Ethics Fades from the Scene

ProPublica reports that federal ethics investigations are fading into irrelevance. Members of congress have discovered that they can simply reject all requests for information by ethics officers and face no penalty or repercussions. The stonewall tactic is bipartisan. Once again, a measure to protect democracy and the rule law turns out to be a toothless mirage.

ProPublica writes:

“Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the freshman Democrat from Michigan, faced allegations that she improperly paid herself a salary from her campaign account, including a bulk payment of $15,500 after the election was over. 

Tlaib told reporters the payments were proper. But when the Office of Congressional Ethics, the House’s independent, nonpartisan watchdog, asked to interview her, the congresswoman refused. So did her staffers who had been involved with the payments. 

Tlaib, who resides on the progressive wing of her party, isn’t alone in this response when OCE came calling. Other lawmakers who stonewalled include a Virginia Republican who allegedly sent his House staff on personal errands, including picking up milk and caring for his dog, and a Freedom Caucus lawmaker from North Carolina who continued to pay his chief of staff even after barring him after accusations of sexual harassment.  

Today, it’s common for lawmakers from both parties to refuse not just some requests for interviews and documents from OCE, but all of them. In the last four years, subjects in 11 of 18 distinct cases refused any cooperation whatsoever. In the six years before that, there were just three such cases out of 43.”

Things like this are what make a third party look appealing and, if one likes honest governance, democracy and the rule of law, necessary. The existing two parties are AWOL and not coming back. They had decades to install defenses of honest governance, democracy and the rule of law, but did absolutely nothing. That’s incompetence.

An Argument for Nuclear Energy

It seems likely that dealing with climate change will require heavy reliance on nuclear power. No other technology can safely deliver power 24 hours a day. Nuclear power is safer than carbon-based energy sources. Solar and wind energy are intermittent and thus not suitable on their own for what is needed. Battery technology is unlikely to ever come close to what is needed to smooth out the peaks and valleys that will forever plague solar and wind energy.

The problem

The problem with nuclear power isn’t safety or technical. It is mostly political. New generation nuclear power plants are designed to be, and will be, even safer than old plants still in operation. People are irrationally afraid of nuclear power. As discussed here before, humans are bad at risk assessment. This applies in spades to nuclear power.

It will require political will and leadership to overcome the fear. The powerful and wealthy carbon energy sector vehemently opposes nuclear power for obvious economic reasons. The carbon energy sector speaks very loudly to politicians via their free speech rights (unlimited campaign contributions and political spending) and very loudly to the public via dark free speech, e.g.,
Natural Gas Industry Blasts Nuclear Power With Fake News : “The American Petroleum Institute has flooded the airwaves in Ohio and Pennsylvania with anti-nuke commercials by pushing fear – fear of higher prices and fear of radiation. Just the opposite of what is true.”

Coronavirus and Politically Unsolid Ground

Things have become so strange with politics in recent weeks that it's hard to get a feel for solid ground under one’s feet. Spin and propaganda utterly dominate facts and reality.

The AP reported yesterday that the White House is muzzling public health officials to make the Coronavirus pandemic look like it isn’t a pandemic or anything to worry about: “NEW YORK (AP) — The White House overruled health officials who wanted to recommend that elderly and physically fragile Americans be advised not to fly on commercial airlines because of the new coronavirus, a federal official told The Associated Press. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention submitted the plan as a way of trying to control the virus, but White House officials ordered the air travel recommendation be removed, said the official who had direct knowledge of the plan. Trump administration officials have since suggested certain people should consider not traveling, but have stopped short of the stronger guidance sought by the CDC. 

The person who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity did not have authorization to talk about the matter. The person did not have direct knowledge about why the decision to kill the language was made or who made the call. 

Administration officials disputed the person’s account. In a tweet, the press secretary for Vice President Mike Pence, Katie Miller, said that ‘it was never a recommendation to the Task Force’ and called the AP story ‘complete fiction.’ On Sunday, Dr. Anthony Fauci — the head of infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health and a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force — said ‘no one overruled anybody.’”

As is often or usually the case these days, the American people are presented with two completely opposed versions of reality. Either the CDC wanted to warn people at risk to not fly, or it did not want to give that warning. Who should be trusted? A narcissistic and self-centered, incompetent, liar president with a track record of well over 16,000 false and misleading statements or a federal agency employee trying to get information out to warn people of real world risks? Who should one trust?

Under the circumstances, including the known and undeniable susceptibility of elderly and physically fragile people to the Coronavirus, it is reasonable to believe that the president is muzzling health care professionals to serve his political and economic interests at the expense of public health.

Given the bumbling incompetence of the president personally and his cowed, inept administration in dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic, it is also reasonable to think it is more likely than not (maybe about a 60% chance) that within about a year, the American people will have herd immunity. The bumbling and fumbling Trump administration is probably going to allow this virus to spread free and wild. That will give rise to herd immunity. Of course, tens or hundreds of thousands of susceptible Americans will die in the process. If that scenario comes to pass, it is fair and balanced to blame the president personally and every single person in his administration who enabled this incompetence and failure.

Actually, since the president neutered America’s capacity to deal with a pandemic by firing the US pandemic response team in 2018[1] and trying to significantly defund the CDC, he and his enablers deserve blame for the death of every single American from the Coronavirus. Based on the facts, one can now reasonably and fairly call our incompetent narcissist president a killer.

Questions: Is calling the president a killer hyperbolic, unfair and/or not reasonably supported by the facts? Or, does a president have limited or no accountability for his actions that later turn out to have been unforced mistakes due to incompetence or any other cause?


Footnote: 
1. “It’s thus true that the Trump administration axed the executive branch team responsible for coordinating a response to a pandemic and did not replace it, eliminating Ziemer’s position and reassigning others, although Bolton was the executive at the top of the National Security Council chain of command at the time.”

Liars, Damned Liars, and Politicians

Politicians knowingly make promises they have no intention of delivering on, because it's how they get elected and stay elected. At best, even if they do genuinely want the same things they're promising they'll pursue they know they haven't a chance in hell of getting most of their agenda items off the ground.

Like spies, politicians are effectively paid to lie - even your favorite politician lies to you. If you watch a politician you'll get a much more accurate read of what they're about than if you listen to them.

Try putting your politicians on mute and looking at their voting records. Look at the bills they sponsor. Look especially at the unsexy bills like spending authorizations, and you can find a truer picture of what they support.

Bernie isn't as left as he appears to be. Obama wasn't much of a reformer either. He governed as a functionary. Change indeed.

Hillary by any account was right of Obama based on her record. In 2005 she introduced an anti-flag burning law, just for example, and perhaps more importantly, she's the quintessential war candidate, having never found a war she didn't want to sign other people's kids up to fight.

You can expect Biden to govern like Obama did which won't work now. Compromising with Republicans now is like compromising with a sack of rabid badgers. Biden isn't the guy you want having your six in a knife fight. He's ill equipped to deal with them.

Forget the rhetoric.

Politicians don't run on truth, they run on promises, and promises are fungible in politics.

"Truth"… some brainstorming

We talk a lot about truth here, on Germaine’s political blog.  I’m going to go rogue and infiltrate it with some dastardly philosophy.  (Apologies Germaine. ;)  My quest: A search for the correct definition of “truth.”

Truth is an interesting concept.  Saying that truth is “the absence of falsehood” seems like too simple a definition to me and does not get at the essence of what I am looking for.  I rather fancy one of Webster’s definitions:

3a : the property of being in accord with fact or reality

but I still feel that such a definition does not tell the whole story.  Why?  Because all realities are not created equal.  I think I might have mentioned that before here.  Who’s to say whose reality is more legitimate, more real, than another’s?  To the person experiencing something, it becomes their reality, their “truth.”  So in that sense, truth seems to have the ability to be relative / subjective / malleable.  Ouuu.

Can we equate the word “truth” with the word “fact?”  What makes something a fact versus a truth?  What’s the difference?  When I think about trying to define “fact” (or even “truth”), I think it is “a something that can be no other way than what it is.”  “…can be no other way than what it is??”  There’s an interesting phrase.  Many things can be other ways than what they are and still be a “factual / truthful something.”  Take a simple example like an aluminum can.  It could be open, closed, full, empty, crushed, to name a few ways it can “be.”  Granted, it’s still a can, but not that “can be no other way than what it is.”  It can be many qualifying ways, while maintaining its “can-ness.”

Let’s forget cans for now.  When looking for a bottom line definition of truth, maybe I need to add the element of time into the mix.  A “truth” is something that “can be no other way than what it is at any given moment in time.”  This could be what I’m looking for, yet I still don’t feel happy with my definition.  I’m saying that truth, and by extension a fact (or would that be the other way around?), can be a fleeting thing, some kind of dynamic thing, a variable.  And so, by this train of thought, it certainly can’t be something absolute.  Some would say I’m over complicating it, but I’m just trying to get to the truth of what is truth?

In my mind, it seems like truth should be an absolute concept.  And some “truths” do not change at any given moment in time.  For example, the concept of the number three.  It cannot be something other than what it is, no matter how much time passes.  Numbers can be represented in the physical (perceptual), but they are comprehended in the mental (conceptual).  Could this be a key element in understanding truth?  Would it be right to say that truth is a concept (mental) supported by precept (physical)?  This sounds pretty good but we know from jury duty that circumstantial (inferred) evidence (i.e., missing hard evidence) doesn’t necessarily get to the “actual” (uh-oh, I’m introducing a new variable) truth of some matter.  It seems that I am back to square one, saying that truth can vary based on one person’s mental conception, versus another’s.  No, this argument does not fly either.

Does truth depend on some kind of “majority opinion” to be valid?  No.  Opinions can vary from society to society.  But if we all agree that a certain color, such as green, is truly green, no matter what the society in question says, then that must be some kind of “absolute truth.”  We can measure the frequency of that color and it will always show “green” on the scale.  A colorblind person may not see green but would likely agree that what everyone else sees is what we will define as “green,” based on the measurement.  An immutable "truth consensus” is reached, no matter what anyone else says.

So does the ability to measure something and always get the same results play into “what is truth?”  I think I am getting closer but can I think of any exceptions to the rule?  Are there any truths that cannot be measured?  How about the notion of “love?”

For example, I may declare that I love someone and the truth of that matter could only be measured by others in how I treat that so-called loved one.  An outside observer not familiar with me personally may see me scold my loved one, or do something mean to them, and claim that I “truly” do not love that person, based on observed behavior at that moment in time.  But I could declare that their measurement / analysis of the situation would not be the truth.  Because they are not me, they have no way of knowing how true my feelings of what I call “love” are.  Such “love truths” are personal, not accessible by an outside observer, but we personally believe them to be “truths” nevertheless.  I still have to ask, what about these feelings make them “a truth?”

At what point does something become “true”… or “true enough?”  If something is 50.001% true, is it truth?  Conversely, if something is 49.999% not true, is it not truth?  Can something be partial truth?  We hear it all the time: Well, that’s partially true.  But this is not getting me any closer to understanding truth, and if it is relative or absolute.  I want to understand the essence of truth, after all the fluff has boiled off.

Some would say I need to drag the God concept and religion into the mix.  But to me, that only confuses the question and muddies the waters.  And it makes me feel like I’m grasping for straws.  Scrap this idea.

So, which is it?  What is truth?  Is truth relative or absolute?  Is there some kind of bottom line definition when it comes to truth?  If so, please state it for me.  My definitions seem to be all over the board.  I’ve done a lot of describing, but not any bottom-line defining.  Maybe, like good and evil, that’s the best we can do, try to describe it, when contemplating “truth.”  Maybe that’s why Webster referred to it as a “property.”  I do think it can be both relative and absolute.  How do you know which it is? 

Help me out and give me your thoughts on “what is truth” and “how can we know it?”

(Please excuse any typos and non-sequiturs in my stream of thought. :) Feeling too lazy to review. :(

Election Tactics 2020: Infiltrate and Smear

Eric Prince - sleazeball and 007 wannabe

The New York Times reports that the Trump campaign is hiring professional spies to infiltrate Democratic congressional campaigns, labor organizations and other anti-Trump groups. Presumably, the campaign of whoever the dems nominate for president will be infiltrated too. Given the president’s unfettered reliance on dark free speech (lies, deceit, unwarranted opacity, unwarranted emotional manipulation, logic fallacies, etc.), it is reasonable to expect that this tactic will lead to words being taken out of context and/or misconstrued in various ways to damage democratic candidates.

The war of dark free speech and sleaze is intensifying. We at new levels of extreme sleaze and lies the Trump Party and the president are willing to engage in to stay in power.

The NYT writes: 

“WASHINGTON — Erik Prince, the security contractor with close ties to the Trump administration, has in recent years helped recruit former American and British spies for secretive intelligence-gathering operations that included infiltrating Democratic congressional campaigns, labor organizations and other groups considered hostile to the Trump agenda, according to interviews and documents. 

One of the former spies, an ex-MI6 officer named Richard Seddon, helped run a 2017 operation to copy files and record conversations in a Michigan office of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teachers’ unions in the nation. Mr. Seddon directed an undercover operative to secretly tape the union’s local leaders and try to gather information that could be made public to damage the organization, documents show. 

Using a different alias the next year, the same undercover operative infiltrated the congressional campaign of Abigail Spanberger, then a former C.I.A. officer who went on to win an important House seat in Virginia as a Democrat. The campaign discovered the operative and fired her. 

Both operations were run by Project Veritas, a conservative group that has gained attention using hidden cameras and microphones for sting operations on news organizations, Democratic politicians and liberal advocacy groups. Mr. Seddon’s role in the teachers’ union operation — detailed in internal Project Veritas emails that have emerged from the discovery process of a court battle between the group and the union — has not previously been reported, nor has Mr. Prince’s role in recruiting Mr. Seddon for the group’s activities.”

Everything that people in a democratic campaign say will now be misconstrued and ruthlessly used against them. The real power of dark free speech to destroy democracies and the rule of law will become clearer in the coming months. We live in interesting times.