The Awesome Power of Plausible Deniability

Context

One of the president's few core competencies is knowing how to operate under cover of plausible deniability. Plausible deniability (PD) can cover both legal and illegal activities. It is usually employed to cover embarrassing legal activities and illegal activities. However, PD can also be used to protect trade secrets and other forms of intellectual property, which is legal. Talent at creating strong PD shields is common and widespread among high level businessmen, crooks, tyrants and politicians. It is a way of life.

PD works very well most of the time because it is devilishly hard to dislodge. PD veils truth. Good practitioners of PD know not to leave any more of a tangible evidence trail than is absolutely necessary. The good practitioners do not take and keep written notes. The do not leave voice mail messages or ever send sensitive letters or emails. The good ones do all of their PD work in person whenever possible. They almost always shield tangible evidence they cannot avoid leaving behind using secrecy agreements.

In the case of the president, he speakes in code when it is time for dirty work that needs to be done. Even if someone had recorded him telling his employees to do something embarrassing or illegal, the president could deny that literal words were intended to get anyone to do any of it. For example, a Miami Herald article, Trump never told Cohen to lie — but suggested it by talking in code, Cohen says, focused on testimony by Michael Cohen, the president's former lawyer, now a convicted felon. The MH wrote:

"Michael Cohen said in testimony to Congress on Wednesday that President Donald Trump never directly ordered him to lie, but instead made his wishes clear by speaking in “code” understood by anyone who works with him. 

“He doesn’t give you questions, he doesn’t give you orders, he speaks in a code. And I understand the code, because I’ve been around him for a decade,” testified Cohen, Trump’s former longtime personal attorney. 

For example, Cohen said Trump would frequently remark that he had no business ties in Russia. Cohen said he understood Trump to mean that he should deny any such connections."

One other thing that PD requires when people are asking uncomfortable questions is lying. If the holder of the PD shield is asked questions and has to answer, the only way to leave the shield intact usually requires the shield holder to lie. The typical lie comes out as something like "I don't recall", "I'll look that up and get back to you", "I am not familiar with that", "We would never do such a thing", "I don't understand the details of that", "I don't know what you mean", and so forth. Most of the time, that is mostly or completely lies.

Plausible deniability professionals in action

An article published today in the New York Times, Grilled by Lawmakers, Big Tech Turns Up the Gaslight, describes in detail how the chief executives of Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Google wield their PD shields to try to keep congress from pursuing antitrust legislation. This is well worth being aware of. The NYT writes:

"When Mark Zuckerberg appeared in front of Congress two years ago, the Facebook chief executive’s memorable retort to a clueless questioner was “Senator, we run ads.” After Wednesday’s marathon appearance by Mr. Zuckerberg and three other tech titans at a House hearing on competition in the tech industry, a more fitting quote might be “Congresswoman, I’m not sure what you would mean by ‘threaten.’”

That was Mr. Zuckerberg’s evasive answer to a question asked by Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat from Washington, about whether Facebook had ever threatened to squash smaller competitors by copying their products if they wouldn’t let Facebook acquire them.

It was a good question with a clear-cut answer. Facebook’s copy-and-crush approach has been well documented for years, and Ms. Jayapal brought even more receipts — previously undisclosed messages in which Mr. Zuckerberg issued thinly veiled threats to Kevin Systrom, the co-founder of Instagram, about what would happen to his company if he refused to sell. 

An honest Mr. Zuckerberg might have replied, “Yes, Congresswoman, like most successful tech companies, we acquire potential competitors all the time, and copy the ones we can’t buy. That’s how we’ve avoided going extinct like MySpace or Friendster, and we’re about to do it again with Instagram Reels, our new TikTok clone.” That would have been an illuminating answer, and one that could have let lawmakers in on the kill-or-be-killed ethos of Silicon Valley. Instead, he dodged and weaved, trying to explain away the emails without admitting the obvious.

He did the same thing when Representative Hank Johnson, Democrat of Georgia, pressed him for answers about Facebook Research — an app that was used to snoop on users’ smartphone usage and give Facebook detailed data about its competitors. Mr. Zuckerberg initially said he wasn’t familiar with the app, even though Apple’s decision to bar it from its App Store nearly caused a meltdown at his company last year. (He later said he misspoke, and that he remembered it.)

The result was a hearing that, at times, felt less like a reckoning than an attempted gaslighting — a group of savvy executives trying to convince lawmakers that the evidence that their yearslong antitrust investigation had dug up wasn’t really evidence of anything.

At one point, Mr. Bezos was asked about a recent Wall Street Journal report that Amazon had set up a venture capital fund to invest in start-ups, only to then introduce its own versions of those start-ups’ products.

“I don’t know the specifics of that situation,” Mr. Bezos replied."

To prepare for the hearing, lawmakers obtained solid evidence of activities that may violate antitrust law. Because of that, the PD shields the CEOs raised were not very convincing. The NYT argues that the CEOs are not "sloppy or forgetful." The CEOs PD performance was not credible. The hearings indicate that the beginning of accountability for the abuses that tech giants have been getting  away with for years. The PD shield seems to be crumbling.

The morality of PD in situations like this is obvious, i.e., it is immoral when used to hide crimes. It hides and protects far too many white collar crimes and criminals.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, who often went without a mask, tests positive for the coronavirus

WASHINGTON — Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, who has refused to wear a mask, tested positive for the coronavirus Wednesday shortly before he was expected to travel with President Donald Trump to Texas.
Gohmert, 66, said he tested positive during the routine screening at the White House prior to boarding Air Force One and blamed his infection on the fact that he had begun to wear a mask more frequently in recent days.

News that the Texas Republican contracted the coronavirus sent lawmakers scrambling to account for Gohmert's whereabouts in the Capitol in the days leading up to his positive test. It also reignited conversations about whether lawmakers, many of whom travel to Washington from all around the country and tend to be in vulnerable age groups, were taking appropriate precautions to prevent an outbreak on Capitol Hill.

Gohmert attended Attorney General William Barr’s hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, sitting for hours in a hearing room with dozens of other lawmakers. Gohmert, along with other Republicans, was seen at times during the day without a mask.

In an interview with a local Texas news station Wednesday morning after learning he was infected, Gohmert said it was "ironic" that he tested positive "because a lot of people have made a big deal out of my not wearing a mask a whole lot, but in the last week or two I have worn a mask more than I have in the whole last four months.”

“I can't help but wonder if by keeping a mask on and keeping it in place, if I might have put some germs, some of the virus on the mask and breathed it in," he said.

Gohmert appeared to be dialing into the interview from his Capitol Hill office, where many lawmakers and staffers were working Wednesday. It is unclear why he went back to the Hill, where social distancing can be difficult, after testing positive.

In a statement he posted to Twitter, Gohmert said he would be "very, very careful" to make sure he did not give the coronavirus to anyone and referred to it as “the Wuhan virus,” a phrase that has been associated with a rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans.

Gohmert was seen standing in proximity to Barr in the Capitol hallway Tuesday while neither he nor Barr wore a mask. His chief of staff, Connie Hair, tweeted Wednesday that "he wore a mask at the hearing, unless he was speaking," and suggested, as Gohmert did, that fiddling with the mask could have been what led to infection.

Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec confirmed reports that Barr took a coronavirus test Wednesday after it was revealed Gohmert had tested positive. Kupec did not immediately respond when asked whether Barr had received the test results.

Rep. Granger Kay Granger, also a Texas Republican, said she was seated next to Gohmert on a flight from Texas on Sunday evening and would self-quarantine at the direction of the Congress's attending physician. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., said he would also self-quarantine after attending a hearing of the Natural Resources Committee with Gohmert on Tuesday.

It is unclear when an infected person becomes contagious. The World Health Organization has said that people who have not developed symptoms can pass the virus to others, but more research is needed to understand how frequently that occurs.

Gohmert told CNN in June that he was not wearing a mask because he was tested regularly for the coronavirus, but that he would wear one if he tested positive.

"I don't have the coronavirus, turns out as of yesterday I've never had it," he said. "But if I get it, you'll never see me without a mask."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people wear a mask when in public, regardless of whether they have tested positive or negative for the coronavirus. The CDC says that masks are critical to slowing the spread of the coronavirus, especially in cases where an infected person does not have symptoms and is unaware that they could make others sick.

“If you test positive or negative for COVID-19 on a viral or an antibody test, you still should take preventive measures to protect yourself and others,” the CDC website says.

Gohmert was potentially exposed to the coronavirus after he attended the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in February. Gohmert tweeted at the time that a CDC physician had cleared him to return to work in Washington after assessing his situation.

Multiple lawmakers have tested positive for the coronavirus since the outbreak hit the U.S. earlier this year, and many others have self-quarantined after potential exposure. Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart, R-Fla., Neal Dunn, R-Fla., Morgan Griffith, R-Va., Mike Kelly, R-Pa., Ben McAdams, D-Utah, Joe Cunningham, D-S.C., and Tom Rice, R-S.C., have tested positive for the virus. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has also tested positive.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., has said that he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies, and Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., also said he had tested positive for the antibodies.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in response to the news on Gohmert that she was “so sorry” for the lawmaker. “But I’m also sorry for my members, who are concerned because he has been showing up at meetings without a mask and making a thing of it,” she said.

When asked about Gohmert, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said he was “concerned about the irresponsible behavior of many of the Republicans who have chosen to consistently flout well-established public health guidance perhaps out of fealty to their boss, Donald Trump, who is the head of the anti-mask movement in America.”

Congress declined the White House's offer to provide lawmakers with rapid coronavirus testing capabilities earlier this year.



https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/newspolitics/rep-louie-gohmert-who-often-went-without-a-mask-tests-positive-for-the-coronavirus/ar-BB17kEy2?li=AAggNb9&ocid=mailsignout

Trump Tests the Idea of Delaying the November Election

A Washington Post article published today, Trump floats idea of delaying the November election, a power granted Congress, as he ramps up attacks on voting by mail, comments:

President Trump on Thursday floated the prospect of delaying the November election, as he ramped up his attacks on mail-in voting, claiming without evidence that its widespread use would be a “catastrophic disaster” that could lead to fraudulent results.

“With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history,” Trump tweeted. “It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”

WaPO goes on to point out that Constitution gives congress the power to regulate the “time, place and manner” of elections. Only congress can change that. The constitution does not grant the president any power to change anything about elections. The constitution also specifies that a president’s term ends on Jan. 20 in the year after a presidential election, i.e., Jan. 20, 2021 in this case.

The president was unclear about how the election would be moved, either by congress according to the constitution or by unconstitutional executive order. If by congress, the chance of that happening is nil. If by executive order, the US would enter a period of intensified constitutional crisis relative to what it is now.

As usual, the idea was floated in a Tweet. The tweet came after a government report showed the U.S. economy shrank 9.5% from April through June. That is the largest quarterly decline since data began to be published by the government 70 years ago.

 

Given the president's bitter animosity to voting by mail (70 attacks since late March), it is reasonable to assume that he will intensify his efforts to throw the election into chaos in any ways he can. By doing that he can create false grounds to attack the legitimacy of the outcome if he loses. 

This election is probably going to be ugly and messy.

“Damn those negative emotions,” she said angrily.

Emotions can be real killers, sometimes literally.  We all have them and some of us are in much better control of our emotions than others.  I’d say the level of control depends on how one is wired. Some have pretty short fuses.  Others, it takes some serious doing to get them all riled up to the point of finally reacting negatively.  It’s all in the person.

Where do emotions come from?  What is their ultimate source?  Does it go deeper than our wiring?

Just to take a trip down Philosophical Lane, according to the theists, God is the fundamental source of who we are as a species, and further that humanity was created in “His” image.  Atheists would, of course, disagree.  But no matter your religion/non-religion, we all know of the God creation narrative.  And the bigger, overarching idea of “God the Entity” is as ubiquitous and cross-cultural as the oxygen we collectively breathe.

Whether you’re a denying agnostic atheist like me, a practicing theist of whatever stripe, or somewhere in-between, the idea of God is universally known.  And the going (common) idea is that God (e.g., First Cause) made us who and what we are; whether crawling up from the evolutionary primordial slime, or as a full-blown, packaged and ready-to-go human being.  (Work with me here on this, hardcore atheists/theists. This is not yet the question. ;)

Sooo, back to our emotions, that got me fantasizing and thinking about how great it would be to be able to “play God” and wipe out all those nasty emotions.  So here it is… your opportunity to play the role of God:

For argument’s sake, you, as God, get to un-contaminate humankind with one negative emotion.  You only get to pick ONE, that’s the caveat.  So which one would it be?  Would it be, for example, greed, hatred, jealousy, anger, envy, other?  Is there one overarching negative emotion that would “take care” of the others, all in one fell swoop?

Your challenge: Play along with this hypothetical.  What emotion, as God, would you fix/undo?

Thanks for posting and recommending.

Evidence That HHS is Corrupting COVID-19 Data for Political Reasons

Pillars of Creation in the Crab Nebula

The 24 minute video below describes how a scientist (astrophysicist), Jeff Hester, who is not an expert in infectious diseases or epidemiology analyzes the CODIV-19 data coming from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) up until July 16, 2020 and then by the HHS (Health and Human Services) thereafter.

Hester has peer-reviewed publications, e.g., this one about the Crab Nebula. He worked on the team that helped repair the Hubble space telescope. He was a tenured professor at Arizona State University. He is now a public speaker, 'Thought Partner' (whatever that is) and whatnot.

The reason Hester focused on July 16 is that it is the date the president required COVID-19 data to be sent to HHS for analysis and reporting, thus removing the CDC as the main federal data analysis and reporting agency. At the time of the transfer, various people were suspicious that the move to HHS was for the purpose of tampering with the data for political purposes.

Based on Dr. Hester's analysis, and assuming it is correct, it looks like the president has required that HHS manipulate the data for political reasons. Two main caveats are that (1) this is one person's analysis and it has not been peer-reviewed by experts, and (2) Hester is not an expert and thus not able to assess whether there are legitimate reasons for the inflection in the data beginning on July 16 that a non-expert might not be aware of.

The reason I am posting this is because of the stark change in data that occurred starting on July 16. It is hard to understand why the data would change so drastically the day that HHS started doing the analysis and reporting. It could be that HHS is doing a different kind of analysis but if I recall correctly, HHS claimed it was doing the same analysis that CDC did (can't find a link to that).

For people who do not want to watch the video, three screen shots below summarize the gist of what his analysis shows.

Screen shots

On July 16, the US infection rate stopped increasing sharply 

and it flattened off

The curve flattening happened only in states that voted for Trump in 2016

Trump has corrupted data before and lied to try to get away with it

Thanks to Larry Motuz for bringing this video to my attention. 

Coronavirus Update 12

Arizona patriots protesting in May against the tyranny 

and horror of social defenses against COVID-19

The New York Times reports on data from various experiments and anecdotal observations strongly suggesting that wearing a face mask could have two major beneficial effects for the mask wearer.

• First, wearing a mask appears to reduce the number of new COVID-19 infections in uninfected people compared to people who do not wear a mask

• Second, wearing a mask appears to reduce the number of viruses uninfected people take in and that postulated reduced virus dose (inoculum) appears to correlate with new infections being both significantly milder and less commonly lethal

Those two tentative hypotheses are not backed by enough evidence to make them proven to the normal standard of statistical confidence for ‘proven’ conclusions concerning infectious diseases. Nonetheless, evidence from various kinds of experiments and observations all strongly suggest that both of these observations are in fact true.

The evidence

At a basic level, common sense suggests that the first benefit is very likely true. That is because infected people who wear masks have been proven to reduce the number of uninfected people they infect. The only way to explain that is to postulate that masks trap some of the viruses that infected people shed into the air. If that is true, and it undoubtedly is, then there is no reason to believe that a mask an uninfected person is wearing would not also trap some viruses in the air, thereby reducing the virus dose and the likelihood of becoming infected.

If that reasoning is sound, then it also suggests that the second benefit is might also true. Some evidence indicates that lower COVID-19 doses tend to lead to less severe disease.

Experiments with animals indicate that when cages are separated by face mask material compared to no mask material, the transmission rate from infected animals in one cage to uninfected animals  in the adjacent cage dropped significantly.

The NYT writes:

“Some indirect data has been accumulating from people as well. Researchers have tentatively estimated that about 40 percent of coronavirus infections do not produce any symptoms. But when some people wear masks, the proportion of asymptomatic cases seems to skyrocket, reportedly surpassing 90 percent during one outbreak at a seafood plant in Oregon. Wearing a face covering doesn’t make people impervious to infection, but these trends of asymptomatic cases could suggest that masks lead to milder disease, potentially reducing hospitalizations and deaths.

Particularly compelling, Dr. Gandhi said, is the data from cruise ships, which pack big groups of people into close quarters. More than 80 percent of those infected aboard Japan’s Diamond Princess in February — before masking had become common practice — came down with symptoms, she noted. But on another vessel that left Argentina in March, and on which all passengers were issued surgical masks after someone onboard came down with a fever, the level of symptomatic cases was below 20 percent. 

The idea that face coverings can curb disease severity, although not yet proven, ‘makes complete sense’, said Linsey Marr, an expert in virus transmission at Virginia Tech. ‘It’s another good argument for wearing masks.’”

Once again, all of this points to at least two unhappy things. First, wearing a mask during the pandemic should have nothing to do with politics in any way. The fact that it is political for tens of millions of Americans shows an unforgivable failure of political leadership mostly (~90%) by the president, the GOP in congress and some GOP governors and state politicians. Instead of being politically neutral, our self-centered narcissist president and some (most?) GOP politicians are simply incapable of dealing rationally with the pandemic.[1] Their ideology betrays and blinds their minds to reality and reason.

Second, the presidential and GOP failure in putting politics over science and rationality has needlessly cost tens of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. All of these people should be impeached, removed from office, prosecuted for criminal negligence, fined into bankruptcy and imprisoned for at least 15 years. After all, that is just being fair and balanced.

Footnote: 

1. A NYT article today describes a planned school reopening in Georgia: “In-person classes without a mask requirement are scheduled to begin on Friday in Jefferson, worrying some parents, students and teachers as the state confronts the coronavirus. .... An online petition created by two Jefferson High seniors calling for a mandatory-mask rule has garnered more than 600 signatures. But a competing petition demanding that masks remain a choice for students has attracted more than 200 signers, some of whom have left comments that underscore the politicized nature of the disagreement. ‘Only liberals can get rona and I’m not a liberal’, wrote one, using a slang term for the coronavirus. ‘TRUMP2020 no mask fo me.’”

In some places, the politics of COVID-19 has gone from merely grossly incompetent to stupid and literally lethal. The rigid ideology and savage tribalism of most of conservative and populist American politics is mostly responsible for this colossal stupidity and the misery, deaths and costs it imposes on everyone. The ideologues who instigate this sort of anti-mask stupidity are responsible for the consequences of their acts.

Some of these patriots are going to get their wish -- 

unfortunately, they are going to kill some innocents as they 

joyfully exercise their freedom to live and die free 

(that freedom includes the freedom to kill innocents via stupid behavior)

STUPID BEHAVIOR KILLS

Bayesianism, Trump and Putin

Bayesianism, inductive reasoning and level of confidence

As discussed here before, being bayesian about reality and beliefs is a very good mental habit to have, especially for complicated and messy subjects like politics. Simply put, being bayesian means changing the degree of confidence a person has when they become aware of information they were not aware of before. That includes reasoning or logic. The new information can make the bayesian person’s confidence in a belief increase, decrease or even change if it is sufficient. In essence, the bayesian person is a more or less open minded person. That trait is usually accompanied by a mindset that tends toward rationality somewhat more compared to the person’s closed minded counterpart or doppelganger.

As all of us critical thinkers know, forming beliefs about most things involve inductive thinking and some degree of uncertainty in the belief. In politics, important but inconvenient facts, truths and reasoning are often hidden, distorted or denied as lies or nonsense. When that happens, as is usually the case, it is necessary to form beliefs with out important or necessary information. Sometimes we have to make guesses about what reality is using a some variable amount of circumstantial evidence or reasoning. That makes the belief uncertain to some extent.

I sometimes express some of my beliefs in terms of level of personal confidence as a percent, e.g., 60% confident the belief is true. Certainty in belief means 100% confidence in the belief. With politics, messy as it is, sometimes certain beliefs turn out to be false. That can happen if information is hidden, not known to the person and/or the person’s reasoning is flawed. Complicating this is the fact that beliefs often are based on subjective values and there is no single correct belief, e.g., abortion is morally acceptable or it is not.

Degrees of confidence: A person’s degree of confidence in a belief or opinion varies. It can range from ‘maybe’ to ‘more likely than not’ to ‘probably true’ to ‘certainly true’ or certainty. Certainty in belief means a person is 100% confident in the belief or opinion, while maybe tends to mean some range of likelihood or degree of confidence such as ~35-49%. More likely than not means a possibility or level of confidence of at least 50%. With politics, messy as it is, sometimes certain beliefs turn out to be or are false. Sometimes ‘probably not’ type beliefs turn out to be or are true.

Trump, Putin & treason

One of the things in the 2016 election that I found deeply concerning was the possibility that the president could be working with or maybe even for Putin. There was enough circumstantial evidence for me to form a belief that maybe the president was working with or for Putin and was thus a traitor (~35-49% possibility). After all, his campaign operatives had been caught trying to set up a secret line of communication with Putin or his operatives. Why do that?

There was other circumstantial evidence as well. For example, it was also known or suspected that the president (1) laundered money for Russian mobsters and kleptocrats, (2) was a serial business failure with six bankruptcies in his resume, (3) refused to show his tax returns, falsely claiming he could not because they were under audit, (4) was immoral in his personal life (e.g., Stormy Daniels) and broke campaign finance law to hide that fact, (5) the president’s businesses did a great deal of  business with Russian mobsters, and (6) was and still is a chronic liar. I also believed the president was a tax cheat (~90% confident), which explained why he hid his tax returns.

In the 2016 election (Politifact)

After the election, various things raised my level of confidence that the president was working with or for Putin to probably doing so (~60% likelihood). For example, (1) phone calls between him and Putin were not made public and no US officials were present to hear what was being discussed (this is unprecedented), (2) the president denied that Russians attacked the US election, taking Putin’s word for it that Russia had nothing to do with the 2016 election, (3) he publicly sided with Putin against US intelligence agency findings of major Russian interference in the election, (4) he fights tooth and claw in court to keep his tax returns hidden, (5) the Mueller report clearly showed that he obstructed justice at least four or five times to try to stop the investigation of Russian interference in the election, (6) the president solidified his track record as immoral and a chronic liar (100% confidence level) and a crook (99% confidence level), (7) he expresses publicly admiration for tyranny and tyrants including Putin, (8) constant authoritarian rhetoric and behaviors, e.g., attacking the press, and (9) secret phone calls with Putin that coincided with the president taking actions that Putin was wanted ever since he took power, e.g., withdrawing US troops from Germany. We only find out about the phone calls not from the president but from Putin. There could be more phone calls we will probably never know about and we will never know what was discussed in any of them (~95% likelihood).

The following 4 minute interview with Timothy Snyder, author of the book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century (book review here) has raised my belief that the president is a traitor (~98% confidence level). If one looks at what the president is doing from Putin’s point of view, the president is an incredibly useful operative because of his power, deep immorality and other bad personal traits.

Why would the president betray the US and its domestic and international interests? Because he is a crook and a liar, extremely thin-skinned and vindictive, deeply immoral, deeply corrupt, a tyrant wannabe, controllable, and mentally unsound to the point of being completely unfit for office, e.g., he is a self-centered narcissist. Putin has powerful tools at his disposal. Putin can bribe, blackmail and manipulate the president because he is simply not very bright. If the president owes enough money to Russians and they can call in loans and/or show evidence of tax evasion, that could bankrupt him once more and/or subject him to criminal prosecution. If there is evidence of other bad behaviors, e.g., the pee pee tape, Putin can “leak” it just like he leaked damaging evidence against Clinton in the 2016 election.

It appears to me that Putin holds the power here. It is not clear that the president can refuse what he is told to do, and apparently what he is already inclined to do.

CDC School Reopening Guidelines are Being Subverted and the Public Deceived

In May, the AP reported that the CDC had released detailed guidelines on reopening the economy, but the Trump administration buried the report and wanted it to never be released. In a May 6 article,
Trump administration buries detailed CDC advice on reopening, the AP released a portion of the report that provided seven flow charts for reopening various parts of the economy, including schools, child care facilities, churches and restaurants and bars. The charts for school, workplaces, church and restaurant and bar reopenings are shown below.

From the charts, it is perfectly clear why the president did not want the public to see the CDC report or the flow charts. They are devastating. They make clear how poor the federal response has been compared to what real, non-political experts recommended back in May. In all seven areas of the economy, the very first guideline is the same: Is the (school, church, workplace, etc.) in a community no longer requiring significant mitigation? If the answer is no, then in all cases the recommended action is do not reopen. If the answer to the first guideline is yes, then for school reopenings, 13 more guidelines need to be met before a school or facility can be reopened and monitored.

At present, few or no schools are in a position to reopen. The president's recent push to force schools to reopen is not just sabotage of the US response to the pandemic. It is treason.

Apparently, due to AP reporting of the leaked flow charts, the president ordered the CDC to release the full report. To minimize public notice about the report, the release was not accompanied by a press release. The president felt a need to minimize the public's knowledge of the contents of the report.

On May 8, the AP reported this:

“White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said Friday that the documents had not been approved by CDC Director Robert Redfield. The new emails, however, show that Redfield cleared the guidance. 

This new CDC guidance — a mix of advice already released along with newer information — had been approved and promoted by the highest levels of its leadership, including Redfield. Despite this, the administration shelved it on April 30. 

As early as April 10, Redfield, who is also a member of the White House coronavirus task force, shared via email the guidance and decision trees with President Donald Trump’s inner circle, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner, top adviser Kellyanne Conway and Joseph Grogan, assistant to the president for domestic policy. Also included were Dr. Deborah Birx, Dr. Anthony Fauci and other task force members.” 

The president and McEnany were clearly lying about the status of the CDC report to provide a false excuse for why it was not made public. Remember Ms. McEnany’s first press briefing? She said “I will never lie to you.” That was a lie.

The president’s sabotage gets even worse

Within the last few days, multiple sources reported that new CDC guidance on school reopening that was radically different from the guidance that leaked to the public and was then released in May. The ensuing confusion was predictable. It turned out that the White House edited the guidance to water it down, but released it as a CDC document to make school reopenings seem at least plausible on advice from experts.

In this political document, the White House suggested that schools keep students in small groups, with one teacher staying with the same group all day. It also suggested using outdoor spaces and planning for what to do when someone in a school tests positive, e.g., contact tracing. A July 24 New York Times article, C.D.C. Calls on Schools to Reopen, Downplaying Health Risks, commented that “the agency’s statement followed earlier criticism from President Trump that its guidelines for reopening were too ‘tough.’”

Digression - personal rant: That NYT reporting was nonsense. The new guidelines were from our heartless, self-serving president and his political enabler goons, not the CDC public health experts. The title should have been explicit that the document was from the president, not the CDC, i.e., The President Calls on Schools to Reopen, Downplaying Health Risks. This exemplifies why I consider the professional mainstream media to generally be doing grade D or D- level work when it comes to dealing with our corrupt, treasonous, chronic liar president. The MSM keeps giving the president passes that he does not deserve. The MSM still has not learned its lesson from 2016.

A July 25 article by the Washington Post, more accurately titled, Confused by CDC’s changing guidance on school reopening? Here are recommendations from experts not pressured by the White House: “The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week issued new guidance on how schools can reopen safely for the 2020-21 school year — and, as it turns out, some of it was edited in the White House. That could help explain why there is little discussion about the risks of returning to school buildings, which President Trump has been demanding for a few weeks.”

Clearly, that is sabotage by a president who has no concern for anything other than his re-election. Public health and needless sickness and deaths are of no concern to this president, except to the extent they are obstacles to re-election. The heartless cruelty of this extremely dangerous man is on full display to see for anyone willing to look.

A segment from Rachael Maddow on this matter is shown below.





Of interest in Maddow’s segment is the graph shown below. That data makes it clear that the US response has been and still is a failure. The president and the GOP leadership deserves all reasonable responsibility for the incompetence and failures, the thousands of needlessly lost lives and the needless economic losses that run in the trillions.

Why Trump will win a second term

by HARRY PHIBBS
https://www.thearticle.com/why-trump-will-win-a-second-term

Just because you are paranoid it doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you. Donald Trump is fond of making extravagant attacks on the media for peddling “fake news”. But while we have become familiar with Presidential hyperbole most of the TV networks in the US are unsympathetic towards him in their coverage. But does that mean the polls they commissioned are skewed? I think not. As Peter Kellner has written for this site: “A pollster would go bust if they fixed their results.”

As I write, most of the recent polls have shown Trump trailing his Democrat opponent Joe Biden by around ten points. There is a Rasmussen poll showing a gap of just three points. On the other hand, a Quinnipiac University Poll has Biden ahead by 15 points. It is true that due to the American electoral system last time round Trump won even though Hillary Clinton got a higher national vote share. But she was only ahead by a couple of points.

The Democrats are sure to win California (with 55 electoral college votes) and New York (with 29 electoral college votes) by huge margins. But then if they lose Texas (38 votes) and Florida (29 votes) much more narrowly they find they have millions of votes in the wrong places. It’s a winner takes all system.

This disparity may well be more marked than it was in 2016. Thousands of Americans have been leaving high tax states (such as New York, California and also Connecticut and New Jersey) to move to low tax states (such as Texas, Florida and Nevada.) People decide how to vote for for all sorts of reasons. But these new voters are people who have gone to the trouble of moving house and relocating hundreds of miles to pay less tax. They are more likely to plump for Trump than Biden.

That would only matter in a close result. It might mean that Biden could be ahead by three or four points in vote share — advancing on what Clinton achieved four years ago — yet still lose. But should Biden be ahead by around ten points then he would secure a landslide.

One difficulty for Trump has been the coronavirus pandemic. It’s not just about the confused messaging or the mistakes in the practical management. It’s more that he has found himself on a side of the argument that is unsuited to him. Trump is best suited to exploiting fears rather than appealing for hope. He is the antithesis of his Republican predecessor Ronald Reagan, who exuded sunny optimism and whose campaign commercial proclaimed: “It’s morning in America again.”

Trump was well suited as an insurgent. He message that weak leadership was leaving Americans vulnerable to crime, terrorism, illegal immigration and unfair trade deals resonated. But now he is seeking to downplay fears of coronavirus in order to keep the economy going. That is difficult while the death toll remains persistently high.

Another problem is that Trump’s tone suggests he has more power than he really does under the US federal system. That means that, when there is disorder on the streets, notably over the Black Lives Matters protests, some of his supporters are dismayed that under his Presidency it is allowed to continue.

So far as his personal qualities are concerned, Trump is the least “presidential” president we have ever seen. Some will find his brashness and boastfulness entertaining and candid. Others, including some who voted for him as a protest, might rub their eyes and conclude that for him to be in the White House is some sort of extraordinary accident.

Despite all these difficulties my bold prediction is that Trump will be reelected. Partly that is based on the US economy reviving in the coming months and the coronavirus plague receding — both those propositions are admittedly fraught with uncertainty.

As polling day nears, the focus will be less on whether voters are favourable or unfavourable to Trump and more on the choice between him and Biden. Trump is 74-years-old. Biden is 77. Will Americans feel it is time to make way for an older man? Also, while Biden comes across as a pleasant fellow, he conveys weakness and confusion. Keeping Biden low profile for the campaign surely would not work. Biden will probably lose the TV debates against Trump. But for Biden to refuse to take part would be even worse.

You might not like Trump, but at least he is not a pushover. The warning that the moderate Biden could be manipulated by more radical elements could gain traction. You might prefer Biden to Trump as your next door neighbour, but who could be relied upon to defend the national interest?

It follows that patriotism could well secure Trump victory. The Democrats will struggle if they are regarded as anti-American. Our own General Election last year should give them a warning. Many of the socialist policies that Labour adopted under Jeremy Corbyn were actually quite popular — more spending, renationalisation, tax the rich. The problem was that, under Corbyn, the Labour Party could plausibly be considered to be anti-British.

Trump stood by Mount Rushmore and declared: “Today, we pay tribute to the exceptional lives and extraordinary legacies of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt. I am here as your President to proclaim before the country and before the world: This monument will never be desecrated these heroes will never be defaced, their legacy will never, ever be destroyed, their achievements will never be forgotten, and Mount Rushmore will stand forever as an eternal tribute to our forefathers and to our freedom.”

In the past, that pride in US history would not have been felt controversial. It’s not that Biden would be considered to approve of pulling down statues of Washington or Lincoln. The question is how firmly he can repudiate those in his team with such sympathies. For Biden to staunchly proclaim his patriotism would risk alienating some of his activists. But any ambiguity on the matter surely disqualifies him. As the culture wars become ever more antagonistic, some on the American left appear to swing voters as anti-American. It would be hard for Biden to win in November if he is tarnished with that image, whatever the polls say.

Book Review: Critical Thinking

The 2020 book, Critical Thinking, is a short description (181 pages) about the origins of critical thinking, what it is and what values it has. The author, Johnathan Haber, is an educator and researcher in the field of critical thinking. The book is written for a general audience and easy to read.

The origins and status of critical thinking

The concept started with Socrates and Aristotle. Socrates questioned fixed beliefs and advocated leading a life of self-examination. His activities in this area “earned him the title of father of Western philosophy and well as a death sentence from his annoyed fellow Athenians.” The lesson there is don’t annoy Athenians. (oops, bad logic)

Aristotle went much farther. He gathered and systematized existing knowledge into what are now major fields of inquiry including botany, zoology, political science, rhetoric and logic. His work on rhetoric and logic established key areas of education for the ancient world that lasted until modern times.

A major contribution of Aristotle was to uncouple knowledge from the superstitious and plug it into the empirical. Haber writes that “Aristotle’s method of inferring truths from what the human senses could perceive, rather than explaining natural phenomena as the works of gods, was a tremendous intellectual breakthrough.”  Of course, since human senses can be wrong, manipulated, biased and self-deceived, this was just the first of many intellectual revolutions that flowed from what Aristotle had discovered about how to perceive reality.

The progress of critical thinking as a field of research and education unto itself was significantly derailed in 1892 when the “Committee of Ten” educators, led by Harvard’s president, created a new curriculum for K-12 schools. Reading, writing, math and science were included, but rhetoric and logic were not. After that, teaching of rhetoric and logic declined in public education. Critical thinking education began a significant comeback in 1983 when California state universities imposed a critical thinking requirement for graduation. Since then, critical thinking has gained in importance in K-12 education. The intellectual weaknesses of students unskilled in rhetoric and logic became both apparent and acute in the modern information age.

What critical thinking is

There is no universally accepted definition, but a some of a cluster of concepts tend to be included. The concepts themselves tend to be a bit fuzzy, but usually include structured thinking (roughly, logic), communication skill, argumentation skill, creativity, reasonable background knowledge, and IMO, very importantly, personal dispositions or traits. Haber prefers ‘structured thinking’ over logic to emphasize the importance of organized thinking over any particular form of formal logic. Humans tend not to apply formal logic and instead think in terms of informal logic (I call it reasoning or sound reasoning), which can be informed and shaped by things like the structure of arguments, the social situation, emotions, intuitions and personal morals and biases. Modern critical thinking education emphasizes informal logic over true logic, but true logic remains an important part.

Haber argues, reasonably, that you cannot do critical thinking if you do not know what you are talking about. Hence a necessary component is learning and applying sufficient background knowledge to support clear-headed, sound reasoning.

Two important concepts that underpin critical thinking are the difference and prevalence of deductive and inductive arguments, which are different. Deductive arguments are logic constructs where the conclusion of a valid argument must be true if you accept that the premises are true. If the premises are actually true, the conclusion is both valid and sound. This kind of reasoning is rare because it is rare to have premises that are not disputed.[1]

By contrast, inductive arguments are based on premises that make the conclusion or basis in evidence or logic possibly, probably true or very likely true. The conclusion’s strength can vary from weak to near certainty. The relevance and sufficiency of the premises dictate the strength of the conclusion. By definition, inductive arguments are invalid because it is possible to accept the premises but still reasonably reject the conclusion. Counter examples are possible to imagine and usually too numerous to test. Inductive reasoning dominates everyday life, politics and science.
Not understanding the uncertainty that is common in science allows science deniers to point to almost any level of uncertainty as a basis to deny things that are not reasonably deniable, including climate change and the effectiveness of vaccines.

The value of critical thinking

Haber frames the issue like this:

“Catastrophic decisions like those that lead to .... being ruled by men and women competent in nothing but playing to our weaknesses are just the most dramatic consequences of refusing to develop or use our reasoning ability ..... If we can increase our odds of success by locating and evaluating evidence, putting it into an informative structure, and analyzing the results, why not follow this critical thinking process rather than shooting first, aiming later?”  

He argues that there is now plenty of evidence, e.g., Russian attacks on critical thinking in the 2016 elections, that there are compelling reasons to up our game in terms of our ability to apply critical thinking to politics:

“Many of those ‘others’ [propagandists] are professional skilled at taking advantage of the flaws in our mental faculties, such as the many cognitive biases that prevent us from thinking critically or the ability of emotion and tribalism to overwhelm reason. .... As demonstrated in recent elections, candidates still spearhead this kind of manipulation, but now they are supported by armies of political consultants skilled in techniques for preventing people from thinking clearly. .... Yet, has the public appetite for bad premises (i.e., ‘fake news’), invalid logic, refusal to develop or apply background knowledge, and uncharitable behavior toward out political enemies diminished at all since we learned how vulnerable we make ourselves by basking in our biases?”

The fits with pragmatic rationalism

What Haber describes is a mindset that is applied in a process of organized thinking. The mindset requires personal traits including but not limited to sufficient open-mindedness to look at an issue form at least two points of view, willingness and discipline to do the necessary learning and mental work, and charity as envisioned by the Principle of Charity (discussed here). That sounds a lot like the mindset and process that I designed pragmatic rationalism to be based on and operate with. It also reflects some of the core personal or mental traits and tactics, e.g., viewing multiple points of view, that Philip Tetlock’s superforecasters had in common.

Unless I am misunderstanding something significant, Haber’s description of the critical thinking mindset and approach to reality sounds much like those of superforecasters and pragmatic rationalists. In other words, pragmatic rationalism appears to be rising naturally out of, or mostly overlapping with, separate lines of research. That sort of looks like some sort of consilience to me.

Or, are my biases and/or misunderstandings leading me down a wrong path?

Footnote:
1. When actually true premises are rejected by a person as false because the person does not like the conclusion the premises lead to, the person may reject both the premises and the conclusion. Sociologists call this implicatory denial (discussed here). It is arguably the most common form of logic fallacy in science denial.

GOP Voter Suppression Tactics

The local constabulary

Context

Like the president, the GOP is anti-democratic and authoritarian. Both are heavily reliant on dark free speech[1] to create false realities and to tear society apart. The GOP ultimate goal is a radical right libertarian movement (RRLM). The RRLM has a vision of a weak, ineffective[2] federal government and weakened civil liberties, with power flowing to state governments from the people and the central government. The RRLM is essentially demagogic, plutocratic and dictatorial with a heavy tinge of vengeful, greedy Christianity exercising its right to feed off a stream of tax dollars. The point of state governments is simple: They are easier to corrupt and subvert than a strong central government with institutions that stand for the rule of law.

The power transfer is falsely billed as return of proper constitutional authority to states. That is a deception. The wealthy plutocrat elites that created and control the RRLM intend to corrupt and control states governments. The elites want the power for themselves.

An important RRLM goal is subversion of voting and democratic participation. Voter suppression is a key tactic that has been underway for years. This OP is about how this is playing out in an obscure federal commission that was intended to help states conduct elections.

Neutering the federal Election Assistance Commission

A ProPublica article, How Voter-Fraud Hysteria and Partisan Bickering Ate American Election Oversight, describes the decline of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Some congressional republicans want to get rid of the EAC, because it had completed its mission of fixing election problems in the wake of the 2000 voting disaster in Florida. Maybe that was true at one time, but these days, some states are desperately asking for assistance and guidance about how to deal with the upcoming Nov. 3 election. Despite claims to the contrary, the EAC is unable to act. ProPublica writes:

“Election Assistance Commission to plead for help. The EAC is the bipartisan federal agency established for the precise purpose of maintaining election integrity through emergencies, and this was by every account an emergency. In a matter of weeks, the coronavirus had grown from an abstract concern to a global horror, and vote by mail was the only way ballots could safely be cast in the states that had not yet held their primaries. But many officials didn’t know the basics: what machines they would need and where to get them; what to tell voters; how to make sure ballots reached voters and were returned to county offices promptly and securely. “I have a primary coming up, and I have no idea what to do,” Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske said on the call.

She and her colleagues didn’t get the help they were looking for. Of the EAC’s four commissioners, only chair Ben Hovland spoke, and his responses were too vague to satisfy his listeners. The lack of direction was “striking,” said one participant, Jennifer Morrell, an elections consultant and a contractor for The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). “It felt to me that there was no leadership. Nobody was saying, ‘Hey, let’s figure this out.’ Questions just went unanswered.”

Dogged by partisan infighting, the constant threat of elimination and a budget that bottomed out last year at less than half of what it once was, the EAC has long failed to be effective or even relevant. Current commissioners have dramatically decreased the number of votes taken on important issues. The EAC also hasn’t approved a full set of voting machine standards since 2005. In 2018, new machines pegged to the old standards malfunctioned in Indiana, and decades-old machines in Georgia failed to record a stunning 150,000 votes for lieutenant governor, spurring ongoing litigation.”

EAC chairman defended the agency: “[The EAC has] one of the smallest budgets in the federal government, and without a dime of the supplemental funding we requested from Congress [for pandemic response]. Now is not the time for keeping score. It’s time to focus on getting the job done. ... I am confident that when we look back at this year, and where the EAC was coming from, we will be proud of what we accomplished.” The chairman pointed out that distributed $825 million in grants to state election officials in 2020.

The EAC is hamstrung in party by partisan disputes. Two of the four commissioners are repeating the president’s unfounded fraud allegations about voting by mail. There is no evidence to show that voting by mail is significantly fraudulent. ProPublica comments: “Voter fraud is vanishingly rare. .... Voting methods once thought routine, like absentee ballots, became grist for partisan bickering. The escalating fight over voter fraud has crippled the EAC, often sabotaging its most dedicated commissioners while emboldening those who are less effective. .... In 2007, the EAC hired two respected researchers to study voter fraud. But after they found little evidence of a problem, the commission decided not to adopt their report, saying the extent of voter fraud was open to interpretation.”

It is reasonable to believe that GOP-backed voter suppression to advance the RRLM’s goal of undermining democracy is well underway right now. One question is how many voters will be disenfranchised on Nov. 3. For the RRLM, the ends justify all legal means and probably some illegal ones. This is about gaining power and wealth by subverting democracy, not serving the public interest.

Footnotes:
1. Dark free speech: Constitutionally or legally protected (1) lies and deceit to distract, misinform, confuse, polarize and/or demoralize, (2) unwarranted opacity to hide inconvenient truths, facts and corruption (lies and deceit of omission), (3) unwarranted emotional manipulation (i) to obscure the truth and blind the mind to lies and deceit, and (ii) to provoke irrational, reason-killing emotions and feelings, including fear, hate, anger, disgust, distrust, intolerance, cynicism, pessimism and all kinds of bigotry including racism, and (4) ideologically-driven motivated reasoning and other ideologically-driven biases that unreasonably distort reality and reason. (my label, my definition)

2. Based on their acquiescence to how the president has handled it, the ineffectiveness the GOP favors is seen in the failed federal response to the pandemic. The president has used executive power to undermine federal public health activities.