Monday, July 28, 2025

The news is very bad and worse: Euphemisms can kill

There have been too many major major blows to democracy, the rule of law, civil liberties and truth for our country to survive as it was. The damage that djt and MAGA elites already has caused is enormous. What little is left of our democracy and rule of law will probably not survive much longer. The November 2026 mid-term elections will probably, ~70% chance in my opinion, be manipulated to favor dictatorship if it is necessary to keep the Republicans in power in congress. Otherwise, American voters will voluntarily end the democratic experiment, their rights and our republican form of government. America is reverting to the historical mean, old-fashioned kleptocracy and dictatorship.

Evidence that our elected leaders and the MSM failed us is solid. A NYT opinion (not paywalled) by Frank Bruni, November 2026 is Everything, is one of the few items that evinces significant understanding of what is happening to us and what has already happened. But that either falls short of full understanding, or reflects damage to an MSM now afraid of djt and MAGA power. Bruni writes: 
.... Republicans — devoid of conscience and terrified of Trump — have shown an almost complete willingness to let him do whatever he wants and drag the country wherever he pleases, which is down into a sewer of despotism, corruption, cruelty and fiscal insanity.

The conservative majority on the Supreme Court is clearing the way for him. Meanwhile, Trump and his enablers are busy trying to neuter the rest of the justice system with strategically placed sycophants.

In The Seattle Times, Danny Westneat sympathized with Senator Lisa Murkowski, who said she felt “cheated” by Trump’s reneging on a deal with her: “If only there had been some clue, some sign, that a politician who cheated with his charity, cheated on taxes, cheated on his wife, cheats at golf, cheated his contractors, cheated his customers and then attempted the biggest cheat of all — on the American election system — might eventually work his way around to cheating you, too?”
Yes, the terrified Republicans support and enable djt. Knowingly or willingly or not, they put themselves and their jobs over our country. Yes, Murkowski was an absolute idiot (or a cynical liar) claiming to trust djt. Maybe it was idiocy or gross incompetence amounting to treason. Is it possible to be a traitor in the court of public opinion out of gross incompetence, with or without malice? Yes, but that is a matter of public opinion, not law.[1]

Just as bad, Bruni represents the dismal MSM norm by once again making the same horrific mistake that most of the MSM have been making over and over and over since 2017. He and the MSM call djt and MAGA "conservative." Under current political circumstances, political history since 2010 (especially since 2017), and based on facts, the label "conservative" is a euphemism for dictatorship, theocracy, plutocracy and kleptocracy, where dictatorship is dominant.


Euphemisms
By now, the MSM knows that djt and MAGA are authoritarian and deeply corrupt. But to keep from losing some readers, players like Bruni and the editors of the NYT continue to use to the deceptive, misleading euphemism "conservative." Conservative is an effective rhetorical shield. It has decades of positive associations built in, e.g., small, efficient government. That allows authoritarianism and corruption to masquerade as just normal politics as usual. Poll data indicate that about one-third of Americans, including a Repub supermajority, grossly underestimate the MAGA movement's autocratic, plutocratic and theocratic ambitions in large part because of the label. 

The "conservative" rhetorical con game that MAGA elites play is reinforced by a radicalized authoritarian  MAGA USSC. The court calls djt's dictatorship "conservative constitutionalism." That sleight of hand numbs the public. The conned public lets its guard down. Remember "compassionate conservatism"? Same cynical trick, same authoritarian goals, different decade.

A final observation. The "conservative" euphemism for MAGA politics and policy will literally get people killed. There is no rational basis for any doubt about that. Dead people is foreseeable and inevitable when you kick 11 million people off Medicaid, con people into not getting vaccinated, get rid of consumer and worker safety regulations, reverse environmental protections and allow poisoning of the air and water, or etc. Even if it is called conservative constitutionalism, MAGA's authoritarian, kleptocratic politics and policy will kill more people than honest democratic politics and policy. Period.


 
Footnotes:
1. Shockingly gross incompetence and/or cynical lying sometimes morphs into a public verdict of betrayal and treason even if no ill intent existed. Murkowski's vote cast in moral terms, the  foreseeability of djt's dishonesty, her fiduciary duty, and the harm of her vote was enough for some people to see her vote as "treason." Leaders who ignore predictable consequences, or shift blame by claiming they were heated can expect the court of public opinion to rationally treat their failures as a profound breach of trust amounting to treason. In the law, intent matters to judges and juries. In the court of public opinion, things like competence, foresight and duty sometimes matter.

Sunday, July 27, 2025

About Comet, Pxy's agentic AI extension

AAI (agentic AI) like can "do things" you tell it to do. Unlike Pxy, which can just search and analyze, AAI has "agency" and can actively find things by more than just searching webpages, e.g., it can open and analyze webpages it finds links to on a webpage. An example explains it better than I can.

I asked Pxy to compare itself to Comet, which is the AAI addition to what Pxy corp. is selling: 
Q: In terms of searching and analysis, can Comet access and analyze more information, than Perplexity, e.g., by opening more links? For example, would Comet be better able to answer this query than Pxy?: "Scan this blog, https://dispol.blogspot.com/, for posts that link to Pxy searches and briefly describe the context for the link, and also state what % of blog posts there are by the author Germaine compared to other authors like PD and Susan.". I'm interested in a general capability assessment.

A: Comet, Perplexity's AI-powered browser, provides significantly more comprehensive access to information than traditional Perplexity searches. The key advantage lies in its Personal Search feature, which leverages browsing history and AI-driven web navigation to retrieve and analyze information on your behalf.

This includes:
  • Direct tab and page analysis: Comet can analyze content across multiple open tabs simultaneously and maintain context between them
  • Authorization-based access: Unlike regular web searches, Comet can access pages that require login credentials or personal authorization, such as social networks, email accounts, and private dashboards
  • Automated navigation: The browser can navigate through multi-page websites, follow internal links, and perform complex browsing workflows autonomously
Traditional Perplexity Limitations:

Regular Perplexity searches are limited to publicly accessible web content and cannot maintain persistent browsing sessions or access authenticated content. While Perplexity excels at synthesizing information from multiple sources, it cannot perform the kind of deep, multi-page website analysis that your example query requires.

Answering Your Specific Query Example

For your example query about analyzing the blog at https://dispol.blogspot.com for Perplexity links and author percentages, Comet would indeed be significantly more capable.

Comet's Advantages:
  • Can systematically browse through blog archives and individual posts
  • Maintain context about link patterns and author information across multiple pages
  • Access and analyze the full blog structure, including navigation between different time periods and categories
  • Perform comprehensive content analysis across the entire site
Current Perplexity Limitations:
Based on the search results, regular Perplexity can only analyze the immediate content available on a single page load. For the sample blog provided, this would mean limited analysis of only the most recent posts visible on the homepage, missing the comprehensive site-wide analysis your query requires.
Comet opens up a vast new way to do searching and analysis of far more data than Pxy, which can do far more than me.

I'm a bit scared of Comet because it is programmed to learn "me" and eventually be able to shift me into the intention economy from the current state of internet affairs called the attention economy. However, since I get Comet for free at least until my current Pxy pro subscription ends, it need to be tested out. Presently, Comet costs $200/month for new subscribers. I got on a wait list to get access to Comet for free at least for now.

My 1st Comet search, "Scan this blog, https://dispol.blogspot.com/, for posts that link to Perplexity searches and briefly describe the context for the link, and also state what % of blog posts there are by the author Germaine compared to other authors like PD and Susan.", gave an impressive response. It was able to count all the posts for July 15-26 (a time period Comet picked), find where in the post the author is named and list which posts I had linked to Pxy searches and state the context for why the link was there. Pxy simply cannot do that.

So I asked Comet a bigger question: Repeat the Author Distribution Analysis for the entire blog since the first post in 2015 until now. It did it, but wrong, finding no posts by Susan or PD. I posed multiple rounds of queries. Comet kept failing, so I refocused my queries to why it failed. It failed because my query passed Comet's data and bandwidth limits, e.g., "Comet does not “spider” every file on a site.– Each browse _web call is capped at ±30 seconds and ±300 kB of returned HTML."[1] 

This AAI business is kind of scary. But like it or not, it is now here. I'll need some time to figure out how to maximize the power of AI with agency. I presume that (1) Comet will make the same kind of mistakes that Pxy is prone to making and for the same reasons, and (2) the same error reduction instructions I feed to Pxy will work about the same with Comet. 

As far as Comet learning about me, I started to look for what and how much of me it will pick up and use, starting with this query: "Why do you use British spellings, e.g., favour and optimisation, instead of favor and optimization? It is annoying."

It responded: "You're absolutely right, and I apologize for the inconsistency. I should be using American spellings consistently, especially when discussing an American political blog and communicating with what appears to be an American audience. .... I'll make sure to stick to American spellings going forward in our conversation. Thanks for pointing this out - consistency in language conventions does matter for clear communication."

Time will tell how AAI plays out.


Footnote:
1. There is a learning curve here. This further describes Comet's limits:
    • A single search_web call can issue at most 3 keyword queries and returns up to 10 results per query.

    • The conversation as a whole is throttled to roughly 100 external requests. For large blogs (5 000+ posts) that is far short of an exhaustive crawl.

    • If the initial batches already hit the time/volume guardrails, the agent will normally stop rather than loop through every month of every year.

  1. Heuristics that favour frequent authors

    • Comet looks first for the author label that Blogger places under the title (“Posted by …”) on archive pages. If an author appears once, but only on the individual-post page (and that page was never opened), the name is missed.

    • When duplicate author strings are seen, the agent stops adding new pages once no new names appear—an optimisation that again hurts single-appearance writers.

  2. Practical constraints

    • Large HTML pages are clipped at 300 kB, so very long pages may be truncated before the “Posted by” line.

    • JavaScript-rendered content is not executed; if the author attribution is injected client-side it will be invisible to the scraper.

    • Rate-limit etiquette: the tool inserts a polite delay and will not open hundreds of pages from the same host in one burst, both to avoid being blocked and to stay within the 120-second per-turn budget.

How to catch the single-post author next time

  • Manually enumerate monthly archive URLs (/2019/08//2019/07/, …) and let the tool open each page.

  • Scrape the blog’s Atom/RSS feed – it lists every post in chronological order without pagination limits.

  • If the platform supports it, append ?max-results=5000 to the blog’s home URL; Blogger returns a full XML dump that can be searched offline.

  • Combine author-name queries with distinctive phrases from the suspected post (“Posted by Susan at 8:18 AM”).

There is no hard ceiling on “how many pages” Comet can read, but the mix of timeouts, per-call quotas and politeness rules means that, in practice, you must choose between broad coverage and deep coverage; you rarely get both in a single pass.


I don't understand a lot of that. Learning curve.

Saturday, July 26, 2025

Regarding the Epstein-Trump affair

The Epstein-Trump affair never seemed to be a significant threat to djt. He has shaken off major scandals in the past. He holds the rule of law and US Constitution in open contempt. His sexual predatory history is public but not important enough so far to cause his supporters to reject him. He controls and has subverted both the FBI and DoJ and cowed congress into submission, so chances of any federal action against him are extremely low. He can, and very likely will, pardon Ghislaine Maxwell in return for her protecting him. Finally, the USSC routinely protects him from criminal charges and federal court sanctions.

Given all of that, odds of him actually being found guilty of significant criminal guilt or civil liability is very low, maybe ~5% by January 2029. Odds of his base abandoning him also seems to be very low, maybe also ~5%. But those are just personal assessments.  

Two points of view are better than just one. Can we get another assessment? Sure, here's one.
Q1: Estimate the likelihood that (1) Trump will face any legal or civil sanctions for his activities related to Jeff Epstein, and (2) Trump will pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. Take into account Trump's track record of lawlessness, contempt for the rule of law, subversion and corruption of the DOJ and FBI, etc. Before finalizing your response: (1) Cross-check all statistics and numbers against multiple sources, (2) Verify all proper names, dates, and organizational details, (3) Confirm all study references and research citations, .... Base analysis on current legal proceedings and Trump's track record of lawlessness.

A1: 
1. Likelihood of Trump Facing Legal or Civil Sanctions for Epstein-Related Activities
Estimated Likelihood: Low to Medium (20-35%)

Factors Against Likelihood:
DOJ Policy Changes: The Trump administration has systematically dismantled anti-corruption enforcement mechanisms:

2. Likelihood of Trump Pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell
Estimated Likelihood: High (70-85%)

Trump's Public Statements: When asked about pardoning Maxwell, Trump stated "I'm allowed to do it, but it's something I have not thought about"—notably not ruling it out and emphasizing his authority to do so.

Pardon Pattern: Trump has demonstrated a clear pattern of using pardons to reward loyalty and protect allies: ....

Trump's Track Record of Lawlessness and Institutional Subversion
High Confidence Assessment

Multiple scholarly analyses confirm Trump's systematic approach to undermining democratic institutions: ....

Q2: When Trump said about pardoning Maxwell, "I'm allowed to do it, but it's something I have not thought about", how likely is it that he was lying? Take into account years of his public track record of chronic, constant lying and hostility to inconvenient truth. Give a probability estimate with specific percentage ranges.

A2: 
Analysis: Likelihood of Trump Lying About Not Having "Thought About" a Maxwell Pardon
Based on extensive research into Trump's documented lying patterns, psychological analysis, and the specific context of his Maxwell statement, here is my probability assessment:

Estimated Likelihood: 85-95%

Trump was almost certainly lying when he said he hadn't "thought about" pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell. This assessment is based on several converging lines of evidence: ....
So, by that second assessment, the odds of djt facing significant consequences for his pedo crimes is significantly higher, but still fairly low. 


Dictatorship update: Government censorship of the private sector

MAGA elites are well on their way to fully corrupting federal government messaging. But what about the private sector? 

A part of the capitulation of Paramount and CBS to djt in return for FCC (Federal Communications Commission) approval of Paramount's merger with Skydance includes government censorship. There will be a censor make sure that CBS stops criticizing Trump and MAGA generally. ars Technica reports that Skydance told the FCC that all of the new company’s programming will embody "a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum."** FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a radical MAGA authoritarian, claims that the requirements were necessary to restore Americans' trust in mainstream media. This is in accord with MAGA's authoritarian lies that media is biased against Trump. Skydance will appoint an "ombudsman" for two years to ensure that CBS's reporting "will be fair, unbiased, and fact-based." 

** The ideological spectrum that djt, Carr and MAGA elites demand get disseminated is acceptance by the American people of radical right dictatorship, deep corruption of government and belief in MAGA's endless lies, slanders, crackpot conspiracies and the like.  

The government imposing a censor to block political criticism is unprecedented. MAGA elites are now censoring news and entertainment outlets to quash media criticism of Trump's dictatorship and MAGA's kleptocratic authoritarianism. MAGA control of newsroom decisions and editorial judgment directly violates First Amendment press and free speech protections. In the 1940's FDR established the Office of Censorship after Pearl Harbor. It had broad authority to censor communications and media as needed for national security. Newspapers, radio, and film studios followed government-established guidelines to prevent publishing sensitive military information and other content deemed dangerous or damaging to the war effort. That censorship was for necessary national security. But this censorship is moral rot in the name of completely unjustifiable kleptocratic dictatorship.

The deal also censors any DEI presence after the merger. ars Technica writes:

[The sole Democratic commissioner Anna] Gomez further criticized the FCC for overstepping its authority in "intervening in employment matters reserved for other government entities with proper jurisdiction on these issues" by requiring Skydance commitments to not establish any DEI programs, which Carr derided as "invidious." But Gomez countered that "this agency is undermining legitimate efforts to combat discrimination and expand opportunity" by meddling in private companies' employment decisions.

In addition to gutting CBS's 60 Minutes program, which MAGA falsely claims to be based on bias and lies, Gizmodo reports

Carr went on to explain that CBS had committed to “ending invidious forms of DEI,” a pretext Trump has used to purge the federal government of anyone who isn’t white and male in leadership positions. 

“One of the things they’re going to have to do is put in an ombudsman in place for two years,” Carr said. “So basically a bias monitor that will report directly to the president. So that’s something that’s significant that we’re going to see happening as well.”


A censor who reports directly to djt. If Biden, Obama or any other Democratic president ever tried to do anything remotely close to this, MAGA would be screaming bloody murder about tyrannical socialist/communist violations of free speech and press freedom. But when MAGA violates the constitution as a means to its own ends, it's just fine.




This is another serious wound to democracy. MAGA authoritarians are now targeting neutering news and entertainment media. The obvious goal is to crush legitimate, fact- and reason-based political criticism and replace it with djt's and MAGA's authoritarian demagoguery, lies, slanders and crackpottery, and anti-inconvenient science and history messaging and tactics. 

We are in very, very serious trouble.

Friday, July 25, 2025

Dictatorship update: Punishing homelessness, gutting the constitution

A post here yesterday, The MAGA mindset: Dealing with empathy, discussed techniques MAGA propagandists use to make cruel laws and behaviors acceptable to the public. This is an example of MAGA cruelty in action that the public needs to be tricked into getting used to.

The cruelty and callousness and depth of contempt for the rule of law of djt and MAGA elites cannot easily be understated. We are no longer looking into the abyss of a kleptocratic dictatorship. We are in free fall into it.

Yesterday, djt signed an EO, ENDING CRIME AND DISORDER ON AMERICA’S STREETS. If that EO is really implemented as it says, it will have two major effects. One is shockingly cruel for homeless people. The other is constitutionally devastating for potentially everyone. We will be close to or in a police state.

By this EO, djt intends to put people who "cannot care for themselves" people into "civil commitment" (CC) facilities. The EO cynically claims** that CC is "long-term institutional settings for humane treatment." Before being placed in CC, existing federal law requires states accord homeless people due process in the form of (1) clear and convincing evidence of mental illness and dangerousness, (2) a right to counsel and a judicial hearing, (3) periodic judicial review, and (4) confinement to a facility that imposes the least restrictive treatment environment.

** Most existing CC facilities are centers for holding confined people. They provide little to no mental illness or drug addiction treatment in prison-like conditions. CC typically costs states ~$30,000/year. Most states do not have much money for that. The EO explicitly defunds "harm reduction" and "housing first" programs that have proven effective, but cost more. States will have to pay nearly all of the increased costs. Politically speaking that just won't happen, especially in red states. And, unlike jail terms for criminal convictions, confinement to a CC facility has no definite end. The state can keep people incarcerated in a jail called a "CC facility" as long as it wants and no court can intervene because due process is gone.

This EO blows due process to smithereens by a simple trick. Due process gets side-stepped by replacing the requirement for the state to show clear and convincing evidence of mental illness and dangerousness with a simple police assertion that the alleged homeless person cannot care for themselves. Is this illegal? Yes it unconstitutional. But will the USSC agree that it is unconstitutional? Probably not if the court's acquiescence to djt violating due process for allegedly illegal immigrants is solid evidence.

This does not apply to non-homeless people, right?: Maybe, maybe not. Since 2017 djt and MAGA elites have been consistent through their rhetoric, executive action, and policies. MAGA authoritarianism treats procedural safeguards such as due process as obstacles to themselves and their wealth and power goals. Before now, procedural safeguards acted as guardrails to protect citizens and their rights. That mindset is now gone. Evidence of this is criminal justice, immigration, civil service, and social-policy. Opposition to procedural safeguards is explicitly codified in Project 2025, which the current djt administration usually adheres to. 

From October 2017 until now the USSC decided dozens of cases that implicated djt's agenda or statutes/​policies of the MAGA movement. The court's merits opinions shows a heavy anti-due process tilt. The USSC deferred to executive or legislative actions that curtailed procedural safeguards. It only sporadically intervened to protect due‐process rights. The pattern is clearest in immigration and presidential-power disputes, but can also bee seen in civil-service, criminal, and protest-law cases.

Given the track record of authoritarianism in djt, MAGA elites and the MAGA USSC, one can see this as a major step toward completely eliminating due process for everyone in due course. If djt and the MAGA USSC can get rid of due process allegedly for "people who cannot take care of themselves", it isn't a big step to get rid of due process for "people who attack the US" by criticizing djt or MAGA elites. 

Getting rid of procedural safeguards for citizens is what just dictators like djt and their enablers do. 

Q: How big a leap is it from gutting due process (1) for alleged illegal immigrants to (2) people who allegedly cannot take care of themselves, to (3) people who criticize djt or MAGA, allegedly because they are enemies of the state?


-- End of blog post

-- The following is optional, being in the land of TL/DR
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________

Q3: How big a legal leap [is it] for MAGA legal scholars who believe in the unitary executive to go from (a) Trump's EO on ending crime and disorder, which undermines due process for homeless people, i.e., "people who cannot take care of themselves", to (b) getting rid of due process for "people who attack the US" by criticizing djt or MAGA elites? Can erosion of procedural safeguards for allegedly illegal immigrants, and then for people who cannot take care of themselves lead to loss of due process for anyone who criticizes Trump or MAGA because they threaten the state and need to be silenced? Does the progressive loss of due process and other procedural safeguards for targeted groups so far amount to significant evidence that procedural safeguards can eventually be lost for everyone? In view of all relevant evidence so far, does reasoning that we will lose our procedural safeguards under a Trump-MAGA dictatorship amount to irrationality, e.g., unreasonable alarmism or crackpot conspiracy theory? Focus mostly on analysis of existing evidence that this progression is already underway. Consider Trump's vindictiveness and lawsuits against critics.

A3: .... commentary ....

The progression from denying due process to homeless individuals deemed "unable to care for themselves" to targeting political critics who "attack the US" represents not a legal leap but a documented pattern of authoritarian consolidation already underway. For unitary executive theorists aligned with MAGA ideology, this expansion follows a predictable trajectory that scholars studying democratic erosion have identified as a warning sign of broader systemic collapse. 

.... long analysis .... 

Scholars studying authoritarian transitions identify clear patterns in how democratic institutions are dismantled. Research on "autocratic consolidation" shows that regimes typically follow similar strategies:

1. Target vulnerable populations first to establish precedents
2. Expand emergency powers using national security justifications
3. Weaponize legal systems against political opponents
4. Undermine judicial independence through direct defiance
5. Normalize exceptional measures until they become routine

Multiple scholars note that the U.S. is following this exact trajectory.

Conclusion: Not Alarmism, But Pattern Recognition
The progression from denying due process to homeless individuals to targeting political critics represents neither a legal leap nor irrational alarmism. It follows a documented pattern of authoritarian consolidation that scholars have identified across multiple democratic breakdowns. The evidence shows this progression is already underway:

1. Due process protections are being systematically eliminated for vulnerable populations
2. Military force is being used against political protesters
3. Court orders are being routinely violated
4. Civil litigation is being weaponized against media critics
5. Federal agencies are being directed to investigate political opponents

For unitary executive theorists who believe the president possesses unlimited control over executive power, the expansion from homeless populations to political critics requires no legal innovation—only the continued application of existing theories to new targets.

The question is not whether this progression will occur, but whether democratic institutions and civil society can organize effective resistance before the erosion becomes irreversible. 

Thursday, July 24, 2025

The MAGA mindset: Dealing with empathy

In the last several weeks several items, e.g., this, discussing or criticizing empathy have popped up. That was unusual. It raised the issue of MAGA's political policies and cognitive dissonance from the pain and suffering some policies cause. Being extremely sophisticated, elite authoritarian MAGA demagogues and propagandists know that massive cuts to services and protections for consumers and workers were going to hurt a lot of people, and kill some. That makes the issue of how to dull feelings of empathy and sympathy in society of high importance.

Being expert at manipulating minds and emotions, MAGA demagogues need to understand empathy and sympathy, and how to manipulate them. To try to avoid TL/DR, this post focuses on empathy.




There are two kinds of empathy. One is primal emotional empathy, a powerful unconscious feeling. The other is conscious cognitive empathy.




MAGA communication has shifted from justifying harsh authoritarian policies to insisting that feeling empathy for others is itself a weakness, sin, or naive. In religious sermons, books, social-media slogans, and merchandise, MAGA demagogues cast empathy as an obstacle to “owning the libs.” Researchers had found that reduced empathy correlates modestly with conservatism generally. MAGA messaging ridicules or pathologizes empathic feeling to dull feelings of empathy.

Some examples include MAGA ridicule and shaming of feelings in the form of “F*** Your Feelings” T shirts. That messaging framed emotion itself as a liability. The catch phrase "Facts don't care about your feelings cast emotional reasoning as childish. That put cold cognition above compassionate judgment. Elon Musk has argued that "the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy."

On the religious front, pastor-academic Joe Rigney's 2019 essay series "The Sin of Empathy" argued that "suffering in" another's pain leads believers away from truth and toward satanic manipulation. The implication being that liberals are Satan's minions. A 2024 bestseller  by Allie Beth Stuckey, Toxic Empathy, warned Christians that progressives "weaponize compassion" on issues like abortion, food stamp cuts and immigration. One recent article comments that Christian nationalists decided empathy is a sin, despite what the Bible says about the virtues of empathy. Now the concept is mainstream. The argument is that genuine love requires resisting empathy. That has generally made empathy a bad word in most evangelical groups.

MAGA demagogues' claim that appeals to sympathy are emotional blackmail. They argue that border enforcement, budget cuts, anti-abortion laws or anti-trans laws only look cruel because liberals exploit empathy. This messaging equates cognitive empathy with gullibility. The implicit argument is that understanding an opponent’s viewpoint is a moral mistake. It's gullibility to be empathetic, so don't be empathetic! 

Apparently, they reject the possibility that cruel laws look cruel because they are cruel. Clever messaging.

Cognitive dissonance management is needed when MAGA policies cause obvious harm, e.g., kicking people off Medicaid or food stamps. Vilifying empathy allows supporters an easy way to preserve their righteous self-image while feeling little to no cognitive dissonance. Some research indicates that pleasure at out-group pain spikes when leaders signal empathy's irrelevance. Yeah, some people are getting crueler. They just have been tricked by MAGA demagoguery into not knowing it.

Dictatorship update: Federal agency collapse

Federal agencies are in full blown collapse. Yesterday, the USSC issued another shadow docket ruling that allows djt to illegally fire the three Democratic commissioners on the Consumer Products Safety Commission. Current law requires the president to show cause for firing, e.g., fraud or professional negligence. That agency is now completely powerless to do anything about unsafe consumer products, new or old. Other recent USSC shadow docket rulings that allow djt to illegally fire independent agency employees have stripped away protections from workers (National Labor Relations Board gutted), consumers (Consumer Finance Protection bureau gutted) and federal elections (Federal elections Commission gutted). Gutting of the FEC leaves federal election laws no longer enforceable. 

In a different line of attack on federal agencies, djt's pro-pollution MAGA elites will gut the Environmental Protection Agency by getting rid of its power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The MAGA plan is simple. The EPA will rescind a 2009 declaration known as the “endangerment finding,” which scientifically established that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane endanger human lives. Rejecting that science leaves the EPA powerless to deal with global warming. Some of fallout will affect auto and power plant emissions. For autos, the MAGA thugs behind this kleptocratic move argue that that imposing climate regulations on automakers poses the real harm to human health because it would lead to higher prices and reduced consumer choice. 

In addition to gutting EPA power to regulate, the MAGA thugs running the EPA plan to completely stop its climate science research and climate protection efforts. The agency is now charged with fostering carbon polluting activities and blocking green energy efforts, e.g., MAGA elites have blocked $20 billion in green energy spending. For the environment, MAGA’s overall strategy, which was laid out in Project 2025, is to (i) promote the use of fossil fuels, (ii) reduce or eliminate environmental regulations and green energy development, and (iii) stop federal climate research. MAGA will also eliminate air quality monitoring, particularly near industrial sites where it is most needed.

One can clearly see the authoritarian and kleptocratic goals of djt and his MAGA wealth and power political movement. Essentially all MAGA efforts are aimed at (1) deprotecting and disempowering major aspects of the public interest such as consumers, workers, the environment and government functions that protect all of that, and (2) transferring wealth and power from the public interest to wealthy and/or powerful individuals, groups or special interests that cooperate with elite MAGA players. We have a very corrupt pay-to-play system where cooperative special interests pay authoritarian MAGA elites, especially djt, for our wealth and power. 

In essence, djt and MAGA elites are selling us out piece by piece to the highest special interest bidders.


Qs: Is it reasonable to claim that what is happening mostly boils down to democracy and the public interest vs. kleptocracy and authoritarianism (a djt dictatorship with some oligarchy and Christian nationalist theocracy)? Or, do we need to see more evidence that djt and MAGA are authoritarian kleptocrats seeking power and wealth by generally opposing and taking power and wealth from the public interest and its federal protections? 

The US Population is Aging

 And what that will mean for the future generation who will have to find ways to support an aging population...........

The number of Americans ages 65 and older will more than double over the next 40 years, reaching 80 million in 2040. The number of adults ages 85 and older, the group most often needing help with basic personal care, will nearly quadruple between 2000 and 2040.

The nation is aging. By 2040, about one in five Americans will be age 65 or older, up from about one in eight in 2000. Because younger people are much more likely than older people to work and pay taxes that finance Social Security, Medicare, and all other public-sector activities, population aging could strain government budgets.

The number of workers sharing the cost of supporting Social Security beneficiaries will soon plummet unless future employment patterns change dramatically. The latest Social Security Administration projections indicate that there will be 2.1 workers per Social Security beneficiary in 2040, down from 3.7 in 1970.

Improvements in life expectancy have also propelled the increase in the older population. Between 1900 and 1960, life expectancy at birth increased from 51 years to 74 years for men and from 58 years to 80 years for women, primarily through reductions in infant, childhood, and early adult mortality. Longevity gains since 1960, fueled by declining death rates at older ages, have been slower, especially for women. Life expectancy's future course is uncertain but could grow dramatically. Some experts claim that half of girls born today will live until age 100 (Vaupel 2000).

https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/program-retirement-policy/projects/data-warehouse/what-future-holds/us-population-aging


This phenomenon is NOT unique to the US and what is missing in the above analysis is suggestions on how an aging population and longer life spans can be dealt with. Especially in an era where immigration is being discouraged and birth rates among WHITE populations is sharply declining. 

I would imagine ANY suggestion on how to tackle this future nightmare will be met with resistance. Raise taxes? Not on my dime will be the response. Raise the retirement age? Any political party in any country suggesting this will be in for a nightmare. And quirky ideas like Trump offering kids $1000 in an account for the future  will not work, as it doesn't help struggling families in the here and now. 

A sharp increase in immigration from overpopulated countries would be another suggestion, but the US and other Western nations are actually now going the other way and restricting who can enter their countries and by what numbers. 

So, what we are left with is a growing problem with no workable solutions that will fly with the general populace. THERE IS THE RUB - any solution for tackling this problem would require a massive change in taxation and having seniors work longer and/or a sharp increase in immigrant populations. 

Unless anyone else has any suggestions? 


Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Genocide and journalistic ethics, or lack thereof

A NYT opinion (not paywalled) by Bret Stephens, No, Israel Is Not Committing Genocide in Gaza, was recently published. The title, along with the author, instantly felt very much like pro-Israel propaganda. But was that instantaneous emotional response reasonable? Yes, it was reasonable.

Stephens' opinion is flawed and/or wrong in facts, and logic or reasoning, which undermine and/or contradict the conclusion that Israel isn't committing genocide. 

Stephens falsely implies that the UN Genocide Convention requires explicit written documentation of an "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such." He also blithely downplays the death count, currently about 60,000 Palestinian civilian and military deaths according to the source he cites. 

In short, the first question the anti-Israel genocide chorus needs to answer is: Why isn’t the death count higher? .... But furious comments in the wake of Hamas's Oct. 7 atrocities hardly amount to a Wannsee conference, and I am aware of no evidence of an Israeli plan to deliberately target and kill Gazan civilians.

The legal threshold for establishing genocidal intent can be inferred from circumstantial evidence, not just explicit written documentation. Right there, Stephens knowingly tries to deceive us twice. Once about the death count not being high enough. And again about the evidence. That is propaganda, not honest journalism.

Why knowing? Because he presumably isn't stupid or ignorant. He must know (1) there are two ways to prove genocidal intent under international law, and (2) the body count is not specified and already is sufficient to find genocide. But if he is ignorant of these things, highly unlikely, then he is incompetent.

Stephens also asserts this:

First, while some pundits and scholars may sincerely believe the genocide charge, it is also used by anti-Zionists and antisemites to equate modern Israel with Nazi Germany. The effect is to license a new wave of Jew hatred, stirring enmity not only for the Israeli government but also for any Jew who supports Israel as a genocide supporter.

That amounts to three logic fallacies bundled together. It packages the guilt by association fallacy[1], the poisoning the well fallacy, a subtype of an ad hominem attack, and the appeal to consequences fallacy. Here, Stephens intentionally conflates legitimate academic, legal, and moral debate over whether a specific situation constitutes genocide. He maliciously misuses the charge by anti-Zionists and antisemitic propagandists to unjustly equate Israel with Nazi Germany. He falsely implies that all such accusations are inherently illegitimate or propagandistic. That is not just is a flawed comparison that ignores the distinction between genuine legal or scholarly analysis and tendentious, prejudiced rhetoric. It is deeply insulting to people who sincerely believe that Israel has crossed the line.

What about journalistic ethics? Analyzing the opinion piece for adherence to journalistic ethics indicates this one is full of problems when evaluated against established journalistic standards and ethics. The Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics establishes four fundamental principles that serve as the foundation for ethical journalism: (1) Seek truth and report it, (2) minimize harm, (3) act independently, and (4) be accountable. The opinion piece violates these standards multiple ways.

Media ethics researchers identify "bias by omission" as "leaving one side out of an article, or a series of articles over a period of time; ignoring facts that tend to disprove liberal or conservative claims". The opinion piece demonstrates systematic omission across several categories:

Source Attribution Failures: Journalist ethics requires identifying sources when feasible along with information about sources' reliability. Stephens dismisses extensive documentation by organizations like Law for Palestine without engaging with their methodology or findings. That violates the fair source evaluation ethic.

Expert Opinion Exclusion: Professional journalism standards require presenting diverse expert perspectives. Stephens systematically excludes the large body of genocide scholarship, including analyses by Holocaust historians and UN Special Rapporteurs, that reaches contrary conclusions. This ethics breach is called "bias by selection of sources"

But Stephens has more ethics problems that just that. He asserts a false equivalency argument by drawing inappropriate analogies (WWII, Mosul) without accounting for major context differences. He downplays important relevant evidence. He dismisses documentation of official statements of genocide as merely "vengeful sound bites" with insufficient supporting evidence to validate his claim.

He also underestimates the total death count using a 60,000 deaths based on an earlier Palestinian Ministry of Health estimate that has been contradicted by later estimates. This survey and this survey put the body count at a minimum of ~75,000-80,000. The count is necessarily higher because they only count violent trauma deaths, and therefore the true total including indirect causes is necessarily higher. Other estimates are in or above the higher range, e.g., this survey and this survey.

Journalistic ethics requires accountability. I'll write to Stephens and the editors of the NYT to see what response or rebuttal, if any, they have to these criticisms. In my opinion, Stephens and the NYT should retract this opinion and apologize to the public and the Palestinian people for propagating pro-Israel propaganda and falsehoods.


Q: What is the likelihood that Stephens or the NYT editors will be accountable about this in some demonstrable way, e.g., printing a retraction, rebutting these criticisms somehow, etc., low ~1-35%, medium ~36-66%, or high ~67-99%?



Footnote:
1. Stephens' guilt by association flaw works like this:
Premise 1: “Anti-Zionists and antisemites” equate Israel with Nazi Germany when they invoke genocide.
Premise 2: Antisemites are morally disreputable.
Conclusion: Therefore, anyone using the genocide label, or the label itself, is suspect.

The logical error presumes that because some disreputable groups deploy the term, the term itself, or other people’s use of it, must be discredited. This conflates the character of certain speakers with the truth-value of the claim. That is the textbook definition of an association fallacy. Thus, by equating the genocide allegation with antisemitism, Stephens sidesteps substantive legal and factual analysis. That deflection blocks honest engagement with evidence, also a hallmark of guilt-by-association reasoning.

Poisoning the well: Stephens poisons readers by saying that any advocate of the genocide claim is tacitly aligned with antisemites, so their evidence should be pre-emptively distrusted. The poisoning the well tactic simply starts with negative information about potential opponents before their arguments are heard. That poisons or primes the audience's reception. It is a deceptive persuasion tactic.

The appeal to consequences fallacy: 
Premise: If the genocide claim spreads, it could “license a new wave of Jew hatred.”
Implicit Conclusion: Therefore, the claim should be rejected or regarded with great suspicion.

This is fallacious because the desirability or undesirability of potential consequences does not determine factual truth of the genocide claim. Predicting social harm if a claim is believed does not demonstrate that the claim itself is false. This propaganda technique uses emotional leverage, fear of antisemitism in this case, to evaluate factual truth. That violates the principle that truth claims stand or fall on evidence, not on anticipated reactions

Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Dictatorship updates 3: Attacking the GAO; Regarding Russell Vought; CN's bigotry

The NYT reports (not paywalled) about Trump attacking the GAO (Government Accounting Office), the last or one of the last standing major defenses of democracy in the federal government. The GAO has opened dozens of investigations to determine if djt and his MAGA elites have illegally withheld billions of dollars in congressionally approved funds. Frighteningly, Republican lawmakers are now working with the White House to block those inquiries. If the GOP successfully guts or neuters the GAO that would give the MAGA dictator a lot more control over the nation’s budget than current law allows.

The GAO is about a century-old. It was formed to help Congress keep track of federal spending. The legislative office primarily produces detailed reports on ways that Washington can save money. That sometimes angers administrations that hate to see allegations of waste.

The main source of GAO power is a 1970s law that explicitly prohibits the president from defying congressional instructions on spending. That is the power of the purse. Trump wants that power for himself. Since taking office, djt and MAGA elites been testing the law by illegally disbanding entire agencies and programs without lawmakers’ approval. Now, with the federal courts mostly neutered, with the USSC openly supportive of dictatorship, there is little to nothing that can protect the GAO and its independence.

The NYT writes:

The G.A.O. has twice determined in recent months that Mr. Trump’s actions violated rules that prohibit him from unilaterally canceling funding, a move known as impoundment. The office has 46 open investigations into other allegations that Mr. Trump illegally withheld funds, the agency confirmed this week.

Russell T. Vought, the White House budget director, has strenuously denied any wrongdoing, arguing that the administration seeks to manage taxpayer dollars more effectively. He and his deputies have also initiated a series of attacks on the G.A.O., deriding it as partisan and publicly refusing to comply with some of its investigations.

Vought is a person with enormous power to corrupt, neuter and/or completely destroy federal agencies and spending programs. He is a major author of Project 2025. He is a staunch Christian nationalist theocrat, and a practiced demagogue and liar. He is working furiously to build a federal infrastructure that will convert American government from being secular to a bigoted, fundamentalist Christian theocratic monster.
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Q2: How important is Russ Vought in the advancement of Christian nationalist theocracy in the federal government?

A2: Russ Vought’s Central Role in Federal Christian Nationalist Theocracy

Over the past eight years, no figure has done more than Russell T. Vought to translate Christian nationalist ideology into the day-to-day machinery of the United States federal government.

.... long analysis ....

Conclusion: An Indispensable Architect
Russ Vought is not merely one strategist among many; he is the central node through which Christian nationalist ideas are converted into executable federal policy. His dual command of (a) the budgetary “chokepoints” that keep agencies alive and (b) the personnel system that decides who interprets the law gives him outsized leverage over the trajectory of American governance. While other figures—Flynn for grassroots zeal, Leo for the judiciary—remain powerful, none combine statutory authority, ideological commitment, and presidential proximity as comprehensively as Vought. Should the Christian nationalist project achieve lasting institutional victories, historians are likely to identify Vought as its chief engineer.

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For context about Christian nationalist bigotry and racism, Pxy:
Q1: Analyze and comment on the role and influence of bigotry and racism in (1) Christian nationalism, (2) the broader MAGA wealth and power movement, and (3) who those two interact or synergize. Focus on events since 2017, once Trump was in power.

A1: Conclusion
The intersection of bigotry, racism, Christian nationalism, and the MAGA movement represents a systematic challenge to American pluralistic democracy. Since 2017, these ideologies have moved from the political margins to positions of significant institutional power, influencing policy, electoral politics, and social norms.

The evidence demonstrates that racial animus is not incidental to these movements but central to their appeal and organizational structure. Christian nationalism provides religious legitimation for racial exclusion, while MAGA provides political power and institutional access. Their synthesis creates what researchers identify as a "permission structure" for political violence and democratic norm violation.

.... from the analysis ....

Christian nationalism, as measured by extensive public opinion research, represents far more than traditional religious conservatism. According to the Public Religion Research Institute's (PRRI) comprehensive surveys spanning 2022-2025, Christian nationalism is "a political ideology and cultural framework that seeks to merge American and Christian identities, distorting both the Christian faith and America's constitutional democracy". The PRRI studies, involving over 22,000 adults annually, reveal that approximately 30% of Americans qualify as Christian nationalism adherents (10%) or sympathizers (20%).