News bits: Climate change update; Israel's toxic version of America's toxic Federalist Society

The WaPo reports on another update from climate experts:

Human activities have transformed the planet at a pace and scale unmatched in recorded history, causing irreversible damage to communities and ecosystems, according to one of the most definitive reports ever published about climate change. Leading scientists warned that the world’s plans to combat these changes are inadequate and that more aggressive actions must be taken to avert catastrophic warming.

The report released Monday from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found the world is likely to miss its most ambitious climate target — limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial temperatures — within a decade. Beyond that threshold, scientists have found, climate disasters will become so extreme people cannot adapt. Basic components of the Earth system will be fundamentally, irrevocably altered. Heat waves, famines and infectious diseases could claim millions of additional lives by century’s end.  

Decades of delay have denied the world any hope of an easy and gradual transition to a more sustainable economy, the panel says. Now, only “deep, rapid and … immediate” efforts across all aspects of society — combined with still-unproven technologies to pull carbon from the atmosphere — will be able to stave off catastrophe.

At this point, it's reasonable to think that the human species probably cannot proact effectively. In the US, the radical right Republican Party remains firmly opposed to doing anything and firmly committed to fighting coordinated federal and commercial efforts to even try. In that case, we will react only after disasters hit, or we won't react much and just let species go extinct and people die or live disrupted lives.

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Israel's democracy is on the verge of falling to some form of a a corrupt authoritarian theocratic fascism. Democracy there could fall within months. The NYT writes about Kohelet, a powerful secretive society that, like America's Federalist Society, quietly operates to replace democracy with corrupt, bigoted, racist fascist theocracy/autocracy/plutocracy:

Who’s Behind the Judicial Overhaul Now Dividing Israel? Two New Yorkers

Kohelet, the once-obscure think tank that conceived and now champions a revamped court system, is an American import

As part of a recent “national day of resistance,” a group of army reservists wearing masks converged at the Jerusalem office of a think tank and blocked its front door with sandbags and coils of barbed wire. Outside, protesters led a noisy rally on the street, waving dozens of placards and sharing a microphone for a series of furious speeches.

“The Kohelet Policy Forum has been hiding in the shadows,” shouted one speaker, standing atop a car. “But we are onto them and we will not let them win!”

For years, Kohelet quietly churned out position papers, trying to nudge government policy in a more libertarian direction. Then, starting in January, it became more widely known as one of the principal architects of the judicial overhaul proposal that has plunged Israel into a crisis over the future of its democracy. 

If the plan succeeds, it would be a stunning victory not only for the think tank, but also for the people behind it: two guys from Queens.

Like America's radical anti-democracy, authoritarian Federalist Society, Kohelet works to hide as much about itself as possible, at least regarding money. The NYT points out that Kohelet is not required to disclose the names of individual donors. For years the group "has artfully deflected questions about funding." One source of money is New Yorker Arthur Dantchik, a 65-year-old multibillionaire. 

Not surprisingly, Dantchik refused to comment for the NYT article. All modern authoritarians working to overthrow democracy and install dictatorship and/or radical authoritarian theocracy, like the Federalist Society and Kohelet are expert at the KYMS tactic in the face of inconvenient questions. The anti-democracy forces of the world are watching each other. Under the right circumstances, they adopt tactics that might work to overcome local pro-democracy, pro-secular and anti-bigotry/racist opposition, while avoiding the ones that probably would not work under local circumstances.

KYMS = keep your mouth shut

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Lunacy on cable TV: Yesterday on her weekly MSNBC program, Rachael Maddow discussed the impending Georgia law that gives power to state legislators to simply remove prosecutors from investigations that they don't like. Short of establishing a full-blown American dictatorship-theocracy, that is about as anti-democracy and anti-rule of law as the political situation in America can get.

The Georgia law has passed the legislature and the governor has said he supports it. So, this authoritarian (fascist IMO) law will be in effect soon. The point of radical right Republicans in passing this law is to protect Trump from prosecution for his illegal attempts to commit mass election fraud in Georgia after the 2020 election. The lead prosecutor there is Fulton County district attorney Fanni Willis, a black woman.

Oddly and inexplicably, one of Maddow's guest commentators, a Georgia prosecutor characterized the pending law not as authoritarian or fascist, but as racist because Willis is a black woman. Maybe I'm way off base here, but that allegation of racism instead of fascism struck me as shockingly stupid and about as counterproductive as possible. I understand that racism very likely is involved in what the radical right in Georgia is trying to do to the rule of law in Georgia. But by citing racism as his basis for opposing the law, Rachael's idiot guest hands the radical right an excuse to accuse him of racism. That fool gave the radical right a perfect foil to deflect from the fact that the fascist Republican Party in Georgia is going to gut the rule of law in that state.  

Given how idiotic and damaging the guest's racism comments were, is reasonable to believe that Maddow's guest intended to sabotage the story while appearing to be on the side of democracy.

Raw Story commented on the Maddow broadcast:

Currently, Georgia lawmakers are working to fast-track legislation that would remove any prosecutors that they don't like. It's a target on Fulton County Fani Willis, who is close to indicting Donald Trump for his attempt to overthrow the Georgia election. Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) has pledged to sign it. At the same time that Trump is facing charges, the Georgia lieutenant governor is facing potential charges in the same investigation, Maddow said.

"So Republicans will have the power to remove prosecutors in the middle of their investigations and in the middle of prosecuting any particular case Republicans might not like for any reason," explained Maddow. "And to be clear, this has now passed the Georgia legislature as of tonight. A version of the bill passed the state Senate, and the House just passed it tonight. And the Republican governor there says he will sign it. He's a strong supporter of this. So, they're doing it. ...."

Maddow said about Trump being indicted or withdrawing, "Maybe he will, maybe he won't. None of us know. But in the one place where he is under criminal investigation, and his party is in full control of the state government, they've just decided for the first time in the state's history, that it is within their own power to remove prosecutors in the middle of their duties on their own say so. And, yes, this is a story about Georgia, and yes, this is a story about Trump and the potential charges he's facing. But this is a whole new step for us as a country."

If that isn't some form of fascism,** maybe neo-fascism or maybe American fascism or Christofascism, what is it? Girl Scouts singing kumbaya around the camp fire?

** For several months, I've refrained from calling what the radical right is doing fascism because it is soooo naughty and pejorative that the label is counterproductive. Maybe so, but what the dictator-plutocrat-Christian theocrat radical right is doing in Georgia is clearly some form of fascism. In my firm opinion, democracy has fallen in Georgia. It is now a single party state ruled by radical elites, not the rule of law. I am just calling what is obviously and undeniably a spade, a spade.

Dirty tricks & lies: What is the scope of presidential legitimacy?

The NYT reports on a cute little trick that Republican Texas governor John Connally played on Jimmy Carter to sabotage Carter's re-election campaign against Reagan. Connally was hoping to sabotage Carter to gain a prominent spot in the Reagan administration: 

It was 1980 and Jimmy Carter was in the White House, bedeviled by a hostage crisis in Iran that had paralyzed his presidency and hampered his effort to win a second term. Mr. Carter’s best chance for victory was to free the 52 Americans held captive before Election Day. That was something that Mr. Barnes said his mentor was determined to prevent.

His mentor was John B. Connally Jr., a titan of American politics and former Texas governor who had served three presidents and just lost his own bid for the White House. A former Democrat, Mr. Connally had sought the Republican nomination in 1980 only to be swamped by former Gov. Ronald Reagan of California. Now Mr. Connally resolved to help Mr. Reagan beat Mr. Carter and in the process, Mr. Barnes said, make his own case for becoming secretary of state or defense in a new administration.

What happened next Mr. Barnes has largely kept secret for nearly 43 years. Mr. Connally, he said, took him to one Middle Eastern capital after another that summer, meeting with a host of regional leaders to deliver a blunt message to be passed to Iran: Don’t release the hostages before the election. Mr. Reagan will win and give you a better deal.

Mr. Carter’s camp has long suspected that Mr. Casey or someone else in Mr. Reagan’s orbit sought to secretly torpedo efforts to liberate the hostages before the election, and books have been written on what came to be called the October surprise. But congressional investigations debunked previous theories of what happened.

“History needs to know that this happened,” Mr. Barnes, who turns 85 next month, said in one of several interviews, his first with a news organization about the episode. “I think it’s so significant and I guess knowing that the end is near for President Carter put it on my mind more and more and more. I just feel like we’ve got to get it down some way.”  

Confirming Mr. Barnes’s account is problematic after so much time. Mr. Connally, Mr. Casey and other central figures have long since died and Mr. Barnes has no diaries or memos to corroborate his account. But he has no obvious reason to make up the story and indeed expressed trepidation at going public because of the reaction of fellow Democrats [Barnes is a Texas Democrat].

Illegitimate US presidents

This story triggered an unusually unpleasant thought. Based on my own core political moral values, fidelity to facts, true truths and sound reasoning, it arguably is the case that the US has probably had a lot of illegitimate presidents. How could that be?

For me, this mental journey started with Trump and what some US intelligence experts believed was a necessary role of Russian interference before the 2016 elections. Other factors were necessary, e.g., Comey's calling out an investigation of Hillary just before the election, with some arguably more important than Putin. Nonetheless, I came to believe that Putin's interference was one of the necessary factors in Trump's win. That led me to conclude that Trump was an illegitimate president, in large part because Putin had poisoned too many American votes by spreading lies and slanders about Hillary. Those voters were deceived and manipulated.

Before that, I had read a book by moral philosopher Sissela Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life.[1] There she described how Lyndon Johnson lied to the American people about his intentions for the Vietnam war. Publicly he claimed to be the peace candidate who would end the war. Privately he intended to escalate the war. That led me to understand how immoral or even evil (if people get harmed or killed) deceit of voters can be. Johnson's deceit took away from voters the power to decide on the basis of truth whether they supported war in Vietnam or not. 

Somewhere along the way, I became aware of Nixon committing treason by torpedoing peace talks with North Vietnam to help his own presidential campaign in 1968. Again, the American voters were deceived. Here, the false belief was propaganda that the Vietnam peace talks were not progressing. That left Nixon free to argue he would do a much better job making peace. It was a promise based on pure deceit.

Now this NYT story about John Connally pops up. Connally at least tried to sabotage hostage negotiations with Iran in a self-serving effort to harm Carter's re-election chances. Assuming that sabotage effort was successful, Americans were deceived once again. They were deprived of the power to decide how to vote on the basis of truth.

Based on that evidence, I've come to this unpleasant belief: Johnson, Nixon, Reagan and Trump were all illegitimate presidents, if one defines illegitimacy as power obtained by too much intentional, unwarranted deceit, including irrational emotional manipulation. On reflection, maybe there have been a lot of  illegitimate US presidents. But as I see it and judge in light of my morals and reasoning, at least those four were not legitimate.

Of course, how much deceit is too much? The bickering in that point will never end. There's probably at least some deceit about federal and high level state candidates in all or nearly all campaigns. That is what probably most people who are uncomfortable with a conclusion of illegitimate elected politicians will say does not render any significantly deceit-based candidate illegitimate. 

If that is true, then Bok's assertion that deceit is immoral is false. I do not believe that is true.

On the basis of too much deceit one can argue that there have been no illegitimate presidents because voters should accept a lot of lies, slanders, dirty tricks and crackpottery in the rough and tumble of politics. Is that really true? That's true for deceit-based politics. That's also true for anti-democracy politics. With authoritarians and demagogues espousing brass knuckles capitalism, theocratic Christian nationalism and some variant of old-fashioned, hard core fascism, socialism or communism, truth is not a moral concern. For the authoritarians, truth is what the tyrants, plutocrats, kleptocrats or theocrats say it is. That assertion is not rationally contestable, except of course by the deceivers.

Qs: Were some or all of Johnson, Nixon, Reagan and Trump illegitimate? Is Barnes lying about Connelly trying to sabotage Carter? How can voters know things that are kept from them and still make an informed choice of who to vote for? Is, or should there be there no such thing an an illegitimate elected politician based on too much deceit, e.g. because most lying, deceit and unprosecuted slandering are free speech, either protected by law or by failure to prosecute? Do you personally accept a lot of lies, slanders, dirty tricks and crackpottery in the rough and tumble of politics, or would you prefer a lot less of it? What about George Santos? Trump?[2]

Footnote: 

1. Bok wrote:

The social incentives to deceit are at present very powerful; the controls often weak. Many individuals feel caught up in practices they cannot change. It would be wishful thinking, therefore, to expect individuals to bring about major changes in the collective practices of deceit by themselves. Public and private institutions, with their enormous power to affect personal choice, must help alter the existing pressures and incentives. ..... Trust and integrity are precious resources, easily squandered, hard to regain. They can thrive only on a foundation of respect for veracity.

When political representatives or entire governments arrogate to themselves the right to lie, they take power from the public that would not have been given up voluntarily. .... But such cases [that justify lying] are so rare that they hardly exist for practical purposes. .... The consequences of spreading deception, alienation and lack of trust could not have been documented for us more concretely than they have in the past decades. We have had a very vivid illustration of how lies undermine our political system. .... Those in government and other positions of trust should be held to the highest standards. Their lies are not ennobled by their positions; quite the contrary. .... only those deceptive practices which can be openly debated and consented to in advance are justifiable in a democracy.

2. By the time Trump had been in office for a year or so, I came to believe that he should be impeached for lying, deceiving, slandering and crackpotting far too much. His constant dark free speech struck at the heart of democracy, civil liberties, the rule of law, ethics, honest governance, secularism, pluralism, and respect for inconvenient facts, true truths and sound reasoning. His current dark free speech still poisons minds and tries to kill the same good and decent things.

Lest we forget, his final tally of false or misleading statements by the WaPo fact checker: Trump’s false or misleading claims total 30,573 over 4 years 

News bits: Fear paralyzes Biden; The radical right openly questions Democracy

PD comments about the increasingly dire Afghan refugee situation and Biden's paralyzing fear of the radical right:

To be fair the Afghan Adjustment Act does have broad bi-partisan support, but predictably those who opposed it are Republicans-- and they did so on bogus grounds. In particular, Chuck Grassley and Mitch McConnell went out of their way to make sure it was not included in the 2022 year-end spending bill. These are 2 of the most immoral politicians in the Senate, and they're good at being effective immoralists with decades of practice and chops behind them.

As Krish Vignarajah said in the PBS interview above, if one of the MAGA candidates becomes president [in 2024], these Afghan allies will be screwed beyond repair.

That said, even the Dems and Biden have been intimidated into slowing efforts to do the right thing by these right wing radicals you discuss so often. As Mark Hetfield, President and CEO of the Jewish refugee agency, HIAS (the world's oldest refugee agency) aptly stated, due to Republican pressure and criticism, "This [Biden] administration is scared to death of immigration issues." He compared current efforts to resettle those in emergency situations to "an ambulance that moves at a glacial pace." He points out that the Refugee Resettlement Act gives the executive all the powers Biden needs to resettle those who so badly need it in a way that results in a path to citizenship, yet they relied on temporary measures like "humanitarian parole" which is now set to expire. It expires after 2 years for those it covers, and so is NOT a long-term solution to a very long term problem. The Ukrainians have fared a little bit better, but not nearly enough. Again, we arm them yet fail to adequately respond to the staggering refugee crisis that ensues. And it's worse for non-Europeans and non-whites generally.

As Noah Gottschalk (Oxfam America) said,

Ukrainian refugees absolutely deserve protection. But [the White House is] basically creating a loophole for them by doing this while leaving mostly black and brown refugees out in the cold.

Biden needs to lead from principle and not from fear. Unfortunately, we can't change the crazies on the Right. We must bring more pressure to bear on the too-cautious Biden Admin when it comes to this issue. I understand there are real challenges when it comes to immigration, but we can-- and must-- do better than this. (info source: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/23/biden-russia-ukraine-refugees-00019829)

Once again, radical right bigotry and racism are poisoning American politics, policy and moral standing.

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America's slide into authoritarianism and theocracy continues: Politico writes about a terrifying trend among elite young radical right Republicans. They are now openly grappling with the concept of authoritarianism-theocracy over democracy and civil liberties:

The Federalist Society Isn’t Quite Sure About Democracy Anymore

After recent Supreme Court wins, the society’s youth arm debates the next stage for the conservative legal movement

It was the start of the second day of the Federalist Society’s National Student Symposium — an annual gathering of conservative and libertarian law students hosted by the conservative legal behemoth ....

“The people I met at student conferences a decade ago are now sitting federal judges,” said Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law and a fixture of the Federalist Society speaking circuit. “The people you meet here and the networks you build up over years — they’re very, very important.”  

This year’s gathering was even more important than most. As the first student symposium since the Supreme Court handed conservatives a historic package of victories on gun rights, religious freedom, environmental deregulation, and, of course, abortion, the weekend offered a window into the shifting priorities and preoccupations of the youngest and most elite members of the conservative legal movement, at a time when the future of the movement as a whole is quietly unsettled. 

The first major clue about those preoccupations came from the symposium’s theme, which the organizers had designated as “Law and Democracy.” As the programming unfolded over the next day and a half, it became alarmingly clear that, even among the buttoned-up young members of the Federalist Society — an organization not known for its political transgressiveness — the relationship between those two principles is far from settled. From radical new theories about election law to outlandish-seeming calls for a “national divorce” the symposium-goers were grappling with ideas that raised fundamental questions about American democracy — what it means, what it entails, and what, if anything, the conservative legal movement has to say about its apparent decline.

That approach made sense for conservatives when they still saw the federal judiciary as a liberal force dragging the country to the left. But now that conservatives have secured a solid majority on the Supreme Court — and voters in several red states have soundly rejected hard-line positions on abortion — a spirited debate is underway within the Federalist Society about the wisdom of deferring to democratic majorities as a matter of principle.

Think about this for a minute: The radical right openly questions the wisdom of deferring to democratic majorities. What, exactly, is that? It is authoritarianism speaking loud and clear, fascism in my opinion. The authoritarianism can be some form of fascism, brass knuckles capitalism, and/or Christian nationalist theocracy. Those are the main ideologies currently on the table the radical right is dining at. 

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Beyond shameless hypocrisy: The Guardian writes:

Trump deregulated railways and banks. He blames Biden for the fallout

In true hypocritical manner, the ex-president has quickly forgotten why the two sectors are in shambles

“Hypocrisy, thy name is Donald Trump and he sets new standards in a whole bunch of regrettable ways,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “For his true believers, they’re going to take Trump’s word for it and, even if they don’t, it doesn’t affect their support of him.”

Not my fault, Joe Biden did it!

Hillary did it! No Joe! No Barak Hussein!

No HUNTER BIDEN did it!

History of Iraq Since US Invasion of March 19, 2003

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. Retrospective pieces of varying length,  depth and quality are everywhere in news outlets. The following 10 minute video by Al Jazeera provides a concise overview of the history of Iraq from the invasion of March, 2003 to present. It is less concerned with re-litigating the decision to invade (as many media pieces do) than with showing the impacts on Iraq over the period of time covered. Of course, large books on this topic exist, but I thought this vid managed to pack a lot of important content into a short video essay. Many may remember the war, but increasingly those approaching their prime years in the US have few memories of these events, and many who were adults then never really paid much attention to the multiple perspectives of, and impacts on Iraqis themselves. The extent of the damage left in the wake of the invasion, which  is usually neglected by MSM here, is not only a cautionary tale about bellicose US foreign policy gone awry, but just as important, an opportunity to think about the plight of those for whom the consequences of the war cannot be shunted to the side and ignored like yesterday's news, because its ongoing legacy constitutes the fabric of everyday reality in what is arguably a failed state. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9qe5rWiyNc

Oddly, the video does not show up in Blogger's search engine for youtube links, and pasting it directly does provide a link, but does not make it possible to view on this page. So for those interested, I am placing this excellent short (12 min.) video in a Disqus comment box directly below this OP.

Germaine edit: Here's the video.