Food for Thought, and a Digestive

Both from the Washington Post:

To beat President Trump, you have to learn to think like his supporters

The euphemisms I refuse to use in 2018

Sarah Kendzior on Twitter summarizes Sen. Warner's Red line

Sarah Kendzior:

All Dems and GOP must unambiguously say that any effort to shut down Mueller probe would be a gross abuse of power. This is a red line.

Many of the same people attacking Mueller's appointment today praised him months ago.

Our intel committee uncovered numerous, troubling high-level engagements between the Trump campaign and Russian affiliates.

The national security threat we face demands we rise above partisan differences. We should all want to know the truth about what happened in the election, and know it as quickly as possible

POTUS's track record is a source of concern. Most people thought he wouldn't fire Comey and he did. Firing Mueller would cause a constitutional crisis.

I had hoped I'd never have to make these speech, but these are troubling times. We must all speak up -- before it's too late.

Sen Warner's speech on the Mueller probe felt more like a warning to the US public than to Trump: brace yourself for a crisis even worse than our current one, and don't fall for spin

EPA says Superfund Task Force left no records

Blessed are the scum, for they shall envelop the earth. Scott Pruitt's secretive, unaccountable EPA is re-defining what it means to be a public servant. EPA says Superfund Task Force left no records | News | santafenewmexican.com:

The task force in June issued a nearly three dozen-page report containing 42 detailed recommendations, all of which Pruitt immediately adopted. The advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, known as PEER, quickly filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking a long list of documents related to the development of Pruitt’s plan.

“Task force members were all volunteers from EPA staff with no selection criteria,” Johnny Walker, a Justice Department lawyer representing EPA, wrote to PEER last month. “The Task Force recommendations were intended to provide guidance to EPA staff. As such, there was no plan for public review and comment on the recommendations.”

The task force was led by Albert “Kell” Kelly, whom Pruitt hired at EPA as a senior adviser at an annual salary of $172,100. Kelly was previously the chairman of Tulsa-based SpiritBank, where he worked as an executive for 34 years.

The Associated Press reported in August that Kelly was barred by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from working for any U.S. financial institution after officials determined he violated laws or regulations, leading to a financial loss for his bank.

U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich: Why hinder a rapidly growing industry?

Why hinder a rapidly growing industry? | Albuquerque Journal:

Only a little more than 1 percent of the hundreds of thousands of American solar workers manufacture solar panels or modules. Even within solar manufacturing as a whole, approximately 20 times more American workers work for companies like New Mexico’s Unirac that manufacture other equipment used to produce solar power. Those companies have warned that they may have to lay off employees if the United States imposes costly tariffs or quotas on imported panels.

I’m on Trump’s voter fraud commission. I’m suing it to find out what it’s doing. - The Washington Post

I’m on Trump’s voter fraud commission. I’m suing it to find out what it’s doing. - The Washington Post:

Instead, the commission is cloaking itself in secrecy, completely contrary to federal law. Recommendations for changes in public policy — whether you agree with them or not — ought to come through an open, public discussion where any American can weigh in.

the memo wasn’t written by staff — it was written by individuals who were later named to the commission but who were working outside of government at the time. The letter went out immediately after our first conference call, indicating that Kobach’s data-gathering effort was underway before the commission formed. But no one told members of the commission that; I learned about it from the press.

Strangely, [Kobach's] charges had less to do with how voters in New Hampshire had conducted themselves than with the structure of the state’s election laws, which Kobach apparently dislikes.

The commission was established by executive order under the auspices of the Federal Advisory Commission Act (FACA), which requires notice of our public meetings, disclosure of our work product and the opportunity for public participation. FACA was written precisely so Americans would know what the government is doing and what it is considering, so we could participate in that process.

Without transparency about the commission’s actions, how can you find out if a policy is being developed that may require you to have a Real ID-compliant driver’s license to vote? Or whether you’ll have to prove American citizenship at the polls? How will you know about proposed changes to voter registration deadlines or new restrictions on absentee balloting?

Of course, this is politics. But remember, we as American citizens are supposed to own the process.

Gutting net neutrality is a death knell for the resistance - The Globe and Mail

Gutting net neutrality is a death knell for the resistance - The Globe and Mail:

Gutting net neutrality is one of the most unpopular proposals the Republicans have made this year, along with Trumpcare and the proposed tax hike for all but the wealthiest Americans. Normally, there would be risk in proposing such widely loathed policies, but the GOP appears unconcerned with public approval – a strong indicator to me that the elections are indeed a fait accompli.

What can we Americans do? Talk about it – while we still can. Call our representatives, organize in our community, and have a plan for what we'll do should these repressive initiatives pass. Over the past year, citizens have had success exerting public pressure on officials and raising consciousness over social issues. The internet was key to these endeavours, which is precisely why the administration wants to eliminate equal access to it. If we, as Americans, want to retain our voice, we must speak up now, or forever, involuntarily, hold our peace.

Shaping the World | David R. MacIver

Shaping the World | David R. MacIver

This keynote speech from PyCon UK is about software, a little. But it's more about societies and other complex systems, and the consequences that arise from our simplified models of them. It is full of wonderful associations.

It's pretty amazing that Mr. MacIver was able to speak so evocatively, especially after having had his memory wiped by the sight of 800 or so audience members.

I wish the read-write web actually existed. I would love to be able to annotate his transcript directly. Instead I'll quote, and note, here.

Models of Trees

If you’re a computer scientist, or have had an unfortunate developer job interview recently, a tree is probably something like this.

Hello, Google ;)

[A real, biological tree] provides shade, maybe fruit, it has a complex root system. It’s the center of its own little ecosystem, providing shelter and food for birds, insects, and other animals.

"Complex root system" reminds me of what has recently been written about how tree root systems communicate and share nutrients with other trees. It also reminds of the relationship between root systems and fungal meshes (a mushroom is to the whole fungus as the tip of the iceberg is to the submerged mass), which dissolve rock to serve as nutrients to plants in exchange for carbohydrates (?) from the plant.

And of course it reminds me of Aldo Leopold's story of an atom: the "Odyssey" chapter from "A Sand County Almanac", written in a time when it was believed that plants disintegrated rocks solely by driving roots into them like wedges.

Back to the keynote:

The problem that the German scientific foresters ran into is that complex, natural, systems are often robust in ways that simple, optimised systems are not. They’ve evolved over time, with lots of fiddly little details that have occurred locally to adapt to and patch over problems. Much of that illegibility turns out not to be accidental complexity, but instead the adaptation that was required to make the system work at all.

I've spent much of the past year updating a build system that generates Makefiles from Visual Studio solution/project files. This is a lovely description of that system.

Taxes and Their Avoidance

Have you seen these? Do you know why there are these bricked up windows? Well, it’s because of window taxes... So this is where windows taxes come from – take complex, messy, realities of wealth and pick a simple proxy for it... and you end up taxing the number of windows. Of course what happens is that people brick up their windows to save on taxes. And then suffer health problems...

I was surprised that this was an English building. For me, bricked-over windows and doors evoke Russia, Peter the Great, and the war of countermeasures between tax collectors and peasants.

From "Peter the Great", by Robert Massie:

"The only solution [to Peter's constant need for funds...] was to lay still heavier taxes on the burdened nation... the basic tax had been the old household tax, determined by a census... This tax... made for crowded living because, to avoid taxation, as many families and people as possible crowded under one roof."

"But the new low figures also represented the helplessness of the government to overcome the stratagems of both nobility and peasants who were determined to evade taxes... Russian peasant houses were largely made of logs or timbers notched at four corners. Thus, they could be un-notched in a few hours and either removed to the forest or scattered about. The census takers and tax collectors knew the trick, but there was little they could do about it."

From "For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization", by Charles Adams:

"Duplexes and triplexes were built to take advantage of the one-dwelling, one-tax loophole. The tsar's tax collector responded by considering each outside door as a separate household. Peasants responded by boarding up one of the doors..."

But to return to the keynote:

These complex shared ownerships are illegible, so we force people to conform instead to the legible idea of single people or families owning each piece of land. This is where a lot of modern notions of ownership come from by the way – the state created them so they could collect more tax.

...

And of course we have the soviet union’s program of farm collectivization, which has the state pushing things in entirely the opposite direction.

This reminds that I want to read Anne Applebaum's new book, "Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine", which details the use of collective farming as a tool of mass murder.

Legibility, and the Choice of Model Parameters

After all of these interesting anecdotes rich with association, Mr. MacIver moves to his main point, which is that the attempts of tech companies to be disruptive, or to improve efficiency, can be boiled down to attempts to improve legibility. They aren't removing cruft: they're building new models of complex systems. They're choosing principal components – sets of parameters – that make it easier to understand the properties they want to optimize.

That model building produces lots of unintended – often bad – consequences.

... we’ve reduced the world to the small subset of it that we think of as the important bits, and discarded the old, illegible, reality as unimportant...

that legibility we impose often maps very badly to the actual complexity of the world. You only have to look at the endless stream of falsehoods programmers believe [in order] to get a sense of how much of the world’s complexity we’re ignoring.

Mr. MacIver next explains soft power, and in particular the soft power of disruptive technology companies. I took his words as an oblique reference to Amazon's business model, and free two-day shipping, but Mr. MacIver explicitly referenced other companies such as Twitter and Uber:

... soft power is power that you derive instead from appeal – People want to do what you want. There are a variety of routes to soft power, but there’s one that has been particularly effective for colonising forces, the early state, and software companies. It goes like this.

First you make them want what you have, then you make them need it.

The trick is to to basically ease people in – you give them a hook that makes your stuff appealing, and then once they’re used to it they can’t do without...

Pity they’re going to hike the prices way up when they’ve driven the competition into the ground and want to stop hemorrhaging money.

Sometimes it turns out that what we were disrupting was our life support system.

Admonitions

Mr. MacIver ends with some advice.

First he reminds the partisans of the old Mac / Windows wars that they both have it wrong, and that Richard Stallman's painful prescription is probably, by far, the best.

Then he advises that anyone who wants to develop a new, disruptive technology (and who is not cynically trying to control some large portion of society/industry, as I believe Mr. Bezos and others are) should begin with user research. "If you’re going to be forming a simplified model of the world, at least base it on what’s important to the people who are going to be using your software."

Finally, he practically begs us all to stop relying on ads. You should read his advice for yourself.

Thanks, Mr. MacGiver, for such a wonderful and thoughtful talk.

The Founding Fathers designed impeachment for someone exactly like Donald Trump - The Washington Post

The Founding Fathers designed impeachment for someone exactly like Donald Trump - The Washington Post: in which Barbara Radnofsky lays out the many causes for which a properly functioning Congress would already have impeached Donald J. Trump.

Scores decry new science standards | Northern New Mexico Education | santafenewmexican.com

Scores decry new science standards | Northern New Mexico Education | santafenewmexican.com:

More than 200 people showed up at the Public Education Department on Monday to voice opposition to the New Mexico STEM-Ready Standards, due to go into effect for state schools in July 2018...

By midafternoon, not one person spoke in favor of adopting the standards.

Want to deepen our democracy? Get ready. - The Washington Post

Want to deepen our democracy? Get ready. - The Washington Post:

The time has come to make our democracy democratic again. And now, no one can say that we lack ideas for how to do it.

Nuclear Experts Head to China to Test Experimental Reactors - Bloomberg

Nuclear Experts Head to China to Test Experimental Reactors - Bloomberg:

“China by a very large margin is the largest market in the world for new power plants of any type,” said Charles W. Forsberg, a professor at MIT. “If we do not get our act together, the low-carbon energy business will be owned by the Chinese.”

Yup.

The First White President

There is a lot to consider in this, by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Lest I create the false impression of a disjointed argument, please note that these are just a few bones taken from a beautifully articulated skeleton. The First White President:

After his cabal of conspiracy theorists forced Barack Obama to present his birth certificate, Trump demanded the president’s college grades (offering $5 million in exchange for them), insisting that Obama was not intelligent enough to have gone to an Ivy League school, and that his acclaimed memoir, Dreams From My Father, had been ghostwritten by a white man, Bill Ayers.

Asserting that Trump’s rise was primarily powered by cultural resentment and economic reversal has become de rigeur among white pundits and thought leaders. But evidence for this is, at best, mixed.

Trump’s white support was not determined by income... Trump’s dominance among whites across class lines is of a piece with his larger dominance across nearly [emph. added] every white demographic. Trump won white women (+9) and white men (+31).

And so an opioid epidemic among mostly white people is greeted with calls for compassion and treatment, as all epidemics should be, while a crack epidemic among mostly black people is greeted with scorn and mandatory minimums.

Firsthand reports by white Union soldiers who witnessed actual slavery during the Civil War rendered the “white slavery” argument ridiculous. But its operating premises—white labor as noble archetype, and black labor as something else—lived on.

“A new voice” was beginning to make itself felt in the country. “It is a voice that has been silent too long,” Nixon claimed, alluding to working-class whites. “It is a voice of people who have not taken to the streets before, who have not indulged in violence, who have not broken the law.”

It had been only 18 years since the Cicero riots; eight years since Daisy and Bill Myers had been run out of Levittown, Pennsylvania; three years since Martin Luther King Jr. had been stoned while walking through Chicago’s Marquette Park. But as the myth of the virtuous white working class was made central to American identity, its sins needed to be rendered invisible.

I suspect all of the above is just background, to enable the reader to see in a new light the material to come: I've just reached the point where Mr. Coates begins recounting statements of the (all-white) Democratic candidates in the 2016 Presidential election. Recommended reading.

What a human can endure

Sumiteru Taniguchi, who fought to abolish nuclear weapons after Nagasaki, dead at 88 - World - CBC News

Joe Biden lays it down

'We Are Living Through a Battle for the Soul of This Nation'

Today we have an American president who has publicly proclaimed a moral equivalency between neo-Nazis and Klansmen and those who would oppose their venom and hate.

You, [I], and the citizens of this country carry a special burden in 2017. We have to do what our president has not. We have to uphold America’s values. We have to do what he will not. We have to defend our Constitution. We have to remember our kids are watching. We have to show the world America is still a beacon of light.

+1

"I am The Law." The Law is an ass

Laurence Tribe on Twitter:

T just sent lots of messages: to F & M, to Mueller, to all POC & LGBTQ, to GOP, to Pentagon all Americans: I AM THE LAW. Get used to it.

Retweeting Beau Willimon:

It was a message - on the same day that Mueller's grand jury issued subpoenas for Flynn & Manafort - that they should hold the line...

Beware: Trump may use the alt-right to turn himself into the center - The Washington Post

Beware: Trump may use the alt-right to turn himself into the center - The Washington Post:

Remember, along with group violence, individual acts are very useful to Trump: He can “crack down” on the violence, he can call for more police, he can present himself as the candidate of law and order. The more chaos, the stronger he will seem.

Now that Jobbik is Hungary’s second-largest political party, Fidesz positions itself as the center. Here’s the paradox: “Vote for us or else you get the far-right” is an argument that the farthest-right ruling party in Europe uses to win elections.

Building America’s Trust Act would amp up privacy concerns at the border | Ars Technica

We will protect your civil liberties by curtailing them. Building America’s Trust Act would amp up privacy concerns at the border | Ars Technica:

"This is a surveillance bill in pretty weak disguise. And it won't be limited to immigrants," Alvaro Bedoya, a law professor at Georgetown University, told Ars. "It would pave the way for more face scans of American citizens at airports. It would aggressively deploy drones at the 'border,' but [it] doesn't mention that DHS interprets its authority to operate at the 'border' to extend to any area within 100 miles of the actual legal border."

In 1939, I didn’t hear war coming. Now its thundering approach can’t be ignored

This is just one arresting statement from a worrying essay. Harry Leslie Smith | Opinion | The Guardian:

It is as foolish for Americans to believe that their generals will save them from Trump as it was for liberal Germans to believe the military would protect the nation from Hitler’s excesses.

When the White House Lies About You - The New York Times

When the White House Lies About You - The New York Times:

[Using a general to demonize the press] raises the question of whether normally apolitical figures aren’t being conscripted into Trump’s war on the press. That’s a worrying thought for institutions, like the C.I.A., that are supposed to remain above the fray to preserve public trust.

This does raise the question of whether the WH is planting disinformation with outsiders in hopes they will find it outrageous enough to propagate it. You know, dezinformatsiya.

A Wisconsin Republican Looks Back With Regret at Voter ID and Redistricting Fights - ProPublica

ProPublica interviews a retired state senator who speaks with candor, and who describes collecting evidence and then using it to guide his decisions. That was refreshing.

Internal memo reveals ICE officers have free rein to detain any undocumented immigrant

Internal memo reveals ICE officers have free rein to detain any undocumented immigrant:

Under Obama, who earned the title of “deporter-in-chief” from immigration activists for the record number of deportations that took place under his administration, the majority of the detained undocumented population either had criminal histories or fell into a category where they could be considered a threat to public safety or national security.

“When you use the word ‘will’ instead of ‘may’ you are taking it a step further,” Saldaña told Propublica. “This is an important directive and people at ERO are bound by this directive unless someone above Matt Albence comes back and says, ‘You went too far.’ I don’t think you are going to find that person in this administration,” Saldaña added.

Republicans are risking becoming the party of Putin - The Washington Post

Republicans are risking becoming the party of Putin - The Washington Post:

Increasingly sophisticated Russian influence and cyberoperations threaten Americans’ ability to choose their own leaders. This isn’t hyperbole; in fact, it’s hard to overstate just how serious this issue is. Yet President Trump continues to sow doubt about whether Moscow even interfered in the 2016 presidential elections and to suggest the question’s insignificance by ignoring it all together.

Worse, Trump appears to have some support in this from Republican leaders in the House. Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) have delayed the bill, citing the constitutional requirement that such bills originate in the House.

This is little more than a red herring. Nothing prevents them from inserting the text of the Senate bill into a House measure, passing it and sending it back to the Senate for final approval, which it would likely grant under expedited procedures. Instead, Ryan and McCarthy appear to be more interested in delaying and weakening the bill.

I've voted for Republicans in the past. This bunch cares too much about power, and too little about anything else. They're selling out the country.

Health and diet and (multi-)multimodal distributions

I knew it! 😁 The Effects of White vs. Whole-wheat Bread May Vary Greatly Between Individuals | Big Think:

...the glycemic response to each type of bread and the way it was metabolized was person-specific and could be predicted solely based on the microbiome makeup of that person, collected prior to the study. The microbiome itself was resilient to the intervention and did not change in individuals as a result of the study.  The findings suggest that making blanket statements about a particular type of diet may not be appropriate and understanding dietary effects requires taking into account person-specific factors.

Opportunity Lost?

Since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 I've been wondering why the U.S. has ignored opportunities to develop technologies - for improved energy efficiency and alternative energy – that would have such an obviously large market around the world. Talk about lost opportunities: Three Reasons to Believe in China's Renewable Energy Boom:

"It’s not just pollution that’s driving the determined focus on renewable power. Leaders have made clear that they view clean energy as a powerful engine for job creation."

"“It’s about setting up for manufacturing dominance,” Liu says. “China sees green energy as an opportunity where it can become a manufacturing monster the way it has in clothes and toys.”"

Edit: forgot to add the counterpoint. Rick Perry is a bright spot in a very dismal, autocratic administration. (The following are mostly quotes of quotes.)

"Although EPA Chief Scott Pruitt seems more than happy to blow up his own agency, Perry has gone in the opposite direction. The Energy Department has been cheerleading non-stop for renewables and clean tech with a flood of press releases, and Perry has backed that up with missives from his own @SecretaryPerry Twitter account."

"More than 133,000 energy efficiency jobs were added in 2016, bringing the total number of Americans working in the sector to 2.2 million people. More than half of those jobs (1.4 million) are in the construction industry alone."

"More than a quarter of the energy efficiency workforce (552,000 workers) is related to efficient appliances, including high efficiency heating and cooling equipment. That’s a 58% increase from 2015."

"DOE-backed research in solid-state lighting has yielded more than 260 patents and a significant industry footprint, with literally millions of products currently on the market based, at least in part, on these technical advancements. These products are estimated to have contributed to more than $2.8 billion in savings for consumers and businesses – an impressive return on an investment of about $350 million."

The Economist examines another Authoritarian Govt

Why is Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro still in power?

"NICOLÁS MADURO, Venezuela’s president, is deeply unpopular. Four out of five Venezuelans think his government is doing a bad job."

"Mr Maduro has his predecessor to thank for his survival. During his 14-year presidency, Hugo Chávez systematically weakened all the main institutions in the country, stacking everything in the ruling party’s favour, and ensuring opposition-led change would be challenging or impossible."

This is relevant to the U.S. situation, given the time remaining to the midterm elections:

"Only one institution remains independent, and that is the national assembly. It became opposition-controlled after a massive swing vote in December 2015. But that has not really mattered to Mr Maduro. He can instruct his compliant supreme court to overrule the assembly as required."

Also relevant:

"The opposition has come to the conclusion that its only viable option is to take to the streets. It hopes mass protests will demonstrate who really holds majority power in Venezuela, and prompt serious concessions from the government, or even some sort of uprising. But Mr Maduro holds a trump card: the army. The supposedly neutral but heavily politicised institution is semi-embedded in Venezuela’s political structure. Officers or former officers run 11 of the government’s 32 ministries."

Trump Is Trying to Control the FBI. It's Time to Freak Out.

Trump Is Trying to Control the FBI. It's Time to Freak Out.:

"If the FBI is operating out of loyalty to the president, then one of the most important barriers between a democratic government and an authoritarian one has fallen."

Anne Applebaum - Don't forget those smiling images of Trump and the Russians - The Washington Post

Don't forget those smiling images of Trump and the Russians - The Washington Post:

"Nor are any of them much interested in the fate of Dan Heyman, the West Virginia reporter arrested recently for persistent questioning of Tom Price, the health and human services secretary. Due process, rule of law, all of the dull rules and procedures that deliver justice are uninteresting to men who believe in personalized power unconstrained by traditions, institutions or constitutions. Look at how pleased they were to see one another – and compare those pictures with Trump's stiff and awkward news conferences with democratic leaders such as Germany's Angela Merkel or Britain's Theresa May."

Garry Kasparov on Trump's authoritarian instinct - NY Daily News

Garry Kasparov on Trump's authoritarian instinct - NY Daily News: Summary paragraph:

"If the rule of law and the separation of powers are to mean anything in the U.S., an independent investigation into Trump’s Russia ties and his finances is more critical now than ever. It won’t be easy, but it’s only going to get harder. Trump will keep finding new ways to accrue power — and he won’t care at all how bad it looks."

The whole article is worth reading. I'll refrain from quoting it in its entirety.

"It's a simple formula: Always take whatever power is available. And don't worry about how it looks, because if you accumulate enough power quickly enough, appearances can't hurt you."

"“We’re in uncharted territory.” But this territory has been very well charted — in Russia, Turkey, Venezuela and in many other democracies that turned toward despotism. We watched Vladimir Putin navigate from the same map in Russia as he systematically destroyed every check on his power."

"Trump is surrounding himself with loyalists and family members, and dismissing anyone he thinks might be a threat to him."

"As if to emphasize how little he cares about optics, Trump followed up the Comey firing by meeting with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador at the White House the very next day."

"Trump would love to turn the FBI into a personal security and intelligence force to use against his enemies, the way Putin uses the FSB in Russia and abroad."

Only I can...

It may not be obvious why anyone would worry about how much power Trump can hold in his hands. Vox again: Experts on authoritarianism are absolutely terrified by the Comey firing - Vox:

"It's not that the elected leaders in these countries set out to become an authoritarian, per se. It's that they care about their own power and security above all else, and do things to protect their own position that have the effect of removing democratic constraints on their power."

Who holds the cards?

This Vox explainer implies an imbalance of power, given the current distribution of parties in executive and legislative branches. Special prosecutor: can bring charges. Can be fired by (deputy) A.G., therefore subject to executive pressure. Independent commission: can publish findings. Cannot bring charges. Must be created by legislation, therefore can be vetoed by President. Special committee: can focus on assigned subject of investigation. Can publish findings. Cannot bring charges. Recent instances have produced unsatisfactory results.

"This Is Not a Drill"

This Is Not a Drill David Frum, 9 May, in The Atlantic:

"He could well resent the search for truth, even without being particularly guilty of anything heinously bad. But we all now must take seriously the heightened possibility of guilt, either personal or on the part of people near him—and of guilt of some of the very worst imaginable crimes in the political lexicon."

"The question has to be asked searchingly of the Republican members of Congress: Will you allow a president of your party to attack the integrity of the FBI? You impeached Bill Clinton for lying about sex. Will you now condone and protect a Republican administration lying about espionage?"

"The question has to be asked of all the rest of us: Perhaps the worst fears for the integrity of the U.S. government and U.S. institutions are being fulfilled. If this firing stands—and if Trump dares to announce a pliable replacement—the rule of law begins to shake and break. The law will answer to the president, not the president to the law."

Twitter weighs in:

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The Comey debacle calls to mind a paragraph from 'On Tyranny.' Democracy is rarely stolen, but given away in a democratic process. Chilling.

Snyder, Timothy. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (Kindle Locations 172-177). Crown/Archetype. Kindle Edition.

"Some of the Germans who voted for the Nazi Party in 1932 no doubt understood that this might be the last meaningfully free election for some time, but most did not. Some of the Czechs and Slovaks who voted for the Czechoslovak Communist Party in 1946 probably realized that they were voting for the end of democracy, but most assumed they would have another chance. No doubt the Russians who voted in 1990 did not think that this would be the last free and fair election in their country’s history, which (thus far) it has been. Any election can be the last, or at least the last in the lifetime of the person casting the vote."

— beth can't with this (@bourgeoisalien) May 10, 2017

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"no longer any serious possibility that he will respect the norms of conduct ... only questions are how far his fellow Rs...will let him go" https://t.co/dmOHUI3BqD

— Brendan Nyhan (@BrendanNyhan) May 10, 2017

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Among the amazing things in this story [Politico: Behind Comey’s firing: An enraged Trump, fuming about Russia].

1. Trump thought firing Comey would help him control the Russia investigation.
2. Trump was angry that Comey would not support his claims that Obama bugged him.
3. The fallout from the firing took WH by surprise. It had no communication strategy.
4. "Trump had talked about the firing for over a week, and the letters were written to give him rationale to fire Comey."

— Jack Goldsmith (@jacklgoldsmith) May 10, 2017

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Sleight of Mouth

In recent days I realized I've been thrown off-track by DJT's wording.

The DoJ and Congressional committees are investigating possible financial ties between Trump and Russia. To this, Trump says (paraphrasing), "I don't have any investments in Russia!"

Eric Trump has said, "We have all the funding we need from Russia." The younger Trump reminds that "financial ties" encompasses not just investments by Trump, but also investments in Trump - among other things.

Fuel Economy Standards vs. Vehicle Costs

From The ‘Job-Killing’ Fiction Behind Trump’s Retreat on Fuel Economy Standards:

"...the original CAFE standards were signed by President Gerald Ford, a Michigan Republican, in 1975. The key Clean Air Act provisions that successfully slashed tailpipe pollution, and that provide the legal basis for the more recent motor vehicle greenhouse gas standards, were developed under the administration of Richard Nixon, who signed them into law in 1970... Both Nixon and Ford were business-friendly Republicans, but ones who recognized that as national leaders they had many other legitimate public concerns to address."

"Trimming a vehicle’s CO2 emission rate may involve, for example, developing a new transmission... Those development costs mean jobs for engineers. Building the redesigned transmissions then creates jobs for assembly workers. So whatever additional costs are incurred go right back into materials and labor, including jobs for steelworkers and others involved in supplying parts and materials to the auto industry."

"The latest market collapse, in 2008, triggered massive job losses — even though it followed two decades of declining vehicle efficiency tied to stagnant CAFE standards."

In the years before the recession GM was warning that their obligation to pay employee health care costs – not fuel economy standards – would bankrupt them. In 2005, retiree health care costs added about $1,300 to the cost of every GM vehicle.

"Automakers note that according to EPA’s own economic analysis, they will have to cumulatively spend $200 billion to comply with the standards over the 2012-2025 period... Over that same time period, the new car and light truck market will rack up at least $7 trillion in revenue. So the $200 billion cost estimate amounts to only 3 percent of gross sales."

Recap: in 2005, retiree health costs added $1300 to each vehicle. In a new vehicle costing $30,000, about $875 will be attributable to fuel economy standards.

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Update: I arrived at that figure by simple math, but it turns out the EPA's estimate is similar. From gm-vol.com:

"The Environmental Protection Agency had estimated that automakers would have to spend an additional $875 per vehicle to meet the second phase standards starting in 2022, compared to 2021 standards. The [study by the research group International Council on Clean Transportation] reported that cost would only go up by about an additional $551 per vehicle."

---

"...the move to begin raising CAFE standards actually began under the George W. Bush Administration, which crafted the 2007 energy bill calling for much higher standards."

"And if the autoworkers bussed in by GM, Ford, and Chrysler to cheer for Trump at his Michigan rally think that gutting regulations is going to create jobs, well, they will have been fooled again."

That seems like a big "if" – I wonder if anyone has actually asked them what they think.

Edge of the Falls

Here's a summary of Trump's first 50 days. Trump and Co. are cutting at the roots of our Constitution:

• Attacking the judiciary
• Attacking the integrity of the voting system
• Attacking the free press
• Attacking those who exercise free speech
• De-funding institutions that interfere with personal enrichment
• Undermining faith in basic (as opposed to bureaucratic) government institutions
• Conflicts of interest
• Using government connections for personal enrichment, on a grand scale

How President Trump has already hurt American democracy — in just 50 days

Res. to request info on Trump-Russia likely to be buried

From Rep. Nadler's website, 2017/02/24: http://nadler.house.gov/press-release/nadler-calls-out-republicans-trying-bury-debate-resolution-inquiry

"First, House Republicans chose to consider this resolution in committee—as opposed to allowing debate on the House floor—because they would prefer that only a few of their safest members be forced to take a vote on this matter. The Majority must decide between conducting basic oversight of President Trump, on the one hand, or being complicit in potential misdeeds by Trump and his associates, on the other."

"Second, committee leadership has scheduled the markup for Tuesday in an obvious attempt to bury our debate in the heavy media coverage of President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress."

The Chairman of the committee used the equivalent of lorem ispum to introduce an amendment to the resolution. If I follow, the idea is that the amendment would require debate - another way to cut off debate on the resolution itself.

"Chairman Goodlatte also gave notice of an amendment in the nature of a substitute to my resolution, with wording virtually identical to H. Res. 111. That amendment only exists as a threat to cut off debate on the underlying resolution. I urge the Chairman not to break from the longstanding practice of the House Judiciary Committee, and to allow a full debate on the resolution of inquiry."

"Members of Congress have an obligation to conduct oversight of the Executive Branch."

Perhaps not all is lost. Also from 2017/02/24: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/sd-me-issa-maher-20170224-story.html

"Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, said on Friday that a special prosecutor needs to lead an investigation into the alleged ties between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s regime."

Alas, this is just talk, not actual legislative action.

President Of Audi Of America Tells Dealers To Embrace Plug-In Electric Vehicles | CleanTechnica

President Of Audi Of America Tells Dealers To Embrace Plug-In Electric Vehicles | CleanTechnica:

""And [Keogh] advised them to start thinking now about opportunities to earn money around battery-electric vehicles to offset the lower service and parts revenue they will provide.""

"Interestingly, Keogh also mentioned that he thought widespread price discounting was setting up dealers for future problems. The loss accompanying price discounting is typically being recovered by service and parts revenue, something that won’t persist into a future with strong plug-in sales."

Trump Has Already Blown It | Foreign Policy

Selected quotes from Trump Has Already Blown It | Foreign Policy:

"After telling us that he knows “much more” than the generals, his “secret plan” for dealing with the Islamic State turns out to be “ask the Defense Department to come up with one,” as if nobody at the Pentagon had given any thought to the matter."

"And all the while Trump and his surrogates continue to demonize anyone with the temerity to disagree with Fearless Leader or to question his infallibility, in a matter more reminiscent of Mussolini, Stalin, or the Kim family in North Korea than of Washington, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, or any of Trump’s other predecessors in the Oval office."

"It takes a danger of considerable magnitude to get realists and neoconservatives to agree on anything, but we agree on Trump."

"Which raises the obvious question: Why is he acting this way?"

"[a third possibility] Instead of recognizing America’s remarkable strengths and security and many unique virtues, the Breitbart worldview that has infested the White House believes it has to destroy our current democracy in order to save it."

Here's how incredibly difficult it is for a refugee to get admitted to the US - Vox

Here's how incredibly difficult it is for a refugee to get admitted to the US - Vox:

"Trump’s refugee suspension is a solution in search of a problem"

"The intense investigation that Almshhad underwent in order to be admitted to the US was not unusual. The arduous vetting process involves investigations by a coordinated network of US law enforcement and intelligence agencies, all actively looking for any indication that an individual could potentially pose a threat in the future."

US Clean Energy Jobs Surpass Fossil Fuel Jobs | CleanTechnica

This CleanTechnica post uses a broad definition to sweep jobs into the "clean energy" category. I wish it had considered jobs related to energy efficiency separately. Even so, it appears from the summary that:

• electricity production from clean energy sources employs more people (350,000) than does production from fossil fuel sources (200,000)
• the number of jobs in the clean electric industry is growing, whereas fossil fuel jobs are declining slightly

US Clean Energy Jobs Surpass Fossil Fuel Jobs By 5 To 1 | CleanTechnica

"More than 350,000 people last year worked in part or in whole on solar energy production ... exceeds the combined employment of coal, gas, and oil workers connected with producing electricity that reached just under 200,000. "

"All told, nearly 1 million Americans are working near- or full-time in the energy efficiency, solar, wind, and alternative vehicles sectors. This is almost five times the current employment in the fossil fuel electric industry, which includes coal, gas, and oil workers. "

Riding to the Wreck

The Intercept on the FBI's Powers

"One of the documents contains an alarming observation about the nation’s police forces, even as perceived by the FBI. Officials of the bureau were so concerned that many of these police forces are linked to, at times even populated by, overt white nationalists and white supremacists, that they have deemed it necessary to take that into account in crafting policies for sharing information with them."

"now the groups most loyal to Trump are those that possess a state monopoly over the use of force"

The Immigration Ban is a Headfake

"It is a much bigger deal that the DHS felt they could ignore a federal court than that Trump signed an EO blocking green card holders in the first place. It is a much bigger deal that Trump removed a permanent military presence from the NSC than that he issued a temporary stay on immigration."

The best theory for why Trump tells such obvious lies - Vox

The best theory for why Trump tells such obvious lies - Vox:

"Objectively empowering Trump while signaling a lack of loyalty to him is a dangerous game."

You got that right. I am amazed at the smug self-assurance of Members of Congress who seem to think they can use Trump to their advantage, and still reign him in whenever they want.

"Trump continues to staff his White House with hardcore Ryan critics. When his own position is more secure, he could easily move to depose Ryan at some future time."

IFTF: It Doesn't Have to Happen Here: Saving Our Democracy

It's only 0635 MST and my brain is already full for the day. I'll have to come back to this summary of a recent "convening" at the Institute for the Future. The meeting appears to have identified several problems arising from social media and current journalism practices, and to have produced surprisingly (to me) concrete ways of addressing those problems. IFTF: It Doesn't Have to Happen Here: Saving Our Democracy:

"As a rule, journalists are not accustomed to fighting back against threats in a unified way. Story exclusivity is important to an individual journalist’s livelihood, and, as a group, they’ve had little reason to share information with competing journalists."

"Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are de-facto publishers, but they don’t want to be. Editorial curation is expensive...What’s needed, said Aviv Ovadya of Media Window, is a layer that displays credibility scores for online news."

"Current funding models for journalism consider readers to be eyeballs for advertisers, and so stories are designed to maximize clicks... novelist William Gibson’s 2002 description of the typical media consumer as a “vicious, lazy, profoundly ignorant, perpetually hungry organism… that can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections.”"

Oops, they just described me. It's hard enough to read and excerpt passages of interest from online news, let alone re-state it or create a summary analysis. For example, consider this post :)

"But, said David Bornstein, a New York Times columnist and co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network, stories can be written that create a sense of outrage and a sense of self-efficacy. The secret is to stop writing ”negative” or “positive” stories, and instead write specifically about how problems are being solved, which has the effect of engaging people."

Scottish Government Increases Emission Reduction Targets To 66% By 2032 | CleanTechnica

I do wish the U.S. had gotten out in front of this in the early 1990s. Scotland is showing there is a market for energy efficiency and for renewable energy generation. But never mind the lamentations. I don't know Scotland's starting line, in terms of per capita CO2 emissions, but to have already reduced emissions by 42% from 1990 levels is really impressive. Scottish Government Increases Emission Reduction Targets To 66% By 2032 | CleanTechnica:

"Scotland's renewable energy expertise is so well-honed at home that it is now being sought after around the world, and as of December, Scottish renewable energy businesses were involved in projects across more than 40 countries."

Swamp Things

In which Corey Lewandowski demonstrates that "drain the swamp" means "replace its current occupants." He uses typical authoritarian tactics, treating any question as an attack. Corey Lewandowski: my new firm does not violate pledge to stamp out lobbying | US news | The Guardian:

"You want to accuse me and make disparaging comments about me and my family, that's where I draw the line," he added, although nothing had been said in the interview with respect to his family. "If you want to make gross accusations about the president of the United States and saying he's going to be influenced by money, that's where I draw the line."

Advice for anti-Trump protesters - The Washington Post

Anne Applebaum spends part of her time in Poland, where she has observed what has and hasn't worked for protesters against a new authoritarian government. It's well worth reading: Advice from Europe for anti-Trump protesters - The Washington Post:

"...targeted, well-organized, broadly based single-issue protest had far more impact than the general marches, and the government withdrew the law."

"Five Democratic senators could do more to block extremist judges or damaging policies than 5 million — or even 50 million — people chanting slogans."

I take this to mean that our members of Congress need more feedback from us. We need to contact them, with either criticism or praise, depending on how they act on issues that concern us. Their job really is to represent us. They can't do that if we don't tell them what we want. Mea Culpa We're all products of our times. In my world it has been disreputable, uncivil even, to engage in politics. Vote every couple of years, but don't do more than that. Don't feed the bureaucratic beast. Don't help pave the road to hell: you may think you know how to make the world better, but you're probably wrong. Cynical disengagement is far wiser. I believe this worldview has enough adherents to have nearly cost us our civil liberties. It is well past time for a different approach.

A => B

A: N.S.A. Gets More Latitude to Share Intercepted Communications B: Signal

This Is Why You Don't Kiss The Ring

This summary of our current situation is well written. This Is Why You Don't Kiss The Ring:

"The press and the Congress are the only two institutions standing between a dangerous man and total power. They must both realize this is not the time to salute and grovel... This is the time for them to rise to the occasion. And the occasion is a fight for civil society."

Some of the week's news has been encouraging. For a few moments, including the exchange between Sen. Marco Rubio and Rex Tillerson, it looked as though the thug-elect might not be able to steam-roller the Republicans in Congress. But there has been plenty of bad news, and the "press conference" was just one instance. Lies, bullshit and bullying from start to finish show that Tramp and his gang have no respect for democratic rule. "This is not the time to salute and grovel..." The Republicans still seem to think they can limit Il Donaldo while pushing through their own sweeping changes. Their confidence is misplaced. They should never forget what he did to them during the primaries. [Edit: To expand on that last point: Stop Underestimating Donald Trump.]

Juxtapose