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Seventh Circuit Panel Allows Trump To Assault Chicago Residents

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On November 6 District Court Judge Sara Ellis issued a preliminary injunction barring the federal government from attacking Chicago residents engaged in lawful protests.  Judge Ellis also  certified a class for this litigation. It consists of

All persons who are or will in the future non-violently
demonstrate, protest, observe, document, or record at Department of Homeland Security immigration enforcement.

The defendants sought a stay pending appeal. On November 19, a panel consisting of Michael Brennan, Frank Easterbrook, and Michael Scudder complied, freeing Trump’s goons to attack us without restraint.

The facts of the case are well known. Masked thugs are caught on camera shoving protesters to the ground and zip-tying them, shooting people with pepper balls, teargassing kids, holding people for hours without charges, and much much more. The evidence is set out in a detailed and very long Opinion and Order entered by Judge Ellis on November 20.

The legal standards for issuance of a preliminary injunction are also well known, at least they used to be before John Roberts and the Fash Five held that Donald Trump cannot be held accountable for breaking the law or violating the Constitution in Trump v. US and then drastically slashed the power of the judiciary to restrain law-breakingl in Trump v. CASA.

The Seventh Circuit Rationale

The panel says that the defendants are likely to succeed on the merits.

A. The order is overbroad

1. The Injunction binds the named defendants, their lawyers and people acting in concert with the defendants. Too broad?

That’s simply absurd. Of course the order binds the defendants and those acting for or in concert with them. They were duly served. They engaged in motion practice, participated in discovery, and appeared at the hearing. They had a full opportunity to be heard. They were found to have violated the constitutional rights of the class members. Perhaps in the future, these three can explain exactly why defendants shouldn’t be enjoined from breaking the law.

2. The panel coplains that the Injunction requires “… the enjoined parties to submit for judicial review all current and future internal guidance, policies, and directives regarding efforts to implement the order….”

No it doesn’t. Here’s the relevant section:

6. It is further ORDERED that Defendants shall issue guidance to officers and agents to implement this Order. Defendants shall file with this Court such guidance and any directives, policies, or regulations implementing the guidance within 5 business days of issuance of the Order, with a continuing obligation to immediately file with this Court any subsequent changes or revisions to that guidance or implementing directives, policies, or regulations through the period of this Order.

This doesn’t call for judicial review. It prevents the defendants from hiding their non-compliance from the attorneys for the class members.

3. The order is too “prescriptive”. “For example, it enumerates and proscribes the use of scores of riot control weapons and other devices in a way that resembles a federal regulation.”

Apparently the panel didn’t realize the extent of the duplicity of the defendants and their lawyers who routinely claim innocence because an order is not precise. For example, the head of the Customs and Border Patrol, Greg Bovino, wrangled with Judge Ellis in open court about the number and location of identifying marks on the costumes of his agents.

Or perhaps the panel thinks one or more of the identified weapons is just fine. Here’s a short list of some of them from §1,c if the Injunction:

… kinetic impact projectiles (KIPs), Compressed Air Launchers (e.g., PLS and FN303), Oleoresin Capsicum (OC) Spray, CS gas, CN gas, or other chemical irritants, 40 mm Munitions Launchers, less-lethal shotguns, Less-Lethal Specialty Impact-Chemical Munitions (LLSI-CM), Controlled Noise and Light Distraction Devices (CNLDDs), Electronic Control Weapons (ECWs)

B. Standing

The panel says the class members have no reason to fear imminent future harm. They should just wait around and see if any federal agents beat them senseless or tear gas their eighborhood. The panel says they know from media accounts that Bovino and his goon squad are gone, so why worry? Perhaps they missed the media reports of violations of the Injunction by defendants within a week of issuance.

Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are accused of firing pepper balls at moving vehicles, deploying tear gas and flash bangs in Little Village [a heavily Hispanic neighborhood] and exposing a 1-year-old and her family to chemical munitions as they traveled to a local warehouse store {they shot chemical weapons through the window of the care with the child in the back seat.].

But sure, this insane suggestion is warranted.

C. Irreparable harm to defendants.

The panel quotes this obscene sentence from Trump v. CASA: “Any time that the Government is enjoined by a court from effectuating statutes enacted by representatives of its people, it suffers a form of irreparable injury.” Does this authorize Trump’s goons to violate people’s Constitutional rights as long as they claim to be enforcing a statute? Apparently these judges think if Trump claims to be enforcing the law, it’s a terrible harm to, I don’t know, maybe government agents,  if they can’t violate our constitutional rights.

D. But maybe they’ll issue their own order

The panel assures us that maybe some day they’ll read the record and think up their own order. They ignore the massive effort put in by Judge Ellis and her staff (special shout-out to her clerks and office staff for the clear and coherent opinions and orders, since the panel just dismissed all of their work.)

I know I speak for the toddlers and families in Little Village, Belmont-Cragin, Albany Park and the rest of my beautiful city when I say how grateful we are for their willingness to at least consider protecting us from chemical attack.

The Bigger Picture

Now Bovino and his goon squad have moved on to Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, Chapel Hill, and other Democratic cities in North Carolina. They’re using the same tactics. One of the incidents in this story is a Kavanaugh Stop: “… an agent smashed in the window of a US citizen’s truck and the man, who is Hispanic, was temporarily detained.” This is a clear example of the indifference of the judiciary to individual Constitutional rights under the rules set by John Roberts and the other anti-democratic members of SCOTUS.

The only rights the SCOTUS majority will protect are those of the Imperial President.

 

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Update: I had a suspicion that the panel just typed up a couple of sentences from the defendant’s’ motion. Here’s a link to the 24 page motion and a very long appendix. The brief is signed by Brett Shumate and Yaakov Roth, among others, from DoJ. These guys think they are free to assault my neighbors with no restraints. The ugly tone of this motion is, to my perhaps prejudiced eye, mirrored by the ugly tone of the panel.

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Trumpist Moral Choice

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Index to posts in this series

My last post and Rayne’s excellent post A Lapsed Catholic’s Sunday Bible Study raise a question: how does a person claim to be both a Christian and a Trumpist? These two things seem utterly incompatible. In this post I look at this question using a formulation from Lecture 3 of Christine Korsgaard’s book The Sources Of Normativity, augmented by Simone de Beauvoir’s book The Ethics Of Ambiguity.

Identities

Normativity is a neutral word for moral principles. The point of Korsgaard’s book is to show how ethics can be formulated and justified without recourse to external sources, like sacred books.

Korsgaard begins with a description of the individual. She says we adult humans are reflective creatures. We are able to examine our behavior and evaluate it against standards we choose. This is the same ability we use to decide on plans of action. She says that when we are deciding how to act we require reasons. For example, when we experience hunger mid-afternoon, we have to decide whether to grab a snack or not. We give ourselves reasons for each and decide.

Korsgaard says we have different identities. We are spouses, parents, members of a tribe, residents of a city, workers, followers of religions, citizens of a nation. We are also human beings, members of an entire species. Each identity carries with it a set of behaviors, norms, and obligations.

For example, I was a lawyer. I operated under norms set by the ethical requirements of Tennessee. I practiced in the Bankruptcy Courts of Nashville and was bound by an unwritten set of norms established and enforced by my colleagues and the courts. Those norms were reasons to act in particular ways, even when other actions would be easier or more rewarding.

I think these two ideas, reflection and identity, fit nicely with other books I’ve discussed here. We looked at Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus in the discussion of Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Habitus is much like identities. The notion of reflection is very close to Michael Tomasello’s description of decision-making in The Evolution of Agency.

Korsgaard says that the demands of our identities can clash, and that is what gives rise to moral dilemmas. Here’s an overly simplified example. The father of the guy who murdered Charlie Kirk is apparently a Mormon, a father, and a citizen of Utah, and of course a human being. When confronted with the act of his son, he has to make a moral choice. His identities give rise to reasons for actions, and his internal arbiter has to choose. He chose to act on the norms of a good citizen and a good Mormon, and encourage his own son to turn himself in, despite the fact that Utah is a death penalty state.

It seems that in effect he has to stand away from his identities and examine their claims. It is as if there is another identity, not a social role, but something that is personal to him. Korsgaard refers to this as his internal arbiter. This is the source of his own normativity and in fact, the source of his identity. As Korsgaard puts it:

… [W]e require reasons for action, a conception of the right and the good. To act from such a conception is in turn to have a practical conception of your identity, a conception under which you value yourself and find your life to be worth living and your actions to be worth undertaking. That conception is normative for you and in certain cases it can obligate you, for if you do not allow yourself to be governed by any conception of your identity then you will have no reason to act and to live. P. 122.

The Christian Trumpist

It appears that there is a conflict between the moral teachings of Christianity and the actions of the Trump administration’s program of attacking immigrants and anyone who gets near them. The conflicts with The Parable of the Good Samaritan and the verses cited by Rayne are obvious.

I can think of three ways Trumpist Christians might explain their support for these atrocities. First, they may refuse to see the conflict. For example, if the Trumpist is a serious person in de Beauvoir’s sense, they may have internalized each of their identities so deeply that they only need to identify the situation in order to respond. If the person sees the question purely as a political question, only the Trumpist identity is in action and there is no conflict.

So, if the libtard asks Trumpist Uncle his opinion about the vile treatment of ICE detainees, Trumpist Uncle sees it as political and never ever sees it as a question about Christian values. In such a case Trumpist Uncle can regard himself under both identities without any recourse to an internal moral arbiter.

But worse, I’ve often wondered if Trumpists have an internal arbiter of any kind. Korsgaard and de Beauvoir both say that humans are reflective creatures, able to step back from their behavior and judge it. I don’t see that happening in the Trumpists I see in the media.

Here’s another possibility: a) the Christian and Trumpist identities must both submit to the internal arbiter of the individual to determine the one which will dictate action; or b) the identity as a Christian is the fundamental to the internal arbiter, the one by which all others are judged.

In either of these cases, if the Trumpist identity controls, it’s fair to ask the person in what sense are they actually Christians. If it means I’m a Christian except when Trump makes a demand, are you truly a Christian?

There’s at least one more possibility. Maybe the Christian leaders that the person follows has explained everything in advance. For example, apparently many preachers assert that Trump is the imperfect tool used by the Almighty for good ends, followed by the claim that in this Trump is like King David. 1 Samuel 17 – 1 Kings 2:10.

I wonder how many Christians have read this story themselves. I have, and I reread it for this post. There is no way in which Trump is like King David. First, Trump is a draft-dodging coward who gets other people to do his dirty work (except around Epstein?). David was a powerful warrior, who spent much of his life fighting in actual wars to protect and expand the lands of the Chosen People.

Second, David did in fact sin, again and again. But in each case he repented, and in each case he was punished by the Almighty even after he repented. His biggest crime was the abuse of Bathsheba (the front page art is Rembrandt’s Bathsheba at the Bath, at the Louvre).

2 One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” 4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”

David first tried to get Uriah to sleep with her to cover his adultery, and when that didn’t work he had his top general put Uriah in the heat of the battle where he was killed.

The Almighty sent the prophet Nathan to tell David he would be punished for this heinous evil. David repents, as he does whenever he realizes he has sinned against the Almighty. But he is punished nevertheless by the treason and death of his beloved son Absalom, and by a life of war.

Trump has never repented any of his terrible sins, and has only rarely been held accountable for anything.

Actual Christians have at least some familiarity with the Bible, especially the important stories. How could anyone see anything of Trump in King David? How is this story a plausible justification for voting for Trump? If a Trumpist Christian bothered to read the story of David would they grasp this? Or is this a bit of evidence that they do not judge moral issues for themselves?

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The Republican Hundred Year War On Democracy

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Our democracy is under attack, in a war planned and carried out by generations of filthy rich tight-wingers working primarily through the Republican Party. The war has come into the open under Trump, funded by the latest group of hideously rich dirtbags, the tech bros, and justified by a cadre of anti-intellectual grifters and yakkers like Curtis Yarvin.

We need to see the battlefield. Only then can we decide on how to act. As Marcy pointed out here, our role is explicitly political, as befits people who believe in democracy to our core.

The Battlefield

Introduction

The filthy rich have always held more power in this country than their numbers would support in a functioning democracy. Their control was somewhat restricted during the Progressive Era at the beginning of the 20th C., but SCOTUS did it’s best to beat back progressive laws. The political power of the filthy rich was sharply decreased during the Great Depression. Franklin Delano Roosevelt said this out loud in a 1936 speech in Madison Square Garden:

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.

The filthy rich hated FDR, and have spent nearly 100 years trying to destroy his legacy and our way of life. Generations of oligarchs arise over time in different sectors of the economy, and the wealth they control has increased steadily since then. But regardless of background, a significant number have a attacked every institution we have relied on as part of our heritage.

At the same time they have ruthlessly pursued their own interests without regard to the national interest.We know some names, like H.L. Hunt and other Texas Oilmen, and the Koch Brothers, and groups like the John Birch Society. We generally know about other threats, like the Christian Dominionists and White Nationalists.

The Republicans took over congress in 1946. One of their first acts was to pass the Taft-Hartley Act which was intended to undercut the power of organized labor. They continued a long tradition of\ anti-communism and anti-socialism. The Democrats responded by kicking out the Communists, many of whom were active in unions, and with the Civil Rights movement. The Democratic Party tradition of punching left has deep roots.

Trump and his henchmen are the culmination of this campaign. They are openly engaged in a war on every institution that wields power in our society and in or through our government. The success of a decades-long assault reveals the effect of that long-term guerrilla war by the Republicans.

Congress

Republican congressionals are weaklings. This has been a fixture of that party since the mid-90s. Newt Gingrich preached lock-step Republican voting, and Denny Hastert created the Hastert Rule, under which no legislation gets to the floor unless it can pass with only Republican votes.

Mitch McConnell made it his job to make sure that Obama couldn’t pass any legislation. He whipped Republican Senators so viciously they did his bidding. In his first term Trump violently assaulted Republicans who defied his orders. The party internalized fear so completely that it attacked its own members who voted to impeach Trump.

Now Trump simply ignores laws he doesn’t like, including spending laws, and arrests Democratic lawmakers on groundless charges.

The Administrative State

Under FDR, Congress began to empower agencies to carry out specific tasks necessary for a modern government. This gave rise to the administrative state. Republicans hate it. Ever since its inception, they and corporate Democrats have worked to hamstring  agencies.

Conservative legal academics expanded the use of originalism, and created a bullshit  originalist rationale explaining why our 250 year old Constitution doesn’t allow any significant power to agencies. This resulted in SCOTUS decisions on purely partisan grounds over the last few decades that protect the filthy rich and harm normal people. The number of delay and choke points is so great that our nation is drenched in chemicals known to be toxic, and thousands of others whose toxicity, especially in combinations, is unknown.

Trump attacked the entire structure with his firings, closures, and illegal withholding of funds. District Courts tried to stop it, but the SCOTUS anti-democracy majority has dithered or rejected their decisions. Republicans refuse to push back, even to support cancer research, surely a non-partisan issue.

Trump put incompetent people in charge of all agencies and departments. They were confirmed by the Senate, often with (unnecessary) Democratic support. RFK, Jr? Whiskey Pete Hegseth? Linda McMahon? Republicans allowed Elon Musk and a small flock of ignorant coders to terminate critical programs. Without agencies, our ability to govern ourselves is wrecked.

The Judiciary

The attacks on the judiciary began after Brown v. Board. Impeach Earl Warren, screamed billboards all over the South. But it took off under Ronald Reagan, who appointed a host of ideologues to the bench, leading to his failed effort to put the loathsome Robert Bork on SCOTUS.

Republicans responded to the rejection of Bork by pushing even harder to put right-wing ideologues on the bench. George Bush the worst stopped listening to the centrist ABA on judicial nominations. Trump handed judicial nominations to the Federalist Society and to Leo Leonard. McConnell made sure Democrats couldn’t appoint people to SCOTUS. Then Trump appointed a crank, a frat boy, and an dithering academic, none of whom have evidenced any core principles other than obeisance to Trump’s dictates.

The Fifth Circuit is full of nutcases and fools, among whom I single out the odious Matthew Kacsmaryk. The Fifth Circuit refused to rid itself of single-judge districts, and ignores judge-shopping, making this lawless nutcase the most powerful judge in the country.

Then in Trump v. US . John Roberts  crowned Trump king of the nation, and implicitly approved everything Trump and his henchmen have done. See, for example, the ridiculous order allowing Stephen Miller to export human beings to terrorist nations, issued without explanation, and without a full hearing. Roberts can only be compared to Roger Taney.

States

The federal system gives states a central role in assuring the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens. Historically Republicans used what they called states rights to stop federal efforts to enforce the 14th Amendment. They were generally unwilling to attack state action in significant ways. Trump has started this assault on his own.

He hit states whose policies he doesn’t like by cancelling grants, by senseless litigation, and by sending in the National Guard, the Marines and ICE thugs. One of his earliest acts was to file a lawsuit against Illinois, Cook County, and Chicago, alleging that it’s unconstitutional for us to limit the cooperation of local law enforcement with ICE thugs. In other words, we have to use our own resources to fill Stephen Miller’s gulags.

Trump demanded the Republicans pass laws, including the Big Bill, that will harm Blue states. He helps Red States damaged by his tariffs. He attacks states who don’t force colleges and universities to follow his anti-DEI policies, meaning erasing not-White people from history and higher education.

Private Institutions

The Republican war on higher education began with Ronald Reagan’s attacks on California colleges and universities. The attack was two-pronged. He packed the boards of these institutions with Republican loyalists, a philistine group who demanded focus on job training at the expense of education. Public support was reduced dramatically, forcing the system to increase tuition. This led to a massive increase in student loans, and to debt servitude for millions of people.

This two-pronged attack was immediately followed by other states, partly out of spite (Republicans) and partly on financial grounds (centrist Democrats). Republicans, ever the victims, claimed that universities were liberal and quashed conservative viewpoints, whatever those might be. The screaming got louder, and Trump used it to attack higher education a bit in his first term. All this was fomented and paid for by filthy rich monsters and justified by liars.

In his second term Trump directly attacked Harvard and Columbia on utterly specious grounds. He has made life miserable for foreign students studying here on visas, a deranged policy with no benefits to our nation. He has cut off federal support for basic research, the foundation of US leadership in most sciences and most technologies.

The Republican attack on law firms was focused on trial lawyers, a group that fought to protect working people from the depredations of pig-rich corporations. For the rest, the damage was largely self-inflicted. Firms grew to gargantuan size, taking in tens of millions of dollars. To keep that flow of money they surrendered professionalism and became servants of the filthy rich. When I started practicing law, we were bound by the Model Code of Professional Responsibility. The current weakened version of that ethical code is called the Model Code of Professional Conduct. Lawyers relieved themselves of all responsibility to society and the rule of law.

When Trump attacked, many of these behemoths were unprepared to act responsibly, and cravenly kissed the ring.

The attacks on private enterprise are smaller in scope. Primarily Trump seeks to force corporations to dismantle DEI programs, terminate support for LGBT initiatives and outreach, and similar matters. The media have self-policed rather than confront the craziness, a task made easier by their financial weakness.

What is to be done

The battlefield is enormous. Sometimes it seems overwhelming. None of us can deal with all of it. But each of us can deal with some of it. There are a lot more of us than there are of them. When we mass up on any front, we will have an impact.

I go to #TeslaTakedown. Hurting Musk is an indirect attack on Trump, and serves as a warning to the other Tech Bros. We have to keep that going.

Many of us are alumni of colleges under attack. I don’t give money to Notre Dame, even though my education there was sterling. I should have written a letter explaining why I would never contribute again, and why I removed a bequest from my will.

We can’t avoid all collaborating corporations entirely, but my family stopped using Target and cancelled our New York Times subscription. We can all redirect our spending. And then we can write letters saying we did it because they hurt our fellow citizens. Or even something fiercer.

Given the economic chaos and uncertainty, cutting spending, and front-end loading our spending, seem like sensible plans. We can point this out to others in our families and among our friends. As an example, Trump plans to increase tariffs on computers, or does he? Buy now and prepare to live with it for a few years.

Harvard and other major research universities have enormous endowments. They could open branches in Berlin, Paris, Guangzhou, Mumbai, Accra and anywhere they can find brilliant grad students. They can send their own professors, their own lab teams, and their own know-how out of a nation suddenly devoted to stupidity.

Law firms can announce plans to provide pro bono representation to people kidnapped by ICE thugs. Corporations can browbeat the Republican pols they have put in place, demanding sane economic and immigration policies. We can demand that they do so.

Conclusion

Notes: I wrote this from memory with a minimum of fact-checking. Corrections and additions welcome.

Someone should write a book about this war. Is there one I don’t know about?

Finally: In War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy says that Napoleon was successful because he and his subordinates were able to concentrate their forces against the weakest segment of the enemy battle line. He tried to hold a large reserve to send against that weak point. That seems like a good strategy. Trump and the Republicans have spread themselves out over a gigantic battlefield. Let’s try Napoleon’s strategy.
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Featured image is a map of the Battle of Austerlitz won by Napoleon.

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War And Peace And Trump

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While I was on the road, I read War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. It’s a novel about the wars between Russia and Napoleon between 1805 and 1812, told in part through the effect on several wealthy Russian families. Tolstoy himself was an aristocrat, and had served for several years in the Russian Army, as had other members of his family. There is also much discussion of his theories of what he calls the science of history.

War and Peace seems to be broadly accurate historically. However, there are a number of differences between Tolstoy’s accounts and the Wikipedia entry. For purposes of this post, accuracy isn’t the crucial point. Let’s look at two  questions Tolstoy raises.

How do people rise to power

It’s apparent from the first two thousand pages that Tolstoy thinks people and specifically historians place too much emphasis on the role of specific individuals in historic affairs. This is usually called the Great Man Theory. In the last chapter of the Second Epilogue he explains his theory of the science of history.

Tolstoy thinks there are deep forces in society that lead to great events. Let’s start with a simple example, a battle such as Austerlitz. The outnumbered French army defeated a larger Russian army. The battle takes place across a wide front.

Tolstoy says that in some places Russian soldiers march towards enemy lines under heavy fire, one turns and runs to safety, others see that and and also run, and that skirmish is lost. In other places a man shouts Huzzah and rushes on, others follow and the skirmish at that site is won. The battle is decided by the sum of such people, responding to the events in front of them and for their own reasons, not because of the Great Man, whether Napoleon or Tsar Alexander I. I think Tolstoy would say that the commands of the generals are a factor, but they’re just one among many, and are rarely decisive.

Tolstoy admires General Kutusov, the Russian, but not because of his brilliant tactics. Kutusov’s strength is his understanding of the spirit of his troops. He knows how his troops will respond to commands in battle. He knows in his heart that the loss at Austerlitz was due to the lack of spirit for the war, which was fought on foreign soil and only indirectly for the benefit of Russia. He knows that the same men will fight desperately to defend their beloved homeland. I’d guess Tolstoy thinks Kutusov himself is barely aware of this strength.

I think this is the way Tolstoy sees the forces moving in societies. For example, how did Napoleon rise from obscurity to leadership? I think Tolstoy would say that social forces arose in individual citizens of France based on their perception of events. As they interact with others, the perceptions of events harden, and the desires predicated on those perceptions become evident. People demand a leader who will answer to their desires. In the case of Napoleon, they got what they wanted.

These processes are unknowable. But historians always ignore the social forces that permit the rise of the Great Man and carry him forward, says Tolstoy. Instead, they attribute all the great results to to the Great Man and exculpate him from all errors and losses.

First lesson

Social forces arise today in the same way as in Tolstoy’s day. People perceive events, share their perceptions (which aren’t necessarily accurate pictures of reality) and the resultant perceptions harden in contact with their friends and their social circles. Almost everyone has to rely on the perceptions of others to understand much of what’s happening, and the selection of trusted people is the paramount determinant of people’s perceptions.

One difference, I think, is that in Tolstoy’s day, the biggest questions were about war. In a war the strength of one’s convictions is tested by willingness to fight and die. The soldier facing fire doesn’t go forward if there isn’t sufficient reason, and the command of the Emperor, or the preacher, or the internet influencer, is not enough.

It’s tough to whip up the same fervor about culture war issues. Take gender-neutral bathrooms. Who cares enough to die? Anyway, potty parity has been an issue for decades. I have receipts. Sooner or later, the actual problems will overwhelm these fake issues.

The Russian resistance

In Tolstoy’s telling, once the French crossed the border into Russia, the entire nation resisted at enormous personal cost. Kutusov was appointed supreme commander. The Russian forces were split. Kutusov took immediate command of one Army, but the other was distant. The French Forces were much larger than the two Russian armies combined.

He refused to give battle until the two Russian armies were joined. That meant falling back to Smolensk. The second army was delayed by a general who wanted to be the supreme leader, so Kutusov was unable to defend Smolensk, and fell back to Borodino where he tried to set up a defensive line. The second army arrived. The spirit of the Russian army was overwhelmingly in favor of killing the French, and Kutusov knew it.

As the French army advanced to the East from Vilnius, first to Smolensk (about 500 Km) and then to Borodino (about 400 Km), the Russian people left the towns and villages with their livestock and horses, burning everything that could be used by the enemy, homes, barns, silage, and storehouses There’s a scene from Smolensk where a fire is set to a huge barn, and a visitor objects. An onlooker tells him that’s the owner with the torch and laughing hysterically. They did this themselves, Tolstoy says. There was no central command, no order from the Tsar or a general or local leader.

This is repeated all the way to Borodino, about 130 Km from Moscow.

There the outnumbered Russian Army fought the French to a standstill, sustaining heavy losses. They did not have the strength to counter-attack. Kutusov moved his army to Moscow, but immediately realized he couldn’t defend the city with his weakened forces. He moved to  Tautino, in the rich provinces southeast of Moscow, where they recovered their strength and gained new troops, horses, and equipment over the next month.

Napoleon entered Moscow unopposed. The vast bulk of the citizens had left, leaving personal property but little food or forage and no horses or livestock for the French. The nearby peasants also left with their livestock, and burned their provender.

The French army, reduced by losses at Borodino, took to looting and drinking, losing their cohesion. Moscow consisted mostly of wood houses and buildings. It began burning almost immediately, either by arson or by accident, and was mostly rubble after four days.

By mid-October it was bitter cold and snowing. The French army left suddenly and in great haste, taking their heavy plunder and many prisoners. They moved back towards Smolensk to the West over the route where everything was burned and barren. They died in horrific numbers. The Russians gave small battles, but mostly just followed and picked off groups of soldiers using guerrilla tactics. Napoleon fled back to Paris, leaving his army to save itself. It didn’t.

Second lesson

Every Russian left ahead of the French, destroying almost all the food and forage. The peasants and serfs nearby did the same. This is how the Russians won. It was a victory by the entire nation. There weren’t any collaborators. No Quislings. No Vichy Government. No Vichy nobles. They all left, and they destroyed the French Army. The people did it on their own with no leader asking or demanding.

Trump is waging war against our democracy. He is aided by a group of anti-democracy self-proclaimed intellectuals, and a host of PR people, Republican Quislings, and the filthy rich with their pig corporations. They have a phalanx of reporters for major media cheering them on and covering up the reality of the assault.

There are ICE thugs in neck gaiters and balaclavas seizing our neighbors off the streets and assaulting protesters. There are other thugs in expensive clothes gutting our institutions. There are collaborators in huge law firms, universities, and other institutions. There are lawyers willing to sacrifice their self-respect and risk loss of their law licenses.

There are too many Vichy Democratic consultants and politicians ready to work with Trump and his voters. There are six anti-democracy members of the Supreme Court, and more in the lower courts.

But there are more of us who are ready to defend our democracy. I am inspired by Tolstoy’s tale of the heroic Russian people.

 

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Yarvin On Trump And His Henchmen

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The introduction to this series should be read first. It has the index to all posts in this series.

Yarvin has written several substack posts on Trump and his henchmen since the inauguration. In Barbarians and Mandarins (BM) he reacts to the first six weeks.  In Actually You Shouldn’t Van People (Van) he says it’s a mistake to pick up non-citizens on the street and throw them in vans. He criticizes Trump’s tariff/trade actions here (M1) and here (M2), calling these policies “mercantilism”. He just thinks they’re being done wrong,

There’s a sense of unease in all of them, a sense that things aren’t happening as he expected. That seems to be one aspect of this WaPo piece.

Grading Trump’s administration

BM is about 6K words. My first step was to chop out the repetition, the “jokes”, the snotty remarks about “libs”, and the other irrelevant material. That left me with about 2K words, and I was being generous. He starts by awarding Trump a C-. He says the new administration has two types of people: Barbarians, people who have no experience in DC, and Mandarins who do.

The Bs want to destroy, the Ms want to run things, but neither has the capacity to make the hard decisions about what should be done. Lacking a plan to guide them, they become grifters. Mandarins, he says

… have no strategy: no plan and no endgame. Since action without strategy is ineffective and ineffective action is a grift, the Mandarins are the most convincing grifters of all.

He explains why this is so, perhaps hoping to help them see the Yarvin way.

He approves of Trump’s use of laws and agencies in ways they were not intended

Second, existing infrastructure cannot be relied upon to work or even be controlled. Generally the right first assumption is that it needs to be hacked—made to operate in an unusual way that its designers, its previous operators, or both, did not expect. (The metamorphosis of USDS into DOGE will be the gold standard here for many years.)

I note that this is what Trump and his henchmen have been doing with the tariff law, the Alien Enemy Act, and other laws. Also, courts mostly hold that this is permitted by law and the Constitution.

He uses the assault on government support for science as an example. He says that scientists want power first, and that good science is their secondary goal. The new team, both the Bs and the Ms, are slashing around wildly with no regard to what the new ideology wants.

He says this violates his theory of how kings rule. Slashing funding for scientists makes them angry and makes them hate the new ideology he ascribes to the administration. He says scientists are not happy about the way science funding is managed. The goal should be to make them happy by restructuring that funding. Then they will see that the new king loves and protects them, and they will respond with love. He doesn’t explain how this overcomes their personal demand for power.

Van

In BM, written on March 7, there’s a passing mention of the great work the new administration is doing on the immigration front, but he says it’s not enough, and then inserts his concerns about having state governments, apparently because he doesn’t like federalism. In Van, written April 2, he addresses the reality of ICE tactics:

I refer to the recent news of surprise visa revocations, immigration detention, etc, for a few immigrant grad students, professors, etc, clearly low human capital individuals, who have committed various retarded, if hardly unusual, misdeeds—like writing a pro-Hamas column (probably plagiarized, certainly banal) in the lame student newspaper.

He thinks these tactics are bad. He has no moral or principled objection to any of ICE’s tactics. He just thinks they will backfire on the whole project, create enemies, and destroy support. I stopped reading Van at the point where he explains that Hitler had a theory behind the Holocaust, a theory that is utterly wrong and revolting.

Mercantilism

M1 and M2 are generally supportive of tariffs, but not the way they’re being used. He blames this on the Bs and the Ms. This is from M2:

Trump always has the right reflexes. But a reflex is not a plan. It is not his job, but the job of his administration, to translate reflexes into plans. While executing with great energy and enthusiasm, the administration has had a rocky start in this translation.

These two posts are absurdly long, so I didn’t read them to the end.

Discussion

1. What the hell did Yarvin think would happen when Trump took power? Was he not paying attention during the last Trump presidency? Did he not notice Trump’s insatiable greed, his indifference to policy, his willingness to walk along with anyone who flattered him adequately? Didn’t he notice that Trump doesn’t like competent people,  that he ignores them or fires them? Did he think Trump would suddenly take an interest in policy when every reporter and his own staffers said Trump wasn’t willing to read anything?

Is Yarvin that naive? That credulous? That desperate?

2. Yarvin is supposed to be some kind of computer genius. Has he never watched a large enterprise change its computer system? You don’t rip out the old system and then build a new one. You don’t tear out an old system and put in a new on overnight. You run them side by side long enough to be sure there aren’t any glitches that will poison your employees and customers. Or, you test and retest, and then replace little sections one or two at a time. There’s a plan, there’s testing, and there’s careful attention to outcomes.

Now he’s concerned that people who took his advice to burn everything to the ground are making big mistakes?

3. I think there are problems with our current structure. Yarvin writes about some of them, but never in any sensible context, or with an actual idea about an effective change. For a reasonably sensible discussion see this by Jonathan Chait in The Atlantic. There’s a lot to think about in this article, even for lefties. Among other things, Chait complains about delays caused by citizen activists. He does not point out that the rich and their corporations use the same tactics to delay or overturn rules preventing toxic discharges and other horrors. These delay and destroy tactics have hamstrung government action on almost every front.

4. I’m done with Yarvin. Apparently he thought the Trump team had a plan for remaking the United States in ways that would be better as Yarvin understands better. His lack of contact with reality is unbearable.

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What Is To Be Done

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This has been a rough few weeks. The debate, followed by attacks on Biden’s candidacy are painful and divisive. The partisan hacks on SCOTUS have savaged our democracy and the rule of law, ripped at the foundations of the administrative state, grabbed for power, and humiliated the not-so coequal branches. Corporate media has amplified the first, and ignored the latter. Details of Trump’s Project 2025 continue to arouse fear of fascism and Trump’s lies are treated as equal to Biden’s facts.

The response of the leaders of the Democratic Party, to the extent there is one, is pathetic. The secret donor class is whining publicly enough to be picked up by the corporate media. Democratic politicians are cowering in their offices and texting us with fear-laden demands for money. When they aren’t badgering us for money they offer us nothing to do but vote, as if all this were just part of a reality TV show and we were the online judges.

All of our so-called leaders have failed us. It’s enough to gag a maggot. And it’s time for action. It’s time for us to force these people to live up to their privilege. I’m hardly the only one who thinks this way. Read this (and everything else) by Oliver Willis.

I don’t know what will work. Nobody does. But that’s our big advantage. There are millions of us. We can try all the ideas, and we can dream up new ones. We do not have to comply with phony expectations of propriety from the people who created this problem.

A. We can pound on the cowards and toadies

1. The New York Times and the Washington Post and most cable news networks have forgotten who actually reads or watches, and what their paying audience wants. They act like showering us with the views of the MAGAs and attacking us and our candidates is cool.

Let’s remind them. Cancel all your subscriptions to these Quislings. Use your subscription money to support independent journalism or give it to your favorite candidate. Write them a snotty email with your cancellation. It feels good.

2. If you’re on social media, insult all the corporate media reporters you see or can find. Every dig at Biden, every sly effort at dividing us, and every minimization of Republican treachery should be followed by a stream of outrage. Mention that you’ve cancelled your subscription. They don’t read or report on this, but other people, including their money side and low-information voters, see it and it will make a difference.

3. Are you a member of a group capable of arranging a rally on, say the SCOTUS wrecking ball? Think strategically. Street marches that end in parks are the usual thing. But they don’t draw media coverage. You know what will? A Rally for Reform outside the local TV station. A SCOTUS Sucks protest outside your local radio station. A Save Democracy From Fascism rally outside the local newspaper. A What Are You Doing To Protect Democracy gathering outside city hall, where reporters are usually hanging around. Make sure someone is prepared with talking points and push them at the reporters and cameras.

B. What about the legal situation

We can’t make the following happen, but we can say it online and we can hammer on our politicians demanding it. The organizations we support can file pleadings, even if they’re ignored. And we can make our anger heard in a thousand different ways.

1. Judge Chutkan can recuse herself from the insurrection case. She could file a recusal statement saying she swore to uphold the constitution not the partisan hacks on SCOTUS who refuse to protect democracy (or something more adult).

All the decent judges in that circuit can follow suit, saying that the DC Circuit decision flatly denying immunity was right and they intend to follow that precedent. Eventually a Bork/Cannon agrees to try the case. This will emphasize the reality: the courts won’t protect democracy. It will undermine SCOTUS and pressure Biden to demand immediate action to rein in SCOTUS.

2. Judge Chutkan orders that all pretrial motions will be filed by July 11. Starting July 15 there will be a marathon hearing on all motions. It will run 10 hours a day until complete. Trial starts 15 days later.

The DC Court of Appeals refuses a stay, and sits on the appeal. This forces the decision to SCOTUS whose interference at this point will damage them further and give Democrats more ammunition.

3. Special Counsel Jack Smith announces that the SCOTUS decision has rendered trial impossible. He files a motion to dismiss. Every organization we support files an opposition to the motion to dismiss. They point to all the public evidence. The boldest say that the immunity decision is an abuse of the power of the judiciary. Give those more money.

Chutkan grants the motion over the objections. Our organizations appeal. The case is in the media regularly, none of it relates to Biden, and there is no both-sides beyond defending a palpably partisan SCOTUS.

4. Jack Smith prepares a report laying out all the evidence against Trump that cannot be used at trial. He gives it to Garland. Garland gives it to Biden. Biden releases it in a very public way. He’s immune because this is an official act. He instructs Smith to cooperate with all the state cases against fraudulent electors. He’s immune because SCOTUS said so.

5. Special Counsel Smith indicts all the unindicted co-conspirators using speaking indictments, setting out all the evidence, all of it. This makes the evidence public.

6. Jack Smith supersedes with a treason indictment. Chutkan calls for motions as in 2 and sets immediate trial. That’ll force SCOTUS to show its partisanship.

7. Dana Nessel, the excellent MI AG indicts Trump on the fraudulent electors scheme using the Smith evidence. Same in AZ. Maybe Fani Willis can figure out a way to clean up the mess in Georgia with a new indictment based on the new evidence.

8. Protesting is an activity at which young people excel. We can support groups like David Hogg’s March For Our Lives and Leaders We Deserve, and Olivia Julianna’s Voters Of Tomorrow and other groups focused on younger people. They can start showing up at every event featuring a MAGA SCOTUS rogue. Other groups like CREW can help, in part by sussing out good opportunities. These activists can put out public notices and encourage attendance. Same for restaurants, and any private events they and others can find. I’d be happy to show up in Chicago. SCOTUS MAGAts deserve to be shamed and shunned by polite society.

9. Lawyers attending conferences ask hard questions of all the FED SOC people. Law student organizations like The American Constitution Society publicly refuse to enroll in classes taught by people aligned with the conservative legal movement.

C. Off the wall ideas

You can’t get a good idea without some off the wall ideas.

1. Biden announces that he’s told the AG and the FBI to investigate fully and report back in 60 days: a) whether Barrett, Gorsuch, or Kavanaugh committed perjury in connection with their nominations, including specifically the allegations of Christine Blasey Ford; b) the role of Ginni Thomas in the insurrection, the fraudulent electors scheme, and her contacts with former Thomas clerks on those matters; and c) the connections between Trump and Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislane Maxwell. He explains that this is possible because SCOTUS said the President is free to control the investigations done by the Department of Justice, so he’s immune for these official acts, and he’s just being vigorous and energetic.

Outrage erupts from the frothers. Then Biden says ha ha just kidding. You right-wing jackasses need to understand just how terrible you and your rotten SCOTUS and your felonious candidate are.

2. Biden announces that he’s heard the calls for his withdrawal. He points out that if he withdraws, it will help the convicted criminal and hurt the millions of Democrats who support him. Then he says I’ll withdraw after the convicted felon withdraws. He has to go first because no one believes he’ll keeps his promises, and everyone knows Biden will.

D. A personal request

I live in Chicago. My senator, Dick Durbin, is the chair of the Judiciary Committee. He’s one of those old-timey Democrats whose love of senatorial privilege and bipartisanship is greater than his love of our democracy.

Call his office. You will talk to a staffer. Explain your anger about his failure even to hold a hearing on SCOTUS arrogance and corruption. Say you know it must be awful to watch up close as democracy fails and their boss does nothing. Do your best to make them weep.

Thanks.

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SCOTUS Lines Up Behind Trump’s Defensive Strategy

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There is no doubt the Republicans on SCOTUS (hereinafter R-SCOTUS) are lined up behind Trump in his criminal cases. The timeline in the ridiculous immunity case and the decision in the Colorado ballot case are clear demonstrations of their commitment to his reelection despite his obvious unfitness for office.

The Colorado case

In Trump v. Anderson,  all nine members of SCOTUS agreed that Colorado can not keep Trump off the ballot under the  Insurrection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The per curium opinion offers several weak reasons to support this result.

Barrett and the Democratic appointees expressly dissented from the majority’s holding that only Congress can enforce the Insurrection Clause, and only with the approval of SCOTUS. The majority concludes with this:

These are not the only reasons the States lack power to enforcethis particular constitutional provision with respect to federal offices. But they are important ones, and it is the combination of all the reasons set forth in this opinion—not, as some of our colleagues would have it, just one particular rationale—that resolves this case. In our view, each of these reasons is necessary to provide a complete explanation for the judgment the Court unanimously reaches.

Restrictions on Congressional Enforcement of the Insurrection Clause

That last quote refers to the part of the per curium opinion saying that § 5 of the 14th Amendment

… limits congressional legislation enforcing Section 3, because Section 5 is strictly “remedial.” To comply with that limitation, Congress “must tailor its legislative scheme to remedying or preventing” the specific conduct the relevant provision prohibits. Section 3, unlike other provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, proscribes conduct of individuals. … Any congressional legislation enforcing Section 3 must, like the Enforcement Act of 1870 and §2383, reflect “congruence and proportionality” between preventing or remedying that conduct “and the means adopted to that end.” Citations omitted.

The women on SCOTUS agree that this is unnecessary for the decision. It’s purely a creation of the SCOTUS men. It prescribes no standards, and it arrogates power to SCOTUS at the expense of Congress.

I note that the claim that the 14th Amendment only applies to the actions of individuals is the invention of an earlier SCOTUS, in cases like US v. Cruikshank and The Civil Rights Cases, which I discuss here and here. The Congress that drafted the 14th Amendment thought it had the power to legislate against the KKK and other violent white supremacists acting in their private capacity. For example, in Cruikshank, SCOTUS said principles of federalism mean that the 14th Amendment only applies to state action. Those early  rancid decisions are never questioned even though we now have thousands of federal laws governing individuals.

The kicker is that any restrictions on Congress say nothing about limitations on the States. And any limitations SCOTUS dreams up to control Congress of power can just as easily be applied to the states, and with just as much historical and legal justification.

Manipulating the ridiculous immunity claim

Trump, who already defied the norm of a peaceful transition of power, also defies the principle that no one is above the law. He says that no president can be prosecuted for crimes committed while in office unless they are first impeached. He agrees with Richard Nixon “Well, when the president does it … that means that it is not illegal.”

This is an interlocutory appeal. The decision of the Circuit Court was clearly right. There was no need for SCOTUS to take this case at this state of the proceedings. No one thinks the president is entitled to blanket immunity. After sitting on it for two weeks, SCOTUS set the case for “expedited” review seven weeks later. Who knows when they’ll issue a ruling.

It would be stupid for SCOTUS to take up the claim that Trump is immune from prosecution for any and all crimes committed in his official capacity. So SCOTUS rephrased the question presented:

Whether and if so to what extent does a former President enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.

This phrasing enables SCOTUS to screw up the trial by all sorts of legal trickery. For example, Trump is charged with “knowingly” participating in conspiracies. SCOTUS could hold that Trump is entitled to a presumption of immunity, and that the prosecution has the burden of proof on whether Trump intended to take actions outside his official duties. That would dramatically increase the burden on the prosecution.

I’m sure R-SCOTUS can come up with better ideas than mine.

Bad judging

I think R-SCOTUS members are bad at judging. They claim to be originalists, but that’s not what they did in the ballot case. The per curium opinion selectively quotes one iota of the history of the 14th Amendment and ignores the rest. It doesn’t address the mountains of information provided in the two amicus briefs filed by historians. It’s solely based on outcomes.

I discussed good judging in my post on Dobbs.  As I see it, good judging at the appellate level is solving hard problems in the way most likely to produce the best possible long-term results. Past cases and history are not absolutely binding, but provide guidance and wisdom (sometimes) from other judges. For this rule, I rely on Judge Richard Posner’s views, and those of Oliver Wendell Holmes and John Dewey’s pragmatism, but I won’t rehash that here.

What R-SCOTUS does is invent a bunch of reasons why their preferred outcome is right. The per curium opinion is jumbled to the point that they feel obligated to justify its lack of coherence.

The dissent relies on principles of federalism, as the majority claims to do. It then looks at the likely outcomes of the Colorado case and explains why those outcomes are bad for the nation. It says that the Constitution doesn’t require that bad outcome. The dissenters give us exactly what Posner expects: their judgment of what is best for the future. They may be right. They certainly are right to refuse to go beyond what’s needed to resolve the present case; that’s a critical guardrail against overreach.

Why though?

The per curium decision all but insures that Trump will not be subject to disqualification under the Insurrection Clause. The timetable for the absurd immunity claim, and the mischief that awaits us from their decision is additional insurance.

I do not understand why R-SCOTUS is in the bag for Trump. They have life tenure, a decent income, and constant security. They have enormous power, to the point that no law or rule is effective without their consent. They have a long to-do list of laws and rules destined for termination. Why waste any of their muscle on Trump?

The easy answer is that they’re corrupt. There’s plenty of evidence of that. Clarence Thomas? His insurrectionist-adjacent wife? And a free RV? Alito, with his giant salmon? Neil Gorsuch’s house? Brett Kavanaugh’s disappearing debts? John Roberts’ wife with her $10 million from BigLaw for legal recruiting? Their total indifference to ethics and the appearance of impropriety?

But that probably isn’t it, unless Trump or someone else holds receipts for this and whatever else there might be, and made it clear those receipts would become public. And I don’t see why that would benefit the filthy rich donors who put these people into power. They set that to-do list and they don’t need Trump to get it done.

Gratitude? At this level there’s precious little of that.

Is it the purely political calculation that any action taken against Trump is too dangerous? Are they worried that his hard-core followers, armed to the teeth by R-SCOTUS cases, will riot or even attack SCOTUS if they rule against Trump? Do they think that normal people will bitch but still comply with their rulings in his favor and accept his potential election peacefully?

Is there something worse that innocents like me can’t even imagine?

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Donnie The Wimp And His Impeachment Coffin

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There was a pretty astounding report by CNN early this morning depicting the, and I am being kind here, disarray in Trump’s impeachment defense. The gist is this:

Butch Bowers and Deborah Barbier, who were expected to be two of the lead attorneys, are no longer on the team. A source familiar with the changes said it was a mutual decision for both to leave the legal team. As the lead attorney, Bowers assembled the team.
Josh Howard, a North Carolina attorney who was recently added to the team, has also left, according to another source familiar with the changes. Johnny Gasser and Greg Harris, from South Carolina, are no longer involved with the case, either.

No other attorneys have announced they are working on Trump’s impeachment defense.

A person familiar with the departures told CNN that Trump wanted the attorneys to argue there was mass election fraud and that the election was stolen from him rather than focus on the legality of convicting a president after he’s left office. Trump was not receptive to the discussions about how they should proceed in that regard.

That sounds ominous!

But here is the part that even more stuck out to me:

“As the lead attorney, Bowers assembled the team.”

and, most notably,

“The attorneys had not yet been paid any advance fees and a letter of intent was never signed.”

Lol, for the uninitiated, that means Trump never paid a dime as to a retainer, and never signed a fee agreement. That not only is inappropriate, in most jurisdictions it is, in and of itself, unethical. Even when the lawyer is agreeing to do work pro bono, there is a retainer agreement. Always, because real lawyers don’t blithely hang their asses out on the line without specified parameters. That is just how it is.

As I said on Twitter:

A rather large discussion ensued. Go look if you so desire, but I will stand by that for now. No, I do not really know, but it almost makes sense.

Trump is not cash rich. Expending collected campaign funds to perpetrate a fraudulent defense might be a dicey proposition. And no competent attorneys are lining up to pitch that. Trump may literally be down to Rudy and Jenna Ellis. Dershowitz and Jon Turley are squirrely as shit, but even they may not be that stupid.

So, where art thou go Donald?

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Dr. Fauci Has No More Fucks Left To Give

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This point was always going to arrive. An actually educated and aware specialist trying to deal with an obtuse oaf.

“The impact of a vaccine, he said, would depend on both its efficacy and the proportion of people who take it. Fauci cautions that, even if scientists release a vaccine by the beginning of next year, people will likely still need to carry out public health precautions into next fall and winter — including wearing a mask.
….
“This is the United States of America, the technologically most advanced country in the world,” he said. “We can make a test with a piece of paper that you stick into a little cassette for $1 that does it in five minutes that’s 98% sensitive. You can’t tell me that we can’t do that.”

The next year will continue to not be pretty or easy. The Donald is blowing smoke, desperately, with his “rounding the curve” bit of Coronavirus rhetoric.

There are indeed places in the world where the rosier view might be true, mostly led by sane women like Jacinda Ardern. But it is not true as to the US under the obese and obtuse oaf of Trump. Turns out people appreciate competent governance.

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NY Times Finds Trump Administration Inserted Wuhan Cables Into The Aluminum Tubes Echo Chamber

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In my last two posts, I went into detail on what is known on the scientific front about the origin of SARS CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 outbreak and then into what evidence Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) has offered to refute the rumors of the virus escaping from her lab. This post will set aside discussion of the science (other than to eventually provide a few quotes that have been provided by scientists addressing these issues) and will instead focus on what has been increasing evidence that there has been a concerted effort akin to an information operation to create acceptance of the idea that the virus escaped from WIV. Today, the New York Times confirmed these suspicions and indicated clearly who is behind the operation. Here’s a partial screen capture of the story by a team that includes Mark Mazzetti and Adam Goldman:

Although I was becoming convinced of an information operation, I wasn’t sure who was orchestrating it. This Times article leaves no doubts:

Senior Trump administration officials have pushed American spy agencies to hunt for evidence to support an unsubstantiated theory that a government laboratory in Wuhan, China, was the origin of the coronavirus outbreak, according to current and former American officials. The effort comes as President Trump escalates a public campaign to blame China for the pandemic.

Some intelligence analysts are concerned that the pressure from administration officials will distort assessments about the virus and that they could be used as a political weapon in an intensifying battle with China over a disease that has infected more than three million people across the globe.

Most intelligence agencies remain skeptical that conclusive evidence of a link to a lab can be found, and scientists who have studied the genetics of the coronavirus say that the overwhelming probability is that it leapt from animal to human in a nonlaboratory setting, as was the case with H.I.V., Ebola and SARS.

The article even goes on to name some of those pushing the link to an escape from the lab, including Mike Pompeo and Anthony Ruggiero. Who is Ruggiero, you might ask? Oh, that answer is full of rich irony:

And Anthony Ruggiero, the head of the National Security Council’s bureau tracking weapons of mass destruction, expressed frustration during one videoconference in January that the C.I.A. was unable to get behind any theory of the outbreak’s origin. C.I.A. analysts responded that they simply did not have the evidence to support any one theory with high confidence at the time, according to people familiar with the conversation.

Here we have officials working for Trump who are actively pushing an unsubstantiated theory that could be used to spark an international conflict. And one of those officials just happens to work on the issue of weapons of mass destruction. Gosh, it’s not like that topic has ever led to problems based on manipulating information from the intelligence community, is it? In fact, the article eventually gets there on how this is looking like a replay of Iraq:

A former intelligence official described senior aides’ repeated emphasis of the lab theory as “conclusion shopping,” a disparaging term among analysts that has echoes of the Bush administration’s 2002 push for assessments saying that Iraq had weapons of mass of destruction and links to Al Qaeda, perhaps the most notorious example of the politicization of intelligence.

The C.I.A. has yet to unearth any data beyond circumstantial evidence to bolster the lab theory, according to current and former government officials, and the agency has told policymakers it lacks enough information to either affirm or refute it. Only getting access to the lab itself and the virus samples it contains could provide definitive proof, if it exists, the officials said.

And the parallels go even deeper:

The Defense Intelligence Agency recently changed its analytic position to formally leave open the possibility of a theory of lab origin, officials said. Senior agency officials have asked analysts to take a closer look at the labs.

The reason for the change is unclear, but some officials attributed it to the intelligence analyzed in recent weeks. Others took a more jaundiced view: that the agency is trying to curry favor with White House officials. A spokesman for the agency, James M. Kudla, disputed that characterization. “It’s not D.I.A.’s role to make policy decisions or value judgments — and we do not,” he said.

So now we even have the remains of Cheney’s “Team B” within DIA, itching to make Trump happy. For those who may have forgotten, we have none other than that neocon himself, Eli Lake, talking glowingly of the Team B folks and DIA pushing back on CIA even before the invasion of Iraq:

THE CURRENT SCHISM has roots going back to the early ‘70s. In 1974 a collection of neoconservative foreign policy intellectuals on the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board began attacking the CIA-authored NIEs for the Soviet Union, accusing the Agency of cooking its books to defend Henry Kissinger’s policy of détente by underestimating Soviet military expenditures.

So the group—which included Harvard historian Richard Pipes; former arms control negotiator and ambassador-at-large under President Ronald Reagan, Paul H. Nitze; the retired director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Daniel Graham; and a then-little-known staff member of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Paul Wolfowitz—asked the CIA for access to the Agency’s files to create their own assessment of Soviet intentions and capabilities. In 1976 they received that access from then-CIA Director George H.W. Bush. That fall the group—which came to be known as Team B—produced an intelligence assessment for the president, contending that the Soviet Union’s military expenditures would not be curtailed by concerns over their potential impact on the ussr’s economic health. That conclusion became the cornerstone of Reagan’s policy for outspending the Soviet military in order to hasten the collapse of the Soviet economy.

Fast-forward to the current day. Wolfowitz, now deputy secretary of defense, still doesn’t trust the CIA—but this time the bone of contention is Iraq. As during his tenure on Team B, Wolfowitz finds himself amid a loose network of neocons inside and outside government—this time including his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John R. Bolton; Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle; and Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff and national security adviser I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby—arguing for an aggressive foreign policy posture. So, in a repetition of history, the neocons have devoted themselves to offering an alternative to what they see as the CIA’s timid and inaccurate intelligence assessments—assessments that downplayed the possibility of Al Qaeda sleeper cells in the United States prior to September 11; failed to predict India’s nuclear tests in 1998; and underestimated the speed with which the North Koreans would be able to test a multistage missile. The difference is that this time the neocons don’t have to ask the CIA’s permission to gain access to classified intelligence, because Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld already control between 85 percent and 90 percent of the U.S. intelligence budget, including the agencies responsible for signal intercepts, satellite surveillance, and the DIA. “This is a case of going in-house because [Rumsfeld] is not happy with the intelligence he’s gotten from the CIA,” says Melvin Goodman, a professor of international security at the National War College and a former CIA analyst.

Of course, as always, the neocons were dead wrong about the Iraq intelligence and were simply gaming it to get the war they longed for.

Another of the key bits of intelligence gaming came with the aluminum tubes story, “broken” by Michael Gordon and Judy Miller. In the retrospective in 2004, we find that there was in fact ample evidence showing the tubes were inadequate for uranium centrifuges and were in fact components for small artillery rockets.

Cheney and Miller have since been inextricably linked to this huge information operation, because Miller’s article was quickly followed up by multiple appearances by Cheney talking up this “intelligence” in the drumbeat for the Iraq war.  Marcy has noted how this history follows both Miller and Cheney.

If August 24 is seen as Aluminum Tube Day, then it seems likely that April 14 will become Wuhan Cable Day. And just as the aluminum tube story was catapulted nearly simultaneously by multiple people for maximum media impact, the same is true on the attacks on WIV.

The timing of April 14 is interesting, as the Times article today notes that on the 7th, a meeting of the intelligence community came to the conclusion that the origin of the outbreak is unknown:

Richard Grenell, the acting director of national intelligence, has told his agencies to make a priority of determining the virus’s origin. His office convened a review of intelligence officials on April 7 to see whether the agencies could reach a consensus. The officials determined that at least so far, they could not.

Just one week later, it looks like Team B has its ducks in a row and we suddenly have John Roberts of Fox News noting the 2018 State Department cables and asking an incredibly specific question about supposedly infected WIV personnel while pushing the lab as a source:

And the same day, we have Josh Rogin, who formerly worked with Eli Lake, putting out his column hawking the cables, claiming that they show officials being concerned that lax security at WIV at that time created a huge risk for a release of a dangerous virus. But his only actual quote from the cable he says he saw was one that just talks about a shortage of trained personnel. He then grudgingly admits the cables were sent as a plea for help in getting more training for the lab.

I had missed until yesterday this terrific takedown of Rogin and his April 14 column by Max Blumenthal. Blumenthal notes that virologist Angela Rasmussen also finds the cable excerpt not to be a smoking gun:

Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist and associate research scientist at the Center of Infection and Immunity at the Columbia University School of Public Health, pointed out that the cable “argues that it’s important to continue working on bat CoVs because of their potential as human pathogens, but doesn’t suggest that there were safety issues specifically relating to WIV’s work on bat CoVs capable of using human ACE2 as a receptor.”

Ultimately, Josh Rogin was forced to admit that there was no evidence to support his insinuations, conceding in the penultimate paragraph of the article, “We don’t know whether the novel coronavirus originated in the Wuhan lab.”

Of note also is that Blumenthal found Rasmussen calling out Rogin on Twitter. Among several exchanges between the two was Rasmussen asking for Rogin to release the entire cable and Rogin refusing.

And just because the Iraq parallels never end, Blumenthal also found the 2020 version of Curveball, a regime-change agitator posing as someone in possession of important technical information:

Instead of discussing issues surrounding WIV with scientific experts, Rogin attempted to bolster his claims by relying on the speculation of anonymous Trump administration officials and Xiao Qiang, an anti-Chinese government activist with a long history of US government funding.

Rogin referred to Xiao merely as a “research scientist,” dishonestly attempting to furnish academic credibility for the professional political dissident. In fact, Xiao has no expertise in any science and teaches classes on “digital activism,” “internet freedom,” and “blogging China.” Revealingly, Rogin completely omitted the real record of Xiao Qiang as an anti-Chinese government activist.

For over 20 years, Xiao has worked with and been funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the main arm of US government regime-change efforts in countries targeted by Washington. The NED has funded and trained right-wing opposition movements from Venezuela to Nicaragua to Hong Kong, where violent separatist elements spent much of 2019 agitating for an end to Chinese rule.

Xiao served as the executive director of the New York-based NGO Human Rights in China from 1991 to 2002. As a long-time grantee of the NED, he served as vice-chairman of the steering committee of the World Movement for Democracy, an international “network of networks” founded by the NED and “for which the NED serves as the secretariat.” Xiao is also the editor-in-chief of China Digital Times, a publication that he founded in 2003 and that is also funded by the NED.

It’s truly remarkable how these folks have been using the same playbook for nearly 50 years. But because tossing out bogus information and then firing up the echo chamber to repeat it endlessly has worked for them so many times, they’ll just keep doing it until we stop them or at least impose some real consequences once the truth comes out. I suppose we can take some solace in the fact that this time these actions are being called out in real time, but I still don’t hold out a lot of hope for Team B being prevented from inciting more violence before this is all over.

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