New legal reasoning: The duality of it -- guns are safety devices too

Federal Trump trial court judge Stephen McGlynn (SD Illinois) offers a new and improved rationale for getting rid of an Illinois gun safety law regarding the semi-automatic AR-15 assault rifle, the weapon of choice for mass murderers at schools, public gatherings and whatnot. Judge McGlynn writes in his superbly-reasoned 168 page cannon blast:

Why are there small lifeboats on gigantic steel ocean liners? Why do we spend thousands equipping our vehicles with airbags? Why do we wear seatbelts and place our infants in safety seats? Why do we build storm shelters under our homes? Why do we install ground-fault interrupter outlets by sinks and bathtubs? Why do we get painful inoculations? Why do we voluntarily undergo sickening chemotherapy?

And why do we protect ourselves with firearms?

Too often, the perils we face are forced upon us by other people. By people who are negligent, reckless, insane, impaired, or evil. Sometimes it is the proverbial lone wolf; sometimes, it is the whole wolf pack. Truly, life comes at you quickly.

And who comes to our aid in times of peril? Sometimes, it is the police or first responders; other times it is healthcare professionals; and sometimes it is family, friends, or neighbors. Sometimes, it is no one.

Above The Law comments on this splotch of brilliant, tour de force legal gobbledygook:

This is how he began a 168-page opinion. He sat down and thought, “I’m going to come up with some brilliant analogies!” and then decided to OPEN the opinion with this. Which, in some ways, you’ve got to appreciate because 168 pages is a lot and it’s nice that he broadcast that this wouldn’t amount to a work of serious legal thought right off the top.

Why are there small lifeboats in gigantic steel ocean liners? Because sometimes they sink. But — and I can’t stress this part enough — when the cruise ship isn’t sinking, no one uses lifeboats to assassinate kindergartners.

Hm, it is true that no one uses lifeboats to assassinate kindergartners. They have a point there. But the judge is also right, the AR-15 is a fine safety device for use in imminent lethal threat emergencies when there is no help around, as we have all personally experienced many times. He sees the duality here, guns can be used as safety devices as well as mass murder devices.

That is blistering, over-the-horizon vision!

Hm, I must live a sheltered life. I've never been seriously threatened with a lethal weapon. Just what does being in an imminent lethal threat emergency feel like? Probably very scary.

You know what else is very scary? Judge McGlynn being nominated to the USSC after Sonia Sotomayor has to be replaced because her frail health conks out, just like Ruth Bader Ginsberg did.

Performance updates

The bad news is coming fast and furious. It's like drinking out of a fire hose.

All I can do is touch on some of the dictatorship nastiness to come.

Trump draft executive order would set up board to oust generals en masse: Report

(my prediction that DJT would at least try to get the US military to flip from allegiance to the Constitution to allegiance to the dictator seems to be true)

President-elect’s son also appears to mock Volodymyr Zelensky amid speculation Ukraine could lose war funding

Trump prepares to withdraw from Paris climate agreement, NYT reports (another prediction seems to be comfortably on track)

Trump taps former New York congressman Lee Zeldin as EPA chief -- Zeldin lacks an extensive background in environmental policy and will be tasked with rolling back regulations. “It is an honor to join President Trump’s Cabinet as EPA Administrator,” Zeldin posted on X on Monday. “We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.” (yup, I'm still on track)

Republicans Win Control of House, Cementing a G.O.P. Trifecta Under Trump -- The party protected vulnerable incumbents and picked off Democrats in competitive districts, handing the president-elect a unified Congress to enact his agenda. (still good)

House Ethics Panel Was Set to Vote to Release Report Critical of Matt Gaetz -- Now, with Mr. Gaetz’s departure from Congress, the committee no longer has jurisdiction to investigate him. It was not immediately clear whether it would still release its findings. Tom Rust, the chief counsel and staff director for the panel, declined to comment. ///// Gaetz resigned days before ethics investigation report was expected -- The former congressman stepped down after Trump named him as his pick for attorney genera (yup, the rule of law and ethics are nicely crumbling into dust as predicted)

For legal disputes, Elon Musk’s X picked a venue far from Texas HQ -- By changing his company’s terms of service, Elon Musk has ensured that lawsuits against X will be heard in courthouses that are a hub for conservative judges (what was that prediction? .... oh yeah: Worker and consumer protections will significantly decrease as power flows to corporations -- still on track)

Putin Gives Trump Massive Middle Finger, Days After Warning on Ukraine -- The Russian leader is making it clear that Donald Trump has zero power to stop Russia’s deadly war on Ukraine (the prediction was that there will be mass slaughter in the Ukraine (and Gaza), but I didn't expect it to come like this, I expected DJT and Putin to secretly agree to gut the Ukraine and force a "peace treaty" on it -- this may just be political theater to hide that plan)

Trump floats seeking third term in joke to House Republicans -- “I suspect I won’t be running again, unless you do something,” Trump said, according to pool reports and audio shared with The Hill. “Unless you say, ‘He’s so good, we have to just figure it out.’” (he's not joking)

 

Updated and revised predictions

Welp ladies & germs, with DJT's selection of sex pervert Matt Gaetz as attorney general, I hereby officially claim that most of my 11/6/24 predictions of things to come by 11/1/26 will be mostly true. That is despite the wuss squeaks of "concern" from some powerless, gutless Republican politicians in congress and maybe elsewhere. Trump really is going to burn the whole damned thing down. I have seen enough. I was right.

Looking forward

We can reasonably estimate the trade DJT made that led to his Gaetz pick. Actually I argue that we really know. Gaetz gets off the hook in return for Trump being impervious to prosecution for any and all crimes, which Gaetz will say are official acts for which a sitting president is immune. That is now the definitive end of the rule of law and the beginning of the rule of the thug.

Q: I need a citation to Trump saying that he respected Eric Holder for protecting Obama from prosecution.

A: President Donald Trump expressed his respect for former Attorney General Eric Holder's protection of President Barack Obama in an interview with The New York Times published on December 28, 2017. Trump stated, "I don't want to get into loyalty, but I will tell you that, I will say this: Holder protected President Obama. Totally protected him," and added, "When you look at the things that they did, and Holder protected the president. And I have great respect for that, I'll be honest."

This comment was made in the context of Trump's frustration with his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, who had recused himself from the Russia investigation. Trump contrasted Sessions' actions with Holder's, suggesting that he admired Holder's loyalty to Obama.

You know, for those who still claim our democracy will stand, I think you are wrong. But on the happy side, I hope you are right. 

When the public backlash comes, it it probably be too little and too late. The next chapter of America is now, more likely than not, predicated on a major social backlash. I just hope the backlash does not take the form of a civil war. 

More predictions

Predictions added to my 11/6/24 batch:

1. Federal data collection functions will be (i) stopped entirely, or (ii) almost completely kept from the public, and spun into lies when the data is inconvenient. (That was a Ronald Reagan tactic -- I think he invented it)

2. The degree of neutering and silencing of the mainstream will be almost complete because the capitalist billionaires and capitalist corporations who own news media will be cowed into towing the line in Trump's deeply corrupt authoritarian sphere.

3. Universities and colleges will be forced by threat of withholding federal funding into silence about teaching real history, global warming science and whatever else rubs radical right authoritarianism the wrong way.

4. The independence of the Federal Reserve will be neutered and weaponized.

5. Consolidation of federal executive, legislative and judicial power with radical right authoritarianism sufficient to establish single-party rule in the US. 

6. MAGA opponents will be attacked, e.g., by forcing the IRS to investigate political opposition, and by DJT's claim he will use his power to shut them down.

7. Whatever else I am unable to conjure right now. (Update 11/14/24: I forgot, the CFPB and NLRB will be mostly neutered so that consumer and worker protections can be eroded without much or any government pushback) 

Shall we chat?

Q: Is Germie off his nut or uncomfortably maybe mostly right? 

How authoritarian radical right Federalist Society elites see themselves

A great place to look at the rise of radical right American authoritarianism is Yale. That is where the shockingly powerful Federalist Society (FS) was founded and spreads its radical right authoritarian ideology from. A Yale Daily News article makes it clear that members of the FS see themselves as patriotic conservatives or libertarians, not radical right authoritarians:

How the Federalist Society shaped America’s judiciary

The Federalist Society, a conservative organization founded at Yale Law School, built a pipeline between law schools and top judgeships and influenced the selection of the past three Supreme Court justices

When former President Donald Trump began the review process for nominating a Supreme Court justice in 2017, Leonard Leo — the former vice president and current co-chairman of the Federalist Society — worked with the Trump administration and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to propose potential candidates.

Under Leo’s guidance in 2018, Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh ’87 LAW ’90, who has been connected with the Federalist Society for at least 24 years. In 2017 and 2020, Leo’s creation of a list of potential Supreme Court nominees for Trump helped to advise the appointment of two other Federalist Society affiliates, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.

By 2024, six of the nine Supreme Court justices considered themselves members or affiliates of the Federalist Society — the culmination of a longstanding pipeline connecting members of Federalist Society chapters at America’s top law schools to high-level judgeships and political offices.

The Federalist Society, a debating organization that hosts political events and acts as a network for conservative and libertarian students and professionals, was founded at Yale Law School in 1982 by three Yale alumni: Steven Calabresi ’80 LAW ’83, David McIntosh ’80 and Lee Liberman Otis ’79. Today, the Society is represented at all 204 ABA-accredited law schools in the country, has established communities of affiliated lawyers in 60 cities and has over 70,000 members.

The Federalist Society has since defined itself as a “group of conservatives and libertarians interested in the current state of the legal order,” according to its website. According to its three founders, the Federalist Society’s original goal was to provide a space on law school campuses for debating ideas across the political spectrum.

With six of the nine current Supreme Court justices serving as members or affiliates of the Federalist Society — Clarence Thomas LAW ’74, Samuel Alito LAW ’75, John Roberts, Kavanaugh, Barrett and Gorsuch — the group’s impact on the national judiciary is notably more significant than its founders anticipated.  

In the past, the Federalist Society was committed to the three elements of modern legal conservatism: textualism in statutory interpretation, originalism in constitutional interpretation and judicial restraint. .... However, [politically liberal, Harvard law professor Noah Feldman] sees this shared interpretation as being at risk. He cited examples of how justices associated with the society, like Alito and Gorsuch, have begun to deviate from textualism, contrary to the society’s stated goals.  

According to Feldman, should Trump win the 2024 election, Trump’s close ties to the Federalist Society’s network would ensure that any judge appointments within the next four years are members of the tight-knit society.

Two judges — Thomas, 72, and Alito, 74 — are approaching the age of retirement, and politicians expect a Supreme Court vacancy to open during the upcoming 60th presidency. 

Alongside the presidential election, 305 appellate court seats are on the ballot in 2024, including 69 state supreme court seats this November. 32 of the candidates running for state supreme court positions are affiliated with the Federalist Society.  (emphases added)

The power of the FS is undeniable. But what evidence is there that radical right authoritarianism is dominant over conservatism and libertarianism? In my opinion there is a plenty of evidence to support that opinion. So much so that it arguably amounts to a fact, not mere opinion. And of course, there are some Federalist Society members who really are old-fashioned conservatives or libertarians, but they are now on the fringes.

The open question now is whether Trump will keep taking FS picks, some of whom were ranked as unqualified by the American Bar Association, or will he ignore the FS off and pick judges purely on the basis of loyalty to him and their corruptibility.

Regardless, under DJT we can reasonably expect the federal judiciary to be significantly more radical right authoritarian and noticeably more corrupt than it already is. The rule if law, such as it is now, will be significantly or largely converted to the rule of Trump. Arguably, that has already happened with the two 2024 USSC decisions to (i) immunize Trump against crimes committed while in office, and (ii) legalize bribery of federal politicians and judges. 

Heck, DJT could appoint another USSC judge if Sonia Sotomayor, in her poor health, pulls a Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and has to be replaced. That would give Republican authoritarian judges an overwhelming 7-2 majority. 

Blog note: The dam holding back radical right authoritarianism has fallen

Since the election, the topics for posting here has exploded. My limited bandwidth cannot come close to dealing with all of it. Dozens of articles are coming out daily and I just cannot keep up. The pent-up RRA (radical right authoritarian) dam has collapsed after decades of increasingly weak resistance. Democracy, civil liberties, the rule of law and honest governance are now facing their final assault.  Just one tiny example from today:

President-elect Trump is testing the loyalty of Senate Republicans, calling on them to allow him to make recess appointments to the executive and judicial branches without the advice and consent of the Senate.  

But Senate Republicans are extremely reluctant to publicly criticize Trump after he won a resounding victory on Election Day.

How much clearer can this be? That is a direct assault on the rule of law and respect for it. Are there any Republicans in congress willing to stand up to Trump? Probably not. And if they do, can they be re-elected? No, not under current circumstances. 

At this point, I am now confident that almost all or all of the predictions I posted on 11/6/24 about future events from the election to 1/11/26 will turn out to be right. As far as I am concerned some of them have already turned out to be right.

My current estimate: If the House falls to the Republican Party, there's about a 60% chance our democracy will have fallen by 11/1/26 to radical right authoritarianism. right now, it looks like there is ~85% chance of that happening. But, don't trust me. Here's the data as of a few minutes ago (posted 12:14 PST, 11/12/24):

Harris' messaging, mostly positive, negative or ambiguous?: Thinking about thinking

My recollection of Harris' campaign speeches and rhetoric was that it was mostly more or less positive messaging on policy, uniting the country and etc., and most of the rest was negative messaging about Trump. A lot of people assert the opposite. Not knowing how to go about trying to answer that, I asked Perplexity:

Q: Can you search several hundred news items and estimate how much of Harris' campaign speech dealt with attacking Trump and how much dealt with other things. A lot of people say that Harris mostly vilified Trump and did not articulate her own policies. But my recollection is that she directed most of her rhetoric to policy and positive messaging. I know you cannot come up with a precise answer, but at least sample enough to have some reasonable estimate.

A: Based on the available information, a rough estimate of Harris' campaign speech content might break down as follows:

1. 40-50% focused on policy proposals and positive messaging

2. 30-40% dedicated to criticizing Trump and contrasting her vision with his

3. 10-20% addressing other campaign-related topics and responding to current events

It's important to note that this is an approximation based on the limited information available in the search results. The actual balance likely varied from speech to speech and evolved over the course of the campaign. However, the evidence suggests that Harris' campaign was not solely focused on vilifying Trump, but rather used criticism of him as part of a broader strategy to articulate her own vision and policies for the country.

Based on that answer, my personal recollection-based intuition now is ~60% positive and policy, ~30% negative on Trump and ~10% other. Before the Perplexity estimate, my intuition was that the content of Harris' speeches were mostly positive and policy, and most of the rest negative on Trump, i.e., not very precise. 

And, just for the halibut 🐟:

Q2: Please do the same analysis and estimate for Trump's messaging.

A2: Approximately 50-60% of his messaging was devoted to criticizing opponents and painting a bleak picture of the country under Democratic leadership. His use of violent language and imagery increased significantly, reaching levels higher than most other U.S. politicians analyzed.

While Trump did discuss some policy proposals, they appeared to take up a smaller portion of his speeches compared to attacks: Roughly 20-30% of his rhetoric focused on his own policy proposals and vision for the country.

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Below the lines 

For the wonks:

Thinking about thinking and belief formation

Also just for the halibut regarding matters of critical thinking, reasoning and personal biases, at Q3 & A3, also in the search link I posted above, I asked Perplexity if my revised estimate based on its analysis and estimate was being Bayesian. Perplexity said yes, that is Bayesian reasoning. Then at Q4 & A4 and Q5 & A5, I got more wonky about what being Bayesian means. Those last two Q&As reflect my style of reasoning as applied to politics and they partly get at why politics is usually rather messed up. 

I learned about the importance of being Bayesian about politics mostly from social scientist Philip Tetlock's two books, Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? and Superforecasting: The Art And Science Of Prediction. Before I became aware of Tetlock, updating beliefs in view of new evidence was intuitive but not prominent in my mindset. 

Also, the latter book Superforecasting, was the first time I was exposed to ways to measure the outer limits of the human capacity to predict future events. A very few people are quite good at it. They are not perfect, but fairly accurate to about 12-16 months in the future. And, they are not trained professionals. They are just regular people with the right mindset, which includes naturally being Bayesian and having several other mental traits. For what it's worth, probably most people actually can learn to be more Bayesian than they are, but it is a very hard thing to be consistent about.