Contemplating chronic health problems and procreation…

Q: Should people with chronic health problems have kids?

Some possible answers:

• Yes, there’s a chance science might be able to fix the genetic health problems of their offspring.  They should “go for it!”
• Yes, they have a right to know the joys of childrearing like everyone else out there.
• No, that puts unnecessary health burdens on their potential kids.
• No, such people are purposefully being selfish with no regard for the potential child’s future.
• [Other analyses here]

So, what do you think?  How do you see/evaluate such a scenario?

TRUMP SUPPORTERS TARGETED BY HAVANA SYNDROME – AND IT COULD BE HAPPENING TO YOU!

 In a sinister new development, Radio Free Ozarks has learned from our source inside the FBI of stateside Havana Syndrome attacks carried out by US-based Antifa operatives targeting supporters of Donald Trump. A leaked US intelligence memo states that in at least one case a Trump supporter was targeted simply for having a “Trump Won” sign in her yard.

The leaked memo, which our source confirmed as believable, states that the communist partners of Russia, China, and Cuba transferred this technology stateside to the US domestic terror organisation Antifa in early 2022. Specifically, in March 2022 a shipping container full of Directed Microwave Energy weapon modules was sent from Cuba via oceangoing cargo ship. Based on satellite images, the cargo container was transferred to another vessel while at sea, in order to skirt the US embargo on trade with Cuba. From there the container made a final port of call in a radical leftist state, believed to be Massachusetts. The ship’s Bill of Lading listed the cargo container as carrying “200 CD Players.” Our FBI source stated that the Bill of Lading appears falsified, because who buys a CD player anymore?

More on this:

https://radiofreeozarks.net/trump-maga-havana-syndrome/

News bits: The Supreme Court vs ethics; Etc.

The Supreme Court's war against ethics is playing out well for the generals running the show at the court. Slate writes:

It Took Alito Barely a Month to Violate the Supreme Court’s New Ethics Rules

On April 25, Chief Justice John Roberts sent the Senate Judiciary Committee a “Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices” signed by all nine justices. Roberts forwarded along the “statement” in lieu of testifying before the committee, and obviously hoped it would quell growing congressional concern over the Supreme Court’s growing ethics scandals. The document identified various recusal and disclosure practices, claiming that “all of the current Members of the Supreme Court subscribe” to these suggested rules.

It took Justice Samuel Alito barely a month to violate them.

In the court’s orders list on Tuesday, Alito noted his recusal from BG Gulf Coast and Phillips 66 v. Sabine-Neches Navigation District—a case about two energy companies shirking their obligation to help fund improvement of a waterway that they use for shipping. (The court declined to take up the case, leaving in place a lower court decision against the companies.) But the justice did not explain his reason for recusing, one of Roberts’ promised “practices.” To obtain that information, you must dig through his financial disclosures, which reveal that he holds up to $50,000 of stock in Phillips 66, one of the parties. Alito is one of two sitting justices who still holds individual stocks (as opposed to conflict-free assets like mutual funds). The only other sitting justice who maintains investments in individual stock is Roberts himself.

For years, Alito has periodically recused from cases involving energy companies without explaining why. This spring, however, that practice was supposed to change. Roberts’ ethics “statement” explained that justices “may provide a summary explanation of a recusal decision” with a citation to the relevant provision of the Judicial Code of Conduct. (That code is binding on lower court judges but voluntary for the justices.) The “statement” offered this example: “Justice X took no part in the consideration or decision of this petition. See Code of Conduct, Canon 3C(1)(c) (financial interest).”

In Philips 66, it appears that Alito should have cited his “financial interest” in a party to explain his “recusal decision.” (In other words, he should have been “Justice X.”) This could have been a textbook example of the new rule in action; indeed, it was literally the example that the court offered the Senate Judiciary Committee. Instead, Alito refused to adhere to this new procedure.   

As Leah Litman pointed out on the Strict Scrutiny podcast, though, Kagan was never the problem: She has long complied voluntarily with the Judicial Code of Conduct, so much so that she once turned away a gift of free bagels and lox from high school friends. The real question was whether any justices at the center of the ethics maelstrom would follow through on the promises of the court’s “statement.” It seems the answer is no.

Which is, of course, the entire problem with the unenforceable ethics guidelines that the chief justice offered up to the Senate Judiciary Committee in place of an actual code. The “statement” declares at the outset that it contains “foundational ethics principles and practices”; you might assume that if an ethics principle is “foundational,” then every justice should feel compelled to follow it. Yet the guidelines use voluntary language throughout, hedging at every turn to avoid committing the justices to any explicit mandate.

So, there aren't any new rules. A “Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices” is just paper with words and signatures on it. The Supreme Court's paper is intended to deceive and deflect from the fact that ethics are meaningless and can be ignored with impunity.

Q: Is it reasonable to think that in view of the Supreme Court's explicit refusal to adopt any code of ethics that at least some of the justices are corrupt criminals?

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

Various sources report that the House voted to accept the McCarthy-Biden debt deal. Now it's on to the US Senate.

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

From the Pounding Square Pegs Into Round Holes Files: The NYT writes: 

Talk of Racism Proves Thorny for G.O.P. Candidates of Color

As candidates like Tim Scott and Nikki Haley bolster their biographies with stories of discrimination, they have often denied the existence of systemic racism in America while describing situations that sound just like it

Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Nikki Haley, who are both seeking the Republican nomination for president, have often spoken of discrimination and alienation they have experienced in the past

But in bolstering their own bootstrap biographies with stories of discrimination, they have put forth views about race that at times appear at odds with their view of the country — often denying the existence of a system of racism in America while describing situations that sound just like it.

“I’m living proof that America is the land of opportunity and not a land of oppression,” Mr. Scott says in a new campaign advertisement running in Iowa, though he has spoken of his grandfather’s forced illiteracy and his own experiences being pulled over by the police seven times in one year “for driving a new car.”

See, it fit perfectly!

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

Military inflation: 60 Minutes reported: Us taxpayers are getting gouged, ripped off and royally screwed. Those valiant American weapons suppliers are stealing from us. Neither the Democratic nor the Republican Party shows serious interest in protecting the taxpayer. After all, weapons makers are just hard working people (human beings) who have rights to make "campaign contributions" to powerful politicians. This is just another example of brass knuckles capitalism operating on a corrupt American pay-to-play political system.

Thoughts on an American Christian theocracy

A recent comment chided me for putting too much emphasis on America's radical right Christian nationalist (CN) wealth and power movement. The CN movement is anti-democracy, pro-tyranny politics packaged in faux Christianity. The commenter made a good point:

Germaine Germaine, you DO realize white Christian nationalism is actually on a sharp DECLINE, as is all church attendance. The more it declines, the more they will BLEAT and try by whatever means to stay relevant. But as all church doctrines, the end WILL COME. Those who recognize the end is coming will become more extreme (witness Putin and his war against Ukraine) but in the end it won't matter, they are DOOMED.

My response was:

Yes, I do know that church attendance is dropping and demographic changes are shifting away from the CN movement. That constitutes an existential threat to CN wealth and power. That is what makes the CN movement a brutal, enraged, vicious animal that is fighting for its very life.

Why do you think the radical right has gone all in on subverting the federal courts, especially the Supreme Court? This is the last gasp of the CN movement's attempt at forever power, wealth and a hyper-radical, morally and financially corrupt Christian fundamentalist theocracy. If they fail now, they know they may never get another chance.

But that only scratches the surface of thinking about the CN movement and tyranny more broadly.

There is solid research that shows a tendency among humans and societies to support some form of tyranny. That kind of mindset is present in all societies. If I recall right, the authoritarian mindset tends to constitute ~30-60% of a nation's population.

A near-final 2022 draft of a 2023 research paper entitled, Professed Democracy Support and Openness to Politically Congenial Authoritarian Actions within the American Public, comments:

Elites degrade democracy in part because of incentives that arise from public opinion. We report pre-registered and exploratory tests of which Americans are most likely to support democracy-degrading action, focusing on three distinct democracy attitudes assessed in a large demographically representative sample five weeks before the 2020 election. Professed opposition to democracy was relatively rare and most common among citizens who felt disengaged with politics. But a different pattern of findings emerged for attitudes toward (1) flagrant, politically congenial authoritarian policy action and (2) election subversion framed with a pro-democracy justification. These anti-democratic attitudes were relatively common, related to cultural conservatism among both Republicans and Democrats, and – consistent with an “involved-but-ignorant” hypothesis – highest among those who combined strong political interest with low political sophistication.

“We are acting not to thwart the democratic process, but rather to protect it.” --- Joint Statement from Senators Cruz, Johnson, Lankford, Daines, Kennedy, Blackburn, Braun, Senators-Elect Lummis, Marshall, Hagerty, and Tuberville, January 2, 2021

As risks to American democracy have become more apparent, scholars have increasingly focused attention on attitudes toward democracy within the American public (Bartels, 2020; Drutman, Goldman, & Diamond, 2020; Zechmeister, 2018). The precise role that public attitudes play in the maintenance of democracy is a matter of debate. However, mass democracy attitudes can influence the incentives that elites face, and shortcomings in the public’s ability to serve as a check on undemocratic behavior would seem to constitute a liability for democracy (Graham & Svolik, 2020). Furthermore, anti-democratic sentiment may motivate or promote sympathy for political violence directed at opponents or those carrying out democratic processes (Kalmoe & Mason, 2022; Sullivan, Piereson, & Marcus, 1983). These types of concerns are no longer just theoretical in the United States, and the nature of anti-democratic sentiment therefore seems to be a matter of pressing normative importance.  

But efforts to understand the prevalence and implications of anti-democratic sentiment quickly run into a complication: there are different kinds of democracy-related attitudes and their distributions, correlates, and normative implications are likely to vary. For instance, substantial majorities of Americans profess support for a democratic system of government (Drutman et al., 2020). But it is well known that some Americans who profess support for democracy simultaneously report being open to authoritarian actions (Voeten, 2017), sometimes rather flagrant ones (Zechmeister, 2018). What is more, support for authoritarian actions rises to even higher levels when these actions are cued as instrumental to favored goals within the context of current political conflict (Bartels, 2020; Drutman et al., 2020; Malka & Lelkes, 2017; McCoy, Simonovitz, & Littvay, 2020). Indeed, vulnerabilities to American democracy seem to stem less from a weak commitment to the concept of democracy than from an openness to authoritarian actions carried out by favored political leaders to achieve specific goals in a polarized context (McCoy, Rahman, & Somer, 2018; Svolik, 2019). Moreover, elites may justify these actions as necessary for preserving democracy, as our epigraph illustrates, thereby harnessing abstract commitment to “democracy” for the goal of degrading democratic institutions and norms. 

Finally, we find that the link between political engagement and democracy-related attitudes is more complicated than previously assumed. Specifically, involvement with politics was a relatively strong predictor of professed democracy support, but not of politically congenial authoritarian actions or election subversion. Most intriguingly, the data were consistent with an involved-but-ignorant explanation of support for authoritarian actions and election subversion. That is, the Americans most likely to support such democracy degradation were those who combined low political knowledge with high subjective political involvement, a finding that was consistent across Republicans and Democrats. Strong involvement with politics may be favorable for giving lip service to democracy but may also energize support for politically congenial anti-democratic behavior among those who are unsophisticated.

So, yes, there are social and demographic trends that point to a weakening of the CN movement. That terrible fact is what infuses the CN wealth and power movement with urgency and focus. That is what gives rise to brutal, morally untethered tactics, e.g., endless outrageous lies and slanders. It fights for its life. All means and tactics are fair game because God's sacred ends justify all immoral and brutal means. 

The CN fight for life includes tactics like passing voter suppression laws, passing election subversion laws, gerrymandering the hell out of state legislature and House of Representatives voting districts, packing federal courts with radicalized theocratic-authoritarian capitalist extremists, and acting in concert with the other ideology that dominates the radical right Republican Party, namely brass knuckles, government and regulations hating capitalism.   

The point here is simple: American democracy and civil liberties can fall to a minority or minorities who cooperate to establish their own form of a tyranny of the minority.

Now I feel better. I just needed to get that off my chest. 😘

From the Capitalism Can't Do The Job Files: Insurance companies are buggering out

One of the major impacts of climate change that is starting to be felt is insurance that has either become too expensive to buy, or not available at all. In Florida, homeowners are increasingly unable to get insurance at any cost. Now, a major hit has come in California. The NYT writes:

Climate Shocks Are Making Parts of America Uninsurable. It Just Got Worse.

The largest insurer in California said it would stop offering new coverage. It’s part of a broader trend of companies pulling back from dangerous areas.

The climate crisis is becoming a financial crisis.

This month, the largest homeowner insurance company in California, State Farm, announced that it would stop selling coverage to homeowners. That’s not just in wildfire zones, but everywhere in the state.

Insurance companies, tired of losing money, are raising rates, restricting coverage or pulling out of some areas altogether — making it more expensive for people to live in their homes.

“Risk has a price,” said Roy Wright, the former official in charge of insurance at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and now head of the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, a research group. “We’re just now seeing it.”

In parts of eastern Kentucky ravaged by storms last summer, the price of flood insurance is set to quadruple. In Louisiana, the top insurance official says the market is in crisis, and is offering millions of dollars in subsidies to try to draw insurers to the state.  

And in much of Florida, homeowners are increasingly struggling to buy storm coverage. Most big insurers have pulled out of the state already, sending homeowners to smaller private companies that are straining to stay in business — a possible glimpse into California’s future if more big insurers leave.

State Farm, which insures more homeowners in California than any other company, said it would stop accepting applications for most types of new insurance policies in the state because of “rapidly growing catastrophe exposure.”

The company said that while it recognized the work of California officials to reduce losses from wildfires, it had to stop writing new policies “to improve the company’s financial strength.” A State Farm spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.  

Florida, despite its challenges, has an important advantage: A steady influx of residents who remain, for now, willing and able to pay the rising cost of living there. In Louisiana, the rising cost of insurance has become, for some communities, a threat to their existence.

Like Florida after Andrew, Louisiana’s insurance market started to buckle after insurers began leaving following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Then, starting with Hurricane Laura in 2020, a series of storms pummeled the state. Nine insurance companies failed; people began rushing into the state’s own version of Florida’s Citizens plan.

California wildfire in 2021

Hm. A big for-profit insurance company calls climate change impacts a source of rapidly growing catastrophe exposure. What does the radical right Republican Party call it? Alarmism. A hoax. A joke. God's plan. The weather. Weaponization of the weather. Socialism. Evil lies. Etc.

There are just some things that capitalism cannot or refuses to do well due to the moral profit imperative. Things that come to mind are insurance, professional journalism, health care delivery, water, gas and electric utilities and major infrastructure including the internet. In those areas, capitalism sucks and we get the shaft.

If capitalism cannot or will not do the job, what is left? Socialization of the job by the federal or state governments is one option. Another option, the current Plan A, is to just let people go pound sand when they cannot insure their homes or drop dead when they cannot afford health care. Capitalism just doesn't care about those things.

How Christian nationalism sees climate change:

A socialist Democratic Party hoax! 

Thoughts about reasonable compromise: Analyzing tyranny vs. democracy in laws

CONTEXT

My political ideology is based on a few core moral principles, namely (1) fidelity to, or reasonable respect for, facts, true truths and sound reasoning, even when they are inconvenient, (2) politics and government should be in service to the public interest (a concept unavoidably loaded with essentially contested concepts), and (3) reasonable compromise as a bulwark against authoritarianism, i.e., secular tyranny and/or religious theocracy. The main goal is fostering a mindset focused on defense of democracy, a stable, sustainable and reasonably rational balance of power between the people and special interests. 

Reasonable compromise is a tricky concept, much more complicated than appears on the surface.

About reasonable compromise

A NYT article this morning triggered thinking about reasonable compromise in democracy. The NYT article:

House Set to Vote on Debt Limit Bill Amid Republican Resistance

Speaker Kevin McCarthy was working to cobble together the votes to push through the compromise he struck with President Biden, as lawmakers in both parties signaled their displeasure with the plan

Reasonable compromise arguably is an essentially contested concept. At least some of the elites on the two sides of the debt deal are unhappy. Some of them probably won't vote to support it in congress. Some of the public is also unhappy with the deal. Many elites and rank and file just don't see reasonable compromise in it.

So, what is reasonable here? If there was no deal, the US would default on its debt and major chaos and serious social pain would likely ensue. Maybe actual catastrophe and many deaths would ensue. In terms of what is politically possible and necessary to avoid default, some kind of deal needs to get passed by congress and signed by the president. Period.

From a purely pragmatic point of view, one could probably argue that any deal is reasonable, even if there is no compromise in it, with one side or the other getting everything they wanted. In this deal, both sides got some of what they wanted. Therefore, it is a compromise that has a chance of passing congress and being signed into law.

But, what if the radical right agenda in this is a relentless march toward some form of secular and religious tyranny? Each step toward tyranny is a win for the pro-tyranny forces and a loss for the pro-democracy forces. Each time the tyranny forces have enough power and win, they will inch closer to their ultimate goal. Wins for tyrant wannabes can include laws built on compromise.

By contrast, the pro-democracy forces are fighting to defend democracy. By definition, political and social power in a democracy are distributed and thus mixed in with (i) members of the public who, knowingly or not, actively support the tyranny forces, and (ii) people who don't participate. With tyranny, power is much more concentrated and focused with elites than with average people. Their goals are more power and wealth. The goals of pro-democracy forces are much more fragmented and complex.

Is the debt deal mostly pro-tyranny, mostly pro-democracy 

or an ambiguous mix of both? 

Some of what the radical right authoritarians got is definitely anti-democracy. Specifically the elimination of about $22 billion of $80 billion marked for the IRS to improve tax compliance is anti-democracy. The Republicans want to protect wealthy tax cheats. Those tax cheats have bought Republican Party protection through our corrupt pay-to-play political system. Corruption is inherently anti-democracy. Corruption tends to concentrate power and wealth with the elites. Although the radical right vehemently denies it, there is no rational way to deny any of that.

The deal also includes amendments to the National Environmental Policy Act to streamline permitting for energy projects. House Republicans claim this the first significant reforms to NEPA since 1982. It has been a cherished, decades-long goal of radical right ideologues and the business community to gut environmental regulations. Those special interests and vested elites want freedom to pollute and profit from it. This provision of the deal probably moves toward that goal. This mostly benefits special interests and the elites who profit, although elites deny it, pointing to jobs or whatever else that might be plausible. If one believes that trashing the environment mostly for the benefit of special interests and vested elites is inherently unstable, then this too might be more pro-tyranny than pro-democracy. The balance of energy impacts between polluting carbon and green energy is not clear, so impacts of this is hard to read.

The provisions that the Democrats got deal mostly with limiting proposed Republican cuts to social domestic spending. In terms of defending democracy, that is mostly neutral. Maybe it is pro-democracy if the amounts of limited spending are actually big enough to make much of a difference in the overall federal debt. Neither side wants to cut the gigantic US military budget, which amounts to $886 billion in the current debt deal. That is anti-democracy because it favors unsustainable fiscal policy.

On balance, it appears that the debt deal is moderately more pro-tyranny than pro-democracy. If one believes that is true, then is this a reasonable compromise? It is a pragmatic compromise if it is the only deal that can pass and get signed into law. But is it reasonable?

Qs: In view of the relentless, grave threat to American democracy the pro-tyranny radical right poses, is it time for significant new and existing laws to be analyzed for their pro-tyranny and pro-democracy content or impacts?

Or, would analyzing laws for their democracy content be a counterproductive exercise because too many essentially contested concepts are present in most or all significant laws for a meaningful analysis of power and wealth flows to be reasonably estimated?[1]

Footnote: 

1. For context, political power flow has been studied and estimated. Presumably the same thing can done for individual laws or clusters of related or overlapping laws. The chart below shows political power. It was made in 1880 and shows about 100 years of American political history.