More Like POO-Preme Court, Amirite?

04/07/2023Dusty Leave a comment

Ha! POO-Preme.

Neener-neener-neener GIFs - Get the best GIF on GIPHY

I will definitely change that title.

But there’s nothing I can do to change the Supreme Court.

Let me start with the reasons why the Supreme Court should be changed.

First and foremost, it has been captured by one political party, in defiance of all of the ideas they claim to hold dear: in defiance of democracy, in defiance of the ideals in the Constitution and the will of the Founders, in defiance of our nation’s proud traditions.

Should I use the word “captured?” Yes: if it wouldn’t be better to use the word “corrupted.”

Captured because Mitch “Fucking Turtle-Necked Chinless Redneck Powerhungry Asshole” McConnell (Am I the only one who uses that nickname for him? I shouldn’t be.) delayed a Supreme Court nomination for a damn year, after Antonin Scalia died in 2015, with some absolute bullshit about how it wasn’t appropriate to name a new Justice during an election year — and then he turned right around and named a new Justice during an election year, only a month before the Presidential election, when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in 2020. What McConnell did wasn’t illegal, which is why those two Justices he stole for the GOP — or to be fair, one or the other of them was stolen: if we want to accept that Justices shouldn’t be named in an election year, then Neil Gorsuch’s nomination was legit and Amy Coney-Barrett’s was not; if we think the Justices should be named whenever the seat is empty, then Barrett is legit and Gorsuch is not — are both still Justices on the Court, making bullshit decisions according to their political ideology; but it’s clear that what McConnell and the GOP did was in defiance of all honor and decency, and intended only to swing the nation’s highest court over to their side so they could achieve their ideological goals. He did the same thing with the lower courts, holding up nominations through Obama’s second term in hopes of getting a Republican President to go with his Senate majority: which of course he did, and that’s why hundreds of federal judges were named by Trump instead of Obama. Which is bullshit — but it’s bullshit as usual. The Supreme Court nominations were not. That was blowing through precedent and decency for political gain. That, along with a hundred other examples of same, are why I will never accept criticism from the Republicans about Democrats playing politics. You don’t get to criticize when you do worse shit with more terrible consequences.

But hey, let’s pretend that all is fair in politics. (It’s not, as all is not fair in love nor war, whatever the old cliches say.) Because I certainly won’t pretend that the GOP’s justification for all of their shenanigans — that they are protecting the country from Marxism — has any merit at all, whatsoever. But sure, let’s pretend that as long as it’s legal to pull BS, you can go ahead and pull it. So then the 6-3 Conservative majority is permissible, even if it’s shitty.

So now let’s talk about corruption.

Let’s talk about Clarence Thomas accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts from a Republican mega-donor with interest in cases before the Court, from which Thomas never recused himself. Nor did he report the gifts on his disclosure forms. Also never disclosed that Crow paid his great-nephew’s tuition in expensive private schools. Or that Crow bought Thomas’s mother’s house. (My favorite counter-example, by the way, is that Justice Elena Kagan turned down a gift basket of bagels and lox from old high school friends because she wasn’t certain how it would look in terms of the ethics of accepting gifts.)

Let’s talk about Samuel Alito doing the same thing — accepting lavish vacation “gifts” from a conservative billionaire with cases before the Court.

Let’s talk about Neil Gorsuch selling a house to a law firm that has had several cases decided by the Supreme Court, from which Gorsuch never recused himself.

Let’s talk about Chief Justice John Roberts’s wife, who recruits lawyers for high-end firms that are frequently before the Supreme Court, making $10 million in commissions, which Justice Roberts described as “salary” on his disclosure forms. Also never recused himself.

Makes Kavanaugh and Coney-Barrett seem almost righteous.

I mean, unless you believe Christine Blasey Ford. Which of course I do. So that makes four conservative justices guilty of some questionable connections to wealthy Republicans with business before the court — and one credibly accused of sexual assault.

Wait, no, sorry — two. Because I fucking well believe Anita Hill, too.

And while we’re at it, let’s give that crapstack Thomas the trifecta, and include his wife, Ginni Thomas, who has frequently been closely connected to cases before the Court, from which her arrogant asshole of a husband has never recused himself. Not to mention her involvement in the Insurrection of January 6, 2021.

That’s the majority on the Court. To be fair, all of the Justices, including the liberal ones, accept travel as gifts from donors; mostly it is for appearances and speeches and so on, but sometimes it is for vacations. It’s just that they declare those vacations.

So yes: I consider the Court to be captured. To be corrupted. And that’s without even talking about the questionable decisions they have made over the last decade — going back to the Citizens United and Shelby County decisions, whose implications are still affecting us and our election processes, most intensely.

So let’s talk about those decisions.

First of all, as background, we should discuss the doctrine of originalism, which is a crock of fewmets to begin with. Created most actively by Robert Bork (80s kids will remember) as a reaction to the Warren court, which ended segregation, to the chagrin and outrage of every White supremacist then and since, originalism is the doctrine that the Constitution should be interpreted according to the original intent of the Framers who wrote it, and not adapted to meet the changing needs of the society they tried to shape into a democracy — pardon me, a Constitutionally limited Republic; Lord knows I don’t want to be accused of using the wrong term to describe this country, and therefore not knowing what the hell I’m talking about.

(Also, “AR” in “AR-15” doesn’t stand for “Assault Rifle.” It stands for “Armalite Rifle.” Don’t let anybody mock you for that one, which is quite literally the stupidest argument in the history of the gun control debate.)

There are several problems with originalism. For one, it’s impossible to know for sure what the Framers intended. We have their language in the actual Constitution, and we have in some cases writings they left behind explaining their intent. But — and please, take it from me, since this is literally all I do — all writing requires interpretation. And no author’s intent is purely apparent from their writing. Please see my last post for more on this.

Now, it’s fine to interpret the wording of the Constitution; that’s what the Supreme Court is for. The problem with originalism is they claim there is only one legitimate way to interpret that wording, and it’s their way. Why does one interpretive model always win when another must always be wrong? Go ahead, you try and justify it; I can’t. The objection against the more liberal decisions of the Supreme Court is that they interpreted the Constitution instead of following what it says; but since everybody interprets the Constitution, as everybody interprets all language and communication, it’s simply absurd to claim that THE OTHER GUYS are interpreting, and you’re going straight to the true essence. It’s bullshit.

The second problem with originalism is that, even when you get it right, the Framers were a bunch of racist sexist elitist shitheads. Sure, they had some incredible progressive ideas, especially for their time; and they had incredible intellects and great powers of reasoning, remarkable political acumen and voluminous knowledge of history and philosophy and so on, and, yes, wonderful rhetorical skill: but they still thought that only White men of means should be in control of this “free” nation they were creating. So it seems to me like their intent is not always the best guiding light for this modern nation descended from theirs. It is also ridiculous, by the way, to claim that this nation’s success is itself proof that the Framers had everything exactly right: that would require that everything in this nation’s history happened exactly as the Framers intended, and surely that whole Civil-War-Emancipation thing, not to mention women’s suffrage, was definitely not their intent.

Third problem with originalism: just like the Framers’ intent, the application of originalist doctrine is — malleable. It’s reasonable to interpret the Framers’ intent with firearms; while the form and function of firearms has changed in several ways, the essential concept of guns then and now is the same: it is a force multiplier that gives one person the ability to kill another from a distance with minimal risk to the shooter. So if we think that all of the Framers’ thoughts on guns were the best ever (and they probably weren’t — but actually, I think the problem is that we misinterpret the Second Amendment, not that the Second Amendment is a terrible piece of law), we can maybe apply those thoughts to modern gun control laws. Probably not a good idea still, but not absurd. But to say that “free speech” and “free press” and “free assembly” actually define the internet is to misunderstand the internet entirely. There is not any way you could print a thing, in any sense of “print,” that could reach 5 billion people around the world in mere seconds; but the internet can do that, in theory. There is no speech that could ever reach 5 billion people, period; but one YouTube video can. There is no sense of assembly that includes the ability to link FIVE BILLION PEOPLE in real time, but in different locations — but the internet can do that. The internet is a new thing. It is not a thing the Framers could have predicted, and therefore it is not a thing for which we can find the Framers’ intent. We have to make that shit up. Which means that, according to originalist doctrine, there should be no regulation of the internet at the federal level at all, because the Tenth Amendment reserves that power to the states. The same as the bullshit justification for the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Yet, strangely, the originalists do not claim that all internet regulation in any form should be done at the state level. Why? Because originalism is not a solid doctrine, it is all and only interpretation — opinion. It just has a particularly convincing, albeit specious, justification for why this opinion is better than other opinions.

The fourth problem with originalism (What, did you think three was enough? You thought I was done? AU CONTRAIRE, MON FRERE.) is, following the same logic, we should examine the intent of the original framers of the doctrine of originalism, Robert Bork being the main one. Robert Bork was an asshole. He was also one of the most influential people behind movement conservatism and trickle-down economics, which means we can also blame this crapstack for income inequality and our current plutocracy. It makes perfect sense that Bork would create originalism, and look to the 18th century Framers for guidance: he, like them, was a sexist, racist, elitist shithead. Which means that his doctrine should also not be a guiding light for a modern enlightened society.

The fifth and final problem with originalism? There are five originalist justices on the Supreme Court. Want to guess which five? Well, the easier way is to guess the one who isn’t: it’s Roberts, who strongly believes in stare decisis and respect for precedent. Roberts was the one who agreed with the Dobbs decision in favor of the state of Mississippi’s specific statute limiting abortion access; Roberts did not agree that Roe should be overturned. Because Roberts, while a conservative, is not an originalist. Alito, Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Thomas are, and those five votes overturned 50 years of precedent, and removed a Constitutionally protected right from American citizens.

And then, when they struck down affirmative action, and the right for LGBTQ people to receive equal treatment in the free marketplace, they did it again — overturning 50 years of precedent in the affirmative action case, and removing Constitutional protections of the rights of Americans in the 303 Creative case, the decision that gave a Colorado web designer the right to refuse her services to (hypothetical) gay clients, as it would somehow violate her First Amendment rights. This time with Roberts joining in. Because he’s still a prick.

Okay: I was going to go through the decisions that I think the Court has decided wrongly, but I think this thing has gotten too long already; turns out I have a lot of beefs with the current Supreme Court. This is a good list from Truthdig of the bad decisions of the Roberts court; it doesn’t include the most recent ones.

YARN | I got a lot of problems with you people... | Seinfeld (1993) - S09E10 The Strike | Video clips by quotes | 0f8e26b9 | 紗

Okay. So we all agree the current Supreme Court sucks. (MY title, by the way, was inspired by a Tweet I saw that called it the SUCK-preme Court. And mine’s better than that. But I will change it before I post this, I promise.) What do we do about it?

No, we can’t expand the court. Sure, it’s tempting, and there are both precedents and logical reasons for doing it — the best I’ve heard is that there are 13 Appeals Courts (12 districts and the Federal Appellate Court) and so there should be one Supreme Court justice per Appellate court, which would allow Biden and the current Democratic Senate to name four new justices and win a 7-6 majority going forward — but that only starts a game of back and forth: if the conservatives get a majority after liberals expand the court and add four seats, then the Republicans would add at least another two seats and take the majority back. And so on.

By the same token, we can’t impeach all the Justices. They haven’t committed high crimes and misdemeanors. (Thomas probably has.) They did say under oath that they would hold to established law in regards to abortion rights, but it’s not perjury if you changed your mind after you answered the question; and who could prove that the Justices were lying when they said something that wasn’t true? The free gifts from Republican donors, and the money taken in by Roberts’s wife, did not provably change a decision made by the Court; the law firm that bought Gorsuch’s house, for instance, received his vote eight times, but he voted against them four times — and honestly, it’s a pretty good bet that Gorsuch would agree with a conservative law firm two times out of three without anyone buying a log cabin. As we all learned with that other corrupt piece of shit Trump, it’s about the quid pro quo.

Though I learned it from Hannibal Lector.

Quid Pro Quo Qpq GIF - Quid Pro Quo Qpq Hannibal Lecter - Discover & Share GIFs

No, the truth is, there isn’t anything we can do about this current court, except suffer.

But there is something we can do about the situation in this country, which the Supreme Court is making worse.

We can pass laws.

We can elect Democrats who can win a majority in both houses of Congress, and win the White House. It wouldn’t even be that hard, honestly, because so much of the country is blue; I know we’re fighting GOP gerrymandering and election tampering, but surprisingly, those were two of the decisions the Court made that went the right way, so neener neener.

But really: the Court can only toss out legal protections if they are not enshrined in law. They can toss Biden’s student debt relief plan (EVEN THOUGH THE PLAINTIFF HAD NO STANDING, GODDAMMIT), but they can’t tell Congress not to cancel student debt.

And the better we do at electing Democrats, the better off we will be in terms of election maps and rules going forward: and that will snowball in the future — until we can properly nominate new Justices to replace these assholes.

This court’s biggest mistake is in overturning precedent in order to appease their personal biases. We should not make the same mistake, and so compound the problem, by expanding the court or by impeaching Justices for being assholes. Not to be morbid or anything, but Clarence Thomas is 75 and Samuel Alito is 73; I think we can expect to name two new Justices in the next ten years — and so if the Democrats can maintain control of the White House and the Senate, or at least one or the other, then those can be liberal nominees, and that will swing the Court back to a better balance.

And then the liberal justices can just overturn all of the fucked up decisions that this court is making. Which is what happens when you throw out precedent: the next guy also gets to throw out your precedent, and reverse all of your decisions.

You know who pointed that out to me? My dad.

And that’s how we come full circle and start this blog off the right way.

Much better than that awful title.

I promise I’ll change that.

Okay, no I won’t.

Happy 4th of July, everyone.

Justice

01/05/2022Dusty Leave a comment

Once again, I found myself faced with an opportunity to write an essay in response to a student. One of my AP Language students argued against the death penalty. The assignment asks someone in the class to respond with a different perspective, generally but not necessarily in direct opposition to the original argument — so in this case, someone needed to argue for the death penalty, in some way. Now this should not have been a hard one to get: there is a ton of evidence and resources out there on this subject, many of my students are in favor of the death penalty, and as I have told them many times, you don’t have to believe in an argument to present a case for it. But this time, no one volunteered.

So I wrote it.

Here it is.

The death penalty?

That’s all? Just death? Weak sauce. Pathetic. Unimaginative. I bet you want it to be painless, too. Or, well — apparently painless. Like lethal injection, right? Give them a sedative first, so they don’t show their suffering and you can pretend it’s not cruel or unusual. Right?

Wrong.

That’s not justice.

Justice is giving serial killers what they deserve. We (Because we are the best people) all know what the worst people – the worst people – in all of human history deserve: they deserve the worst suffering we can impose. Every time I talk about this subject, people have to suggest the most awful punishments they have been able to dream up, often apparently trying for extra style points awarded both for savagery and for originality. This, then, is clearly what we think serial killers deserve: to be the canvas on which we paint our very best, most aesthetic, most barbaric cruelty.

You know. Justice.

I have heard that we should bring back hanging. Or the guillotine. Or the rack. A very kind-hearted friend of mine said they should be put, naked, into a full suit of metal plate armor, and then sent out to wander in the desert. I’ve heard that we should abandon murderers on a desert island so they can turn cannibal. Or that we should bring back the Colosseum and gladiator combat, or even better, the Hunger Games. A fine idea, I say. Murderers deserve it. They deserve to be raped and murdered and then brought back to life and raped and murdered again. They deserve to be tortured by a specialized cadre of CIA waterboarding experts (I’m confident we have these people working for the US government. We should be proud of that. We should make use of them.), deranged sadists personally descended from Spanish Inquisitors, who also learned from the torturers in the deepest dungeons of every brutal dictatorship in history how to cause the most inconceivable pain. MURDERERS DESERVE TO BE SLOWLY DIPPED INTO BOILING OIL AND THEN BREADED AND CUT INTO PIECES OF KENTUCKY FRIED MURDERER SO WE CAN EAT THEM AND THEN PUKE THEM BACK UP AND THEN RECONSTITUTE THEM AND REBREAD THEM AND REFRY THEM INTO MURDERER NUGGETS SO WE CAN FEED THEM TO OTHER MURDERERS WHO WILL THEN BE EXECUTED BECAUSE YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT AND THAT WAY THE FRIED NUGGET MURDERERS WILL BE EXECUTED AGAIN WHEN THE NUGGET-EATING MURDERERS ARE THEMSELVES DIPPED INTO BOILING OIL.

Because the goal of the justice system is justice. And we know what justice is: it’s vengeance. It’s blood. Rivers of blood pouring down our collective throats, and symphonies of screams, resounding in our collective ears. Slaking our thirst. Thrilling our nerves, raising goosebumps of rapture. We long to be filled with their suffering. We hunger for it. We need it: need to see them die, and to see them wracked with pain before they die, arching their backs until their spines snap, pulling with all their strength at their limbs, until they gnaw off their own hands and feet in a futile attempt to escape the pain that we inflict. We want them to feel it, and we want to see them feel it. And when we watch the spark fade from their eyes, we will laugh and laugh, for we will be righteous, and strong, and we will have won. We will have shown that we are better than them, because we are stronger, and so we don’t have to be afraid of them. They’ll be afraid of us.

That’s why it should be televised. Also performed live in front of a large audience. We should bring our children, and have picnics. That way, not only can we all shiver ecstatically as we watch the blood pour down – the red, red blood, so hot and sticky, so delicious – but also it can serve as a lesson to everyone else who would be a murderer, everyone else who wants to end a human life, everyone who wants to make someone suffer and die, that murder is wrong. The lesson will be clearest when we all cheer as their heads are at last lopped off and the blood inside them geysers out, heated by the boiling oil that they are immersed chest-deep in, a steaming blood fountain of vengeance and joy and savagery.

And justice, of course.

There are some people out there – weak people. Soft people. – who think that justice is “restoring balance.” Not imposing more suffering on a perpetrator in response to the suffering that perpetrator imposed on their victims: that moves us farther away from balance. These people actually think – if you can believe it – that the right thing to do is to reduce suffering: which, while it should definitely include some kind of reparation or restoration for the victims, including when society itself is the victim, will also most likely include some measure of restoration or reparation for the perpetrator: who is, most likely, also a victim of suffering, prior to their crime. Now, it is certainly clear to all of us that the first task of society is to ensure that the imbalance doesn’t continue and worsen, which means the perpetrator must be prevented from committing crimes again; which likely means something like incarceration: but if we consider the case of a drug addict, suffering from the disease of addiction and all of the terrible consequences of that disease, committing a crime, then while incarceration may prevent that addict from committing a crime in the short term, if the addiction is not addressed during that incarceration, then after the criminal’s release, they will almost certainly re-offend. Because the original source of the imbalance – the drug addiction – was not addressed. Address the source of the imbalance, and alleviate suffering on all sides, and not only will crime be actually reduced in the long term, but also, justice will be restored, because balance will be restored; and let’s also be clear that a former offender who has been made whole is very much the most likely to then feel remorse and to try to atone for their crimes, which may help to reduce the suffering and restore the balance for their former victims.

There are people who think that is the best possible outcome of the criminal justice system, that a mindset of restoring balance and reducing suffering, reducing harm, will lead to a better outcome for all, and only requires a cool head not inflamed with ideas of payback and vengeance and just desserts examining the facts to arrive at this paradigm.

But that’s just ridiculous. That’s no way to show that we are tough on crime. Being tough on crime is the only way to prevent future crime. We know that because it’s always worked in the past. Back when the only penalty for pretty much any crime was death – back in the Middle Ages – there was no crime. It worked perfectly. QED.

Also, that “restoration of balance” stuff is hard. Payback is easy. It’s so much easier to think of someone “guilty” as “someone who deserves punishment.” Right? And there’s nothing wrong with us as regular, fallible, ignorant people deciding what someone deserves. Especially when we decide that someone deserves an irrevocable and terrible punishment. Surely we are qualified to decide that.

Because murderers definitely deserve it. Most murderers on death row are people who committed murder in combination with other crimes, like robbery, because that’s the most common “aggravating factor” to a murder, that it is committed in the process of committing another felony. In fact,

Historically, the death penalty was widely used for rape, particularly against black defendants with white victims. When the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, the Supreme Court left open the possibility of imposing the death penalty for offenses other than murder, such as rape or even armed robbery…

Many states allow all those who participated in a felony in which a death occurred to be charged with murder and possibly face the death penalty, even though they may not have directly killed anyone. The case of unarmed accomplices in a bank robbery in which an employee is killed is a typical example of felony murder. Since the death penalty is supposed to be reserved for the “worst of the worst” cases, legislatures or the courts could restrict its use only to those who directly participated in killing the victim. Prisoners have also raised claims that the aggravating circumstances that make a crime eligible for the death penalty are too broad, with some state death-penalty laws encompassing nearly all murders, rather than reserving the death penalty for a small subset of murders.

(Death Penalty Information Center, https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/crimes-punishable-by-death)

But we don’t talk about those cases: we talk about the famous ones. The most interesting ones, the ones whose crimes we make movies and books and TV shows and podcasts about, the ones we discuss endlessly, the ones who fascinate us: serial killers. Mass murderers. Psychopathic sexual sadists. There’s nothing we love more than examining their crimes in minute detail, looking at graphic photos, where you can see the blood, so you can imagine the screams…

Sorry, I got lost in my fantasies there. Oops — little drool. Excuse me. Where was I?

Anyway, surely the worst people imaginable in all of history – the ones who are portrayed by Zac Efron in Netflix movies (And definitely not cases like the Scottsboro Boys) – deserve to suffer as much as they made their victims suffer. It’s only fair, right? That’s sort of what justice is, isn’t it? Fairness? It sure feels like making the perpetrator suffer exactly what their victims suffered would be “fair.” And sure, the innocent victim of a serial killer experiences something unimaginable, something impossible to recreate (And maybe it’s true that the suffering caused by violent and terrible people should not ever be the model for our own behavior, that to do what they did requires us to be much too much like them); the victims of crime suffer fear and shock and regret, and a serial killer being bludgeoned to death by men wielding spiked clubs soaked in acid as part of a sentence imposed by the courts and carried out legally wouldn’t feel any of those same emotions, often because those serial killers are suffering from some form of psychopathy that limits or eliminates their ability to feel normal human emotions: but forget all that. Emotions are hard. Hard to understand and hard to create. Pain, we can understand. We can see the pain on their faces. And we can see the blood. And the death. And we can understand the power inherent in watching another person die at our hands. We can experience that. We can enjoy it. We wants it.

That’s how we get justice on serial killers: by becoming them.

It’s totally different, of course. The victims of serial killers are innocent, and serial killers are guilty. Which is what makes it okay to make them suffer as much as possible: guilt. We are, of course, entirely confident in our determination of who is guilty and who is innocent. We know that people convicted of capital crimes are guilty. You just know, you know? You can just look at them, and you can see how guilty they are. Especially if there’s a documentary about their crimes. Sure, there have been hundreds of cases of people on Death Row who were innocent, and several executions in the modern era of people who were possibly innocent; and since the death penalty goes back for millennia, back to when humans were little more than animals clubbing each other to death so we could steal their food, there have been countless examples of innocent people killed by a judge and jury; but as long as we don’t talk about those, as long as we talk only about the most extreme, unusual outliers like serial killers, we won’t have to think about abstract ideas like “guilt” and “innocence” in “specific cases.” We can totally trust the justice system, which is in no way “prejudiced” nor “biased,” and never makes “mistakes.” We can just remember that someone who is on Death Row surely deserves the same punishment as the worst people in history: people who have been executed for crimes against the state.

Like Jesus.

Hey, there’s a thought: crucifixion.

But anyway, they deserve it because they are guilty. And we are righteous. Plus, this is how you prevent murder. You show everyone that you are the absolute worst murderer that will ever exist. Then you win. And that’s what justice means: winning. Killing them worse than they could ever kill any of us.

That’s what the death penalty is for.

Justice.

The Court of Public Opinion

02/05/202122/02/2023Dusty Leave a comment

George Floyd's mother was not there, but he used her as a sacred invocation — I want to open with this because I don’t want to center the discussion on me or on my erstwhile opponent in this debate: the real focus here is on the police murder of George Floyd. Rest in peace, sir.

Let’s get this out of the way first: I don’t like Ben Shapiro.

It’s not hard to understand why: he is deeply conservative and I am liberal; I believe in the value of real argument and he’s the definition of a sophist; I strive to be honest and a rational intellectual (Meaning someone who uses reason and thought to discern and communicate truth; I’m not necessarily trying to be seen as super-smart and therefore an authority — though I admit I wouldn’t mind being seen as super-smart), and he’s a manipulative liar who hides behind the trappings of pseudo-intellectualism (meaning he is trying to be seen as super-smart and therefore an authority, regardless of the actual merits of his position — and I think he is intelligent enough to know what he’s doing and why, which implies that he is either deeply cynical or tragically self-deluded).

Basically, he’s a stinky poopoo head. Just know that going in.

As a brief aside, let me address the likely counterjab from any Shapiro fans who happen to be reading this: no, I don’t hate Shapiro because he’s a conservative; I have deep respect for many conservatives. No, I’m not simply jealous; I freely admit I would love to have Shapiro’s platform, his fame and money and success, but frankly, I could get it the same way he did, the same way Glenn Beck and Tucker Carlson and Rush Limbaugh and Steven Crowder did: I could loudly proclaim myself a prophet of outrage and amplify conservative grudges, and use my skills as a writer and a speaker to build a following. As to whether or not I dislike Ben Shapiro simply because he’s right and he proves my liberal ideas wrong, I’ll let this argument address that.

The argument I want to address specifically is this one:

I want to take this slowly: because one of Shapiro’s signature techniques is talking fast and overwhelming his opponents with words that have the appearance of sound, logical arguments. So, right from the beginning: his main claim here, as presented by the title of the video and the first 13 seconds, is that the real reason Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder in the killing of George Floyd was because he had already been convicted in the court of public opinion of being a racist. He expands this in the following 45 seconds by describing Chauvin as “emblematic of an American system of racism,” and uses as evidence the claim that if you asked Americans today if Derek Chauvin was a racist, Shapiro guarantees that a majority of Americans would say yes.

I don’t want to spend too much time exposing Shapiro’s logical failings; the fact that he is a poor debater who wins with sophistry is an issue I have with him and not the central problem with this argument. But it is necessary to identify the places where his argument shifts, because one of the most common manipulations of a discussion is changing the topic, or changing the focus, or changing the argument. We all know it: one of the classic cliches is that arguments between spouses start out with one problem, but then turn into an argument about whose turn it is to do the dishes.

Shapiro does this here. Whether or not Derek Chauvin is personally a racist has nothing at all to do with whether or not he is emblematic of an American system of racism. Whether he is a racist or an emblem of racism has nothing at all to do with whether the majority of Americans perceive him as a racist. And none of that has anything to do with whether or not he is guilty of the murder of George Floyd. Again, because Shapiro is a sophist, he doesn’t seem to argue here that Chauvin was innocent of murder; he argues that Chauvin was unfairly convicted of racism, and simply implies that this unfair conviction of Chauvin for the “crime” (Shapiro’s description) of racism was the “real” reason Chauvin was convicted of murder. He also says, between about 1:00 and 1:30, that America was convicted of being racist because of this one “data point,” Chauvin killing George Floyd; he seems to be implying that America has also been unfairly convicted of that crime of racism, because the conviction of the country was dependent on the conviction of Chauvin for racism, and that conviction was unfair, and also convicting the entire nation because of this one crime is also unfair. Not the conviction for the crime of murder, again, but Chauvin’s conviction for the crime of racism. Which was unfair because it was never brought up in court, never alleged, and never proven, as he says, strongly, several times in this video.

This is what I mean about shifting the argument, and why I call Shapiro a sophist. He’s saying that racism was the reason for Chauvin’s conviction, and in almost the same breath (I don’t know if it was the same breath because I’m not sure that Ben Shapiro breathes: it is genuinely impressive how many words he can get out in a minute, without ever seeming to pause. Sorry; off-topic.) he states that race was never brought up in the trial. How on Earth is the lack of evidence supposed to serve as evidence? It’s not: his evidence is that “we all know” that Chauvin’s conviction was for racism, not for murder. His evidence is that if you asked Americans if Chauvin is a racist, the majority would say that he is. Or at least, Shapiro says (in fact he guarantees) that the majority of Americans would say that Chauvin is a racist.

What Shapiro is really relying on here is the resentment in his audience — generally a white conservative audience — about being called a racist. His audience doesn’t like to be called racist when there is not crystal clear evidence of racist action and intention presented: evidence that would meet the standard in a court of law. That is, unless you can point to the Nazi tattoo on my forehead, and the sworn statement I signed that my Nazi tattoo represents my genuine conviction that the white race is supreme, AND my conviction in a court of law for a hate crime committed in pursuance of the achievement of those white supremacist views — then it is not fair to call me a racist. And since that is his audience’s definition of a racist, calling someone a racist who does not have all of that evidence of racism is deeply offensive. Of course it is: who would want to be accused of that kind of atrocity?

This is, by the way, one of the central conflicts in our society, and it is a subject I will keep coming back to again and again: we have never had a real national conversation about what the word “racism” means, about what it is to be racist. We have not had that conversation because too many people, like Ben Shapiro and also like a much greater number of people on the left, garner too much political power out of misusing accusations of racism, which is easier if they don’t carefully define their terms. It is also much easier to continue maintaining a racist society if the definition of racism is unclear.

Shapiro points out that the evidence of Chauvin’s racism is the death of George Floyd. He says (About 1:00) that is not evidence of racism, it is evidence of a bad cop, of bad police procedure, of recklessness; it is not evidence of racism. But what is his evidence of this claim? That racism was never brought up in the court during Chauvin’s trial. As I said, the charge of racism can only be proven with evidence presented in a court of law: not in the “court of public opinion.” And in another amazing piece of sophistry, starting about 1:45, he says “Let us be real about this,” and then goes on to describe how the presentation of evidence to the public would have shifted public opinion, and therefore the verdict. He says that if the bodycam footage had broken at the same time as the video captured by Darnella Frazier, and if all of the evidence had been presented, and there had not been “20 million people in the streets declaring that America was systemically racist and that this case was and that this case was a case of racism” then it is “highly doubtful” to Ben Shapiro that the jury would have convicted Chauvin of murder.

I honestly don’t know if Chauvin is guilty of murder. I watched the video, and I saw the bodycam footage. I recognize that Shapiro is arguing here that the bodycam footage starts earlier, and shows the struggle between Mr. Floyd and the police before the officers put Mr. Floyd on the ground and before Chauvin knelt on him, and therefore it shows justification (Shapiro is alleging) for the use of force because Mr. Floyd was resisting arrest and so on, whereas the video that helped make this case so famous just starts with Chauvin applying force without giving us the justification for that force, and therefore prejudiced people against Chauvin. I did not see the extended footage as justification. I thought it showed that the police, who probably should not have been called in the first place (I don’t think passing a counterfeit $20 is evidence of criminal action requiring a police response), should not have approached a man in his car, unaware that he had been reported for passing a counterfeit $20, from out of his line of sight, startling him, scaring him and provoking an agitated response, and then using that response to justify pointing a gun at him, scaring him further and provoking an even more agitated response, and then continuously escalating the interaction until it becomes an argument about how much force is required to restrain someone who is resisting being restrained. In fact, I think the extended footage implicated the three other officers in the murder. Not because I know in my liberal heart that Derek Chauvin is racist, but because I don’t presume that George Floyd was a threat, as the police clearly did, and I don’t think that violence is justified in ending a threat, and certainly, without a question, the use of force should end when the resistance ends. If Mr. Floyd was fighting or running away, force might have been called for — but as soon as he stopped fighting, the use of force should have ended. Period. Not gone on for nine and a half minutes. Did the police see Mr. Floyd as a threat because of his race? Was his race the reason why the store’s owner called the police on him for passing a counterfeit $20? I think the answer is definitely yes, but I can’t say for sure. What I can say is that the full footage does not clearly, undeniably sway public opinion towards vindicating Chauvin’s actions, because it doesn’t exonerate Chauvin for me. Though I recognize that other people disagree with me, and think his actions were justified. I see Shapiro’s point, that the full footage might have moved people differently than just the witness’s video did; the death of Ma’Khia Bryant seems to be showing that: but that is a question of how you can move (or manipulate) public opinion, not an argument for how you can find the truth in this case: which is why this extraordinary sophistry. Just watching the videos does not prove Chauvin’s guilt or innocence, which is why I say I can’t know for sure if he was guilty or not.

But this I can say for sure: the best evidence that I know, on either side, is that 12 American citizens, after hearing weeks of evidence and argument, found Chauvin guilty on three counts including second degree murder. Shapiro has not one single argument here that is better or more reliable than that verdict. Nor do I. So I will accept that verdict as the answer, over the doubts of one Ben Shapiro. I suspect that Shapiro, who is in fact incredibly intelligent and both educated and experienced, having graduated from Harvard Law and worked as an attorney before going full time into conservative punditry, also recognizes that he does not have one single argument that is better or more reliable than that verdict. But he doesn’t say that, because he is a sophist and a manipulative pseudo-intellectual who profits from stoking the flames of outrage and partisan division, and convincing his white conservative audience that Chauvin is not guilty of racism, and therefore neither are they, and that the accusation of racism is much worse than the actual murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin, because that false accusation of racism caused the wrongful conviction of Chauvin for murder, when at best he was just a bad cop following bad police procedure and acting recklessly. And why those three descriptors, Shapiro’s own, should not be sufficient to show that the killing was in fact murder is beyond me: clearly those reasons, which were presented in the trial and supported by video evidence and expert testimony, were sufficient to make the jury convict Derek Chauvin of murder.

Of course, because Ben Shapiro is a sophist and a manipulative pseudo-intellectual who profits from stoking the flames of outrage and partisan division, he builds from his claim (presented without evidence beyond his own opinion and “what we all know to be true,”) into greater assumptions and accusations, namely that this case has been entirely political, that it has been used by Democrats to build the narrative that America is racist. Again, not to get too deep into flaws in the argument and logical fallacies and such, because the focus here is simply that Ben Shapiro is wrong, but I have to revel in the towering house of cards he has built here: starting with (1) Derek Chauvin was innocent of murder; then (2) Chauvin was convicted because the public decided he was racist, along with (2B) The public would not have decided Chauvin was racist if they had seen George Floyd resisting arrest and being visibly agitated. Then you have (3) Because it was not proven in the court that Chauvin was racist, Chauvin was therefore not racist; (4) America was accused of racism because Chauvin was accused of racism, while simultaneously, (-4) Chauvin was accused of racism because America is and was and has been accused of racism; then (5) since Chauvin is not racist, America is not racist — and also (-5) since America is not racist, Chauvin is not racist — and then (6) the Democrats have taken up this issue because they use false accusations of racism for political gain. All assumptions, many of them contradictory and even absurd on their face, yet we’re just supposed to accept them as true (Because Shapiro’s audience does accept them as true, I would guess). As an example of this, Shapiro, starting at 3:28, begins talking about Philonise Floyd, George Floyd’s brother, who gave a statement about Chauvin’s conviction in which he compared his brother to Emmett Till. Shapiro gets very exercised about this, taking offense on behalf of Emmett Till’s family — and also revealing his (Shapiro’s) additional faulty reasoning for the justification of George Floyd’s death — but there are several problems with this. One is that he gets some of the details of Emmett Till’s murder wrong, but I don’t want to nitpick; I’m only pointing that out because if you want to get self-righteous about the truth, you should present the whole truth. The big problem is that he argues that the analogy is wrong because the circumstances surrounding the death of Till and the death of George Floyd were entirely different, and therefore it is a bad analogy intended to make the murder of George Floyd as tragic and abominably racist as was the murder of Emmett Till. And therefore, of course, the murder of George Floyd was not as tragic and abominably racist as the murder of Emmett Till.

But here’s the thing: that is not the analogy that is being made.

Frankly, I’m not going to speak for Philonise Floyd. His brother was killed, the murderer was convicted; Mr. Floyd is welcome to say whatever the hell he wants in the aftermath of that tragedy. He can say that his brother was the Second Coming, or the greatest American since Abraham Lincoln, or that he was cooler than Napoleon Dynamite: none of that is evidence of any of the accusations that Shapiro makes about the Democratic party using Floyd’s murder to make political hay. (I will say that Shapiro does not directly criticize Mr. Floyd: he rather goes after the more famous men standing in support of Mr. Floyd, namely Rev. Al Sharpton, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Ben Crump — who, weirdly, I guess have to name as the head of George Floyd’s family’s legal team, which one would think could be the explanation for Mr. Crump’s presence at Philonice Floyd’s press conference, rather than the political agenda Shapiro seems to ascribe to him. Shapiro calls them all racebaiters, of course without any evidence whatsoever, allowing that ad hominem attack to support his house-of-cards assumptions about the political agenda being expressed here.)

But others have made the same connection between Emmett Till and George Floyd, so let me address that: the argument has not generally been that Floyd was murdered in the same way that Till was. Nobody has made that claim, other than Till’s cousin, Ollie Gordon, who did say that she felt the same way watching the video of Floyd’s murder as she did when her cousin was lynched. The point that has been made repeatedly is that Till’s murder, and even more importantly, his mother Mamie Till’s decision to publicize the horrifying details of her son’s murder, with an open casket funeral and published pictures of his wounds, galvanized the civil rights movement and helped bring about the changes the movement wrought over the ten years after the 14-year-old was killed; similarly, George Floyd’s murder, which was not unique but was certainly more publicized than most similar murders, galvanized the protests that happened in 2020, and may lead to some changes — potentially including the conviction of Derek Chauvin. And that is a reasonable analogy; but it does support the idea that the country is in fact racist, which is why Shapiro has to argue against it.

In the process of arguing against it, Shapiro does go after George Floyd: he describes Emmett Till with a list of negatives, all of which are points Shapiro wants to make about George Floyd. He says that Emmett Till was not someone passing counterfeit bills, that he was not a repeat drug offender, that he was not a repeat criminal who had done jail time, that Till did not hold up a pregnant woman at gun point and rob her house while her kid was in the house. And perhaps the most important point (though it is not the most emotionally manipulative point), Till did not resist arrest. Of course: none of these things matter in the slightest. George Floyd was not killed because he was a repeat drug offender, nor because he was high when the police detained him. He was not killed because he had a criminal record. He was not killed because he was passing counterfeit bills (There is no evidence, of course, that he even knew that he was passing counterfeit bills). He was, and this is the crucial point, not killed because he was resisting arrest.

George Floyd was killed because Derek Chauvin murdered him. As was proven in a court of law.

Now, I do have to point out again that Shapiro doesn’t actually say that Chauvin did not commit murder; he said that he doubted a jury would convict Chauvin of murder had it not been for the court of public opinion convicting Chauvin of racism. I don’t agree, clearly, but I will say there is some argument to be made that the jurors were swayed by the events of last summer, and by the protestors showing up in great numbers outside the courthouse throughout Chauvin’s trial. It may be that the jurors convicted because they were afraid that there would be riots if they acquitted Chauvin. That may be true, though of course it may not be; there is just as much reason to think that the jury, or at least some members of the jury, would acquit in defiance of that pressure, would even seek out the violence that may have followed an acquittal. It is extremely likely that some members of the jury would fear the consequences that might have come, that still might come, from the police because Derek Chauvin was convicted. In any case, it is not true that the jury convicted Chauvin only because of the accusation of racism. Since, as Shapiro states, race was never brought up in the trial, the only way the jury could have convicted based solely on the accusation of racism would be if they came in with that idea already in their heads, that they were prejudiced against Chauvin and no amount of evidence would ever sway them. But since 46% of Republicans and 25% of independents think it was the wrong verdict, based on the same public opinion evidence that Shapiro claims is the reason for the conviction, it’s far more likely that, if public opinion actually held such sway over the minds of the jurors, some of the jury would have voted to acquit. It’s practically impossible that the jury would be all Democrats (Also, 10% of Democrats think it was the wrong verdict, so at least one juror on an all-blue jury would have thought that, statistically speaking), and hard to believe that Republicans would overcome their prejudices while Democrats would not, based on the same evidence. One pro-police Republican voting to acquit would have led to a hung jury and a mistrial, and that has historically been exactly what happened in even the most egregious cases of police violence. Instead all twelve jurors, some of them likely sympathetic to pro-police ideas if not personally in support of them, all of them surely feeling pressure from conservative friends and neighbors as much as from liberal friends and neighbors, voted to convict. On all three counts.

Because Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd. As was proven in a court of law. Without race being brought up once.

Now: is America racist? Was Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd emblematic of that systemic racism? Might the video, the case, the public response both from 20 million people on the streets and from politicians and political pundits, all potentially have had, or will have in the future, an impact on the racism in this country?

The answer to those questions is the same as the answer to this one: Is Ben Shapiro a sophist and an annoying twerp?

Okay, Now What?

11/11/2020Dusty Leave a comment

So we won.

The knowledge hasn’t trickled down yet to the sewer underneath the swamp, where Trump lurks, where he festers and spreads like an antibiotic-resistant infection (I wonder if, in classic supervillain style, he unintentionally revealed his secret weakness: what if the only way to defeat him permanently is to inject him with bleach? [NOTE TO THOSE WHO ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH MY WRITING AND PHILOSOPHY: That was ironic; I am a pacifist. Please don’t actually try, or plan, to inject the President with bleach. Not even when he is the ex-President. (NOTE TO THE SECRET SERVICE: I know, I shouldn’t suggest harming the President of the United States. I still think it’s a funny joke, so I’m leaving it. I wouldn’t worry too much about the people who read this trying to actually pull it off. And if they somehow managed it, hey, now you can relax and stop feeling all that conflicted guilt and irritation from trying to preserve the life of a pustulent boil on the ass of America. [NOTE TO THE SUPER-SECRET CABAL WITHIN THE SECRET SERVICE THAT HAS BEEN SECRETLY PLOTTING TO REMOVE TRUMP SO YOU ALL CAN PROTECT SOMEONE YOU ACTUALLY RESPECT AGAIN: Try bleach. (Note to my students and fellow grammar/syntax nerds: this is my favorite part of nesting parentheticals like this:)])]), but it’s true. We won. We got past this hurdle.

So now what?

I’ve been seeing and hearing all kinds of advice about not giving up. Continuing the fight. Now is the time, activists say, to turn that anti-Trump fervor into fervor for new causes, to keep the same energy moving forward into the next fight for change and progress. I heard it on Pod Save the People this week (If you don’t know it, this is a weekly news commentary podcast with a focus on people of color and social justice, very well done and interesting and human — sometimes a leeetle too woke for me, but I still recommend it), I saw it on this Twitter thread shared by a friend on Facebook; I feel like I’ve seen this everywhere. Now, whenever I see something like this, the bottom falls out of my stomach; so I may be noticing this sort of thing more, rather than seeing it a whole lot, but it feels like I’ve seen it a whole lot, and I don’t like it.

Because I don’t think I can do that. I am spent. I am drained. If somebody wants me to turn my anti-Trump energy towards a new focus, the bad news is that I don’t have any of it left. The good news is that I am quite willing to move to the next focus, the next fight. I don’t believe this is the end of the issue; the victory we’ve won is incredibly important, like saving the country important — but it’s not the last victory we need to win. I get that. I am with that. I am onboard.

I just don’t have it in me to fight. Not right now. I feel bad about it, but that is the truth. I’m close to my edge. I have of late had bouts of depression and despondency that I have never experienced in my life before now. I struggle with things that should be easy, my patience is gone, I can’t sleep, I’m not writing or reading much right now. Pretty much everything is wrong.

Not everything: my wife is still my perfect partner, and I love her deliriously. My pets are delightful. My friends are fun and supportive. All these things bring me at least some joy, every day and every week and every month. And though it doesn’t necessarily bring me joy, I do have a job and a reliable income, which gives me a sense of security that millions of people — billions of people — are lacking. I am grateful for all of those things. But still, pretty much everything else is wrong, and so:

I need to stop fighting.

I recognize that it is a privilege that I can talk about not fighting; because my life and my freedom is not at risk. It is somewhat at risk because we are living through a pandemic and the situation is deteriorating; I am at a bit higher risk than some because I work for a school that insists on staying open and having students and teachers in person in the classroom every day. But also, I am healthy and I have insurance — and I am not wedded either to glorified ignorance nor superstition, so I listen to the warnings and take reasonable precautions — so the risk is as minimal as I can make it. It’s easier for me to step back from fighting for police reform or environmental action or to protect reproductive rights than it is for people who are at risk from those dangers.

That makes me feel bad, that I can allow myself to step back from the fight while others can’t: but that guilt doesn’t give me the energy or the wherewithal or the resources to fight. It just makes me feel bad, which adds to my current emotional burden.

(And if anyone reading this is thinking, “Pssh, get out of your feelings, Snowflake” — I mean, considering my writing and position and my probable audience, it seems very unlikely that anyone is; but I think there may be some people who still subscribe to the image of men hitching up their gunbelts and soldiering on, because I still think that, a lot of the time — let’s recognize that all the strong silent men of the past drank and smoked themselves to death by age 65. So let’s be clear about what actually works and what we think sounds like it should work, maybe, but really doesn’t. “Sucking it up” is fine when you’ve stubbed your toe. Sucking up your looming despair just makes everything worse.)

I don’t mean to whine (And again, my probable audience probably doesn’t see this as whining, but I watched Westerns when I was a kid, so I feel the need to address this) because I also realize that there are people who are having a much harder time with the same issues I’m having right now, the stress and anxiety and depression, which for others is compounded by other and greater dangers and problems, problems that I don’t have. I want to do two things: I want to be honest about how I feel, as that is the healthiest thing for me to do for myself; and I want to let other people who may feel the same way know that they are not alone.

If you are exhausted, you are not alone.

If you want to join the fight, to keep fighting, to do the right as you see the right, you are not alone.

But if you just can’t do it right now, you are not alone.

So that’s where I am. I want to do a lot of things. I want to write to politicians and urge them to do the right thing. I want to join organizations and show up and participate — and I suspect that my writing skills could actually prove an asset to those fighting for the causes I believe in. I don’t want to join phone banks or knock on doors or fundraise, but I want to want to do those things, and if things were different I’d do them whether I really wanted to or not. I want to donate lots and lots of money to lots and lots of causes.

But instead, I’m going to stop fighting. I’m going to take care of myself.

It sounds stupid to me (Again, trying to be honest, and I grew up watching Westerns, and also wonderfully chauvinistic and hypermasculine shows like Buck Rodgers or The A-Team — and, yes, The Dukes of Hazzard, too) because I don’t fit into a category of people who have problems and need care. I’m a healthy straight white American male with an upper-middle class upbringing: I should be fine. I’m afraid to take care of myself, too, because there are others who rely on me, and it feels to me like I can’t take time for myself without leaving them hanging, and I don’t want to do that: it feels like I’m compounding my — what, my negligence? My dereliction of duty? What is it when a teacher doesn’t take care of his students, when a husband doesn’t take care of his wife, when a pet-papa doesn’t take care of his sweet little 60-pound Boxer-mix princess? When a liberal/progressive doesn’t take part in the fight for social justice and a functioning democracy? It’s my sin, right? My wrongdoing? After all, all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. If you’re not part of the problem then you’re part of the solution. All those memes about the German people allowing the rise of the Nazi Reich, the passage in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” when he talks about how the listless superficial support of white liberals is a greater danger than the vigorous opposition of white racists; how can I stop fighting in the face of all that? How can I do nothing right now? However tired I am, surely there is something else I can do? However upset I am, however anxious and depressed, surely there is something I can do? And people are full of advice: if you can’t march in protest, then join a phone bank, write letters, donate donate donate. Take action. Don’t lose the momentum. Don’t stop.

Enough. I must stop listening to these idiotic voices in my head telling me to ignore how I feel and press on forever. They are not telling me the truth. They are not the voices that matter to me, not the people who I care about and who care about me; all of those people tell me to take care of myself, to take it easy, to not put myself under too much stress. Another moment of honest truth: my wife tells me this all the time, and my friend and fellow teacher Lisa; but they are the only ones because I never talk about how I feel to anyone else. Anyone asks me how my day is, and I say it’s — fine. Doing good, I say. Sometimes, with my students, with my parents, I will share that I am not in truth doing that great, but I also immediately get angry and defensive about it, or I breeze right through and change the subject, and don’t allow anyone else to sympathize with me or tell me that it’s okay to not be okay. It is also true that my parents make me feel bad for feeling bad, and my students respond to my sorrow with their own sorrows rather than sympathy for mine; when they do that I feel the need to sympathize with their sorrows, which is hard and draining, and just makes me feel more hopeless and helpless, and also bad for feeling that way; so there’s not a whole lot of impetus to be honest about my current state, most of the time. So I’m usually not. But I want to be, and that’s why I’m doing this, and ignoring the discomfort I feel in writing an entire blog this long about how I don’t feel very good right now.

I don’t feel very good right now, and that’s why I’m writing this, and why I’m not writing much of anything else. That’s the truth.

Here are some other truths:

I spend too much time on social media, particularly arguing on social media. I shouldn’t do it, because the people I’m arguing with are never going to change their minds because of anything I say. I do think there is value in pushing back against ignorant or dangerous or harmful ideas; and I recognize there is some audience reading those arguments on social media who may be more thoughtful and may get something out of my arguments more than my actual opponent will; but it is draining. I spend time on social media because it feels easy and it feels like relaxation — I see memes and laugh, I see videos of cute animals and smile, I see that my friends share my likes and dislikes, my passions and skepticisms, and I feel connected — but I spend a fair amount of that time trawling for arguments, and then continuously going back and arguing again and again and again. I suspect I do this because I am not doing other and more important things, but it’s not a replacement for good and useful action: it’s a waste of time and my limited resources, and a source of unnecessary and unproductive frustration. So I need to stop. That’s the truth.

Being a high school teacher is both very stressful and draining, and also very important; it feels like a copout to say I don’t spend more time fighting for the causes I want to fight for because I spend all my time fighting to make my students less ignorant, but it’s also true: it is a fight, and I fight it hard, every day. They don’t like to read, they don’t like to write, they don’t want to do work, they don’t know how to relate to and understand other people; every day I try to help them do all of those things better, and also understand why they should do all those things, and I try to find reasons that are specific and personal to them. All of that takes energy and passion, and hope and determination, and confidence and faith that what I am doing is the right thing. Meanwhile my school and my society seem bound and determined to tell me that it is not the right thing, determined to get in the way of my and my students’ success: and so I have to fight them, too, have to keep them from shifting my priorities and effort away from what matters, have to avoid the pitfalls and traps they set for me, have to discern when they are genuinely trying to help and when they are just trying to look good at the expense of the real work. All of that takes effort, too. I spend that effort every day.

I think it is vitally important that we recognize that none of us have it easy: that all of us are fighting in our own lives for our own success, every day; taking on other causes is already dipping into our reserves, taking from our reservoir of strength and hope and resolve what may not be there to take for much longer.

We all fight in our own ways, and with our own capacities. I will not be joining phone banks or door-knocking because I am an introvert, and what’s worse, I’m an introvert in an extrovert’s job, so I have to use up all of my socializing energy just to get through my day. If I was still a janitor (And I frequently ask myself why I am not still a janitor — but the reason is because what I do now is important) then maybe I could participate more; but I’m not. If I was an extrovert then I would be happy to go out and talk to people about causes I believe in; but I’m not. If I was rich I would give all kinds of money away; but good grief, I am most assuredly not. And many if not most of the people out there who tell me, who tell us, to fight and keep fighting are not in situations like mine. They may, as I said, be closer to the issues, in more danger because of the problems than I am in; but that doesn’t mean they have jobs as hard as mine is, or proclivities as unsuited to organizing and rallying as mine are. Wishing it was different, or even just pondering what it would be like if it were different, is a waste of time and energy: this is the situation. This is the truth. I’m not lying to myself, and it’s not a dodge or a copout: I am an introvert, and I work very hard at being a teacher, and I am tired. And I need to take care of myself, no matter how stupid or guilty it might make me feel to say that, because if I use up everything I have, if I fail, if I fall: then — and only then — will I be letting down those I love, and those who love me.

And my sweet little 60-pound Boxer mix princess needs her daddy.

So what’s next?

You need to think about what’s next. Think seriously, think truthfully. Think what needs to be done, yes — but also think about what you need, and what you are capable of. If you are ready to start the next round, then get in there and start fighting, keep fighting. If you have to pause to take a deep breath, then do it: breathe as deeply as you can. Keep breathing. If you have to take a few hours for a meal and a glass of wine and a bath and a nap, then do all of that. And do it again next week. If you need a few days for a vacation, or for a retreat and a rest, then do that. If you don’t know what you need or how long you need — and in my case, I do not; part of my struggle with this is that this struggle is new to me, has never been like this, has never been this hard before, and so I do not know what to do, I do not have a ready answer for what is really wrong with me or how to deal with it — then don’t try to decide in advance what you need or how long it will take to take care of yourself. Just take care of yourself until you feel better. Just do that.

Take care of yourself. For me. And I will take care of myself. For you.

Be well.

The Year Of Women (Which Should Be Every Year)

02/01/202002/01/2020Dusty Leave a comment

I was having an argument on Twitter the other night.

Okay. It was New Year’s Eve. Okay? That’s right. I spent part of my Greatest Party Night of the Year arguing with trollbots on the biggest dumpster fire in all of social media.

Maybe your New Year’s resolution should be to STOP JUDGING ME!

(I’m probably being a little sensitive. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.)

The argument was mainly about how there should be more women in politics; it started with this Tweet:

Here’s my take.
┏━━┓┏━━┓┏━━┓┏━━┓
┗━┓┃┃┏┓┃┗━┓┃┃┏┓┃
┏━┛┃┃┃┃┃┏━┛┃┃┃┃┃
ELECT MORE WOMEN
┃┏━┛┃┃┃┃┃┏━┛┃┃┃┃
┃┗━┓┃┗┛┃┃┗━┓┃┗┛┃
┗━━┛┗━━┛┗━━┛┗━━┛

— Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) December 31, 2019

I went through this thread, started by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand saying that 2020 should see more women elected into office, and I replied to every shmuck I saw who felt the need to say, “Voting for women just because they’re women? That’s sexist! You should support the best candidate whoever it is.”

Like this dude:

No!!! Elect more right people for the job.

— Garry (@Garry14950425) December 31, 2019

And this one:

Sexist

— George from Schaghticoke (@baptistgreek) December 31, 2019

And, of course, from the Trump Camp:

Never mind competent or qualified…. as long as they’re women, that’s all that matters.

— The Trump Dog (@TrumpPooch) December 31, 2019

Each of these replies led to a mini-argument, because both I and my interlocutors are men: we feel the need to always get the last word. (See, that was sexist. Trying to offer helpful illustrations here.) Several of these little tiffs followed the same course. I replied:

Seeking equity is not sexism. Seeking to maintain the current imbalance is.

— Theoden Humphrey (@TheodenHumphrey) December 31, 2019

Let me be clear about this, so that if anyone reading this blog finds themselves in a similar pit full of vipers, you have something handy to throw at them (Sorry it’s not a brick.). The argument that every single attempt to focus on sex is by definition sexism — like this, which I got several times:

The right people for the job are people with good policy. Nobody should be elected because of their race or sex. That’s racist and sexist by definition. #nomoreidentitiypolitics

— Brutal Honesty (@_brutaltruth__) January 1, 2020

— is a false equivalency. Sexism is not “by definition” any attempt to consider sex as a fact, and as an important fact; sexism is an attempt to oppress or denigrate someone on the basis of sex. When you’re using sex as an important consideration in how you relate to or deal with a person, that is only sexist if your consideration does harm and if your consideration is based on stereotyping or prejudice. If I were considering whether I wanted to date a person, I would consider their sex as an important factor in their dateability as I am a heterosexual male and thus would prefer to date women (A much more important factor is that I am ecstatically and joyfully married to the greatest woman alive, but this is just a f’rinstance); this is not a sexist consideration. If I were an OBGYN, I would certainly consider sex as an important factor in determining which patient I would take on, and how to treat them; this also is not a sexist consideration, even if it means I refuse to treat a man solely on the basis of his sex.

It’s not sexist because it isn’t doing harm: my refusing to date a man doesn’t hurt him (Believe me: he’s better off. I am not a catch. Look at how I spent New Year’s.), and an OBGYN refusing to take on a male patient is a recognition of specialized knowledge on the part of the doctor, and a lack of need of that knowledge on the part of the patient; that would be saving harm, or at least inefficiency as the OBGYN wastes their valuable time trying to help a patient who could just as easily be treated by a general practitioner, thus taking time away from someone who could only be treated by that OBGYN. Now, if it was a medical emergency and the OBGYN was the only doctor available, then it would be more questionable if the doctor refused to treat the man, but it would depend on what the reason was. If it was prejudice or stereotyping– that is, that doctor has already made a determination of the worth or character of this man because he is a man (pre-judging him), or if the doctor refuses because this man is like all other men and all men are scum because of their mannishness (stereotyping) — and the refusal to treat did harm, then that would be sexist.

Let me also note here that transgendered people negate this example I’m giving here: because there are trans men who do, in fact, need the specialized services of an OBGYN since they are men with uteruses; and of course there are many women who have no particular need for an OBGYN because they are women without uteruses (There are other reasons to see an OBGYN. Forgive my reductionism; I think it necessary.). I do not mean to ignore trans people, who should not be simply considered an addendum, an asterisk, a qualification to the usual or norm or standard; but on the other hand, it is impossible to have a discussion of sexism in this society without talking about men and women, and since I’m advocating for building equity, I can’t talk about moving away from gender entirely, which would also solve this problem. I’m going to write a full post about trans people tomorrow, but I want to finish the point I’m making now, today.

I realize I’m overexplaining; it’s not because I think my readers — who, I have no doubt, are people of taste and discrimination and brilliant erudition — need to be taught the meaning of prejudice or stereotyping, or even sexism; it’s because these words are being misused, usually intentionally, and I think the best way to combat that is with absolute pedantic clarity: i.e., overexplaining. Mansplaining. Which, when you do it to fellow men, is just kinda funny.

Which is what I did with my fellow Twits.

Yes, people with good qualifications should be the first criterion. But then as an additional factor — for those of us who can hold more than one thought at a time — making the government more representative of the actual citizens is a good idea.
Seeking equity is not sexist.

— Theoden Humphrey (@TheodenHumphrey) January 2, 2020

All right, I was also sarcastic there with the “more than one thought at a time” comment. But at this point I was realizing that I was arguing with at least a couple of bots or trolls, and ideally those shouldn’t be engaged with — certainly not in an incendiary way, as that will only piss off the people who agree with the bot’s statements, and I believe quite strongly that, while we should stand up for what is right and argue our points clearly, we also should not try to anger our opponents; good argument leads more often to compromise, but angry diatriabes lead to division and more conflict. So I shouldn’t have said this, but hey, I’m on Twitter too: so I’m either trash or fire. Or both.

The main point is my last sentence there. Seeking equity is not sexist. I typed that half a dozen times in response to half a dozen accusations of sexism. (I would have typed out this entire blog, instead, but there’s a 280 character limit. Sometimes I find Twitter very frustrating. But I consider it my penance: mortification of the verbosity.) That’s the real point I want to make here.

Here’s the deal: when men have created a situation where we inherently, by nature of our sex, have an easier time running for and winning elected office — and we have done that, starting most clearly in this country with a Constitution which did not recognize a woman’s right to vote or hold office but only white men’s — then the best way to combat that is to write laws that specifically include women as equal to men, and eliminate laws that make women unequal to men. In both cases, women will benefit more than men, because in the first case women will gain more than men will, and in the second, men will lose a perquisite they have had up until now. But this is not harming men: it is taking away something we have no right to, unequal privileges, in order to create equity, and justice. It is returning what was stolen. It is balancing the scales.

And while it is entirely true that male elected officials are capable of doing that, and historically some have done so, this is also true:

Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

–Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”

That means the best way to address the institutional inequalities and injustices in our society is not to beg those in power to do the right thing; it is to empower those who have something to gain from doing the right thing. That way we all gain justice and equality, and, quite simply, a better society.

And that means electing more women.

Let’s make it happen in 2020.

How do you shut a revolving door?

18/01/201618/01/2016Dusty Leave a comment

ANSWER: With a door-stop made of JUSTICE!

(This is the second in a series about politics that’s looking like it will be three essays long. Once again, if you’re not interested – no, you know what? You should all read this. And share it so that other people can read it too. Because – damn.)

And speaking of corruption in politics . . . two words: regulatory capture.

Two more words: revolving door.

And the final five: Lobbying in the United States.

You know that there’s a real problem when the corruption has become so common, and so tightly bound into the fabric of government, that there is a Wikipedia article about it. There are three, actually, which I’d suggest as reading – they are all linked above. And it is amazing that this is such a common and accepted situation that the articles talk about recent events, about people whose names we know – this isn’t the Teapot Dome scandal, or the robber barons of centuries past; this is Eric Holder, who left after six years as Attorney General to return to his partnership position at a law firm that represents Wall Street banks (Now you understand why no bankers have been prosecuted for the financial collapse?); this is Deepwater Horizon and the oil companies that got new permits to drill in the Gulf of Mexico only weeks after the worst ecological disaster in history; this is the very internet I am using, and SOPA, et al. This is our world, us, right now.

Regulatory capture is when a government regulatory body – like the FCC, or the SEC, or the Department of the Interior or Agriculture – is controlled by the industry it is intended to regulate. The fox not only gets into the henhouse, he puts on a red comb and declares himself the rooster. Then he puts in place a new Hen Resources policy whereby every hen must have a one-on-one meeting with the new CER(F) [Chief Executive Rooster (Fox)], out back in the woods, at night; and the hens have to bathe in barbecue sauce beforehand.

Think I’m exaggerating? Allow me to quote from the Wikipedia article on this subject:

Commodity Futures Trading Commission

In October 2010, George H. Painter, one of the two Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) administrative law judges, retired, and in the process requested that his cases not be assigned to the other judge, Bruce C. Levine.Painter wrote, “On Judge Levine’s first week on the job, nearly twenty years ago, he came into my office and stated that he had promised Wendy Gramm, then Chairwoman of the Commission, that we would never rule in a complainant’s favor,” Painter wrote. “A review of his rulings will confirm that he fulfilled his vow.” In further explaining his request, he wrote, “Judge Levine, in the cynical guise of enforcing the rules, forces pro se complainants to run a hostile procedural gauntlet until they lose hope, and either withdraw their complaint or settle for a pittance, regardless of the merits of the case.” Gramm, wife of former Senator Phil Gramm, was accused of helping Goldman Sachs, Enron and other large firms gain influence over the commodity markets. After leaving the CFTC, Wendy Gramm joined the board of Enron.

That’s right: the wife of a senator running a regulatory agency, corrupting a judge, and then taking a seat on the board of the company she was supposed to be regulating. There are more examples, too. Many. How about this one:

Federal Aviation Administration

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has a dual-mandate both to promote aviation and to regulate its safety. A report by the Department of Transportation that found FAA managers had allowed Southwest Airlines to fly 46 airplanes in 2006 and 2007 that were overdue for safety inspections, ignoring concerns raised by inspectors. Audits of other airlines resulted in two airlines grounding hundreds of planes, causing thousands of flight cancellations. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee investigated the matter after two FAA whistleblowers, inspectors Charalambe “Bobby” Boutris and Douglas E. Peters, contacted them. Boutris said he attempted to ground Southwest after finding cracks in the fuselage, but was prevented by supervisors he said were friendly with the airline. The committee subsequently held hearings in April 2008. James Oberstar, former chairman of the committee said its investigation uncovered a pattern of regulatory abuse and widespread regulatory lapses, allowing 117 aircraft to be operated commercially although not in compliance with FAA safety rules. Oberstar said there was a “culture of coziness” between senior FAA officials and the airlines and “a systematic breakdown” in the FAA’s culture that resulted in “malfeasance, bordering on corruption.”

So glad I flew Southwest when I traveled this past Christmas. Or maybe you’re concerned with nuclear power? Here, this is a peach:

The NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] has given a license to “every single reactor requesting one”, according to Greenpeace USA nuclear policy analyst Jim Riccio to refer to the agency approval process as a “rubber stamp”. In Vermont, ten days after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami that damaged Japan’s Daiichi plant in Fukushima, the NRC approved a 20-year extension for the license of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, although the Vermont state legislature had voted overwhelmingly to deny such an extension. The Vermont plant uses the same GE Mark 1 reactor design as the Fukushima Daiichi plant. The plant had been found to be leaking radioactive materials through a network of underground pipes, which Entergy, the company running the plant, had denied under oath even existed. Representative Tony Klein, who chaired the Vermont House Natural Resources and Energy Committee, said that when he asked the NRC about the pipes at a hearing in 2009, the NRC didn’t know about their existence, much less that they were leaking. On March 17, 2011, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released a study critical of the NRC’s 2010 performance as a regulator. The UCS said that through the years, it had found the NRC’s enforcement of safety rules has not been “timely, consistent, or effective” and it cited 14 “near-misses” at U.S. plants in 2010 alone. Tyson Slocum, an energy expert at Public Citizen said the nuclear industry has “embedded itself in the political establishment” through “reliable friends from George Bush to Barack Obama”, that the government “has really just become cheerleaders for the industry.”

There’s more, too. And again, let me note: this is from a Wikipedia article. This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, anything like whistle blowing or investigative journalism; this is common knowledge, stuff that is all over the news, all over the web. I got to all of this with exactly two clicks: one from my Google search to Wikipedia, and one from my first article (on “revolving door”) to the link that said “See also: regulatory capture.” These examples I have cited are just a few from the section headed “United States Examples.” (If it makes you feel better, there is also one Canadian example, two Japanese examples, and one international example. To balance the twenty-plus American examples. USA! USA!)

And speaking of the revolving door: this is the name we apply to the practice of private professionals becoming government officials, generally with power over those same industries that employed them prior to election or appointment, and government officials becoming private professionals in the industries they oversaw. This is the kind of thing where members of Congress block a bill regulating, say, Wall Street, and then leave office to get a lucrative job as an advisor on Wall Street. The most famous example is probably Dick Cheney, who “left” Halliburton to become Vice President (Got a “severance” package of $20 million, too) and then spent much of his vice presidency creating new business opportunities for Halliburton (the company builds oil fields and refineries), particularly in Iraq. But there are others: Dick (Two corrupt men named Dick? COINCIDENCE?!?) Gephardt, who was a Congressman (And a Democrat, lest anyone think I am bashing on the GOP, or everyone named Dick.) for years, is now a lobbyist; the FCC commissioner who approved the NBC/Comcast merger left the FCC four months later for a position at Comcast; the use of bovine growth hormone was approved by three employees of the Food and Drug Administration with ties to Monsanto.

Again, not investigative journalism: I Googled “Government officials from the industries they regulate” and clicked on the first link, which was to the “revolving door” article on Wikipedia.

It shocks me, to some extent, to think that anyone believes it a good idea to hire government regulators with ties to the industries they are supposed to regulate. But I get it: those people understand the industry, have ties and connections to the corporations involved; they could be very good at administering the people’s interests. And, to some extent, the interests of the industries need to be protected from heavy-handed government intervention; if they put me in charge, for instance, I’d just eliminate half a dozen major corporations entirely, which would, I guess, be bad for the economy.

Though considering what those same corporations did to the economy, and how much it affected me personally, I’m kind of willing to make that sacrifice. Then again: even if I crushed Halliburton and Monsanto and Enron and Goldman-Sachs and Exxon-Mobil and Wal-Mart beneath the heel of my jackboot, I know perfectly well that other companies would simply rise up and take their place. The lobbyists wouldn’t even be replaced: they’d just change a number in their speed-dial.

But I do get the need for a voice from the industry in the regulatory agencies. In my own small world, I think it is always best (and only rarely true) that school administrators be former teachers, with more than a couple of years of experience, in subjects more demanding than P.E. Those people understand what teachers go through, understand that the ever-increasing burden of unnecessary and even counter-productive requirements – for testing, for accountability, for record-keeping, for committee membership and meeting after meeting after meeting – is what keeps teachers from actually doing our job. It’s funny to say that government intervention is the biggest problem facing teachers in schools, but it’s true.

On the other hand: my motive for doing my job is not profit. I want to do my job well. I want administrators who understand my job not because I want their approval of my new untested pharmaceutical to go straight to market, sacrificing public safety in order to increase my bottom line; I want understanding administrators so that I can teach To Kill a Mockingbird and Romeo and Juliet. And my influence over those administrators, those government officials who regulate my industry, is based on exactly one thing: my status as a citizen and a teacher. That status allows me to, maybe, get a chance to speak my mind on this issue, provided I go through the efforts to put myself in front of those officials. I can, perhaps, use my eloquence, what I have of it; my reputation, if people actually like what I do; and even my soapbox, this here blog. What I can’t use is billions of dollars and a quid-pro-quo offer of a position after retirement.

Though that’s a great image. Hey, Congress, I got a deal for you: you eliminate the requirements for standardized testing in public schools, and I’ll hook you up with a position as a Teacher’s Aide in a special needs classroom. Or I can try to swing a spot as a fill-in janitor. Huh? Huh? Tempting! Tell you what: I’ll sweeten the deal with, say, $20. Which is about all I could afford in bribes. Hang on, let me see if I can do a DonorsChoose . . .

Now the question is, what do we do about this? We can’t simply ban lobbying, as tempting as that is; citizens have the right to “free speech” (Sarcastoquotes brought to you by the Citizens United decision: claiming that money is speech from sea to shining sea, and conveniently forgetting that most speech can not be used by the audience/recipients to buy yachts, and that this somewhat changes the equation. [Imagine how many readers I could get if you could trade my words for yachts?!? I would sleep on a keyboard so that when I rolled over I could make $50 from whatever words I randomly typed.]) and the right to petition their government for redress of grievances; again, my personal prejudices aside, corporations have the right to have their interests represented by the government that seeks to regulate them.

But the difference is: the companies don’t need to have their employees hired by the regulators. That is not part of “petitioning the government.” When I wanted to argue against the decisions of my local school board, I didn’t get myself appointed to that school board; I went to a public meeting and spoke in front of them. (Guess what? It didn’t work. Well, it kind of worked: they grew to fear me. The last time I spoke at a school board meeting in Oregon, they pushed me to the end of the line, allowing every other person with an opinion to speak before me. Which just gave me the headlining spot. But you know what else? It didn’t work: they didn’t change the policy.) They are welcome to speak to the regulators, they can even “speak” to them using money and hired lobbyists. There is an argument made in the Lobbying article on Wikipedia which claims that the solution to the problem is to increase lobbying competition: to have more non-profits, more public interest groups work the lobbying system as well, to balance the private corporations; I can see the value in that.

But we need to close the revolving door. The regulators should not be hired from the industries they regulate. It may make their jobs harder if they don’t have ties to the industries, don’t have those handy insider contacts; good. Jobs should be hard. That’s why we get paid to do them. I can see industry people as advisors, as resources, as witnesses testifying in front of committees; not as the ones holding the gavel, the ones actually in charge. You might ask your kids what they want for dinner, but you don’t let them cook it. You can poll inmates in a prison as to what improvements they would like to see, but you don’t let them make the decisions: “I’d like to see the bars and fences and walls removed, and all inmates put on the honor system.” As ridiculous as this is, this is what we’re doing with Monsanto and Halliburton and Wall Street.

At the same time, it is absurd that government officials can leave office and then go to work for those companies they “regulated” while in office. Direct bribes are already illegal, and I have already argued against the use of campaign funds as indirect bribes. So the next step in ending corruption should be this; and in this case, it’s a pretty simple law, and it’s a law that could be passed, I think, with our current legislators – the majority of whom are not part of corruption quite this brazen. I may not like most of the people in office, but they’re not Dick Cheney. (Did you know that the EPA can’t regulate fracking because of the “Halliburton loophole,” a clause added to a 2005 energy bill by Dick freaking Cheney when he was Vice President? Suddenly I feel like he shot me in the face. Or rather, the entire country.) If we the people apply a modicum of pressure to our elected officials, we may be able to get a simple delay put in place: a government official cannot work for an industry that benefited materially from that official’s votes or committee membership for a period of ______ years after leaving office. Let’s say five. After five years out of office, the official’s ties and contacts would be out of date and useless; and five years out of office and working at a normal human’s job is too long a delay: I don’t think most people would accept the offer of a lucrative job as a bribe if they had to wait five years to cash in. Not even the corrupt ones.

So here’s what we do: agitate for this law. There are already laws in place regarding the connections between lobbyists and officials, and ex-officials turned lobbyists, and lobbyists turned regulators; even Dick Cheney had to “retire” before he could be “elected.” (This latter set of Sarcastoquotes brought to you by the Supreme Court decision to end the recount in Florida, which handed an election actually won by Al Gore and Joe Lieberman over to Bush and Cheney, who actually lost. And so did the country.) All we need to add is a law mandating a delay between leaving office and becoming a lobbyist or consultant. Then we set up a committee (or give the responsibility to an agency already in place, like the FBI or the Federal Election Commission) to oversee what federal officials do after they leave office, correlate that with their votes for or against any industry that subsequently hires them, and bring charges if they break the waiting period.

And oh yes: the people on that committee can’t be lobbyists.

Just Dusty

Dusty Takes Over the Internet!

Tag justice