A political war story: Fascist Republican demagoguery fights against truth in court

A 1951 description of post-truth hell

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” -- attributed to James R. Schlesinger; this is no longer always true, at least some liars are entitled to use their own lies and are sometimes richly rewarded for doing so 

The stolen election legal war

A successful new legal strategy against defamation lawsuits has spread from a lawsuit against Tucker Carlson by Karen McDougal to other cases. In that case, Carlson argued through his Fox attorneys that he could not be liable for defamation because no reasonable person would believe he was serious. The court accepted that he was an bloviating entertainer who dispenses “non-literal commentary” for a living. Despite the fact that in court and under oath Carlson claimed that he is a liar and blowhard, millions of people still take him seriously.

That strategy has spread to defamation lawsuits by Dominion Voting Systems against attorneys such as Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani for falsely claiming that Dominion somehow helped steal the 2020 election from the ex-president. Powell and others are trying Tucker’s Liar Defense and are claiming they should not have been taken seriously and are thus not liable for defamation. That is despite the fact that tens of millions of people took them seriously and still believe the election was stolen. Powell still claims that although no one should have believed her, she knows the election was stolen. Maybe that reflects the brilliant post-truth, pro-ex-president election rhetorical tactic, “don’t take ’em literally, but take ’em seriously.” That was true propaganda brilliance, leaving people free to believe whatever they want regardless of what someone says. That is true post-truth.[1]

The New York Times now reports that even before Powell and Rudy started spreading stolen election lies, the ex-president's campaign had investigated  the allegations and found them to be false. The NYT writes about documents released in a court filing:

The documents also suggest that the [ex-president’s] campaign sat on its findings about Dominion even as Sidney Powell and other lawyers attacked the company in the conservative media and ultimately filed four federal lawsuits accusing it of a vast conspiracy to rig the election against Mr. Trump.

Even before the lies started flying in lawsuits, the campaign knew that (i) Dominion did not use voting technology it was falsely claimed to be using in the 2020 election, (ii) Dominion had no direct ties to Venezuela or to Mr. Soros as falsely claimed, and (iii) there was no evidence that Dominion had any connections to left-wing Antifa activists as falsely claimed. That is some of what the stolen election liars were claiming in public and in their lawsuits against the stolen election whopper.

The open question is whether such facts will make any difference or not. They may not. If the defense claim is that the liars are not liable for defamation because everyone knows that they are liars, what the liars knew was false should not make any difference. If that legal strategy works, it appears to provide a fun and easy but foolproof defense against defamation liability. The liar just has to assert some lies in public to establish their liar credentials. Then they are shielded and can go on to defame anyone they want, claiming that no one should take them seriously because they are liars and have the evidence to prove it. 

If that legal analysis turns out to be right, and I hope it cannot for legal reasons I am unaware of, the American system of law will have degenerated into stupidity and corruption in political speech related cases. The last small vestige of restraint on lies in politics will have fallen to anti-democratic demagoguery, fascist demagoguery in this case. Even if this defamation defense tactic fails, the fact that it has to be beat down in court exemplifies just how morally degenerate that radical right demagogic political rhetoric has become. Demagogic liars gain public trust by showing tribe or cult loyalty by lying in public. 

We were warned in 1951 about this. Well, here its is again, straight back from the political hell of the ~1930s-1940s.

Questions: 

1. Since demagogues, dictators, kleptocrats and the like always resort to divisive, polarizing  propaganda, what defenses does society have against this kind of anti-democratic attack and moral rot? 

2. Is dark free speech[2] inherently anti-democratic?

Footnotes: 

1. In a 2019 paper, a researcher described post-truth like this: 

“.... in its purest form, post-truth is when one thinks that the crowd’s reaction actually does change the facts about the lie .... what seems to be new in the post-truth era is a challenge not just to the idea of knowing reality but to the existence of reality itself. .... [the] post-truth relationship to facts occurs only when we are seeking to assert something that is more important to us than truth itself. Thus, post-truth amounts to a form of ideological supremacy, whereby its practitioners are trying to compel someone to believe in something whether there is good evidence for it or not. .... [post-truth is] a world in which politicians can challenge the facts and pay no political price whatsoever.”

2. Dark free speech: Divisive, polarizing lies, deceit, irrational emotional manipulation, partisan motivated reasoning, defamation, etc. intended and crafted to create, among other things, needless confusion, distractions, and unwarranted distrust, fear, anger, hate, bigotry, etc.

The role of morals and morality in modern American religious politics

“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.” -- ascribed to traditional conservative Republican, Barry Goldwater, probably sometime in the 1960s

A commenter here recently made these comments regarding Catholic church dogma and teaching:

But [the fact that many Catholics who have abortions, affairs, lie, cheat, or steal defy church indoctrination] does not alter what the Church claims: that no one has the moral agency of conscience and every civil authority, including that of elected governments, is --in all matters concerning morals-- subservient to its claimed spiritual authority.

And that means that, in the Church's view, its word constitutes a higher law. And, because of this, it claims also that people have no right to make laws affecting morals without the Church being in agreement ... which means that everyone is ultimately subject to them rather than the civil authority conferred by self-government in a free and democratic society.

That is what Christian Nationalists want by establishing their theocracy over democracy, and that is why the majority SCOTUS has sided with these Christian Nationalists, for they learned as children that God's law (as interpreted by the Church) was above all human laws, including those which protect and preserve the liberty of all in civil society.

That raised an important but obscure to most (~95% ?) point that puzzled me for years until I figured it out ~10 years ago. By injecting morality into an expanded range of political issues, the Christian nationalist (CN) movement was effectively expanding the scope of issues it could demand in the name of God to have veto power over. By doing that, the CN movement was expanding its claim to sacred power over secular government.[1]

Radical right and CN politicians, religious leaders and elites have worked for decades to inject morals into as many political issues as possible. They have done this knowingly and persistently, but at the same time as quietly and opaquely as they could. 

To be clear, consciously injecting morals into political issues is an intentional and knowing effort to expand the scope of religious power in the CN's relentless quest to bury secular government and society and replace them with an aggressive, non-compromising, intolerant, bigoted fundamentalist Christian government and society.

That is what Barry Goldwater was worried about long ago. He directly experienced the attack of religion on secularism and natural social change. He saw its non-compromising aggression and attacks against secular society, civil liberties and government. The CN movement is hell-bent on literally reversing social change and the expanded civil liberties that have come with it and replacing that with a biblical worldview nation where God has the ultimate power in government, commerce and society.

In my opinion, the CN political power movement is fairly close to getting what it wants. Maybe stopping the movement is already impossible or nearly so. The outcomes of the next two elections should shed enough light to draw conclusions about just how close we are to losing our democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties to the rule of God and greedy CN religious elites and groups. 

Questions: 

1. Has Goldwater's fear that the preachers could control the Republican Party come to pass? 

2. What about some Democrats in congress who have to kiss the Pope's ring, e.g., some American Catholic Bishops want to block Biden from receiving communion, which would amount to ex communicating him? 

3. Based on a (true) belief that money equals power in our pay-to-play two-party system, is it time to revoke all tax privileges for all religious groups, or is it too late because the CN movement already has access to so much tax money that it cannot be stopped, in other words, are we already hosed? 

Footnote:

1. One of the triggers that led to my epiphany that injecting morality into politics was a big part of why politics had IMO become so polarized, divisive, socially damaging and incoherent came from the end stages of the fight over Obamacare. My recollection is that in order to pass Obamacare, some Democratic Catholics in congress demanded buy-in by Catholic Bishops. Without the Bishops' consent, Obamacare could not have been passed. What the Bishops demanded and got was guarantees that limited access to abortions and birth control. 

I recall being outraged and bewildered. In the months after that, it slowly dawned that religion was much more powerful and influential in secular government than I understood, and that I believed was legal without loss of tax breaks for the participating religious groups. As far as I know, no church lost its precious tax break privileges, although they should have. Apparently, federal laws that give the generous tax break privileges do not prohibit a demand of consent by Catholic Bishops to pass federal health care laws or probably any other kind of federal, state, county, city or local law. CN uses those tax dollar subsidies help finance relentless attacks on secular society, secular government, civil liberties, truth and democracy itself  In the eyes of the CN movement, as long as morals can be injected, the law is subordinate to God, not the US Constitution or the will of the majority. CN is a tyranny of the minority political movement.

To be clear, tax breaks for direct participation in politics by any bigoted, mendacious religious organization is a privilege, not any constitutional right. Through its control of the Supreme Court, the CN movement is trying to lay a legal foundation to change that and elevate its fat place at the tax trough to a constitutional right by any sleight of hand that will suffice to create a needed fig leaf. 

Government is about more than just abortion, gay marriage

and birth control, but they are a great place to start!!

That's confined just to the Medieval Church?

Didn't know the Church had pay-to-play and campaign contributions back then

Questionable morals, illegitimate children?? Nah, not possible, fake news!

The next Texas Governor?

Allen West?

Matthew McConaughey?

Greg Abbott?

Beto O’Rourke?

Someone else?

https://www.austin360.com/story/news/2021/04/19/matthew-mcconaughey-leads-governor-greg-abbott-new-texas-poll/7277367002/

https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/beto-versus-abbott-in-2022-what-are-the-chances/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/allen-west-will-challenge-texas-gov-abbott-gop-primary-n1273079

Why Republicans have such a major advantage over Democrats

In full compliance with ethics and financial disclosure rules

There are multiple reasons for fascist Republican Party advantage over the Democrats. One is decades of ruthless, divisive radical right propaganda intended to foment irrational fear, anger, bigotry, distrust and belief in crackpot lies and conspiracies. Another is the electoral college. Another is the moral and ethical rot that has settled into the federal government, especially in the last 5 years or so. Conflicts of interest are now normalized and accepted. Senators and representatives can always fall back on lies and illusions such as defense of their voters’ interests as justification to screw the rest of the country and planet as long as it serves their personal interests, mostly wealth, power and re-election.  

The New York Times writes on a key weakness within the Democratic Party that will most likely neuter Democratic Party efforts to pass meaningful legislation on climate change and probably most anything else. The NYT writes:

Joe Manchin, the powerful West Virginia Democrat who chairs the Senate energy panel and earned half a million dollars last year from coal production, is preparing to remake President Biden’s climate legislation in a way that tosses a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry — despite urgent calls from scientists that countries need to quickly pivot away from coal, gas and oil to avoid a climate catastrophe.

Mr. Manchin has already emerged as the crucial up-or-down vote in a sharply divided Senate when it comes to Mr. Biden’s push to pass a $3.5 trillion budget bill that could reshape the nation’s social welfare network. But Mr. Biden also wants the bill to include an aggressive climate policy that would compel utilities to stop burning fossil fuels and switch to wind, solar or nuclear energy, sources that do not emit the greenhouse gases that are heating the planet.

As chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Mr. Manchin holds the pen and the gavel of the congressional panel, with the authority to shape Mr. Biden’s ambitions.

But Mr. Manchin is also closely associated with the fossil fuel industry. His beloved West Virginia is second in coal and seventh in natural gas production among the 50 states. In the current election cycle, Mr. Manchin has received more campaign donations from the oil, coal and gas industries than any other senator, according to data compiled by OpenSecrets, a research organization that tracks political spending.

The NYT points out that Manchin directly profits from polluting industries. He owns stock worth $1-5 million in Enersystems Inc., a coal brokerage firm he founded in 1988. Last year, Manchin made $491,949 in dividends from his Enersystems stock. His son, Joseph, took the company over in 2000 after Manchin was elected West Virginia secretary of state. Maybe that was part of why our corrupt ex-president felt comfortable with not divesting himself from his companies. There were precedents out there for him to point to and no meaningful federal laws to eliminate conflicts of interest. What this boils down to is having an ethically compromised fossil fuel corporate owner writing fossil fuels emissions policy. That's a fox in the hen house. 

Manchin's spokesman defends the situation, asserting that “is in full compliance with Senate ethics and financial disclosure rules.”

Yeah, Manchin might be in full compliance with Senate ethics and financial disclosure rules, but if so, so what?

Questions: 

1. On balance, who is more corrupt and morally compromised congressional fascist Republicans or congressional Democrats? 

2. Will Manchin let the Democrats pass climate change laws commensurate with what experts are desperately telling us is needed, or will Manchin’s personal agenda triumph over climate change? 

3. For the most part, what is Manchin’s personal agenda, (a) wealth, power and maybe re-election, (b) protecting jobs in West Virginia, or (c) a roughly equal mix of the two? 

4. Are federal ethics and financial disclosure rules adequate to protect the public interest, or are they mostly a smoke screen that corrupt politicians and bureaucrats can point to as evidence of their honesty and service to the public interest?

Why the tax code favors the rich and powerful: Our pay-to-play two-party political system

Based on 2010 data -- it probably

has gotten worse for the bottom 40%

Context

There is an agreement between congress and the consumer tax preparation industry about simplifying taxes for consumers. The deal is this: Congress agrees to not pass laws simplifying taxes for consumers and in return the consumer tax preparation industry agreed to provide free tax prep services for filers with incomes below a certain level, $70,000 if memory serves. Of course, few consumers are aware of this free service. That is how the industry wants to keep it. To keep consumers in the dark and fed BS, the industry lobbies congress to not spend money advertising the existence of the free service. And finally, when some consumers do try to use the free service, the industry tries to trick them into making various payments. The whole thing is a scam to serve the tax prep industry, not consumers.  

That exemplifies how our two-party pay-to-play system fails to work for consumers doing their taxes, but works great for the industry. It keeps our taxes complicated and revenues flowing to them. It's a win-win for the industry, but a kick in the guts for us plankton, sardines and minnows. 

But us plankton, sardines and minnows is not what this post is about. There is another layer of pay-to-play tax sleaze for the big fish and whales. Feeding the big fish and whales is what this is about.

How Accounting Giants Craft Favorable Tax Rules From Inside Government

Feeding the big fish & whales

NYT: “Audrey Ellis went from PwC to the Treasury Department.

Two years later, she returned to her old firm, which promoted her to partner.”

The New York Times writes: 

Lawyers from top accounting firms do brief stints in the Treasury Department, with the expectation of big raises when they return.

For six years, Audrey Ellis and Adam Feuerstein worked together at PwC, the giant accounting firm, helping the world’s biggest companies avoid taxes.

In mid-2018, one of Mr. Feuerstein’s clients, an influential association of real estate companies, was trying to persuade government officials that its members should qualify for a new federal tax break. Mr. Feuerstein knew just the person to turn to for help. Ms. Ellis had recently joined the Treasury Department, and she was drafting the rules for this very deduction.

That summer, Ms. Ellis met with Mr. Feuerstein and his client’s lobbyists. The next week, the Treasury granted their wish — a decision potentially worth billions of dollars to PwC’s clients.

About a year later, Ms. Ellis returned to PwC, where she was immediately promoted to partner. She and Mr. Feuerstein now work together advising large companies on how to exploit wrinkles in the tax regulations that Ms. Ellis helped write.

Ms. Ellis’s case — detailed in public records and by people with direct knowledge of her work at the Treasury and at PwC — is no outlier.

The largest U.S. accounting firms have perfected a remarkably effective behind-the-scenes system to promote their interests in Washington. Their tax lawyers take senior jobs at the Treasury Department, where they write policies that are frequently favorable to their former corporate clients, often with the expectation that they will soon return to their old employers. The firms welcome them back with loftier titles and higher pay, according to public records reviewed by The New York Times and interviews with current and former government and industry officials.

The NYT goes on to point out that industry veterans working in government have had, an “enormous impact.” They (i) officially approve tax loopholes their former firms use, (ii) give tax breaks to former clients, and (iii) block efforts to rein in tax shelters. Talk about the deep state. There it is, working quietly, but fat and happy. 

The NYT mentions some examples. A former PwC partner in the Trump Treasury Department helped write regulations that allowed large multinational companies to avoid tens of billions of dollars in taxes. After doing his deep state duty for PwC, that partner went back his old job at PwC. Similarly, a senior executive at RSM, a major accounting firm, took a high level job at Treasury, and his office then expanded a tax break in ways that RSM wanted. After his deep state service he returned to work at RSM. See how that works? It is fun and easy. Well, at least for the big fish and whales. 

NYT interviews with some former industry executives viewed these practices as a major part of why tax policy is heavily skewed to favor the wealthy at the expense of most everyone else. NYT found that this is bipartisan. In the last four presidential administrations, there were at least 35 cases of people going from big accounting firms to (i) Treasury’s tax policy offices, (ii) Internal Revenue Service offices, or (iii) the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, followed by a return back to the same firm. The NYT writes: “In at least 16 of those cases, the officials were promoted to partner when they rejoined their old accounting firms. The firms often double the pay of employees upon their return from their government sojourns. Some partners end up earning more than $1 million a year.”

The NYT comments on current politics: “President Biden and congressional Democrats are now seeking to overhaul parts of the tax code that overwhelmingly benefit the richest Americans.”

One can easily see why big fish and whales love Republicans with its deep state operating in obscurity, but hate at least some Democrats. Whether Democrats actually will increase taxes on the rich remains to be seen. My guess, there is about a 35% chance that will happen before the 2022 elections. Industry lobbyists backed by campaign contributions are quietly swarming all over congress to make sure that all proposed tax hikes are blocked as quietly and industry fingerprint-free and politician accountability free as possible. At least some Democrats are susceptible to this kind of pay-to-play pressure (free speech persuasion). It takes only one Democrat in the Senate to side with the big fish and whales for the idea of tax increases on the rich to die and fade away.

Questions: Is there such a thing as a deep state where industry executives work in government for a while to write and/or approve tax breaks their employers want and then return to the private sector to be rewarded with some of the added value their tax breaks protected or created? What is the approximate chance the Dems will actually be able to pas tax hikes on the big fish and whales before the 2022 elections? Which party do the big fish and whales prefer on tax policy, the Dems, the Repubs, or are they seen as about the same? 

Brett Kavanaugh: A vengeful Christian nationalist Supreme Court judge

An opinion piece the Washington Post published summarizes the reasons why the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation was so divisive and bitter. This is a nice reminder of how corrupt and partisan sham the process was. The FBI never investigated most of the allegations against Kavanaugh on the orders of Corrupt Donnie, our toxic ex-president. The WaPo writes about the Republican white wash in an article entitled, The Senate knew about Kavanaugh’s partisan history. It confirmed him anyway.:

Occasionally, his votes or some news story will renew the bitter sense among many Americans that he got away with a lie in denying Christine Blasey Ford’s and Debbie Ramirez’s allegations of sexual misconduct, as well as a third such accusation, from his Yale years, that Senate Republicans all but bottled up.

Earlier this summer, reports said the Justice Department had confirmed that, in 2018, the FBI received more than 4,500 tips against Kavanaugh and sent “relevant” ones to the Trump White House, where they disappeared. This month, Kavanaugh joined the 5-to-4 ruling allowing a Texas antiabortion bounty-hunting law to take effect, though it plainly violates court precedents upholding a constitutional right to abortion. To many, that provided further evidence — along with his previous support for a Louisiana antiabortion law — that he’d bamboozled Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who provided the linchpin vote for his confirmation after he assured her that he respected those precedents as “settled law.”

The hearing record signaled that Kavanaugh was a Republican with an ax to grind long before his televised tirade in 2018 dismissing the misconduct allegations as a Democratic “political hit” — payback for Donald Trump’s election and Kavanaugh’s role in Ken Starr’s Javert-like pursuit of the Clintons.

He warned us then: “What goes around comes around.”

Even before Kavanaugh arrived to solidify their ranks, the Supreme Court’s conservatives generally took the Republican Party’s side in political cases. They allowed unlimited corporate spending on elections and ended federal “preclearance” of voting changes in states with histories of discrimination. With Kavanaugh’s decisive assist in 2019, they ruled 5-to-4 that federal courts were powerless to block partisan gerrymandering. Throughout 2020, he and other conservative justices generally stuck together — and with Republicans — in opposing state rules making it easier and safer to vote amid the pandemic; Trump openly complained that such changes would doom Republicans by increasing Democrats’ turnout. In one case, Kavanaugh echoed Trump’s criticism of counting mail-in ballots that arrived after Election Day.

The WaPo article goes on to assert that of the six Republican Christian nationalists (CN) justices on the Supreme Court, only four (Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett) are conservative ideologues. That is nonsense. All six are radical CN ideologues, not conservative ideologues. These people are far beyond simple conservatism. CN majorities have overturned some precedents to get radical outcomes regardless of the consequences.

Kavanaugh, along with Chief Justice Roberts tend to be more deceptive about their political agendas. Roberts’s incrementalism appears to be an attempt to show the court is nonpartisan while moving inexorably into deep radicalism. WaPo asserts that Kavanaugh’s caution appears to be that of a former partisan, who wants to minimize blowback against his FRP (facsist Republican Party). Those two probably do not want to see jarring headlines like “COURT OVERTURNS ROE!” They can get to their fascist ends in small-appearing and thus less-obvious increments. The recent shadow docket decision to allow a clearly unconstitutional Texas anti-abortion law to stand is an example of this incrementalism. 

The WaPo article argues that the Republican “six-pack’s” record “makes a mockery of recent protestations from Barrett and Democratic appointee Stephen Breyer that the justices really are apolitical.” Barrett’s assertion of being non-political came at a recent purely political event with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. McConnell’s role in ramming Barrett onto the bench was about as blatantly partisan and political as it can get. She is the product of politics and her political acceptability was necessary for her to be nominated in the first place.  

The article points out that Kavanaugh was in both the conservative legal movement and in FRP politics. After law school, he spent nearly four years with Ken Starr investigating Bill and Hillary Clinton, which started off looking at financial matters. Finding nothing there, it metastasized in a search for something else. The FRP witch hunt led to Monica Lewinsky and Clinton’s impeachment. In private practice, Kavanaugh joined in politically charged legal disputes, including Bush v. Gore. His partisan legal politics got him jobs in George W. Bush’s White House as a counsel and then staff secretary and then a nomination him for the D.C. appeals court. the WaPo comments: “Midway through his 12-year tenure, a Washington Post columnist wrote that Kavanaugh was ‘nothing more than a partisan shock trooper in a black robe.’” That sounds about right. A vengeful partisan shock trooper.

Questions: Is it fair to criticize Kananaugh and the other FRP justices on the Supreme Court as radicals that have moved beyond conservatism? Or, (i) has the Overton Window[1] moved so far to the right that CN radicalism is now the standard for conservatism, or (ii) the FRP CNs are just standard, old-fashioned conservatives, but the Overton Window has moved so far to the left that some people see the judges as radical right CNs? Or, has the FRP and CN movement passed from what used to be called radical to what used to be unthinkable (see image below)?

Footnote: 

1. Wikipedia on the Overton Window (OT):

The Overton window is the range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time. It is also known as the window of discourse. ....  an idea's political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within this range, rather than on politicians' individual preferences. According to Overton, the window frames the range of policies that a politician can recommend without appearing too extreme to gain or keep public office given the climate of public opinion at that time.

The point of the FRP’s and CN’s divisive, crude radical right rhetoric and norm-busting behavior is to push the OT to the far right, making far right radicalism appear to be normal and mainstream. For the radical right, this reflects the knowledge that most Americans fundamentally oppose what the FRP and CN movement want to do to government and society. They have no choice but to create illusions and to sow reason-killing division and polarization, and reason-killing emotions such as distrust, intolerance, fear, anger and bigotry.

Radical conservatives want to push the window to the right,

radical liberals want to push it to the left --

maybe the window can be stretched in both directions

at the same time with echo chambers siloing the rhetoric and ideas 

off from each other