I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
- Winston Churchill
October, 1939
This week's featured posts are "Pardon?" (where I consider whether Biden should pardon Trump) and "Sam Alito: yet another corrupt conservative justice". And this is what I did with my week off.
This week everybody was talking about Russia
Russia just had a WTF weekend:
The crisis in Russia erupted Friday when [Wagner mercenary group leader Yevgeny] Prigozhin accused Russia’s military of attacking a Wagner camp and killing his men – and vowed to retaliate by force.
Prigozhin then led his troops into Russia: He occupied Rostov-on-Don and claimed to have taken control of key military facilities in the Voronezh region, where there was an apparent clash between Wagner units and Russian forces.
The crisis was apparently resolved by a deal: Prigozhin has gone to Belarus and treason charges against him have been dropped. (Though no one has actually seen him in Belarus yet. For that matter, no one has seen Putin in the last couple days either.)
Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) makes an analogy (which I've fleshed out a little): Imagine if an American military contractor (Blackwater, say) turned its troops toward Washington, marched a considerable distance, and only stopped when its leader (Erik Prince, in this analogy) was given asylum in Canada.
WTF indeed.
I won't say nobody saw this coming, because I remember seeing a prediction last summer -- I wish I remembered where -- that the Ukraine War would end when unrest in Russia caused the various factions to bring their troops home.
That scenario seemed far-fetched to me at the time, but it's looking a lot more credible now.
BTW: Be wary of any American pundit who claims to know what's going to happen next. This New Yorker article is as good as anything I've seen. David Remnick talks to Russian emigre journalist Mikhail Zygar:
"Putin is weaker. I have the feeling he is not really running the country. Certainly, not the way he once did. He is still President, but all the different clans”—the factions within the government, the military, and, most important, the security services—“now have the feeling that ‘Russia after Putin’ is getting closer. Putin is still alive. He is still there in his bunker. But there is the growing feeling that he is a lame duck, and they have to prepare for Russia after Putin."
But everybody is just guessing. There's a broad consensus that Putin's hold on power is weaker than anyone previously thought. How much weaker? Nobody really knows.
Also, Putin is evil, but that doesn't mean Prigozhin is good. His Wagner mercenaries have committed atrocities in Ukraine, and if Putin doesn't get him first, he'll probably be tried for war crimes someday.
and GOP conspiracy theories going splat
This week, two Trump-appointed investigators disappointed MAGA conspiracy theorists: Special Counsel John Durham testified to Congress and US Attorney David Weiss settled charges against Hunter Biden with no jail time.
Remember when Trump had Bill Barr appoint John Durham to uncover "the crime of the century"? You know, stuff that was "far bigger than anybody thought possible"? Like how the FBI conspired with Hillary Clinton to invent "the Russia hoax" out of nothing and smear Trump with it in an attempted coup?
Well, never mind. Wednesday Durham testified to the House Judiciary Committee about the dense and headline-free 300-page final report he submitted in May. Republicans on the committee desperately wanted Durham to verify their conspiracy theories exonerating Trump, and to flesh out their dark fantasies of a Deep State conspiracy against him, but he did not do so.
Instead, he said that Russian election interference was real, ("[O]ur report should not be read to suggest that Russian election interference was not a significant threat. It was."), that Robert Mueller is "a patriot", and that Merrick Garland didn't interfere with his investigation.
He admitted that the reason that former President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton still walk free, no matter how much Trumpworld wants them behind bars, is that there’s simply no evidence of wrongdoing.
He criticized how the FBI handled the Trump/Russia investigation, but found a series of individual errors, not a vast conspiracy. In the end, Matt Gaetz accused Durham of being "part of the cover-up". Because that's what you do after you give a guy 3+ years and millions of dollars to investigate something, and he can't tell you what you want to hear.
Gaetz is applying the usual conspiracy-theory rule: The complete lack of evidence is the surest proof that the conspiracy is working.
Hunter Biden is pleading guilty to two tax misdemeanors, has paid his previously unpaid taxes, and has struck a deal with DoJ to resolve a federal gun charge. He'll serve two years probation. All the unsubstantiated rumors Republicans have been spreading about multi-million-dollar bribery schemes that implicate his father have come to nothing.
The US attorney in charge of the Hunter investigation is David Weiss, who was appointed by Trump and left in place by the Biden administration. The plea deal now goes to a Trump-appointed judge for approval.
Through a spokesperson, Joe Biden commented as a father, not as the prosecutor's boss.
The President and First Lady love their son and support him as he continues to rebuild his life. We will have no further comment.
Did Weiss cut Hunter a sweetheart deal? Republicans, of course, claim he did. But most legal experts say no.
“If Hunter Biden’s name was John or Jane Doe, no criminal tax prosecution would have ever been contemplated and he would have almost certainly been slotted into a pre-trial diversion program, saving the government the time and expense of a trial,” said Martin Sheil, a former supervisory special agent in the IRS Criminal Investigation.
“So if Hunter has paid all of his taxes, albeit delinquently, arguably Uncle Sam has suffered no harm and justice was done,” Sheil said.
And as for the weapons charge, CNN legal analyst Elie Honig says:
[T]he vast majority of federal gun crimes involve somebody who either used the gun in some sort of violent crime or somebody who’s a prior convicted felon. ... So it’s rare to even see someone prosecuted at all under the law that Hunter Biden was prosecuted for, which is possession of a gun by an addict.
and the Supreme Court
Supreme Court stories come in two flavors: rulings they've made and new insight into the corruption of the conservative justices. This week we had one of each: The Biden administration won an immigration case against two red-state attorneys general, and this time it was Sam Alito who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. (I cover Alito in a featured post.)
First the immigration case: Under Trump, any immigrant without legal status was subject to deportation. When Biden took over, he issued a new order prioritizing three classes of the undocumented: suspected terrorists, criminals, and those recently caught at the border. In effect, this meant that most of the country's 11 million undocumented immigrants could live their lives without fear. (One consequence of this policy was that the woman who had been in sanctuary at my church for three years could finally leave.)
Texas and Louisiana sued to stop this change, but Friday the Court ruled 8-1 that they lack standing. Brett Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion.
Kavanaugh framed the dispute as an effort by the two states to obtain a court order that would require DHS to “alter its arrest policy so that the Department arrests more noncitizens.” But there is no history of courts “ordering the Executive Branch to change its arrest or prosecution policies so that the Executive Branch makes more arrests or initiates more prosecutions.”
This week ends the Court's term, so we're expecting decisions in several major cases:
- whether universities can use affirmative action in their admission decisions
- the legality of Biden's student-loan forgiveness program
- whether a state supreme court can overrule gerrymandering by the legislature
- yet another religious "freedom" vs. minority rights case
My guess is that Roberts has manipulated the calendar so that the Court's most controversial decisions will come last. The cases decided recently have been divided between liberal and conservative wins, building up Roberts' "centrist" credibility.
But there's no point in speculating, because by Thursday we'll know.
and you also might be interested in ...
For several days, the media obsessed over the fate of the Titan, a small submarine carrying tourists to the site of the Titanic wreck on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. For days, a global audience imagined the five people on board stranded and running out of oxygen, but it's now believed that the sub imploded around the time contact was lost, killing everyone instantly.
A ticket to visit the Titanic went for $250,000. Because the Titanic is in international waters, no country's safety regulations applied. Wikipedia says: "The vessel was not certified as seaworthy by any regulatory agency or third-party organization."
At more-or-less the same time, a fishing boat carrying 750 migrants sank off the coast of Greece, killing more than 500. The NYT examines why this larger disaster received far less attention.
Your social media feed may not have blown up with discussions of whether vaccine researcher Dr. Peter Hotez should debate vaccine denier Robert Kennedy Jr. on Joe Rogan's podcast. But mine did. Rogan has offered $100K to the charity of Hotez's choice, and Hotez has turned him down.
There's been a lot of back-and-forth about whether this is the right decision or not. (I think it is.) I think David Roberts has the most thoughtful take on the subject: What makes science science is that it's not two individuals trying to sway a crowd. It's a social process through which a community of well-trained researchers checks and rechecks each other's work.
If you put evidence & empiricism aside at the beginning, then charisma is your only guide, & if charisma is your only guide, getting taken in & conned by glib charlatans is 100% inevitable. There's no squaring that circle.
... Over time, science has stumbled in the direction of reliable truth, because it hasn't relied on brilliant or charismatic individuals, but rather on a *social* process of mutual checking & re-checking, covering each other's blind spots. The thing about science, as I said, is that it tacks directly against some strong human instincts. That's why it requires specialized training & specialized institutions, and even then it falls short repeatedly. You have to actively push/support it to keep it alive.
Anyway, what I see -- not only in conservative religious communities like evangelicals but in today's reactionary politics -- is a kind of pre-scientific understanding of truth in which there are nothing but competing tribes with contesting claims, and the way to decide between them basically comes down to aesthetics or identity. It's who talks best, who has the best rap. You see this in how they approach, eg, journalism: the demand that media must print the claims of each side, because there are *only* claims, only tribes, nothing beyond.
... And at long last this brings me back around to "debate me, bro." If you understand science & the scientific method, you understand the very obvious reasons that live debate is a terrible, terrible way to seek truth. It is a format that strips away everything *except* charisma.
Truth-seeking is slow, incremental, & above all *social*. Live debate is all about big dramatic claims & facility with language. It selects for charisma, not truth. But! If you have this pre-scientific, evangelical conception of truth, then there is *only* charisma and so it follows that live debate is the perfect way to settle claims. Who can give the best rap? Who can dazzle the audience? Who's funny or charming or has good anecdotes? Who can talk faster?
This week's shooting-fish-in-barrel target comes from Nikki Haley:
Do you remember when you were growing up, do you remember how simple life was, how easy it felt? It was about faith, family, and country. We can have that again, but to do that, we must vote Joe Biden out.
That tweet went viral, and lots of people, particularly those who experienced abuse or discrimination or violence while growing up, reacted with hostility. And I get that response, but it's probably what Haley wanted: She trolled them, because defending a nostalgic myth of America against angry people who know better is a good look for a Republican presidential candidate.
And that's why I like Paula Poundstone's more compassionate response:
Nikki, it's possible that when you were growing up, like me, you just weren't aware of much of what was going on in the country. It's important that, as adults, we try to inform ourselves, instead of trying to recreate our own ignorance.
After all, the point isn't to school Nikki Haley, who probably knows exactly she's doing. The point is to address people who read Haley's tweet and long for the feeling she's describing. Striking back at Haley makes them feel like you're striking at them (and increases their identification with Haley).
So here's what I'll add to Poundstone's tweet: When you're growing up, good parents will try to shield you from trauma and horror. If you're lucky they'll succeed, and you'll reach your teen years with a deep inner conviction that life makes sense and the world is tractable.
But if, as an adult, you want a leader to recreate that feeling for you now, you are looking for an authoritarian personality cult, a Big Daddy or Big Mommy who can reassure you that everything is going to be OK. And Haley is right: Biden won't do that for you.
and let's close with something deep
The search for the Titan sub points out something we slide over in common language: We talk about "the bottom of the sea" as if it were a specific place. But what you're really talking about depends on where you are. This animation makes it clear why the site of the Titanic is very different from the places where scuba divers or submarines typically go. (The Titanic shows up at about the 3:30 mark.)
