What is a Lie of Omission?

Lying by omission is when a person leaves out important information or fails to correct a pre-existing misconception in order to hide the truth from others. ... Lying by omission is not always intended to be harmful; it is often thought of as an action undertaken to spare the recipient pain or embarrassment.


The New York Times and other reliable sources are reporting now that US intelligence agencies believe that the Russian government has been acting to help Bernie Sanders in the 2020 election. The point of Russia’s help for the Bernster is to help president Trump win re-election. The apparent logic is that Putin views Sanders as the weakest democrat who is a serious candidate, so Putin wants Bernie to win the democratic nomination.

That’s not a bad calculation. The Russians aren’t stupid. The Russian leadership wants to see the president re-elected because they believe that best serves their interests. The logic is clean.

That sleaze is not the point of this OP. But, it is the grist for it. This OP begins to look into what a political lie is. I've written on the difference between facts, truths and logic. Lies are a different topic entirely.

Here is what the NYT writes:

“WASHINGTON — Russia has been trying to intervene in the Democratic primaries to aid Senator Bernie Sanders, according to people familiar with the matter, and intelligence officials recently briefed him about Russian interference in the election, Mr. Sanders said on Friday.

In a statement on Friday, Mr. Sanders denounced Russia, calling President Vladimir V. Putin an “autocratic thug” and warning Moscow to stay out of the election.

“Let’s be clear, the Russians want to undermine American democracy by dividing us up and, unlike the current president, I stand firmly against their efforts and any other foreign power that wants to interfere in our election,” Mr. Sanders said.

He also told reporters that he was briefed about a month ago.

“The intelligence community is telling us Russia is interfering in this campaign right now in 2020,” Mr. Sanders said on Friday in Bakersfield, Calif., where he was to hold a rally ahead of Saturday’s Nevada caucuses. “And what I say to Mr. Putin, ‘If I am elected president, trust me you will not be interfering in American elections.’”

What is a lie?

There are at least two main kinds of lies. Lies of commission are statements or acts that are intended to deceive, knowing the facts contradict the statements or acts that the liar asserts as facts or truth. In my opinion, lies of omission are just as bad as lies of commission. They consist of intentionally hiding inconvenient truth that is usually inconvenient, unpleasant or harmful in some way.

After US Attorney General William Barr (1) refused to release the entire Mueller report to the American people and (2) lied about its content, it seemed to me that what Barr did constituted a lie of omission. The redacted Mueller report was released on April 18, 2019.

But what about the passage of time? It is not neutral in politics or in human life. The longer a lie of omission stands unchallenged, the more power its deceptive impact it has. I decided for myself, that lies of omission like what Barr spewed on the American people about the partially hidden Mueller report deserve to be counted as another lie each day that passes. Thus, if someone hides facts and/or truths for one day, they lie once. If they did that two days, they lied twice.

By the measure of one lie per day of hiding information the public deserves to know, Barr lied over 300 times about the Mueller report and as long as he keeps hiding it, he continues to lie.

That seems fair and balanced to me. If it isn’t, why isn’t it? What is the logic that says hiding information the public deserves to know isn't a lie every single day? Should the time window be every 12 hours? Every 48 hours? Every second? Every trillion years? If so, why use a different time period?

Bernie lied for a month

I presume that Bernie did not tell the public that the Russians were trying to help him because he understood that it would undermine his candidacy. The reasoning or logic is obvious: The Russians support what they believe to be the weakest democratic candidate to help their choice Trump. There’s nothing complicated about that logic.

If that logic more true than not, then I conclude that Bernie’s lies constitute a month's worth of lies, i.e., he lied about 30 times to the American people.

Q1: Did Bernie lie ~30 times?
Q2: Is it nonsense (or worse) to believe that a lie of omission over time does not constitute anything worse that the original lie done just once?
Q3: Is it impossible for a lie of omission to gain power or influence over time the longer it is not revealed?
Q4: What if the Russian interference story is just a cover to confuse people or generate cynicism and distrust, and if so, how do you know?
Q5: What do you think about what Hannah Arendt said about lies, deceit and propaganda, e.g., was she full of baloney?

'There need to be mass protests': Authoritarianism experts say time is running out for Americans to stop Trump

• Americans are running out of time to stop President Donald Trump's authoritarian slide, experts warned.
• "There need to be mass protests," a Yale philosophy professor and expert on fascism told Insider. "The Republican Party is betraying democracy, and these are historical times. Someone has got to push back."
• Since he was acquitted in the GOP-controlled Senate earlier this month, the president has overseen a White House purge of impeachment witnesses, and the attorney general has intervened in the trial of a Trump associate.
• Republicans have mostly sat back, with at least one senator conceding that Trump's behavior did not seem to have changed because of impeachment.
• "There is absolutely no reason for him to stop pushing. It goes against both his personality and his experience," Cas Mudde, a political scientist at the University of Georgia, told Insider.

If Americans are concerned that President Donald Trump and Republicans are moving the US toward becoming a one-party, authoritarian state, they are running out of time to stop them, experts warned.

Trump has exhibited autocratic impulses since his 2016 campaign and from the moment he entered the White House.

The president has attacked virtually every democratic institution in the US when he's felt its actions were unfavorable to his agenda or public appearance. Meanwhile, he pushed traditional US allies away while openly embracing many of the world's most repressive leaders.

These trends have raised concern among top experts on authoritarianism, fascism, and democracy, but they've often said that the robust political system in the US, with its checks and balances and constitutional norms, has prevented Trump from becoming a full-blown authoritarian and doing whatever he wants.

Since Trump was acquitted in the Senate earlier this month after being impeached in the House over his dealings with Ukraine, there's been a White House purge of impeachment witnesses, and Attorney General William Barr has intervened in the trial of a close associate of the president, Roger Stone. And the experts' tone has changed dramatically.

'Someone has got to push back'

"The system is enabling Trump," Jason Stanley, a Yale philosophy professor who wrote "How Fascism Works," told Insider.

"There need to be mass protests," he said. "The Republican Party is betraying democracy, and these are historical times. Someone has got to push back."

"The deeply worrying moment is when you start to become a one-party state," Stanley added. "The Republican Party has shown that it has no interest in multi-party democracy ... They are much more concerned with power, with consolidating power."

Stanley said recent actions by Republicans and Trump were "straight from the literature on authoritarianism."

Only one Republican, Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, voted to convict Trump of abuse of power in his Senate impeachment trial. Romney was also one of just two GOP senators to vote in favor of an ultimately failed motion to call witnesses. (All 15 Senate impeachment trials before Trump's had witnesses.) With their vote, Republicans blocked potentially crucial testimony from the president's former national security adviser John Bolton.

Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, has since been excoriated by fellow Republicans and treated as a pariah.

Stanley said there should have been mass protests in the streets after the vote against witnesses, warning that the absence of significant public outcry served as "a further sign to the party in power that they can go ahead and do what they want."

Trump urged Ukraine, a vulnerable US ally, to dig up dirt on his political rivals during a reelection year — including on former Vice President Joe Biden, who until recent electoral setbacks was thought to be the leading contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. And Trump did so while withholding almost $400 million in vital, congressionally approved military aid from Kyiv as it fights a war against pro-Russian separatists.

There was a mountain of evidence that Trump directed a broad, complex scheme to essentially blackmail Ukraine into smearing his political opponents, but not all of the evidence was delivered under oath, because Republicans prevented key witnesses from testifying.

Several Senate Republicans decried Trump's actions toward Ukraine but still voted to acquit him. One such Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, conceded that she hadn't seen changes in Trump's behavior since his impeachment, despite her colleague Sen. Susan Collins of Maine recently suggesting that the president had learned a lesson.

"There haven't been very strong indicators this week that he has," Murkowski told reporters on Wednesday.

'There is absolutely no reason for him to stop pushing'

"From the moment he entered the Republican primary in 2015 to his impeachment five years later, Donald Trump has ignored advice to moderate and change and, in his view (which is largely correct), won. He has tested the boundaries of people and institutions several times and found them to be bendable and weak," said Cas Mudde, a political scientist at the University of Georgia who's an expert on populism, extremism, and democracy.

"There is absolutely no reason for him to stop pushing," he added. "It goes against both his personality and his experience."

Mudde said the only question is whether there is still a breaking point for the Republican Party.

"Note that Trump has not changed the institutions, so the powers are still there," he said. "This is all about the courage and willingness of Republicans to stand up for the rule of law and to the president."

Since Trump's acquittal, he's ousted two key impeachment witnesses. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a decorated Iraq War veteran, was pushed out of the National Security Council. Gordon Sondland, a Republican donor who gave $1 million to Trump's inauguration committee, was fired as the US's ambassador to the European Union.

Within a week, Barr intervened in Stone's trial, calling for a lesser sentence for the longtime GOP strategist than the one recommended by prosecutors who'd been working on the case.

On Twitter, Trump celebrated the controversial intervention, which led to the withdrawal or resignation of all four prosecutors working on Stone's case. "Congratulations to Attorney General Bill Barr for taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought," the president said.

'They'll do whatever they can to hold on to power'

While the president applauded the attorney general, Stanley described Barr as a "dangerous, authoritarian enabler," adding that Trump and those in his administration were not the only issues when it comes to an anti-democratic slide in the US.

"It's almost all of the Republican Party," Stanley said. "Mitch McConnell already showed that he has no loyalty to the rule of law when he denied Obama the right to appoint Supreme Court justices ... It's a much deeper problem."

He added: "We need conservatives and Republicans to stand up for the rule of law, and if we don't have that, it's over."

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at New York University who's an expert on authoritarianism, told Insider that the resignations of the prosecutors over the interference with Stone's sentencing sent "a powerful message of protest."

"For Trump and Barr, though, this is likely 'good riddance to bad eggs,'" Ben-Ghiat said.

If Americans are truly concerned with Trump's "abuse of power," Ben-Ghiat said, the best strategy is for voters to mobilize and use "their electoral power to vote out these authoritarians while they still can."

But with a president who was just impeached on allegations that he solicited foreign election interference, and with Republican lawmakers who appear fully willing to enable his behavior, Stanley said he was not particularly optimistic about Election Day in November.

"I don't know what would happen in the absence of mass protests," Stanley said. "I'm not at all sanguine about the fairness of the upcoming elections."

He added: "As they've shown, they'll do whatever they can to hold on to power."

https://www.businessinsider.com/authoritarianism-experts-say-time-running-out-americans-to-stop-trump-2020-2

The Judge’s Blunt Warning to Americans

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty. --- George Washington’s farewell address to the American people; portions that focus on the dangers of political parties and staunch partisanship, 1796


These are some of the comments that Judge Amy Berman Jackson made yesterday as she sentenced Roger Stone to 40 months in jail for committing seven felonies. She is speaking to Americans, the president and Attorney General William Barr. She reasonably anticipates that the reasons for Stone’s conviction will be spun into lies and propaganda about why Stone was sentenced to jail. This is a stark warning to Americans about the president and his friends and allies, and their arrogant anti-truth and anti-rule of law tactics and attitudes.

Jackson criticizes the president and others for blatant arrogance, contempt for truth and for promoting conspiracy theories about the Russia probe. In these things, she sees efforts by bad people to undermine both truth and democracy. A warning like this can’t be much clearer. The danger to democracy and the rule of law are crystal clear to those who can see it.

What the judge said

“At trial, the defense appropriately questioned Randy Credico’s credibility and Rick Gates’s credibility, but it was largely Stone's own emails and his own texts that proved the allegations beyond a reasonable doubt. So what did the defense say to the jury on his behalf? So what? So what? Of all the circumstances in this case, that may be the most pernicious. The truth still exists. The truth still matters. Roger Stone’s insistence that it doesn't, his belligerence, his pride in his own lies are a threat to our most fundamental institutions, to the very foundation of our democracy. And if it goes unpunished, it will not be a victory for one party or another. Everyone loses because everyone depends on the representatives they elect to make the right decisions on a myriad of issues -- many of which are politically charged but many of which aren’t -- based on the facts.”

“Everyone depends on our elected representatives to protect our elections from foreign interference based on the facts. No one knows where the threat is going to come from next time or whose side they’re going to be on, and for that reason the dismay and disgust at the defendant's belligerence should transcend party. The dismay and the disgust at the attempts by others to defend his actions as just business as usual in our polarized climate should transcend party. The dismay and the disgust with any attempts to interfere with the efforts of prosecutors and members of the judiciary to fulfill their duty should transcend party.”

“Sure, the defense is free to say: So what? Who cares? But, I’ll say this: Congress cared. The United States Department of Justice and the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia that prosecuted the case and is still prosecuting the case cared. The jurors who served with integrity under difficult circumstances cared. The American people cared. And I care.”

“I have received letters urging me not to silence an important voice in the public arena, but that will not be an element of this sentence in any way. I expect he will keep talking. And as you’ve just heard when I went through the elements of the offense, he was not convicted and is not being sentenced for exercising his First Amendment rights, his support of the President's campaign or his policies. He was not prosecuted, as some have complained, for standing up for the President. He was prosecuted for covering up for the President.” (emphasis added)

Two Very Different, Unrelated Things: Phronesis and Roger Stone

Phronesis

A long time critic came across this word this morning and thought it applied to my political ideology and interest in a 3rd political party. Early on, he referred to what I wanted as the PPs, which came from a now-extinct blog I ran for years called the Pragmatic Caucus. He liked calling me a PP, short for Pragmatic Party. He still likes doing that.

If I understand the concept at least reasonably well phronesis does sound a lot like my pragmatic rationalism ideology. According to Wikipedia: “Phronesis (Ancient Greek: φρόνησῐς, romanized: phrónēsis) is an ancient Greek word for a type of wisdom or intelligence. It is more specifically a type of wisdom relevant to practical action, implying both good judgement and excellence of character and habits, sometimes referred to as "practical virtue". Phronesis was a common topic of discussion in ancient Greek philosophy.”

It seems to refer to evidence and reason based thinking and judgment, which is what pragmatic rationalism is intended to foster. People like Aristotle approved of the concept and used it in his ethics. Anyway, if phronesis and pragmatic rationalism are roughly the same thing, then I did not invent pragmatic rationalism. If so that's a good thing. In her 1951 masterpiece of human savagery, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt asserted that no thought is politics was new. Only society and technology changes and that sweeps old ideas into them.

If Aristotle or his predecessors invented pragmatic rationalism under another name, that’s a comforting thought. If pragmatic rationalism really was new, that would be unsettling. It would suggest that it contained some flaw so serious as to have never even been worth describing in writing by minds far more intelligent and insightful than mine. Validation by ancient minds is far more comforting than any assertion of novelty in modern politics.

Roger Stone

The judge handed down a 40 month sentence for Stone’s seven felony convictions. That probably would have been the case despite the corrupt William Barr’s attempt to reduce the sentence for a felon ally of the president.

The gift to Trump: That kerfuffle aside, any Stone sentencing that includes time in the slammer provides a political solid gold asset for the president. Now, the president can pardon Stone the next time info comes out that is really embarrassing to the president. The Russians did that for Trump during the 2016 election, Wikileaks dumped stolen Podesta emails within an hour or two of the release of the Hollywood Access sex predator tape. That tactic it worked quite well.

So, if Bolton publishes his book and it shows the president to be what he is ( a liar, a crook, a traitor, etc,), the same day the president can just pardon Stone and the rabid, prostituted US mainstream media will devote slathering attention to the Stone thing. In essence, that will effectively deflect significant attention from what makes Trump look like what he is to froth about what he just did for Stone.

The judge comments: The judge commented: “There was nothing unfair about the investigation and the prosecution. He was not prosecuted for standing up for the president. He was prosecuted for covering up for the president. .... [he] took it upon himself to lie, to impede, to obstruct before the investigation was complete, in an endeavor to influence the result. .... The truth still exists; the truth still matters. .... Any suggestion that the prosecution in this case did anything untoward, unethical or improper is incorrect”

The truth still matters??: Trump supporters outside the courthouse were demanding a pardon for Stone. Apparently, being a serial felon doesn't faze some or most of the president’s supporters. If nothing else, the GOP (Trump Party) isn’t concerned about the rule of law as it applies to themselves. No doubt, the Trump Party will be happy to see it applied it with a vengeance to political enemies.

As long as the Trump party exerts power, America will continue it’s slide into a corrupt, lawless dictatorship. For most of then, their truth matters, not defensible truth.

What a Fool Believes

Change your beliefs, change your life.
By 

• Dr. Steven Eisenberg, Listener, Oncologist, Love-Lover, Cancer-Hater, Co-songwriter w/ patients: Because Illness Starts with 'I' & Wellness Starts with 'We'.

https://thriveglobal.com/stories/what-a-fool-believes/

Ha.

I’m a fool.

A fool who believes.

A fool to write every single day.

But I’ll always believe.

I believe in you.

I believe in the power of community.

I believe in one good song.

Take What a Fool Believes.

Written by Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins. 

Recorded by The Doobie Brothers. 

The song received Grammy Awards in 1980 for both Song of the Year and Record of the Year.

“What a Fool Believes” was one of the few non-disco No. 1 hits that summer.

From Wiki: “The song lyrics tell a story of a man who is reunited with an old love interest and attempts to rekindle a romantic relationship with her before discovering that one never really existed.”

The Doobies believed.

I believe too.

I believe these notes are good for us, you and me.

I believe in love.

I believe that love works.

It just works.

Believe me.

Be a fool in love.

A fool who believes.

Microstep: Be zany today. Play a silly game. Be a fool in love. A fool who believes in the power of connection and community.

Opposition to the President Is Growing

 Michigan

Reuters reports that polling of about 88,000 US adults from August to December 2019 indicates that increasing opposition to the president continues to outpace increasing support. Reuters writes:

“NEW YORK (Reuters) - As Republican President Donald Trump seeks a second term in November, Americans’ interest in voting is growing faster in large cities dominated by Democrats than in conservative rural areas, according to an analysis of Reuters/Ipsos national opinion polls. 

If the trend lasts until Election Day on Nov. 3, it would be a reversal from the 2016 election when rural turnout outpaced voting in urban areas, helping Trump narrowly win the White House. 

The finding, based on responses from more than 88,000 U.S. adults who took the online poll from August to December 2015 or from August to December 2019, suggests that the “Blue Wave,” a swell of anti-Trump activism that followed his entry into the White House in 2017, is still rolling across the country’s largest population centers. 

Even as Trump commands rock-solid support among Republicans, voters’ interest in going to the polls appears to be growing faster among those who disapprove of Trump than among those who approve of him, according to experts who reviewed the data. 

The advantage in urban political engagement extends deep into the most competitive battleground states that Trump won by razor-thin margins four years ago, the data shows. 

In large urban areas of the upper Midwest, a region that includes swing states Michigan and Wisconsin, for example, the number of people who said they were “certain” to vote in the upcoming presidential election rose by 10 percentage points to 67% compared with survey responses from 2015.”

Of course, that is now. The election is still about 8 months off. Everything could change between now and then. A red tidal wave could sweep across the land and re-elect the president.

Also Michigan