News bits: GOP hypocrisy on voting; Regarding the indictment

In a major reversal of past claims that voting by mail-in ballots was a major source of vote fraud and the stolen 2020 election, some extremist GOP elites now support expanding access to voting by mail. Why would they change their minds? Because the data they see suggests that curtailing voting by mail hurts Republicans more than it hurts Democrats. For radical GOP elites, this is not about defending democracy, it is about winning power until they can kill democracy. The AP writes about the change that the data analysis led the radicals to:

Republicans set to push mail ballots, voting methods they 

previously blasted as recipes for fraud

After years of criticizing mail voting and so-called ballot harvesting as ripe for fraud, Republicans at the top of the party want to change course.

They are poised to launch aggressive get-out-the-vote campaigns for 2024 that employ just those strategies, attempting to match the emphasis on early voting Democrats have used for years to lock in many of their supporters well ahead of Election Day. The goal is to persuade voters who support GOP candidates that early voting techniques are secure and to make sure they are able to return their ballots in time to be counted, thus putting less pressure on Election Day turnout efforts.

It marks a notable shift from the party’s rhetoric since 2020, when then-President Donald Trump was routinely sowing doubt about mail voting and encouraging his voters to wait and vote in-person on Election Day. As recently as last year, Republican activists peddling the stolen election narrative were telling GOP voters who received mail ballots to hold onto them and turn them in at their polling place on Election Day rather than use mail or drop boxes.

Now Trump is asking donors to chip in for his “ballot harvesting fund” – saying in a fundraising email, “Either we ballot harvest where we can, or you can say goodbye to America!”

Republicans say the shift is needed to ensure GOP victories up and down the 2024 ballot, arguing they cannot afford to give Democrats any advantage. At the same time, they acknowledge skepticism from many of their own voters conditioned by false claims of widespread voter fraud from Trump and others.  

Across the country, Republican-controlled legislatures have acted against early voting — shortening windows for returning mail ballots, banning or limiting the use of drop boxes and criminalizing third-party ballot collection.

In announcing a “Bank Your Vote” initiative for 2024, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said the party “has never said ‘don’t vote early,’” but acknowledged the GOP will have to work to shift voters’ perceptions.

Yup, GOP will have to work to shift voters’ perceptions. That is because the GOP told voters don’t vote early. Republicans even passed laws to limit early voting. Democracy Docket points out the shameless hypocrisy:

RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel, who defeated Dhillon, agrees. In December 2022, the chair selected by former President Donald Trump in 2017 unironically complained that “[t]here were many in 2020 saying, don’t vote by mail, don’t vote early, and we have to stop that.” She failed to mention that the “many” who bad-mouthed mail-in voting included both her and Trump.

This is shameless hypocrisy practiced by shameless hypocrites. Hypocrisy doesn't faze these spin dictator zealots. The extremist's only concern is winning elections, not protecting democracy. It is ironic that to kill democracy, the Republican Party is forced to resort to relying on democracy. 

The pro-democracy/anti-democracy tactic

This pro-democracy/anti-democracy tactic is not new. In Hungary, Viktor Orban got democratically elected and then immediately turned around and destroyed Hungarian democracy. And if I recall right, that's like American communists who used to demand free and fair elections so that once they gained power, they promised they would destroy democracy and free and fair elections. 

A really interesting issue here is how the extremist elites can expand mail-in voting by people who will vote for Republicans while suppressing votes Democratic Party candidates. Sooner or later, authoritarian Republicans will probably need to pass laws that favor Republican candidates while disfavoring Democratic Party candidates. What the radical GOP sells is rejected by most American voters, so something needs to be done to fix that tyranny of the minority problem. Once that line is crossed and sanctified by the Supreme Court, American democracy will be at or near its death.

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The indictment

From the Relevant Evidence Files: The WaPo reports about a 2021 tape made after Trump left office about declassifying documents:

The evidence leading to the historic indictment of former president Donald Trump includes an audio recording from 2021 in which he talks about an apparently secret document and says, “As president, I could have declassified it, but now I can’t,” a person familiar with a transcript of the remarks said Friday.

In recent days, it has become clear that Trump’s own words are some of the most powerful evidence against him, leading to the filing of a seven-count indictment accusing him of willful retention of national defense secrets, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and false statements, according to people familiar with the case.  

While there is a host of paper, video and witness evidence against Trump for alleged mishandling of classified information and obstruction of justice, the recording is significant because it undercuts a central claim that Trump has put forward since the investigation was opened last year — that he had somehow, at some time, declassified the hundreds of classified documents later found at his Mar-a-Lago home and private club.

If this is real, it seems to be an important piece of evidence. It shows that Trump knew his false claims of declassifying documents before he left office was a lie.   

Observations from the punditocracy: 

Fox News: The first ~33 minutes of the Hannity show last night focused on the indictment. Hannity started with a ferocious blast at special counsel Jack Smith's comment that the law applies equally to everyone. That blast was grounded mostly in whataboutism regarding (i) Hillary's emailgate mishandling of national security secrets, and (ii) Joe and Hunter's alleged acceptance of large bribes in relation to Ukraine. Hannity's guests were legal experts. Hannity equated what Hillary did with classified secrets on her private server as the same as what Trump did at Mar-a-Lago. The thrust of Hannity's arguments is that the rule of law applies to Republicans but not Democrats. There was no mention of how serious the possible security breaches were in Hillarygate compared to Trumpgate.

Legal scholar Alan Dershowitz asserted that there probably was no criminality involved in what Trump did except maybe in what was described in paragraphs 34 and 35 of the indictment. In those two paragraphs, Trump is discussing secret documents with other people.[1] Dershowitz said that the remainder of the indictment was not illegal under the Presidential Records Act (PRA), basically saying there is nothing significant in the indictment maybe except for those two paragraphs. The deceptive sleight of hand there is that The DoJ is not indicting Trump for violating the PRA. That law doesn't even seem to be relevant. Trump is being charged with violating other laws, e.g., laws in the Espionage Act. The PRA specifies that presidential records belong to the government, not a president or former president. I do not understand why Dershowitz was talking about it. Maybe I missed something. 

After the first segment, Hannity interviewed House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan. Jordan ripped the two Bidens for being corrupt, outrageous bribe-taking sleaze bag criminals in relation to the so far non-existent Ukrainegate scandal. Since there is no special prosecutor hunting the Bidens down for their crimes, Hannity again argued that the rule of  law applies to Republicans but not Democrats. The radical right argument that the law is two-tiered and is a weapon only against Republicans appears to be the main argument that most radical right elites and their propaganda outlets are using to neutralize the Trump indictment as much as possible. Jordan wants the House to publicly release the evidence the FBI has about the Biden's alleged corruption. Jordan says it shows how corrupt the Bidens were. I hope the House does release the document, but it is irrelevant to the Trump indictment other than being a flawed whatabout argument to deflect attention.

Hannity's last guest was Trump's former government doctor Ronny Jackson. As we all recall, Jackson lied to the public about Trump's status when he had COVID. The Jackson segment was a vicious attack on Joe Biden's mental unfitness for office. Jackson was blunt in arguing that Joe has advanced dementia. Hannity argued that only radical left, deep state power keeps him "propped up" and "in the basement" as much as possible. 

MSNBC: The Lawrence O'Donnell program right after Hannity also had legal experts. That program was nothing like the Faux program. It was as if the outlets were talking about two different things. The MSNBC program made it clear that the evidence that Smith has is abundant and shockingly serious. Now I can see why Garland reluctantly appointed special council Jack Smith to investigate the mess at Mar-a-Lago. What Trump did was far worse than what I thought would probably be the case. It was so bad that even Garland the Extremely Reluctant Policeman was forced by circumstances to pursue an investigation he very likely did not want to pursue.

PBS: One of the two legal experts on an PBS broadcast suggested that Smith might have chosen to file the indictment in Florida instead of filing in D.C. to try to speed the proceedings up. If he had filed in D.C., Trump would have contested that venue and argued to have the lawsuit moved to Florida where he lives and the alleged crimes were committed. By filing in Florida, Smith could have been trying to avoid months of fighting over where to try the case. But, since radical right Trump supporter Aileen Cannon appears to be the judge on the case, she can find other ways to slow the proceedings down.  

Footnote: 

1. Paragraph 34:

34.     Upon greeting the writer, publisher, and his two staff members, TRUMP stated, "Look what I found, this was [the Senior Military Official's] plan of attack, read it and just show ...  it's interesting."  Later in the interview, TRUMP engaged in the following exchange:

 

TRUMP: Well, with [the Senior Military Official]-uh, let me see that, I'll show you an example. He said that I wanted to attack [Country A]. Isn't it amazing? I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look. This was him. They presented me this-this is off the record, but-they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him.

 

WRITER:        Wow.

TRUMP: We looked at some. This was him. This wasn't done by me, this was him. All sorts of stuff-pages long, look.

 

STAFFER:       Mm.

TRUMP: Wait a minute, let's see here. STAFFER: [Laughter] Yeah.

TRUMP: I just found, isn't that amazing? This totally wins my case, you know.

 

STAFFER: Mm-hm.

TRUMP: Except it is like, highly confidential.

STAFFER: Yeah. [Laughter]

 

TRUMP:  Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this.

You attack, and-

 

***

TRUMP:   By the way.  Isn't that incredible? 

STAFFER:  Yeah.

TRUMP: I was just thinking, because we were talking about it. And you know, he said, "he wanted to attack [Country A], and what ... "

 

STAFFER:       You did.

TRUMP:         This was done by the military and given to me.  Uh, I think we can probably, right?

STAFFER:       I don't know, we'll,  we'll  have to see.    Yeah, we'll have to try to-

 

TRUMP: Declassify it. STAFFER: figure out  a-yeah.

TRUMP: See as president I could have declassified it. 

STAFFER:  Yeah. [Laughter]

TRUMP:  Now I can't, you know, but this is still a secret. 

STAFFER: Yeah.  [Laughter] Now we have a problem.

TRUMP: Isn't that interesting?

At the time of this exchange, the writer, the publisher, and TRUMP's two staff members did not have security clearances or any need-to-know any classified information about a plan of attack on Country A.

News chunks: Radical right irrationality; Radical right pro-corruption policy; The indictment

Mike Pence is one of the hoard of extremist radical Republicans now running for president in 2024. It is useful to know that the insulting irrationality, hypocrisy and arrogance that characterizes the apparent nominee Trump has poisoned the minds of the rest of the herd. LGBQT Nation reports about the irrational cluelessness and hypocrisy of Pence when he was faced with deep contradictions in his own extremist dogma:

GOP presidential candidate Mike Pence could hardly respond when a CNN reporter pointed out his hypocrisy on LGBTQ+ issues. Pence argued that parental rights are paramount in one instance and then argued against parental rights when it comes to gender-affirming care.

“We’re gonna protect kids from the radical gender ideology and say no chemical or surgical gender transition before you’re 18, period,” he said, getting applause from the conservative audience.

Host Dana Bash pushed back: “I just want to be clear on this because you are so adamant about parents’ rights.”

“Right, I am,” Pence responded.

“But in this particular case, parents who say, along with the doctors, that what is best for their kids, what their kids feel most comfortable with doing, is gender transition,” Bash said. “The parents should not be allowed to do that?”

Pence did not appear to have a response ready for this fairly obvious question.

“Right, look, I, I, look… The, the s- state has the obligation to see to the safety and health and well-being of the people in the state,” he said, even though Pence adamantly opposes safety measures like vaccine mandates, which do a lot more to keep people safe than focusing on transgender youth. “And I accept that. Look, yet… I, I take your point, I take your point….”

Bash insisted that she wasn’t making a point, “It’s a question,” as Pence continued to stammer.

“Well, I, I, look, this… Well we have afoot in America that is a radical gender ideology that has taken hold in our schools, that has taken hold in our universities, it is afoot across the nation….” Pence responded, trying to talk about anything other than the inconvenient fact that many parents of transgender kids support their children.

Obviously, Pence, like most other radical Republican elites has no idea of what he stands for or the pain his dogma will impose on innocents. He cannot understand his own beliefs because he is incapable of rational thought in the face of his own infallible reason-killing Christian fundamentalist dogma.

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From the Corruption Files: An important but grossly under-reported trait that's prominent among radical right Republican elites is their support for legalized opacity. Opacity shields corruption, conflicts of interest, theocracy and plutocracy. For example, Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas has been explicit for years that he wants all major transparency in government and campaign funding laws nullified. In Thomas' opinion, unlimited money should be able to influence government in secrecy. The Jacobin wrote:

Clarence Thomas Has Long Fought to Kill Laws 

Requiring Transparency in Political Spending

 

While refusing to disclose lavish gifts from a billionaire, Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas pushed to invalidate all political spending disclosure laws in America, insisting that donors have a constitutional right to anonymously influence politics with unlimited amounts of cash.

In 2010, the Supreme Court issued its notorious Citizens United ruling, declaring that “independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption” — and therefore could be made limitlessly.

But that ruling, which unleashed billions of dollars in dark money election spending, did not go far enough for Thomas, who had previously insisted that there exists an “established right to anonymous speech.” He supported the Citizens United majority ruling, but issued a concurring opinion insisting that judges should overturn all rules that require transparency in political spending.

An “established right to anonymous speech” is the legal argument that right wing extremists are using to kill transparency. This is a key component on the path to kleptocracy.

A Des Moines Register opinion piece reports another example of the radical right's pro-corruption dogma in action:

Iowa’s new pro-corruption law is shocking and indefensible — and as Iowa’s former chief public corruption prosecutor, I know a thing or two about corruption.

That was my work from 2010 to 2017. Since 2019, I have been Iowa’s state auditor, working as Iowans’ watchdog, where my office uncovered a record amount of misspent public money in my first term.

Given Iowa’s longstanding reputation for honesty, integrity, and trust in our state’s checks and balances, it is hard to imagine our elected officials creating a system that would encourage waste, fraud, and abuse — except that’s exactly what Senate File 478 (the pro-corruption law) is about. It literally makes it legal for government officials to hide documents that show waste, fraud, or abuse from the state auditor. I can’t believe I’m not making this up.

Before the Legislature passed and the Governor signed the pro-corruption bill into law, the auditor’s office could require government entities to hand over documents during the course of our work, and Iowa’s courts could independently review any dispute about it. 

  

This new law ends all that. It allows any state agency to simply deny the auditor’s office access to information it doesn’t want to share. In those instances, a three-person panel made up of a representative from the entity being audited, a representative from the auditor’s office, and one appointed by the governor would decide whether the information is turned over. Keep in mind, representatives of almost all state agencies already serve at the pleasure of the governor. So that’s two to one. Simple as that.

There is no other plausible way to interpret this other than to conclude that support for secrecy and corruption is an important policy goal of the radical right extremists who now control the Republican Party.

Q: Is there another plausible interpretation of this other than to conclude that radical Republican elites support secrecy because they are corrupt, e.g., (i) is this merely an aberration from a tiny minority of radical elites, or (ii) does most of the rank and file support secrecy in government and believe that corruption will not happen, or they do not care if corruption happens? 

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From the Spin Dictator Files: Everyone is reporting that Trump has been indicted for several crimes.  The WaPo comments about what he is likely to be charged with:

A seven-count indictment has been filed in federal court naming the former president as a criminal defendant, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a case that has yet to be unsealed. The charges include willful retention of national defense secrets, obstruction of justice and conspiracy, which carry the potential of years in prison if Trump is found guilty.

It's possible, maybe likely, that Trump's support will increase and the GOP will nominate him as the Republican candidate for president. The ongoing criminal trial would then probably be the dominant issue in the 2024 election. Trump definitely will continue to claim innocent victimhood and play the martyrdom card as hard as he can, even after he is convicted, assuming he ever is convicted. If he is convicted of any crimes or if he loses the 2024 election, Trump will very likely try to foment another armed coup attempt, while viciously demagoguing the prosecution as an evil, socialist witch hunt of a poor innocent patriot. 

A plausible or maybe likely sequence of events: Indictment → Trump dithers, delays and demagogues as as much  as possible → the public further divides and the emotional temperature goes up while rationality goes down → the 2024 elections are held → the court convicts or acquits → ??? at this point there's multiple plausible paths

Regardless of the path ahead, it is reasonable to predict that the political and social situation in the US will probably further deteriorate and democracy and the rule of law will continue to erode until at least some time after the 2024 elections. 

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From the Demagoguery Files: Elite GOP demagogues have fired up an enraged attack on the Doj and Merrick Garland for indicting Trump. The Hill reports about the blatant lies, slanders and hypocrisy the GOP is deploying:

Republican senators, including members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, are warning the indictment brought by the Department of Justice against former President Donald Trump raises serious conflict-of-interest issues for Attorney General Merrick Garland.

The senators, who mostly spoke to The Hill in the hours before Trump himself broke the news of his indictment, cited Trump’s status as the leading Republican candidate for president and the fact that federal investigators have also seized classified documents that President Biden kept in his personal possession after leaving the Obama administration.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, warned Thursday evening the prosecution of Trump “will do enormous damage to the rule of law.”

“Indicting Donald Trump is the culmination of what Merrick Garland has been pushing for since he became Attorney General. The weaponization of our Department of Justice against enemies of the Biden admin. will do enormous damage to the rule or law & have a lasting impact,” he tweeted after Trump himself announced he would be indicted.

Accusing Garland of conflicts of interest and political motivation to get Trump is pure lie, slander and hypocrisy. Extremist Republicans operate without concern for conflicts. Garland never wanted to prosecute Trump for anything -- circumstances, including Trump's own arrogance and stupidity, forced the prosecution on Garland and what little is left of the rule of law for elites like Trump. 

News bits: Christian nationalism invades rental property management; House chaos; Etc.

This letter from a property manager, Link Llewellyn, requests tenants at Llewellyn Properties in Columbus Ohio to refrain from any overt signage or any other communication anywhere in or on the rental properties in opposition to or support of Pride Month. Why does he request this? Because (i) he is a Catholic, (ii) June is the month that Catholics reflect on the love of Christ "for all human beings without exception", (iii) the bible says that pride is the root of the human sin that rejects His love, and (iv) promoting Pride Month conflicts with Link's religious beliefs and allegedly with Apostolic Magisterium (AM) teachings.

This attack on the LGBQT community feels like it very likely was written by a Catholic lawyer, not by Link. This kind of Christian attack reflects the increasing intrusion of aggressive fundamentalist Christian theocratic dogma in all aspects of life, not just government. 

Here, Link asserts that his personal and AM's version of Catholic religious beliefs stand above the beliefs of others. Not only can people not speak to support Pride Month, they cannot speak to oppose it either. Link's personal religious beliefs trump free speech in commerce. This reflects the Supreme Court's decisions in recent years that are elevating religious belief and practice above all other rights and liberties as it keeps pushing the US toward an anti-democratic theocracy-dictatorship.

There is subtle insidiousness in this letter's Christian aggression. Link quotes the bible three times in support of his arguments (see the footnotes). Link does not care what non-Christians and non-religious people believe or would like to say. That is irrelevant. Here all that counts is what Link says his Christian God approve and disapproves of by way of the Apostolic Magisterium** and Link's religious beliefs. This is Christian Sharia theocracy speaking loud, clear and undeniable. 

** Wikipedia: "The magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church is the church's authority or office to give authentic interpretation of the word of God, "whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition". According to the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church, the task of interpretation is vested uniquely in the Pope and the bishops." 

What is the interpretation of the word of God? That's clear as mud. The bible is often rationally incomprehensible and loaded with self-contradiction. Therefore, interpretation and tradition are whatever the pope or bishops say it is. 

Remember the Dobbs Supreme Court decision that killed Roe v. Wade and abortion rights? Its reasoning was based on (i) abortion not being explicitly allowed in the Constitution, and (ii) a new test the radical Christian theocrats on the court dreamed up. The new test looked to see if abortion was "deeply rooted" in the history and traditions of the American people. The justices did not define what "deeply rooted", "traditions" or "history" meant, e.g., a "tradition" can be practiced among a small group or family, and "history" includes biblical and more ancient times. The Christian theocrats on the court just told us what their cherry-picked version history and traditions were and abortion was not "deeply rooted". From that, they concluded there is no right to an abortion in the Constitution. It was just like the Apostolic Magisterium interpreting the bible. It is fun, easy and always leads to comfortable conclusions that accord with the controlling dogma. THAT IS THEOCRACY. IT IS NOT DEMOCRACY.

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From the House of Representatives Chaos Files: Now that extremist Republicans have settled in, chaos and slop have descended on the House. The NYT writes about some chaos:

House Is Paralyzed as Far-Right Rebels 

Continue Mutiny Against McCarthy

Members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus refused to surrender control of the floor, forcing G.O.P. leaders to scrap votes for the week and leaving the speaker facing what he conceded was “chaos”

Mr. McCarthy, who enraged ultraconservative Republicans by striking a compromise with President Biden to suspend the debt limit, has yet to face a bid to depose him, as some hard-right members have threatened. But the rebellion has left him, at least for now, as speaker in name only, deprived of a governing majority.

“House Leadership couldn’t Hold the Line,” Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida and a leader of the rebellion, tweeted on Wednesday. “Now we Hold the Floor.”

Great! Jackass Republican extremists like Gaetz hold the floor. The House is broken. MAGA!!

The WaPo comments on the chaos:

A two-day stalemate between hard-right Republicans and GOP leaders has effectively frozen the House from considering any legislation for the foreseeable future, as both groups failed to find a resolution to the standoff that would allow the majority to vote on bills.

Just past 6 p.m. Wednesday, after GOP leaders gave up on resolving the impasse this week and canceled the remaining votes for the week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) addressed reporters and explained that part of the ongoing frustration is the hard-line faction’s inability to articulate their demands.

“This is the difficult thing,” he said. “Some of these members, they don’t know what to ask for.”

Great! Jackass Republican extremists like Gaetz don't know what they want. The House is broken. MAGA!!

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From the cruel kleptocracy files: The innate human urge to be corrupt and a kleptocrat is a major aspect of the human condition. The urge is always there. Kleptocrats are almost always authoritarian, brutal and shockingly heartless. While in power, they do not care if their people live or die a miserable death, e.g., by starvation. Kleptocrats always go after two things, wealth and power. The WaPo writes about the human misery that kleptocratic Ethiopian central and regional government has caused:

USAID cuts food aid supporting millions of Ethiopians 

amid charges of massive government theft

The U.S. government is suspending food aid to Ethiopia after an investigation uncovered a widespread scheme to steal donated food, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) said Thursday, a move that will affect millions of the world’s poorest people. Leaked documents given to donors and shared with The Washington Post indicate that the scheme was coordinated by elements within both the federal and regional governments.

“Extensive monitoring indicates this diversion of donor-funded food assistance is a coordinated and criminal scheme, which has prevented life-saving assistance from reaching the most vulnerable,” said a report by the Humanitarian Resilience Development Donor Group, an organization of donors briefed by USAID. “The scheme appears to be orchestrated by federal and regional Government of Ethiopia (GoE) entities, with military units across the country benefiting from humanitarian assistance.”  

An aid worker with knowledge of the program said it appeared that local officials responsible for creating lists of beneficiaries had inflated the number of households in need and prevented food from reaching hungry families.

In my opinion, the most important reason the US never had a ghost of a chance of making any meaningful difference in Afghanistan was due to the fact that it was an entrenched kleptocracy. Corruption among Afghan elites sabotaged literally everything the US tried to do. Sometimes, the US government itself knowingly fed cash and arms to known local kleptocrats. In view of its staggering governmental arrogance and incompetence, the US was doomed to failure from the moment the first aircraft hit the first building in the 9/11 attacks. 

What did we get? Just look at the Dark Ages thugs and thieves who run Afghanistan now. They look very much like the Dark Ages thugs and thieves who run Ethiopia now. Iraq looks to be about the same.

Bummer.

How extremist right wing elites see liberals and liberalism

The topic of what America's extremist, radical right and its Republican Party see and think is of high personal interest. It's also of high importance for American democracy and civil liberties. The NYT published a review by Jennifer Szalai of a new book, Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future. Regime Change was written extremist right elite academic Patrick J. Deneen (political science, U. Notre Dame) who also published the book, Why Liberalism Failed, in 2018. 

This guy speaks for America's extremist radical right elites. He is one of them. Szalai writes:

In 2018, he published “Why Liberalism Failed,” a scathing and sweeping critique that was attentively discussed by the very people (establishment politicians, Ivy League academics, mainstream journalists) he depicted as too ruthless and arrogant to care about the problems ravaging the country: ecological degradation, economic devastation, social isolation, deaths of despair. .... Multiple articles in this newspaper parsed his argument, precisely because it voiced some of the discontent that had helped propel Donald J. Trump into the highest office.

Yet if Deneen’s new book, “Regime Change,” is any indication, he and his fellow social conservatives are feeling as persecuted as ever. Never mind that the Supreme Court effectively overturned Roe v. Wade last year, and statewide bans on abortions are proceeding apace. Or that red-state lawmakers are removing books on the barest pretext that they might offend conservative sensibilities. In “Regime Change,” Deneen .... depicts the current dispensation as not just inadequate but unbearable — so much so that he deigns to go beyond theorizing to propose what he would like to do about it.

In the introduction, he gives a hint at what’s to come: “What is needed — and what most ordinary people instinctively seek — is stability, order, continuity and a sense of gratitude for the past and obligation toward the future. What they want, without knowing the right word for it, is a conservatism that conserves.”

The confidence (and condescension) is breathtaking, but it turns out that Deneen doesn’t believe that “ordinary people” are up to the task of effecting the necessary change. They have been too degraded by an “invasive progressive tyranny” to yield anything other than a populist movement that is “untutored and ill led,” he writes, alluding to Trump. After spending 150 pages disparaging the “elite,” Deneen goes on, in the last third of the book, to try to reclaim the word for a “self-conscious aristoi” who would dispense with all the liberal niceties about equality and freedom and instead serve as the vanguard of a muscular “aristopopulism.”

The desired result, he says, would be a “mixed regime” or “mixed constitution.” Scholars have already discerned some traces of a mixed constitution in the American system’s separation of powers, but Deneen envisions something more radical (and less liberal) than “checks and balances.” He wants a “blending,” or “melding,” of the conservative elite with the (non-liberal) populace, their interests and sensibilities fusing into “one thing.” As much as he tries to dance around how such a profound transformation might come about .... he eventually admits what he believes it would take: “The raw assertion of political power by a new generation of political actors inspired by an ethos of common-good conservatism.”

He gets misty-eyed reminiscing about the “quiet leadership” provided by “small-town doctors” and a Hollywood that produced movies like “It’s a Wonderful Life.” It all sounds gentle and quaint except when Deneen erupts in demands for an “overthrow of a corrupt and corrupting liberal ruling class.”

Deneen offers a vague reassurance that the “raw assertion of political power” would somehow be wielded in a “peaceful but vigorous” way, proposing that the number of representatives in the House be expanded to a truly wild 6,000 and pointing to autocratic Hungary’s efforts “to increase family formation and birth rates” as exemplary. He also offers a vague reassurance that the postliberal future will not revive the prejudice and bigotry of the past. .... one way to make reading this book less of a slog would be to create a drinking game out of these labored attempts to cover his flank [ass].

But Deenen’s fellow social conservatives can take heart that at least some prejudices — or “customs” — would remain, as Deneen decries what he calls an “effort to displace ‘traditional’ forms of marriage, family and sexual identity based in nature.” .... Deneen’s worldview is unrelentingly zero-sum. He says he seeks nothing less than the “renewal of the Christian roots of our civilization.”

And what if you don’t want to live in this regime — one that rejects “democratic pluralism” and sounds suspiciously like a theocracy? Well, that’s too bad for you. “The common good is always either served or undermined by a political order,” Deneen declares toward the end of his book. “There is no neutrality on the matter.” He wants to recreate “the authoritative claims of the village,” but on a national or even international scale — sidestepping the uncomfortable fact that such grand projects have had, to put it mildly, a troubling historical record. He calls on postliberals to aim big, “embracing, fostering and protecting not only the nation but that which is both smaller and larger than the nation.”

Underneath all the gemütlich [cozy, comforting] verbs lurks a suggestion that some readers may find chilling: a vision of the “common good” so obvious to Deneen that it’s not up for debate or discussion.

Once again, we clearly see an aggressive, authoritarian Christian theocratic ideology that underpins America's radical right vision of the common good. The common good is to be imposed by force of law, or just plain brute force. It is to be run for our own good by an elite aristocratic Christian Taliban. After all, us bamboozled common people don't know what we want or what the common good really is. 

The extremist radical right sits somewhere

in the lower right quadrant,

maybe close to national socialism?

News bits: An advance in local realism theory; Etc.

The Quantum Physics Lady describes the concept of local realism like this: Local realism is a quick way of saying two principles: 1) Principle of locality: the cause of a physical change must be local. That is, a thing is changed only if it is touched, and 2) Principle of realism: Properties of objects are real and exist in our physical universe independent of our minds. 

ars Technica writes about an advance in our understanding of local realism:

Qubits 30 meters apart used to confirm Einstein was wrong 

about quantum [spooky action at a distance] 

This experiment wasn't the first to show that local realism isn't how the Universe work -- it's not even the first to do so with qubits.

But it's the first to separate the qubits by enough distance to ensure that light isn't fast enough to travel between them while measurements are made. And it did so by cooling a 30-meter-long aluminum wire to just a few milliKelvin [almost absolute zero].

The quantum network is a bit 

bulkier than Ethernet

If quantum mechanics were right, then a pair of entangled objects would behave as a single quantum system no matter how far apart the objects were. Altering the state of one of them should instantly alter the state of the second, with the change seemingly occurring faster than light could possibly travel between the two objects. This, Einstein argued, almost certainly had to be wrong.

Getting rid of one of the major loopholes in these measurements is where things get difficult. You need to show that the correlation in the measurements could not have been mediated by information traveling at the speed of light. Since measurements require a bit of time to take place, that means you have to separate the two qubits by enough distance to allow the measurement to complete before light can travel between them. Based on how long the measurements take, the research team behind the new work, working at ETH Zürich, calculated 30 meters would be sufficient.

While that's barely down the hall in a typical lab building, 30 meters is extremely challenging because of the entanglement process, which involves using low-energy microwave photons, which are easily lost in a sea of environmental noise. In practice, this means that anything involved with these photons has to be kept at the same milliKelvin temperatures as the qubits themselves. So the entire 30 meters of aluminum wire that acts as a microwave waveguide needs to be chilled down to a tiny fraction of a degree above absolute zero.

In practice, this meant giving the entire assembly built to keep the wire cool access to the liquid helium refrigeration systems that housed the qubits at each end—and building a separate refrigeration system at the center point of the 30-meter tube. The system also needed flexible internal connections and exterior supports because the whole thing contracts significantly as it cools down.

Still, it all worked impressively well. Because of the performance of the qubits, the researchers could perform over a million individual trials in only 20 minutes. The resulting correlations ended up being above the limit set by Bell's equations by a staggering 22 standard deviations. Put in different terms, the p value of the result was below 10-108.

Separating entangled qubits by 30 meters allows proof that when one is disturbed, the other is changed and the change happens faster than light could travel the 30 meters between the qubits. This is confirming proof that quantum information can travel faster than the speed of light, 186,000 miles/second. Einstein hated that idea. He argued that information could only travel at the speed of light. Einstein was wrong. 

Is this for real or is it just vaporware?

Remember that wonderful post I did at Snowflake's Forum about the Higgs boson and statistical power needed for physicists to believe something was real? Yes, we all remember it. The threshold for belief is 5-sigma (5σ) significance p value or greater. 5σ significance amounts to a one chance in 3.5 million that a result is a fluke.

Here, the significance of the data is far greater than that needed to prove that Higgs or other things or phenomena were real. This amounts to far more than 1 million σ significance. In other words this is rock solid proof that information can travel faster than light. Poor Einstein - we can only hope his quantum entangled fee-fees don't get hurt.

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Thoughts about spooky action at a distance, theism and pantheism: Now that we know that information can travel faster than light and the Principle of Locality has been debunked, what are the implications, if any? One can argue that since information in one part of the universe can theoretically be instantly known anywhere else, then could that be a basis for omniscience, i.e., a God(s) or universal sentience? 

Omniscience means knowing everything there is to know. Does that at least imply that all knowledge could be everywhere all at once and maybe God is the universe, and therefore we are God too? Its not clear to me what the implications are. 

Until recent years, most scientists believed that quantum effects were incompatible with life on Earth which operates at high temperatures ranging from slightly below to well above the freezing point of water. But in recent years, quantum biology, including quantum neurobiology have become active branches and sub-branches of science. Some quantum effects in plants and animals have been detected, but this area of research is in its infancy. Despite quantum effects and the fall of the Locality Principle, it is clear that humans are not omniscient and not full-blown Gods. This 2022 paper makes clear the primitive state of the art:

The question of whether quantum phenomena at the microscale in the brain play any role in influencing or even determining behavior at the human macroscale of experience is a controversial one1,2. Some researchers have proposed that quantum models of decision making fit experimental data better than classical models1,3, without suggesting physical causality from the microscale to the to the macroscale as possible explanation for this finding1,4. This avenue of research is labelled “quantum cognition”, and it is interested in applying principles and methods from quantum physics to the study of cognition as an abstract system, without concerning itself with the viability of the physical instantiation of the proposed quantum models in the brain. There are also several other claims about the possible existence of quantum phenomena in the brain that allegedly serve as the physical correlate of consciousness5,6,7, collectively referred to as the “quantum brain” hypothesis, but none of them has earned widespread acclaim.

At this point, I'm not sure what to make of this. Maybe more research or deeper thinking will lead to better insight. 

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A WaPo article describes some strange goings on in congress. What it means isn't clear. The WaPo writes:

FBI had reviewed, closed inquiry into Biden claims at center of Hill fight

Republican lawmaker James Comer said he will still seek to hold the FBI director in contempt of Congress after viewing document in question

The FBI and Justice Department under then-Attorney General William P. Barr reviewed allegations from a confidential informant about Joe Biden and his family, and they determined there were no grounds for further investigative steps, according to Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and other people familiar with the investigation.

After the two lawmakers reviewed the document in a secure area on Capitol Hill on Monday, Comer announced that House Republicans would still pursue holding FBI Director Christopher A. Wray in contempt of Congress.

“Americans have lost trust in the FBI’s ability to enforce the law impartially and demand answers, transparency and accountability,” Comer told reporters. 

.... the allegation in the document came to the FBI through the Pittsburgh field office, where Barr had created a channel for allegations involving Ukraine. That included materials Rudy Giuliani — who was then President Donald Trump’s personal attorney — had gathered from Ukrainian sources claiming to have damaging information about Biden and his family.

The allegation contained in the document was reviewed by the FBI at the time and was found to not be supported by facts, and the investigation was subsequently dropped with the Trump Justice Department’s sign-off, according to the people familiar with the investigation.

Comer and Raskin offered disparate accounts of their meeting with the FBI. Comer in a written statement said FBI officials told the lawmakers “that the unclassified, FBI-generated record has not been disproven.” Raskin said in a statement that DOJ officials signed off on closing the assessment of the information, “having found no evidence” to corroborate the allegations.

The FBI did not confirm Comer’s account of the meeting, but called his pursuit of a contempt vote “unwarranted.”

Although Comer says that Americans have lost trust in the FBI’s impartially, transparency and accountability, this suggests that an partisan extremist Republican lie. The Biden inquiry is no basis for concern. A far more important basis for concern was the FBI shafting Hillary close to the 2016 election, costing her precious votes. At the same time, the FBI was shielding Trump from its onging investigation into his possible criminal activities. If Americans lose trust in the FBI, what the FBI did to hurt Hillary and to help Trump in 2016 is a very good reason for loss of trust.

Apparently, the FBI under Barr and Trump looked at the allegations of crimes by one or more Bidens and decided there was insufficient evidence to prosecute Joe or Hunter at the time. If that is the case, it seems that most or all the basis for claiming Joe is a criminal was never real from the beginning. Confusingly, a recent Vox article asserts that criminal charges against Hunter are still possible:

There are four possible charges in the mix, according to CNN. Two of these are misdemeanor charges about Hunter’s failure to file taxes, and a third is a felony tax evasion charge that would allege he over-reported business expenses. The fourth potential charge is about a false statement on a federal form Hunter filled out when buying a gun in 2018 (he claimed he was not a drug user).

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The New York Intelligencer magazine writes about projected voting behavior of Millennials:

That millennials voted more Democratic in Biden’s first midterm than they had in 2016 appeared to indicate that aging effects were essentially nil: Millennials were becoming no more conservative (and, perhaps, even a bit more liberal) as they got older. Which would suggest that generational replacement is poised to devastate the conservative movement.

Alas, the New York Times analyst Nate Cohn warns that the “emerging Democratic majority” on the horizon may be a mirage. Contrary to some recent reports, Cohn said millennials have in fact been moving right as they’ve aged; this reality has just been disguised by the changing composition of the millennial electorate. The millennial voting bloc of 2022 is not the same as that of 2008, as “six additional years of even more heavily Democratic millennials became eligible to vote” after Barack Obama’s initial election.

In their youth, older millennials (i.e., those born between 1981 and 1989) had produced the largest age gap in the modern history of U.S. elections: In 2008, voters under 30 were 16 points more Democratic than those over 30.

But between the 2012 and 2020 elections, these millennials became more likely to vote Republican (and this was especially true of those born before 1985):

If voters continue to vote for extremist anti-democracy ideologues, which now dominate the Republican Party leadership, America could lose its democracy and citizens, especially non-heterosexuals, women, non-Whites and non-Christians could lose most of their civil liberties. 

It's no longer rational to deny that America's extremist right really has normalized and empowered what used to be considered fringe Christian fundamentalism and capitalist extremism in the Republican Party. The extremists now dominate. Their propaganda asserts that extremism is merely moderate, while the actual center-right, e.g., Biden and the Democratic Party, are extremist socialist tyrants and pedophiles. And tens of millions of Americans believe it, or at least act like they believe it.

The use of whataboutisms

 Criticize Jan. 6 - and you get "whatabout" BLM riots.

Criticize Trump - and you get "whatabout" Joe Biden sniffing hair or Hunter Biden's laptop.

Whataboutism is an argumentative tactic where a person or group responds to an accusation or difficult question by deflection. Instead of addressing the point made, they counter it with “but what about X?”.

https://flaglerlive.com/176623/whataboutism-explained/

But let's be honest, we all do it, sometimes subconsciously. Criticize Biden, "whatabout" Trump, or those Christian Fascists, etc. 

So, first question: CAN IT BE a useful tool. Example - to point out hypocrisy? You say this about my guy but your guy does the same thing or worse. Or is there NO excuse for using whataboutisms?

Despite useful advice on how to counter whataboutisms, they usually don't work, or so I've found, but nevertheless, some suggestions found here:

https://www.careelite.de/en/whataboutism/

Finally, how about the "ok, let's talk about that" method? If you are talking Trump, and someone tries to whatabout mentioning Joe Biden, say to them "ok, what about Joe Biden? Can you point to something that Joe Biden did that equals what we are talking about concerning Trump?" Or will THAT just lead to a circular argument?  My guy is worse than yours.

That leads to my 2nd question: When confronted with a whataboutism, how do YOU handle it? 

Whatabout you post a meme that is in English?