Lev’s Regrets

The other day, a judge whom I greatly admire recommended that I watch a new documentary.

Talk about drawing back the curtain! That documentary, “From Russia With Lev” may be the tell-all of all time, and–assuming there are still uncommitted voters–the timing of its disclosures couldn’t be better. For those who haven’t yet seen it, don’t walk–run to your television and watch it on MSNBC.

The documentary tells the complete story behind the events that precipitated Trump’s first impeachment, and it does so from the perspective of Lev Parnas, one of the main characters in that travesty, who has clearly come to regret his participation in what can only be described as a Mafia-like enterprise.

In the process of telling the story behind Trump’s effort to blackmail the President of Ukraine, we learn a lot of things that I, for one, would rather I didn’t know.

What we learn about Trump isn’t surprising (although much of what we already did know was supplemented with data amply confirming his unfitness for any office, let alone the Presidency), but the film revealed an extent of rot in the upper echelons of the GOP that shocked me. Despite my distaste for several of the people shown to be “on the take” in one way or another, I would not have predicted the depths to which they fell, morally and legally. The documentary reinforced the mendacity of Bill Barr’s “summary” of the Special Prosecutor’s investigation of Trump’s acquiescence into widespread Russian meddling in the election; it focused, in passing, on Kevin McCarthy’s money-grubbing, and on the equally dishonorable actions of several others. And it confirmed the knowing mendacity of Fox “News.”

Most of all, the documentary displayed the pathetic, grasping, total degeneracy of Rudy Giuliani.

It would be a disservice to offer a Cliff Notes version of the film. You really, really need to see it, to understand–intellectually and viscerally–that for a period of four years, the United States was run by a gang of thuggish con men and Mafiosas who cared nothing about the security or honor of the United States and everything about personal wealth and power.

What I do want to emphasize are the reasons to believe Lev Parnas and his recitation of these events. Rachel Maddow, the executive producer, was asked that question in an interview, and her answer was convincing.

First of all, Parnas was forthcoming about his own life. He was admittedly a con man who ran around with hoodlums and wheeler-dealers, a man who knowingly and enthusiastically took part of a variety of illegal activities. It was thanks to those prior contacts that he eventually fell into a relationship that took him into the inner precincts of Trump’s White House. He forthrightly admits that being welcomed into these powerful circles went to his head. In his narratives, he doesn’t try to excuse or whitewash either his very checkered past or his role in Trump and Giuliani’s effort to withhold the weapons that Congress had authorized for Ukraine–weapons desperately needed to fight the Russian invasion– unless Zelensky announced a bogus investigation into Hunter Biden.

But even if you discount his accuracy or sincerity, Parnas provided the producer and director of the film (as well as the prosecutors who eventually sent him to prison) with extensive documentary evidence. His cellphone contained thousands of emails, texts and photographs confirming his version of events–evidence that simply could not have been manufactured, and that is not capable of being explained away. (There were also numerous photos of him with Trump, who continues to claim he never met Lev.)

Ordinarily, a film offering the bombshells that this one does would destroy a Presidential candidate. But we occupy a weird time. The MAGA cult, Christian Nationalists and racists who stubbornly support a demented criminal are not open to persuasion, and I seriously doubt that there are, at this point in the electoral cycle, any truly “uncommitted” voters. As David Sedaris has noted (his language), to be undecided between these two candidates is like having the stewardess on a plane offer you a meal choice between chicken and shit with broken glass in it–and, after a pause, to ask how the chicken was cooked.

Those of us who reside in the “reality-based community” already had ample reason to reject Donald Trump. “From Russia with Lev” makes the prospect of a Trump victory even more terrifying.

Watch it. And if you know anyone who really is trying to decide between the chicken and the shit with broken glass, make sure they see it too.

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PLEASE IGNORE LINK

Sorry–I just hit a wrong button. Ignore the link you just received, and my apology for littering your inboxes.

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The Chevron Doctrine And Public Health

http://view.sc.hks.harvard.edu/?qs=1082fe68ab2035ae196ba611a4d398b6e567fd248ea3b45e4662b93569df64250dfb81101923705bcfd451836e78a481503ca70e09762a9498367ca8bf67d126f64129f4c8e9147a997c8a65c751c8d6

https://www.propublica.org/article/supreme-court-chevron-deference-loper-bright-guns-abortion-pending-cases?emci=ee1dfe1a-de7c-ef11-8474-6045bda8aae9&emdi=4aeca557-e57c-ef11-8474-6045bda8aae9&ceid=81745

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Let’s Talk About Choice

A reader of this blog recently asked me why Americans seem so confused about whether individual “choice” is an essential element of freedom. Why, for example, do many Americans see reproductive choice as a critical human right, but oppose school choice, or the individual’s choice to own lethal weapons? Why did people during a pandemic oppose rules requiring them to wear masks, claiming their right to choose? Can we make sense of these differences?

I think we can.

I have frequently alluded to the libertarian principle that underlies America’s constitutional system. Those who crafted America’s constituent documents were significantly influenced by the philosophy of the Enlightenment, and its then-new approach to the proper role of the state. They endorsed the principle that Individuals should be free to pursue their own ends–their own life goals–so long as they did not thereby harm the person or property of another, and so long as they were willing to accord an equal liberty to their fellow citizens.

The principle seems straightforward, but it requires a measure of consensus about the nature of harm to others.

To use a relatively recent example, lots of folks were enraged when local governments imposed smoking bans in public places. They insisted that the choice to smoke or not was an individual one. The bans, however, resulted from medical research documenting the harms done by passive smoke. The ordinances were based upon lawmakers’ agreement that individuals should retain the choice to smoke in their homes or cars or similar venues, but not where they would be polluting the air of non-consenting others.

Essentially, the libertarian premise asks: What is the nature of the “harm to others” that justifies government intervention? When may government disallow a seemingly personal choice? How certain does the harm have to be? Does harm to others include harms to non-persons (fetuses)?

Most sentient Americans understood that a rule requiring people to wear masks in public places during a pandemic was essential to preventing harm to unconsenting others, just as the ordinances against smoking in a local bar protected non-smokers from the hazards of passive smoke, and laws against speeding protect against potentially deadly accidents.

When we get to issues like gun ownership and educational vouchers, there is considerably less agreement–although survey research suggests that most Americans favor considerable tightening of the laws governing who can own weapons, given the daily evidence that lax regulation is responsible for considerable and often deadly harm to others.

What about allowing “parental choice” in the use of tax dollars to send one’s children to private and religious schools? Or, for that matter, “parental choice” to control what books the local library can include on its shelves?

The evidence strongly suggests that “educational choice” is harming both civic cohesion and the public school systems that serve some 90% of the nation’s children. (Given the large percentage of voucher users who choose religious schools, there is also a strong argument to be made that these programs violate the First Amendment’s Separation of Church and State.) There is also a significant difference between exercising choice with one’s own resources–which parents can absolutely do–and requiring taxpayers to fund those choices.

With respect to libraries, parents can certainly choose to prevent their own children from accessing books of which they disapprove, but efforts to keep libraries from offering those books to others is a clear violation of the portion of the libertarian principle that requires willingness to accord equal liberty to others.

Whether to impose on an individual’s right to choose a course of action will often depend upon a weighing of harms. With respect to a woman’s right to choose an abortion, even people who claim that a fertilized egg is a person should understand that an abortion ban demonstrably harms already-living women–physically, emotionally and economically. (It has become abundantly clear that very few of the “pro life” activists really believe that a fertilized egg is equivalent to a born child; they are far more likely to favor a return to a patriarchal time and a reversal of women’s rights. But even giving them the benefit of the doubt, a weighing of the harms clearly favors women’s autonomy.)

Bottom line: a free society will accord individuals the maximum degree of individual choice consistent with the prevention of harm to others. There will always be good-faith debates about the nature and extent of the harms justifying government prohibitions, but those debates should start with a decent respect for–and understanding of– the philosophical bases of our constitutional system and the relevant credible evidence.

A good society chooses wisely.

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Why Democracy Is At Risk

The punditry keeps telling us that democracy is at risk. There’s a reason why that is.

Yes, Donald J. Trump (aka “the former guy”) poses an existential risk to American democracy. But let’s be honest– crazy Donald and Project 2025 are only threats because of the actual, underlying reason for the erosion of our democratic processes: the systemic distortions that continue to promote minority rule.

I have used this platform to pontificate about several of those distortions, from the Electoral College (hugely undemocratic) to the current form of the filibuster (significantly undemocratic), but especially (and yes, repeatedly) gerrymandering.

In one of Heather Cox Richardson’s recent Letters from an American, she explained more eloquently than I have the degree to which partisan redistricting–aka gerrymandering–mutes the voice of the electorate. As a result, I’m quoting her explanation at length.

The difference between the Democrats and the Republicans in this election is stark, and it reflects a systemic problem that has been growing in the U.S. since the 1980s.

Democracy depends on at least two healthy political parties that can compete for voters on a level playing field. Although the men who wrote the Constitution hated the idea of political parties, they quickly figured out that parties tie voters to the mechanics of Congress and the presidency.

And they do far more than that. Before political thinkers legitimized the idea of political opposition to the king, disagreeing with the person in charge usually led to execution or banishment for treason. Parties allowed for the idea of loyal and legitimate opposition, which in turn allowed for the peaceful transition of power. That peaceful exchange enabled the people to choose their leaders and leaders to relinquish power safely. Parties also create a system for criticizing people in power, which helps to weed out corrupt or unfit leaders.

But those benefits of a party system depend on a level political playing field for everyone, so that a party must constantly compete for voters by testing which policies are most popular and getting rid of the corrupt or unstable leaders voters would reject.

In the 1980s, radical Republican leaders set out to dismantle the government that regulated business, provided a basic social safety net, promoted infrastructure, and protected civil rights. But that system was popular, and to overcome the majority who favored it, they began to tip the political playing field in their direction…. By the 1990s, extremists in the party were taking power by purging traditional Republicans from it.

And yet, voters still elected Democrats, and after they put President Barack Obama into the White House in 2008, the Republican State Leadership Committee in 2010 launched Operation REDMAP, or Redistricting Majority Project. The plan was to take over state legislatures so Republicans would control the new district maps drawn after the 2010 census, especially in swing states like Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. It worked, and Republican legislatures in those states and elsewhere carved up state maps into dramatically gerrymandered districts.

In those districts, the Republican candidates were virtually guaranteed election, so they focused not on attracting voters with popular policies but on amplifying increasingly extreme talking points to excite the party’s base. That drove the party farther and farther to the right. By 2012, political scientists Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein warned that the Republican Party had “become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”

At the same time, the skewed playing field meant that candidates who were corrupt or bonkers did not get removed from the political mix after opponents pounced on their misdeeds and misstatements, as they would have been in a healthy system.

There is much more, and I encourage you to click through and read Richardson’s letter in its entirety–or, for that matter, if you are not now a subscriber, to become one. As a historian, she provides an illuminating historical context to the problems we face.

One of those problems is that, in a democracy, many voters–perhaps most—fail to recognize the immense importance of the systems within which We the People operate. Only when those systems operate to facilitate fair play and to provide a level playing field are the people we elect incentivized to heed the will of their constituents.

Richardson says there are two possible outcomes to today’s corrupted system: the election of Republicans who will follow the Project 2025 playbook, or a voters’ revolt sufficient to dislodge its beneficiaries and prompt reform of the cult that has replaced the GOP.

In November, we’ll know which of those outcomes we’ve chosen.

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