your candor - whether from a position of inferior, superior or equal status - signifies as deep a disrespect as any other.

Addendum, 10/24/16:
How ok is private bullshit after all?

A Freedom of Speech Problem Raised by the Trump Candidacy.

1.  Donald Trump says grotesque things at his rallies.

He has a right to do so. This isn't really a problem.

2.  People protesting Donald Trump show up to his rallies and mayhem frequently ensues.

This is a problem because there is an apparent conflict between the right of Trump to say what he wants and the rights of protesters to express their views. And it's a tricky one. First of all, as long as he's not receiving federal money, Trump seems to have the right to exclude whomever he once to from his events because the restraints of the First Amendment apply to the government and anyone receiving funding from it. Trump is receiving the Secret Service's protection, however, and maybe that's enough to make him "government" under the First Amendment. I don't know; if you do, send me an email and I'll update this.

In terms of free-speech values – not necessarily the same thing as what the law does or doesn't protect – I think that both Trump and the protesters have have a right to have their views heard. I do not approve of anyone disrupting Trump's public speech by rendering it inaudible, invisible or inaccessible. It doesn't matter that talking over his opponents is one of Trump's favorite debating tactics. It doesn't matter that a profit driven media has given Trump far more of a platform that he and his substance-free ideas deserve (thereby drowning out other voices.)

Now for some specific cases (dealt with based on "free-speech values" rather than the letter of the law). If a Muslim woman wishes to attend a Trump rally, wearing a headscarf, I think that she should have the right to do so. If she does nothing else and a disruption ensues, that is the fault of whomever was not able to tolerate her presence. If someone enters a Trump rally and walks up and down the aisle with a sign – not speaking and not obscuring anyone's view – I think that this should be acceptable as well. People can dislike what other people have to say but they really shouldn't have a right to disrupt their message by reacting to it either. In terms of free speech issues involving Donald Trump rallies, this cuts both ways.

My response to "The Man the Founders Feared"

"That Mr. Trump’s rise has occurred in the Republican Party is painful for those of us who are Republicans." I enjoyed Mr. Wehner's article, finding it well-informed and well-argued. But his pain should have started when it became clear that the GOP had devoted itself to unanimity in its faction and obstruction of any others. Factionalism, not a single man, was what the founder most involved in the construction of the Constitution - James Madison - most feared. See Federalist No. 10 for Madison's original comments on the matter. 

Furthermore, I hope Mr. Wehner is not trying to let the GOP off the hook in regards to Trump's rise. Since LBJ's Great Society / support of the Civil Rights Movement, dog whistles have helped the GOP convince voters to vote against their economic interests and drive their turnout. Trump's view are not original: they are just the bluntest expressions of what had previously been insinuations. 

Trump: platonic narcissistic archetype

                                   
This cartoon nails Trump's platonic narcissism: as a med student studying for boards, psych questions involving narcissistic personality disorder have lost their intended difficulty: whether or not that's the answer just depends on whether or not the described patient sounds or acts like Trump.

Today's Grotesque Obstructive Party and the Garland nomination

I'll address the arguments against holding confirmation hearings:

1. "We should let the American people decide"

They did in 2012.

2. [Something about nominees during election years]

There are "no instances in which a president faced with a Supreme Court vacancy during a presidential election year did not make a nomination. It occurred five times between 1912 and 1940, and each time the nominee was confirmed."

3. "The Senate has every right not to confirm a nominee."

They do have this right. They do not have the right to refuse to hold hearings, fail to pass a budget or otherwise induce government hostage crises, or invite the head of a client state into the seat of our government to rail against our elected President's policy. Because an oath was taken to uphold the Constitution, which means executing its duly prescribed processes so that the state may function. Instead, today's GOP has shown an unwavering dedication to spiting and disrespecting the President, and the Office of the Presidency, no matter the cost to the nation.

As someone whose self-identification as a fiscally moderate, socially liberal Republican in the mold of John Chafee is not yet extinct, I cannot refer to today's Republicans as anything other than the Grotesque Obstructive Party. Which is really too cute a term for this disgraceful, and certainly unconservative, faction.

Reality check on Presidential Policy Positions

This is a reminder that the House controls taxes. Not the President.

To oversimplify, a President can really (and reliably) do three important things: appoint federal officials (i.e. SCOTUS nominees), command the military and veto legislation. They also have, at least in theory, control over Executive Agencies.

Policy proposals involving legislation - i.e. most of them - are just talk unless you've got a hold on both Houses of Congress. Which a Democratic president elected in 2016 almost certainly would not - the GOP has a hold on the House.

So when Bernie Sanders starts talking about his policies (e.g. tax policies,) it's good to remember that anything involving legislation would get nowhere. It's the policy he doesn't talk about - the way I imagine he'd deal with the FBI, the CIA, the DEA, etc. - that I found appealing enough to give him my support. But he won't be the nominee, and disappointed Bernie supporters need to come to terms with that. Because only one party has a realistic chance of controlling Congress and the Executive branch, and it's not the Democratic one.

Trump, "In the Flesh"

David Gilmour's lead guitar has always attracted me to "In the Flesh," but it's the correspondence of Donald Trump and his campaign to Roger Waters's lyrics that cause me to share it (it hardly bears noting that the album's title is also Trump's signature issue):

                                         

The first stanza captures what Lindy West eloquently described in "What are Trump fans really afraid to say?" 

Last Night's Debate

What everyone will remember is Trump and Rubio clashing over the size of Trump's penis. But what I find just as troubling is Cruz's selling himself as "pro-freedom and Constitution-loving" when the effects of his policies would be to reduce freedom (good luck with family planning other than abstinence under Cruz) and he has already signaled an unwillingness to respect Constitutionally-prescribed procedures (no hearings for an Obama SCOTUS nominee) when doing so violates the paramount principle of political expedience.

Today's GOP continues to drain the meaning out of "freedom" and the "Constitution" by continually invoking the terms as content-empty symbols for their faction and preferences.  

Prayer, Superstition and Malheur

Ammon Bundy (a mormon) recently cited God's command - "I was asked to do this by the lord" and "I did it how he told me to do it" - in occupying the Malheur Wildlife Reserve. 

In doing so, he Bundy outed himself as a prophet: "A divinely inspired interpreter, revealer, or teacher of the will or thought of God." Which is hardly shocking considering the non-response to George W. Bush's claim of divine marching orders behind the invasion of Iraq. 

"Prayer" in today's United States has been transformed by evangelicals into a conversation with God that deals with worldly maters. Prayer, to the evangelical, is often means of asking for something in the world to happen. Anyone in a Southern town is familiar with "prayer requests" that seek to increase the likelihood of some worldly outcome by having more individuals express their will to God that it happen. Prayer can also be a means of receiving orders on how to act on a worldly matter, such as with Bundy, Bush and many paranoid schizophrenics. 

The Koch brothers' fascist (I'm serious!) roots, the nature of fascism, professional values . . . and Citizens United

"Socialist" has become a term of abuse, a burden that any Democratic Presidential aspirant must shed. "Fascist" would seem to be the inverse of socialist. However, many would reject the application of "Fascist" to someone  on the right as shrill or at least figurative. After all, the Nazis are our picture of evil, its platonic form in modern minds. But closer inspection yields that fascism does not have at its roots exterminating entire ethnicities. That was just a means to the end of consolidating power: as Goering put it at Nuremberg, "All you have to do is tell the people they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger." If a group of people is troubling you as a leader, claim that they're attacking or against the country, a fifth column waiting to emerge as soon as the conditions are right. 

There's nothing inherently fascist about this; what's more fascist is being willing to tolerate it and any other repugnant means of securing power. Which is where Fred Koch, the father of the Koch brothers, enters the picture. His business was built upon the funding of the most notorious totalitarians of the 20th century. As reported by the Guardian: 

John Lennon's Working Class Hero and my previous post

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,
Then they expect you to pick a career,
When you can't really function you're so full of fear

It's only gotten worse since Lennon wrote that. There are fewer ways to make a decent living in this country. The jobs that remain wherein a decent living can be made are fiercely competitive to win. The fear rarely ends with the job; when qualified people who desperately want your job abound, you'd better not do anything to lose it. Like publicly stand up for things that might piss off your boss. Like being your own man. 

As soon as you're born they make you feel small,
By giving you no time instead of it all.

I was in law. One thing that made me change career paths was realizing that many highly desired jobs in that field have blurred the line between being at work and being off. Young associates are given a firm-specific Blackberry when they come aboard. If that thing starts flashing at 12:30 am, it's time to return to work, even if they don't have to get out of bed to do so. Somewhere, in the back of the young associate's head, they are always at work.

Top Federal Income Tax Brackets over Time

In this post I'm focusing on brackets, not rates. Averaging 20 different top brackets over a century (all inflation adjusted to 2013) yields an average top bracket threshold of  $12.4 million.  Our current top bracket of $406,000 is 3.3% of this figure.

Brackets: Averaging the number of brackets for the same years, yields an average number of 17.8. Our current number of brackets is 7.

                

My opinion: there are many reasons to consider expanding the number of brackets and doing so above the current top bracket. Tax revenues could remain the same while per-capita disposable income could increase. I think that such an increase would lead to a more stable society and a healthier economy, with more money being made by Americans being spent on goods and services.

This is without even treating the demise of the "Middle Class" as a self-evident harm as is common in today's political discourse. Adjusting brackets and rates seems like the simplest way to keep the middle class afloat. 

Of course, the individuals interested in a person making $400 million paying the same amount in taxes as a person making $400,000 are those who make more than $400,000. Our current political system allows individuals to wield influence in proportion to cash on hand. This probably needs to be changed before politicians begin to discuss obvious solutions to problems that, to many in this country, are obvious.

Chart below the jump: