Category: Politics and Government

Barr, Trump, and Defense Strategy

Watching the recordings of Barr’s testimony to the January 6th Select Committee I couldn’t help but think “Barr is an attorney” — I’d encountered him as the General Counsel of the company when I worked at GTE. I knew him as our attorney that led an effort to deregulate the telephone industry — but a bit of research let me to understand he was also an attorney who has been involved in a major political deal-e-o before (the Iran-Contras affair).

So when I hear Barr saying Trump was ‘detached from reality’ and that his election conspiracy theory was “silly” and “nonsense” … I hear someone setting up a defense strategy for Trump: the Tucker Carlson defense — no reasonable person would have believed these statements to be true. “I didn’t know  wasn’t true” is not considered a valid defense when you’ve been told by dozens of well-informed people — willful ignorance doesn’t remove culpability. Now, I don’t know that Trump will open the door Barr constructed. Detached from reality isn’t a good slogan for campaigning. And going the Carlson route would mean admitting not only that he lost in a completely fair election but also that he continued to bilk his supporters for millions of dollars by promoting his claim to the contrary.

Making Statistics Work for You

The local newspaper had a poll (in a heavily Republican area) asking if readers support gun control — now they didn’t define “gun control”, so it’s possible some individuals said “no” because they envisioned something unreasonably restrictive or some said “yes” because they think ‘gun control’ includes arming teachers in classrooms or something. Based on the way they elected to bucket the data, there’s no clear “winner”.

But looking at it as just ‘yes’ or ‘no’ — almost 80% of the readers said “yes”

They could break it out by party affiliation and show that only 10% of self-identified Democrats said they don’t support gun control where 28% of self-identified independents and 24% of self-identified Republicans don’t support gun control.

But any of these charts clearly show that a significant majority supports some type of gun control.

Roe v Performance Art

Since the leaked draft overturning Roe v Wade was released, I’ve encountered a number of forums in which women are advocating we all delete any menstruation tracking apps. This seems, to me, like performance art meant as protest. Not an effective solution to the stated problem.

I get the point — people don’t want their data tracked in a place where the state can readily compel production of records. If they have reasonable suspicion that an abortion took place, they can get a warrant for your data. But deleting the app from your phone — that doesn’t actually delete the data on the cloud hosting provider’s side. Deleting the app has the same impact as ceasing to enter new data. Except you’ve inconvenienced yourself by losing access to your old data. Check if an account can be deleted — and learn what the details of ‘delete’ actually mean. In many cases, ‘delete’ means disable and then purge after some delta time elapses. What about backups? For how long would the company be able to produce data if they really needed to?

But before going to extremes to actually delete data, consider if the alternatives are actually any “safer” by your definition. If I were tracking my period on a little paper calendar in my purse or one pinned to the cork board in the rec room? They may get a warrant and seize my paper calendar too. And, really, you could continue to enter “periods” even if they’re not happening. There’s usually a field for ‘notes’ and you could put something in like ‘really painful cramping’ or ‘so many hot flashes’ whenever you actually mean “yeah, this one didn’t happen” — which would make the data the government is able to gather rather meaningless.

On Five Dollar Gas

This is the third or fourth time in the last decade that I’ve been seeing news reports about “5 dollar gas” or, more generally, astronomical rise in petroleum prices. How much it costs to fill a tank, how much a gallon costs, how this impacts family budgets.

Oddly, I’ve never seen any reporting discuss ways to minimize the impact that higher gasoline prices have. Any help at all, from the trivial (make sure your tires are well inflated, drive at less congested times to avoid idling in traffic, plan excursions so you’re not making a trip “into town” for different errands three days in a row) to the expensive (buy a more fuel efficient car). There’s nothing.

This is how the free market works — something becomes expensive, you need to consider other options. Buying an electric car isn’t cheap — expensive enough that it’s not an option for some people. But driving an electric car is a way to minimize the direct impact fuel prices have on you. At an enterprise level, electric trucks can reduce the indirect impact of fuel prices.

The HHGTTG Approach to Cloture

In 1975, the Senate adopted a rule change that makes me think of the beginning of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. A chap’s house is scheduled for demolition for “progress” — a new motorway. He lays down in front of the bulldozer to prevent his house from being smashed to bits, but his neighbor wants to hop over to the pub. So they explain to the crew manager that the chap could spend the day laying in front of the bulldozer; and, as such, it should be taken that he is laying in front of the thing even if he’s not. In the book, the answer is immaterial since the entire planet is slated for destruction so an interstellar motorway can be put in … and the discussion is meant to be fascicle regardless.

A filibuster isn’t really a legal construct — debate in the Senate could continue until everyone has had their say. That’s a process intentionally designed to slow legislation — to prevent knee-jerk responses to immediate situations. Using your ability to keep “debating” the bill to stall (or table) a bill is known as filibustering. Since 1917, Senate Rule 22 defines a “shut up and let’s vote” process (cloture) that closes debate on a bill and moves it to vote. It takes more people to invoke cloture than it does to pass a bill — 67 votes in 1917, 60 votes since 1975 — meaning the minority party potentially could stall legislation until the majority party gives up on it. Unfortunately, another change adopted in 1975 — the HHGTTG one — seems to operate on the idea that … just because you could continue debating a bill for a month means that you are doing it. And, as such, you don’t really need to stand and talk. With the rule change, the minority party could require a 3/5 majority to pass any legislation by requiring a cloture vote.

Prolonging debate on a bill requires a lot of dedication — and one dude isn’t going to be particularly effective in doing so. How long can one person actually speak from the floor? Strom Thurman holds the record at just over 24 hours with a soliloquy in opposition of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. But it wasn’t just Thurman — a whole group of Senators combined to prolong debate for sixty days. Eventually there were 67 votes to close debate (and the law passed).

Since 1975, the Senate’s approach to cloture (a.k.a. the filibuster) uses HHGTTG’s bulldozer reasoning — someone could stand on the Senate floor and talk for a long time. We should all assume they are talking on the Senate floor for an infinite period of time, thus a 3/5 majority is required to close debate and bring the bill to vote.

I think the Democrats today are making a massive tactical / branding mistake — instead of trying to “reform” or “eliminate” the filibuster, they should simply eliminate the HHGTTG component whilst pointing out how silly the idea is. If you want to marshal a group of Senators to keep talking for sixty days, have at it. But you’ve got to actually talk for sixty days. Sure, read every state’s voting laws. Read every state’s laws that might almost kinda be related to voting laws — ID is required, so lets read all about how to get a drivers or non-drivers ID in each state. Read research papers about voting rights. Read speculative information about how online voting could be implemented. Read the entirety of cases from states where courts have ruled on gerrymandered districts. But you cannot just say “I would prolong debate on this forever, so bring a cloture motion to stop me now” and be done with it.

While the Democrats had enough of a majority in 1975-1979 to close debate, Congress has been more evenly split in the subsequent decades. And the resulting public impression of Congress as virtual filibusters are used to prevent legislation from coming to vote is that nothing gets done. Blame which is assigned to the majority party — you’ve got enough votes to pass legislation, why aren’t you passing legislation?!? Having video of the minority party droning on to prevent the legislation from coming to a vote could create a vastly different perception of the obstruction.

Session Years Republicans Democrats Other
94 1975-1977 37 61 2
95 1977-1979 38 61 1
96 1979-1981 41 58 1
97 1981-1983 46 53 1
98 1983-1985 55 45 0
99 1985-1987 53 47 0
100 1987-1989 45 55 0
101 1989-1991 45 55 0
102 1991-1993 44 56 0
103 1993-1995 43 57 0
104 1995-1997 52 48 0
105 1997-1999 55 45 0
106 1999-2001 55 45 0
107 2001-2003 50 48 2
108 2003-2005 51 48 1
109 2005-2007 55 44 1
110 2007-2009 49 49 2
111 2009-2011 41 57 2
112 2011-2013 47 51 2
113 2013-2015 45 53 2
114 2015-2017 54 44 2
115 2017-2019 51 47 2
116 2019-2021 53 45 2
117 2021-2023 50 48 2

 

On The Coup

We have reached a point where Dick Cheney is making an appearance on the House floor to support his daughter in her belief that attempting a coup is, well, not the pinnacle of American democracy?!?

For a long time, I absolutely believed both parties in the United States thought they were trying to do the right thing for the country. I remember going to a rally against privatizing social security — one of Bush 2’s early initiatives. The local NPR station had a reporter meandering around looking for younger people to interview — looking, specifically, for people who were worried that their retirement wouldn’t include social security. I, on the other hand, knew the history of the social security system. It was started after people lost huge sums of money — some more money than they had (thanks, leveraged buying) in a stock market downturn. The basis of social security is, essentially, that you can realize greater returns in riskier investments. But you can also lose everything in riskier investments, and this program is the backstop against “losing everything”. In that context, how is it reasonable to consider allowing individuals to direct social security funds into riskier investments because they might be able to outperform government bonds?!? But … I got it. We were decades away from the great depression, and years before the crash of 2008/2009. Most people had only experienced upward movement in the market. And the question at hand was really “is this form of insurance against stock market crashes still worth it?”. I could look at pretty much any political debate and understand how both sides had a coherent argument and viewed their position as The Right Thing To Do.

Maybe that’s still true today — but it seems like conservatives have become more adamant about forcing their will on the nation to retain power. To make money. We watched a dude on MSNBC basically admit to participating in a coup attempt not because he was ashamed of his actions. Not because he wanted to make sure everyone understood what exactly happened. But because he wanted to sell his new book. Well, mission accomplished (I guess). He’s managed to get his name out there & we all know he’s got a book. Liberals can buy it to prove there was a coup and conservatives can buy it to see “the receipts” on stealing an election. (Receipts which have been promised on multiple occasions but which have never been produced).

I’m still hopeful that the end result of this mess is a viable third (fourth, or even fifth) party. Maybe some actual fiscal conservatives (not deficit spending dumped into the military industrial complex v/s tax for domestic spending). Some democratic socialist party that makes Bernie seem pretty middle-of-the-road.

Keepin It Rural

There’s a movement in my community to “save” it — save it from developers who see hundreds of rural acres as the perfect place to make a load of money building and selling homes on small lots. And probably save it from people who move into a development surrounded by hundreds of rural acres and want to complain that cow poo smells bad — not something I’ve heard of here yet (which could just be that no one’s said it to me), but a friend of mine lived in a development that overlooked a scenic dairy farm. People bought into what almost amounts to agrotourism in my head — look at that pretty chuck of Americana over there. And you get to live right next to it! Aaaand then some people from the development tried to get local regulations changed to stop dairy farming because, well, animal poo does stink. Luckily Ohio has right-to-farm laws that protect farmers in these types of situations — unless you’re really outside industry practices and have an especially stinky farm, you don’t get shut down just because the development that moved in next door doesn’t want to smell cows.

It’s one thing to buy a couple hundred acres of your own and not develop it. Easy enough — don’t develop it! It’s another think altogether to buy two or three acres and not want any of the surrounding land to be developed. Not impossible if you are lucky enough to pick up property next to a park or something. But a tough ask when surrounded by other residential homeowners. Which is why I think a bigger part of the movement is an attempt to protect rural areas from mass agro. I don’t think many farmers approaching retirement actively want to sell their couple hundred acres to a developer. What they want is to cash out millions of dollars from their land to fund their retirement. An understandable desire. Many farmers I know would love to have kids that are interested in taking over the farm after they retire. But the reality that I see within small-scale farming is having a second job to pay for the farm. Maybe my experience if skewed because I work in IT — it’s a field that’s great for contract work, so people can work a few contracts during less busy farming seasons and focus on the farm in spring and autumn. But I don’t know anyone who literally makes their entire income from farming. Retired people who make extra money farming. IT folks who subsidize the farm. There’s a chap we follow on YouTube who left an architectural firm — they seem to live on their farm proceeds, but I don’t actually know him.

My point being? I think a big part of sustaining rural communities has got to be changing how we shop for food. Changing how restaurants source food. If some mass agriculture company grows corn on ten thousand acres and sells it at four bucks a bushel … we’ve got to value the small rural farmer enough to be willing to pay maybe six or seven bucks a bushel that provides a sustainable income for the farmer. That would also create an environment in which farmers who want to retire would have people who look at purchasing the farm as a viable small business opportunity. Instead of a developer being the only realistic option — seriously, who wants to be destitute in retirement so someone else can enjoy a couple hundred acres of undeveloped property!?

 

The Plural of Anecdote

This article on the American failure to listen to the will of Afghanistan falls into the category “the plural of anecdote is not data” — which basically means that what you and your circle see/believe/experience is not absolutely going to be representative of a wide population. I am sure some people in Afghanistan were happy with the US occupation. Some were probably happy with the Russian occupation a few decades back too. Does that mean the majority of Afghan citizens want US troops there? No way for us to know. And, even if there were accurate public opinion surveys available … would it matter?

Since the second George Bush, I’ve thought it’s a bad idea to start saying “well, a simple majority of the population doesn’t like the government, that means it’s a-OK for us to invade and depose that government”. Because I’m pretty sure GW2’s approval ratings were well under fifty percent at many points in his presidency. That mean any other “well meaning” country could invade and liberate us from our unwanted government?

I don’t even think the intel community was seriously surprised by the post-withdrawal results. There’s a meta component to publicized intel analysis — what we say about a situation can influence the situation. Could we realistically publish a document saying “OK, we blew a trillion or two over here and spent a decade or two training their military … it’s all gonna fall apart within two weeks of us leaving”?! Of course not — that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We’ve got to communicate confidence in that government and military. A week later? We have to act surprised. I’m sure there were position papers that included the not unlikely scenario of a complete collapse.