Book Review: Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop

Hi Germaine, I've not been around for awhile, but I stumbled on a book review, and interview with the author, which the regulars on this site might find of interest.  I've put it up on another discussion thread as well, that being the News View group, and you may just want to, if you choose to put this up, refer them to that link (https://newsviews.online/2020/03/07/book-review-breaking-the-two-party-doom-loop/), or publish on this blog the following submission:

Can America Break Free from the Two-Party Doom Loop?

There is a growing consensus that the American political system is no longer the gold standard it once was. The United States ranks outside the top 20 countries in the Corruption Perception Index. U.S. voter turnout trails most other developed countries. Congressional approval ratings hover around 20 percent, and polling shows that partisan animosity is at an all-time high. It doesn’t take a social scientist to see that our legislatures are increasingly defined by gridlock and gamesmanship.

It’s always tempting to think that the next election will turn things around, and for both Republicans and Democrats to believe that our country would course-correct if only they could elect more of their own. But what if the problem isn’t the people on the other side of the aisle? What if the two-party system itself is creating a vicious cycle, making government less effective and driving us apart?

That’s what Lee Drutman argues in Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop. Drutman, a political scientist and senior fellow at New America, writes that moving to a multiparty democracy can create fair representation, reduce partisan gridlock, lead to more positive incremental change, and increase both voter turnout and voter satisfaction. And through concrete reforms, like implementing ranked-choice voting and expanding the size of the House of Representatives, Drutman lays out the path forward. 

Go to link for the full review:

https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/january-february-march-2020/can-america-break-free-from-the-two-party-doom-loop/

If you're intrigued by the review, here's an interview with the author:

https://www.salon.com/2020/03/07/can-multi-party-democracy-break-us-out-of-the-doom-loop-of-american-politics/

Finally, here's a recent Youtube video of a Drutman giving a talk on the book's argument:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xVSnScjBCU

Trump's Re-election Strategy: Investigate and Smear Joe Biden

Part of the president's re-election strategy has become clear. The Washington Post writes: “A day after threatening to withhold his vote, Sen. Mitt Romney signaled Friday that he will support a Republican effort to obtain documents and testimony relating to work done in Ukraine by the son of former vice president Joe Biden.

Romney (R-Utah) will vote for issuing a subpoena in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee next week after receiving assurances from the panel’s chairman, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), ‘that any interview of the witness would occur in a closed setting without a hearing or public spectacle,’ Romney spokeswoman Liz Johnson said in a statement.

Romney joined Democrats last month in voting to convict President Trump of abuse of power based on his dealings with Ukraine; the president was acquitted on the impeachment counts. On Thursday, Romney said Sen. Johnson’s probe had the appearance of being politically motivated to target Trump’s potential general-election rival. ‘I would prefer that investigations are done by an independent, nonpolitical body,’ he said.

The subpoena vote, set for Wednesday, comes as Trump and his Republican allies refocus their attention[1] on Biden’s connections to Ukraine after his sudden surge in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Trump said in a Fox News Channel interview Wednesday that he planned to make those connections a “major issue” in the presidential race should Biden win the nomination. ‘I will bring that up all the time,” he told host Sean Hannity.’”

So, the key points here are, (1) the president is going to make this into a major campaign issue, and (2) this effort is politically motivated by the rise of Biden’s wins in democratic primaries. Romney was right to say that the Trump Party had the appearance of being politically motivated. It definitely is politically motivated. Corruption isn’t the Trump Party’s concern. Winning the 2020 election is.

If Biden fumbles this issue, and he very well might, it will be all his fault. He has been fully warned well in advance. Since he chose to run for office, he is deeply morally obligated to not screw this up.

Fabricated evidence

In view of the obvious partisan basis for the investigation, the biggest concern is that the Trump Party or the Department of Justice will fabricate evidence to smear Biden with and take whatever political fallout that illegality might engender. One thing that is clear, as long as William Barr is Attorney General, any illegalities by the Trump Party in connection with supporting the president will not be investigated. There is no chance whatever of that happening. In that regard, the president will protect whatever sleaze Trump Party senators choose to engage in.


Footnote:
1. In another recent WaPo article, the president's intent to attack Biden as a corrupt politician was made clear: “President Trump and his Republican allies are rapidly shifting their focus to former vice president Joe Biden’s son Hunter, reviving attacks that led to Trump’s impeachment, in an effort to broadly define as corrupt the potential Democratic presidential nominee.

As Biden surged this week in the Democratic nominating contest — and with exit polls from Super Tuesday’s primaries showing he has captured at least some of the white working-class voters that propelled Trump’s 2016 victory — the president vowed to make Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine a “major issue” in the general election, should Joe Biden win the nomination.”

Federal Judge Says AG William Barr Lacked Candor

"I don't want to get into loyalty, but I will tell you that, I will say this: Holder protected President Obama. Totally protected him. When you look at the things that they did, and Holder protected the president. And I have great respect for that, I'll be honest." - Donald Trump, December 2017


A lawsuit to try to pry the entire Mueller report from Attorney General William Barr has led the judge on the case to criticize Barr. The New York Times writes:

"WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Thursday sharply criticized Attorney General William P. Barr’s handling of the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, saying that Mr. Barr put forward a “distorted” and “misleading” account of its findings and lacked credibility on the topic.

Mr. Barr could not be trusted, Judge Reggie B. Walton said, citing “inconsistencies” between the attorney general’s statements about the report when it was secret and its actual contents that turned out to be more damaging to President Trump. Mr. Barr’s “lack of candor” called into question his “credibility and, in turn, the department’s” assurances to the court, Judge Walton said.

The judge ordered the Justice Department to privately show him the portions of the report that were censored in the publicly released version so he could independently verify the justifications for those redactions. The ruling came in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking a full-text version of the report.

The differences between the report and Mr. Barr’s description of it “cause the court to seriously question whether Attorney General Barr made a calculated attempt to influence public discourse about the Mueller report in favor of President Trump despite certain findings in the redacted version of the Mueller report to the contrary,” wrote Judge Walton, an appointee of President George W. Bush.

The attorney general issued an initial four-page letter in March 2019 — two days after receiving the 381-page Mueller report — that purported to summarize its principal conclusions. But within days, Mr. Mueller sent letters to Mr. Barr protesting that he had distorted its findings and asking him to swiftly release the report’s own summaries. Instead, Mr. Barr made the report public only weeks later, after a fuller review to black out sensitive material." (emphasis added)

How about that. The court 'seriously questions' Barr's motives. Duh. We all knew that the day that Mueller complained that Barr misrepresented the report and kept the nasty bits secret to protect the president. For crying out loud, the president appointed Barr specifically to do things like that.

Those federal courts. You just can't fool 'em. Sharp as a tack, they be.

Neuron to Artificial Neuron Communication Over the Internet

A research topic of personal interest is communication and knowledge that is mediated by or contained in electrical impulses, magnetic pulses, pizeoelectric phase transitions in axons of neurons and chemicals (RNA). Researchers have been able to establish communication between human minds and the minds of animals and machines and between animals. A discussion on some of this is here.

Scientists are now reporting that they are able to establish communication over the internet between neurons grown in the lab and connected to each other by synapses and synthetic neurons on silicone microchips that include newly designed artificial synapses. Science Daily writes: "the scientists created a hybrid neural network where biological and artificial neurons in different parts of the world were able to communicate with each other over the internet through a hub of artificial synapses made using cutting-edge nanotechnology. This is the first time the three components [neurons, artificial neurons and artificial synapses] have come together in a unified network."

Prior research has shown that a human brian with embedded electrodes can communicate with machines, e.g, allowing a completely paralyzed person to fly a modern fighter jet on a simulator. Mouse to mouse communication where one mouse teaches another over the internet how to find food also relied on electrode implants in the brain. Human minds have been able to transmit commands to rat minds via the internet, a project the US military has been working on. One key to various mind-to-mind communications is based on brain-electrode technology, a now rapidly advancing area of research.

This research extends what is now possible to do. Now, artificial and biological neurons are able to communicate bidirectionally in real time. This is a new avenue for neural interfaces research. One of the researchers commented: "On one side it sets the basis for a novel scenario that was never encountered during natural evolution, where biological and artificial neurons are linked together and communicate across global networks; laying the foundations for the Internet of Neuro-electronics. On the other hand, it brings new prospects to neuroprosthetic technologies, paving the way towards research into replacing dysfunctional parts of the brain with AI chips."

The peer-reviewed paper is entitled, Memristive synapses connect brain and silicon spiking neurons, which was published February 25, 2020. Chatter between the real and artificial neurons occurred between labs in Italy (real neurons), Switzerland (artificial neurons) and England (artificial synapses called memristors).