Trump administration carries out first federal execution since 2003 after late-night Supreme Court intervention

The Trump administration on Tuesday morning carried out the first federal execution since 2003, following a series of court battles and a Supreme Court order, released shortly after 2 a.m., clearing the way for the lethal injection to take place.

Federal officials executed Daniel Lewis Lee, who was convicted in 1999 of killing a family of three, at a penitentiary in Indiana. Lee was pronounced dead Tuesday morning at 8:07 a.m.

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life but I’m not a murderer,” Lee said when asked if he wanted to make a final statement. “You’re killing an innocent man,” he said.

While the death penalty has been in nationwide decline for years, with executions and death sentences both down significantly, the Justice Department has publicly pushed against that trend for nearly a year. The department has argued in court and in public statements that it needed to carry out lawful sentences, citing the gravity of the crimes involved.

Last year, the department laid out a new lethal injection protocol — using one drug, pentobarbital — and said it would begin carrying out executions, leading to extended legal challenges. Attorney General William P. Barr had said recently that officials “owe it to the victims of these horrific crimes, and to the families left behind.”

On Monday, Lee’s execution — originally scheduled for 4 p.m. that afternoon — was left on hold following a judge’s order that he and other death-row inmates could pursue their court case arguing that the new lethal-injection protocol is unconstitutional.

An appeals court said late Monday it would not let the executions take place as planned, but a divided Supreme Court weighed in overnight saying they could proceed.

MORE ON THIS STORY:

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/us/trump-administration-carries-out-first-federal-execution-since-2003-after-late-night-supreme-court-intervention/ar-BB16IDjx?li=AAggNb9&ocid=mailsignout

As a personal note:

I am against the death penalty on principle, but how do YOU feel about the death penalty?

Trump Propaganda Tactics

The president retweeted these lies to make his case that most
everyone is lying about COVID-19 to hurt him and the economy --
with Trump, everything is about him -- suffering and deaths of others are of no concern
to this incompetent, sociopath narcissist

In my opinion, dark free speech or propaganda is the single most powerful and dangerous tool that demagogues, tyrants and kleptocrats have to achieve their immoral and evil ends. The topic has been discussed here in many discussions, e.g., here, here, here and here.

This OP is intended to exemplify a common dark free speech tactic, unwarranted character assassination. In this case, the president attacked Tony Fauci's expertise regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Presumably the attack is designed to confuse the public and deflect its attention from how the president has basically failed to respond to the pandemic.

The assassin's tactic: Destroy trust

The attack was launched by the White House sending a list of statements by Fauci that it claims are false. The list was sent to the Washington Post. WaPo writes:

"What Fauci has done is make obvious both that the pandemic is as bad as it seems and that there are ways in which it can be addressed, which at times conflict with what Trump would like to see. Trump’s vision for what happens with the virus’s spread is fairly straightforward: Businesses reopen and kids go back to school and he gets reelected and then it just sort of becomes a nonissue somehow. Maybe he doesn’t get to that fourth step; it’s not clear. What Fauci and, more broadly, government and medical experts foresee is grimmer: With better containment and Americans taking more responsibility for stopping the spread of the virus, maybe we can keep the death toll down until there’s a vaccine.

The White House’s release of wan talking points about ways Fauci has been “wrong” — a descriptor that’s bolstered heavily by being applied with the benefit of hindsight — is a fundamentally hollow act. Fauci’s approach to the pandemic has been guidance tempered by uncertainty. Trump’s has been certainty unhindered by guidance. White House officials now want to rein in Fauci by cherry-picking instances in which they can take Fauci out of context to use the uncertainties of the pandemic against him."

The statements the White House picked and took out of context were mostly from early in the pandemic when there was more uncertainty about the nature of the virus and how it spread.

The WaPo article analyzes the attack as basically arguing that Fauci cannot be trusted, thus deflecting distrust from the president himself to Fauci. Trump and his team are asserted to want people to be unsure about just how good or bad the pandemic is. The idea in this propaganda is that it is politically better for Trump if there’s an official whom Americans and his base feel unsure about trusting. The WaPo points out that the president has used this tactic to make opponents look unreliable to shield his own untrustworthiness. It is a powerful deception tactic.

WaPo concludes from the circumstances, including a presidential  reTweet that the "CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors" are all lying about COVID-19 to hurt the president's re-election and the economy, and its analysis of the situation that "Trump would rather have no one be trusted than that he stand out as unusually untrustworthy, even if the cost is confidence in his team and in experts trying to tamp down the pandemic."

Immoral, evil or just politics as usual?

Millions of people are influenced by the president's words and actions. Some people will continue to key on this to help them rationalize their refusal to wear a face mask or follow distancing guidelines. Some of those people will get infected and die and/or infect someone else who dies or infects someone else who dies. The president bears most of the responsibility for the suffering and deaths that his re-election dictates he does. His enablers, including the spineless GOP in congress, also share significant responsibility. Blame for the suffering and deaths that they cause is on mostly their hands.

Rescinding my opinion…

Good day, all.

Regarding my OP from a few days ago  on the SCOTUS' ruling on contraceptives, I've been thinking more about the conundrum.  (Glad I'm not an SC justice.  It'd drive me crazy(ier).)

I'm going to change my mind and say that the SC made the wrong decision: SCOTUS should not have given the green light for employers to deny their employees contraceptive coverage. 

That coverage was previously a mandated part of the ACA’s provisions for such, and since employees were offered a “health care package,” employers can’t (or *shouldn’t*) start picking and choosing what they like and don’t like about it, principles-wise.  Once that starts, there can be no end to discriminating for this, that, or the other thing.  Seriously, what would be next?  No meds for AIDS?  For herpes or other STDs?  Etc.?

I think I understand the religious factions’ objections.  The thing about religion(s) is that they almost exclusively lie in the realm of the “unverifiable.”  Claims of, say, their God being upset with them, or damning them to their Hell for being a “participant,” while real to them, cannot be verified.  Though I don’t personally believe it, it’s just a/their point of view with no way to prove one way or the other.  Objections on religious grounds lie in the realm of those dastardly Essentially Contested Concepts.  If it could be proven that these negative things wouldn’t happen to them, then they would just be objecting on “personal grounds.”  And a LOT of us object about a LOT of things, on (our) personal grounds.  No end to that kind of thing either!

Anyway, contraceptive coverage is (or WAS) part of a h/c "package," under the ACA.  If the religious had a problem with that, they could've always "blamed" the non-Christians for "making" them comply (complain to their God that they were coerced into complying).  If their God still holds that against them, maybe time to look for a “more fair” God. ;)

A special thanks to larry motuz for insisting on making me think more about it. :)

Signed, "always second-guessing." ;(

United Nations Says World May Hit 1.5 Degrees Warming Threshold Within 5 Years

Climate change is having a profound effect in Greenland, where over the last several decades summers have become longer and the rate that glaciers and the Greenland ice cap are retreating has accelerated.

In 2015, world leaders meeting in Paris to discuss climate change agreed to try to limit the increase in global average temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

On Thursday, a report from the World Meteorological Organization, a United Nations agency, showed that the planet could exceed that watermark in the next five years.

"This study shows – with a high level of scientific skill – the enormous challenge ahead in meeting the Paris Agreement on Climate Change target," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas in a statement. The U.S. announced last year it would pull out of the agreement.

The report — which comes just weeks after a Siberian town hit a record temperature of 100 degrees — also notes that the last five years have been the warmest on record.

Kim Cobb, a climate scientist and professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, says that 1.5 degrees of warming is "a line that was drawn in the sand" by the U.N. and world leaders because of the disastrous consequences that come with higher temperatures.

Beyond that marker, she says, "we're embracing a fairly large pile of risk, some of which we don’t understand very well. So bumping up against that threshold is really alarming."

Cobb also notes that for her and other scientists, there are clear parallels between the hesitant, uneven U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its sluggish response to climate change.

"Climate scientists have been watching this train wreck happen for several decades now," she says. "And this pandemic train wreck is very similar."

She says it's misguided to think that the country's pandemic strategy will sacrifice public health for long-term economic gain.

"What you are really doing is baking in long-term economic damage, and that is exactly what’s happening with climate change," she argues. "We are basically piling on a huge tab, growing by the year ... that will have long term and sustained damage to our economy."

On the climate risks we don't understand yet

"Well, we know that continued warming will bring some certainties to us. Rising seas, drier regions like Australia, California getting drier, more wildfire-prone, and some of those wetter areas being more susceptible to extreme precipitation, none of which is welcome. But some of the most scary kind of impacts longer-term have to do with potential accelerations in the kind of climate impacts that we could be bringing to our doorstep. Things that are kind of the surprises we might see, including real acceleration in a system that we would be unprepared for."

On whether this suggests the Paris agreement failed

"Well, obviously, we are letting 1.5 degrees Celsius slip through our fingers, despite the fact that as part of the 1.5 degrees target, there was an entire report that provides a roadmap for the nations of the world to bring that into reality. Fantastic detail. And also outlining what’s at risk if we set a new target for 2 degrees, let’s say, the next kind of round number, if you will, beyond 1.5. And that is what is most alarming is from a scientific perspective. We have the data, we have the knowledge, and, yes, we have not acted upon it."

On the steps to slow climate change

"Well, we still have time. And I think that’s the most important thing for people to understand about this, these kinds of scary reports that come out. And unfortunately, it’s just one scary report after another. We still have time. And what we have to do is get to net zero emissions by 2050. And we still have a couple decades to figure that out. But we have to get going on that pathway because it is quite a tall order. We need to grow the carbon sinks on our planet, stop deforesting the tropics and start moving in earnest to a low carbon energy infrastructure."

On parallels between the pandemic and climate change

"Unfortunately, the parallels for me are very stark. Climate scientists have been watching this train wreck happen for several decades now. And this pandemic train wreck is very similar. You’re sacrificing what you think is public health and well-being for short-term economic gain. But what you are really doing is baking in long-term economic damage. And that is exactly what’s happening with climate change. People are looking down the road at their next election or, you know, their next quarterly report. And we are basically piling on a huge tab – growing by the year – called climate change impacts that will have long term and sustained damage to our economy. The pandemic, of course, will have its own impacts economically for quite some time. And there’s no real escaping that. But with climate change, if we move purposefully in a data-driven fashion, we can actually have progress while growing our economy. And there are many different policy instruments to reach for to let that happen."

https://www.wbur.org/npr/889796162/global-temperatures-warming

Pragmatic Rationalism Explained Again

“One cannot fully grasp the political world unless one understands it as a confidence game, or the stratification system unless one sees it as a costume party. . . . . Finally, there is a peculiar human value in the sociologist’s responsibility for evaluating his findings, as far as he is psychologically able, without regard to his own prejudices likes or dislikes, hopes or fears. . . . . To be motivated by human needs rather than by grandiose political programs, to commit oneself selectively and economically rather than to consecrate oneself to a totalitarian faith, to be skeptical and compassionate at the same time, to seek to understand without bias, all these are existential possibilities of the sociological enterprise that can hardly be overrated in many situations in the contemporary world. In this way, sociology can attain to the dignity of political relevance, not because it has a particular political ideology to offer, but just because it has not.” -- Sociologist Peter Berger in his 1963 masterpiece, Invitation to Sociology, commenting on the poison that ideology typically is for most people most of the time, which modern cognitive and social science has now shown to be basically true

“Time as cyclical, especially when married to the idea of fate and destiny, is inherently conservative, protective of the established social order, established political authority, and dominant traditions. .... In addition, with time as cyclical, the debate between advocates of democracy, such as Aristotle, and those who advocated aristocratic rule, such as Plato, is stable. Nothing new will alter that debate as human nature is fixed and our natures either suit us for democracy, as some have it, or for aristocracy as others have it.” -- Psychologist George Marcus commenting in chapter 3 of his 2013 academic text book, Political Psychology: Neuroscience, Genetics and Politics, on the difficulty of mindset change and hinting at why pragmatic rationalism is such a difficult concept to explain

Context

Over the last 8-10 years I have tried multiple times to explain my political ideology, pragmatic rationalism (PR). PR is built around four core moral values and those four morals are grounded in knowledge from modern cognitive and social science. The morals are not based on any political, economic, religious or philosophical ideology or mindset that I am aware of. They are based on the science of human beings and their minds as they are understood today as individuals and as social creatures.

I revise PR ideology or concept as various criticisms and suggestions arise and as I learn more from relevant science as it progresses. The last major revision was adding core moral value 4, reasonable compromise as a bulwark against authoritarianism. I did that about a year ago. The PR concept has been mostly stable since then.

At first, I thought that the PR concept was brain dead simple and easy to explain and be understood. I figured that most people would easily get it. Now, I believe it is hyper-complex and almost impossibly hard to grasp because the concept is counter intuitive to most non-scientists and maybe even most scientists. I grossly underestimated how hard it is for the human mind to simply be open to and grasp what I now believe is a deeply counter intuitive concept related to politics. I sometimes refer to PR as an anti-biasing and/or an anti-ideology ideology. I naively thought that 'simple' labeling would clearly convey the essence of what I was talking about. It doesn't.

This OP flows from flack and distrust I got from an OP about a week ago about the Common Sense Party and my own clearly esoteric and largely inscrutable brand of politics. It is so inscrutable that apparently most leftists think its far right and most rightists seem to think its far left. In fact, it is far neither.

Pragmatic rationalism: Version ~ #6

PR is built on four core moral principles that (1) seem to be the most anti-biasing beliefs that most people can at least aspire to adhere to based on science, and (2) most people already believe they agree with at least in theory. Value #4 seems to be increasingly rejected by American conservatives and populists as tribalism, polarization and distrust ramps up on the right. That poison seems to be rising on the left, but isn't yet nearly as pronounced.

The morals are (i) fidelity to trying seeing fact and true truths with less partisan bias, (ii) fidelity to applying less biased or partisan conscious reason to the facts and truths, (iii) service to the public interest based on factors including the facts, truths and sound reason, and (iv) willingness to reasonably compromise according to political, economic and environmental circumstances point to.

Service to the public interest means governance based on identifying a rational, optimum balance between serving public, individual and commercial interests based on an objective, fact- and logic-based analysis of competing policy choices, while (1) being reasonably transparent and responsive to public opinion, (2) protecting and growing the American economy, (3) fostering individual economic and personal growth opportunity, (4) defending personal freedoms and the American standard of living, (5) protecting national security and the environment, (6) increasing transparency, competition and efficiency in commerce when possible, and (7) fostering global peace, stability and prosperity whenever reasonably possible, all of which is constrained by (i) honest, reality-based fiscal sustainability that limits the scope and size of government and regulation to no more than what is needed and (ii) genuine respect for the U.S. constitution and the rule of law with a particular concern for limiting unwarranted legal complexity and ambiguity to limit opportunities to subvert the constitution and the law.

Some comments

• Service to the public interest and many of the concepts it includes are essentially contested. There is thus no authoritative definition or agreement on definitions or when and how they may apply in various circumstances. That is an unavoidable aspect of politics and why reasonable compromise is necessary in a democracy. In a dictatorship, plutocracy or other non-democratic form of government, definitions and compromise are at the whim of the person or people in power. 

• The first enumerated factor in the mindset is reasonable transparency and responsiveness to public opinion. No other political, economic, religious or philosophical ideology I am aware of elevates either transparency or respect for public opinion to a place of central importance. 

• The goal, "a rational, optimum balance between serving public, individual and commercial interests based on an objective, fact- and logic-based analysis of competing policy choices", is my attempt to bake core moral values 1 (respect for facts and true truths) and 2 (respect for less biased conscious reasoning) right into the concept of service to the public interest. No other political, economic, religious or philosophical ideology I am aware of elevates facts and less biased reasoning to a place of central importance.

• PR is predicated on persuasion, not coercion or brute force. People can accept it reject it as they choose. People can envision all sorts of horrors from PR. But since we've had all sorts of horrors from everything else that I am aware of, there's no basis in reality to level an argument that PR is somehow worse. The core moral values are selected because based on science, they will tend be anti-authoritarian, anti-kelptocratic, anti-liar and anti-incompetent.

The Supreme Court Upholds a Treaty with an American Indian Tribe

In an amazing 5-4 decision (Gorsuch + 4 dems vs the other 4 republicans), the court held that the Muscogee (Creek) Nation was still a reservation after Oklahoma became a state. The state of Oklahoma is in shock. The sky is falling for people in Oklahoma who wanted to blow off yet another treaty with native Americans. The lands included in the decision cover a huge swath of land, almost half of the entire state of Oklahoma, including much of Oklahoma’s second-biggest city Tulsa. The New York Times writes:

“The case was steeped in the United States government’s long history of brutal removals and broken treaties with Indigenous tribes, and grappled with whether lands of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation had remained a reservation after Oklahoma became a state. 

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, a Westerner who has sided with tribes in previous cases and joined the court’s more liberal members, said that Congress had granted the Creek a reservation, and that the United States needed to abide by its promises. 

‘Today we are asked whether the land these treaties promised remains an Indian reservation for purposes of federal criminal law,’ Justice Gorsuch wrote. ‘Because Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word.’”

This is an amazing decision. The US government has been breaking Indian treaties for a long time, probably well over a century. The ‘sky is falling’ dissent by Roberts claimed that there would be great confusion in the Oklahoma’s criminal justice system. He also claimed that the decision has ‘profoundly destabilized’ state power in eastern Oklahoma. It is very likely that some past convictions (~200?) will be thrown out or need to be relitigated. But, that is the price to pay when the US violates its own written treaties.

The land at issue constitutes a huge swath of eastern Oklahoma. The NYT also commented that Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole Nations are working on an agreement to present to Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice to deal with the issues this decision raised. This is one of the most important decisions regarding American Indian rights and lands in decades, if not the last century. 

One of the objections that Oklahoma raised was one of ‘inconvenience’ to the state. Gorsuch swept that argument aside.

Geez, who would have thunk that the US was legally bound to adhere to its legally binding agreements? Maybe there is some faint hope for the rule of law after all. Maybe.

A 4:15 interview broadcast today on NPR about the decision is here: