It’s the 1960s Redux

The death of George Floyd, which was caused (if only indirectly) by a member of the Minneapolis Police Department, has met with predictable reactions:

1. Trump is to blame for creating an “atmosphere of hate”.

2. The cop’s behavior is symptomatic of “systemic racism” in the United States.

3. Ergo, rioting — not just in Minneapolis but in some other large cities as well.

My thoughts:

1. The “atmosphere of hate” line is high irony, inasmuch as Trump and those who support him are targets of unremitting hatred. There’s a lot of psychological projection at work here.

2. The charge of “systemic racism” is symptomatic of systemic stereotyping by leftists who don’t want to acknowledge the next point and its consequences (discussed below).

3. Persons of low intelligence are more prone to violence than their more-intelligent peers.

The underlying problem hasn’t changed since the wave of urban riots in the 1960s:

Blacks, on average, are significantly less intelligent than whites of European descent, East Asians, and Ashkenzi Jews (a special class of whites of European descent).

Therefore, blacks generally earn less than than members of the other groups because (a) they are less employable and (b) their skills are less valuable (except for the small fraction of blacks who make it big in sports and entertainment).

Blacks, like most human beings, tend to live among persons who are similarly situated: economically, culturally, and racially. “Racism” is a two-way street.

Because large cities contain high concentrations of low-income blacks, resentments can quickly generate violence — not just where a triggering event occurs but wherever low-income blacks are concentrated.

A triggering event — like the death of George Floyd — ignites the simmering and long-standing resentment that must be felt among a large segment of the black population. That resentment is about the failure of blacks generally to advance relative to whites. The source of the resentment is found in the rhetoric of white “liberals”, who constantly peddle this untruth in return for black votes:

The social and economic distance between blacks and whites is due to white racism, and nothing else.

Another Big Lie from the left yields another tragic consequence.

Release Your Inner Introvert

I believe that the tendencies toward introversion and extraversion are inborn. But like many innate traits, their expression is influenced by environment. A born introvert, for example, may have to act like an extravert because of his job, the friends he has made, or some other social aspect of his life.

But lockdowns have allowed tens of millions of persons to work at home rather than in an office. And lockdowns have greatly altered socialization: no dining out, no social gatherings, no church-going, etc.

Such changes, I suspect, have caused many millions of suppressed introverts to discover that they are happier than they were before the lockdowns began. Work is less draining because it is less “close up and personal”. The absence of socialization comes as a surprising relief — no more anxiety about what others might do or say that requires a response or comment; no more anxiety about participating in events the one doesn’t really enjoy.

Not all reborn introverts will continue to enjoy their new freedom, of course. But many of them will do more of their work (perhaps all of it) from home if they are given the option of doing so. And many of them will allow some social “obligations” to lapse, and feel good about it.

So lockdowns have a liberating aspect. Who knew?

Is Trump Taking My Advice?

I made a case, here and here, for preemptive action against Big Tech’s censorship of conservative viewpoints. There has been some movement along anti-trust lines, but Trump’s executive order on social media is a big step in the right direction. Stewart Baker (The Volokh Conspiracy) explains:

The order really only has two and a half substantive provisions, and they’re all designed to increase the transparency of takedown decisions.

The first provision tells NTIA (the executive branch’s liaison to the FCC) to suggest a rulemaking to the FCC. The purpose of the rule is to spell out what it means for the tech giants to carry out their takedown policies “in good faith.” The order makes clear the President’s view that takedowns are not “taken in good faith if they are “deceptive, pretextual, or inconsistent with a provider’s terms of service” or if they are “the result of inadequate notice, the product of unreasoned explanation, or [undertaken] without a meaningful opportunity to be heard.” This is not a Fairness Doctrine for the internet; it doesn’t mandate that social media show balance in their moderation policies. It is closer to a Due Process Clause for the platforms. They may not announce a neutral rule and then apply it pretextually. And the platforms can’t ignore the speech interests of their users by refusing to give users even notice and an opportunity to be heard when their speech is suppressed.

The second substantive provision is similar. It asks the FTC, which has a century of practice disciplining the deceptive and unfair practices of private companies, to examine social media takedown decisions through that lens. The FTC is encouraged (as an independent agency it can’t be told) to determine whether entities relying on section 230 “restrict speech in ways that do not align with those entities’ public representations about those practices.”

(The remaining provision is an exercise of the President’s sweeping power to impose conditions on federal contracting. It tells federal agencies to take into account the “viewpoint-based speech restrictions imposed by each online platform” in deciding whether the platform is an “appropriate” place for the government to post its own speech. It’s hard to argue with that provision in the abstract. Federal agencies have no business advertising on, say, Pornhub. In application, of course, there are plenty of improper or unconstitutional ways the policy could play out. But as a vehicle for government censorship it lacks teeth; one doubts that the business side of these companies cares how many federal agencies maintain their own Facebook pages or Twitter accounts. And in any event, we’ll have time to evaluate this sidecar provision when it is actually applied.)

That’s it. The order calls on social media platforms to explain their speech suppression policies and then to apply them honestly. It asks them to provide notice, a fair hearing, and an explanation to users who think they’ve been treated unfairly or worse by particular moderators.

I would take a much harder line (follow the links in the first sentence of this post). But something is better than nothing. It’s a shot across the bow of Big Tech, though I would prefer a nuclear-tipped torpedo below the water line.

A Word to the Unwise

This post is aimed at young-ish heterosexual males, though persons of other persuasions may find it amusing — or provocative.

It’s hard to tell love from lust when you’re in your late teens or twenties, and possibly even your thirties. But if you are inclined to wed, proceed cautiously. Here are some reasons for caution:

!. There are lots of good fish in the sea. Don’t be bowled over by the first woman who returns your infatuation, or the one who catches you on the rebound from a failed relationship.

2. Marry in haste, repent at leisure. If you take obligations seriously — and you should if you want a happy marriage — you are inviting years and decades of repentance if you make the wrong (hasty, uninformed) choice.

3. If you are not a “liberal” at 25, you have no heart. If you are not a conservative at 35 you have no brain. Men and women don’t always follow the same political path through life, and divergence can badly strain a marriage. Be on the lookout for hints that your intended is a “liberal” at heart, that is, all for the “general good” of mankind but not big on personal responsibility, accomplishment, and liberty. (See #4.)

4. Like mother (or father), like daughter. Not necessarily in looks, but very likely in personality. Get to know the parents, if you can, and take stock of their traits. If one parent (or both) exhibits a trait or traits that you will find it hard or impossible to live with, be wary of wedding the daughter. (See #1.) The list of traits that might be unbearable is too long to recite here, but these are a few that I would watch for: nagging, controlling, crabby, self-centered, spiteful, resentful of the success of others, and unforgiving.

Election 2020: Installment 1

I was right about Election 2016. Now I’ll start posting regularly about Election 2020. It will be a while before there is some reliable polling about the presidential race. In the meantime, I’ll post about relevant issues, such as Trump’s popularity, the state of the economy, and the retreat of the COVID-19 outbreak.

There’s good news and bad news in this post. Whether the good news is good and the bad news is bad depends on whether you prefer Trump to Biden (or his replacement).

One piece of good news for Trump is the decided drop in the rate at which COVID-19 cases and deaths are occurring (if you believe the official numbers). Here are my tallies, averaged over 7 days to smooth over delays in reporting:

It’s too soon to know whether the curves will ascend again (or ascend significantly, if they do) as a result of “reopening”, which began in earnest over the Memorial Day weekend. Stay tuned.

Two pieces of very bad news for Trump are the sharp declines in (a) his popularity (as measured by an unbiased pollster, Rasmussen Reports) and (b) Americans’ view of the state of the nation (also as measured by Rasmussen).

This is worrying (or not) because it reflects sharply declining poll numbers for Trump, as against rising poll numbers for Obama at this stage 8 years ago:

And this is worrying (or not) because voters’ assessment of the state of the nation is well below where it was when Obama was reelected:

A piece of provisional good news is the possibility (to which I subscribe) of a quick turnaround in the economy. But don’t take my word for it. Consider this:

In early April, Jason Furman, a top economist in the Obama administration and now a professor at Harvard, was speaking via Zoom to a large bipartisan group of top officials from both parties. The economy had just been shut down, unemployment was spiking and some policymakers were predicting an era worse than the Great Depression. The economic carnage seemed likely to doom President Donald Trump’s chances at reelection.

Furman, tapped to give the opening presentation, looked into his screen of poorly lit boxes of frightened wonks and made a startling claim.

“We are about to see the best economic data we’ve seen in the history of this country,” he said….

“Everyone looked puzzled and thought I had misspoken,” Furman said in an interview. Instead of forecasting a prolonged Depression-level economic catastrophe, Furman laid out a detailed case for why the months preceding the November election could offer Trump the chance to brag — truthfully — about the most explosive monthly employment numbers and gross domestic product growth ever.

Since the Zoom call, Furman has been making the same case to anyone who will listen, especially the close-knit network of Democratic wonks who have traversed the Clinton and Obama administrations together, including top members of the Biden campaign.

Furman’s counterintuitive pitch has caused some Democrats, especially Obama alumni, around Washington to panic. “This is my big worry,” said a former Obama White House official who is still close to the former president. Asked about the level of concern among top party officials, he said, “It’s high — high, high, high, high.”…

Furman’s case begins with the premise that the 2020 pandemic-triggered economic collapse is categorically different than the Great Depression or the Great Recession, which both had slow, grinding recoveries.

Instead, he believes, the way to think about the current economic drop-off, at least in the first two phases, is more like what happens to a thriving economy during and after a natural disaster: a quick and steep decline in economic activity followed by a quick and steep rebound….

Furman’s argument is not that different from the one made by White House economic advisers and Trump, who have predicted an explosive third quarter, and senior adviser Jared Kushner, who said in late April that “the hope is that by July the country’s really rocking again.” White House officials were thrilled to hear that some of their views have been endorsed by prominent Democrats.

“I totally agree,” Larry Kudlow, head of the White House National Economic Council, replied in a text message when asked about Furman’s analysis. “Q3 may be the single best GDP quarter since regular data. 2nd half super big growth, transitioning to 4% or more in 2021.” He called Furman, whom he said he knows well, “usually a straight shooter. Hats off to him.”

“I have been saying that on TV as well,” said Kevin Hassett, a top Trump economic adviser, who pointed to a Congressional Budget Office analysis predicting a 21.5 percent annualized growth rate in the third quarter. “If CBO is correct we will see the strongest quarter in history after the weakest in Q2.”

Peter Navarro, a Trump trade and manufacturing adviser who’s a Harvard-educated economist, called the high unemployment America is currently facing “manufactured unemployment, which is to say that Americans are out of work not because of any underlying economic weaknesses but to save American lives. It is this observation that gives us the best chance and hope for a relatively rapid recovery as the economy reopens.”…

[A] former Obama White House official said, “Even today when we are at over 20 million unemployed Trump gets high marks on the economy, so I can’t imagine what it looks like when things go in the other direction. I don’t think this is a challenge for the Biden campaign. This is the challenge for the Biden campaign. If they can’t figure this out they should all just go home.”…

Between now and Election Day, there will be five monthly jobs reports, which are released on the first Friday of every month. The June report, covering May, is likely to show another increase in unemployment. But after that, Furman predicts, if reopening continues apace, the next four reports could be blockbusters. “You could easily have 1 to 2 million jobs created a month in those four reports before November,” he said.

He added, “And then toward the end of October, we will get GDP growth for the third quarter, at an annualized rate, and it could be double-digit positive economic growth. So these will be the best jobs and growth numbers ever.”…

Furman is an economist, but he had some strategic advice for the Biden campaign. “Don’t make predictions that could be falsified. There are enough terrible things to say you don’t need to make exaggerated predictions,” he said. “The argument that we are in another Great Depression will look like it was overstated. Trump can say, ‘Two million deaths didn’t happen, Great Depression didn’t happen, we are making a lot of progress.’”

The stock market reflects Furman’s (and my) assessment:

Give them jobs and their hearts, minds, and votes will follow.

Keeping Up with the News

Do you remember when a daily or weekly newspaper — whether local, regional, or national in scope — was delivered to almost every home? I do.

The prevalence of newspapers — in number and market saturation — probably peaked in the 1950s. Though radio had been around for a while, radio news complemented papers rather than supplanting them. It took the rise of television, with its combination of images and immediacy, to reverse the prevalence of newspapers.

The effect that TV had on the newspaper business was intensified and supplanted by rise of the internet as a source of “information”. The rise of the internet has also pushed TV news to the edge of irrelevancy, but iit has managed to survive by become more sensationalized and politically extreme.

TV and the internet, with their mass audiences, are better suited than newspapers to the ultra-urbanization and homogenization of America, which still had far to go in the middle of the 20th century. The effects of ultra-urbanization and homogenization — the devastation of small-town America and the rise of “bowling alone” — are reflected in the elimination or drastic reduction of the kind of fare that was common to local and even regional papers: reports of illnesses, hospitalizations, visits (to and from the home town), scholastic achievements and awards (from kindergarten on up), graduations from college, engagements, weddings, births, and divorces. Only “obituaries” seem to thrive, but almost all of them aren’t the news stories of yore but, rather, paid death announcements placed through funeral homes.

The death-spiral of the newspaper business — less content, fewer readers, fewer advertisers, less content, etc. — is now several decades old. Regional papers have gone out of business or consolidated. Local papers have gone out of business or been absorbed (though ineffectively) by regional papers. The content of the remaining papers consists largely of syndicated material that is bought by the yard. There’s still a market for stories about local events of general interest (e.g., sports, local government, crime, highway construction) that aren’t covered (or are covered superficially) on TV or the internet.

As for myself, I long ago quit watching TV ~~news~~ bias (except when there is a weather person who gives detailed and informative reports), just as I quit reading print ~~news~~ bias (except for local news that might affect me). The obvious reason is that I have for almost 60 years (unfortunately) lived where what passes for news is really leftist propaganda: “big government good”, “believe almost all women (accusers of Democrats excepted)”, etc., etc., etc. I am immune to such propaganda and have no wish to encourage or subsidize its transmission.

Because of my blogging I’m usually tracking down information — facts, numbers, cogent analyses — rather than absorbing media memes and narratives. I pick and choose from dozens of online sources of information, preferring those that deliver documented facts to those that are freighted with opinion. I eschew right-wing and left-wing propaganda outlets with equal distaste.

Yes, I read the headlines to keep more or less au courant with significant happenings. But the story behind the headlines often emerges slowly and in bits and pieces. The Trump-Russia-collusion narrative, for example, is just now becoming known as what it was all along: Obamagate. It’s the deeper story that interests me, and it takes a lot of surfing to ferret it out.

Most of my offline reading time is devoted to books and articles about science, philosophy, and history. I read a lot of book-length literary fiction, too, with an occasional foray into the detective-mystery-thriller genre.

Time was when I read the print edition of the The Washington Post daily, and at length; ditto the Sunday edition of The New York Times. Now, I give a few minutes of my day to some of come strips carried online by the Post, though the roster of strips worth reading dwindles with every passing year. Similarly, the Times is good for the crossword and a couple of word games. It’s all in the name of saving trees, of course.

Bleeding Heart Libertarians (the Blog): A Bibliography of Related Posts

A recent post at Policy of Truth by its proprietor, Irfan Khawaja, prompted me to compile a list of all of the posts that I have written about some of the blog posts and bloggers at Bleeding Heart Libertarians. Though Khawaja and I disagree about a lot, I believe that we agree about the fatuousness of bleeding-heart libertarianism. (BTW, Khawaja’s flaming valedictory, on a different subject, is worth a read.)

Here’s the bibliography, arranged chronologically from March 9, 2011, to September 11, 2014:

The Meaning of Liberty
Peter Presumes to Preach
Positive Liberty vs. Liberty
More Social Justice
On Self-Ownership and Desert
The Killing of bin Laden and His Ilk
In Defense of Subjectivism
The Folly of Pacifism, Again
What Is Libertarianism?
Why Stop at the Death Penalty?
What Is Bleeding-Heart Libertarianism?
The Morality of Occupying Public Property
The Equal-Protection Scam and Same-Sex Marriage
Liberty, Negative Rights, and Bleeding Hearts
Bleeding-Heart Libertarians = Left-Statists
Enough with the Bleeding Hearts Already
Not Guilty of Libertarian Purism
Obama’s Big Lie
Bleeding-Heart Libertarians = Left-Statists (Redux)
Egoism and Altruism
A Case for Redistribution Not Made

The Common Good, or Rethinking Liberty

C. Bradley Thompson, writing at The American Mind (“The Rise and Fall of Pajama-Boy Nietzscheans“, May 13, 2020) takes on the radical right. There is much in Thompson’s essay with which I agree, and much with which I disagree. But I will focus here on these paragraphs:

There is no such thing as the “common good” unless one means the sum of the interests of all men and women in a particular society, and the only legitimate “good” common to all men and women as rational beings is freedom, which is the necessary condition from which they pursue all the goods necessary for living and living well. To the extent that the “common good” can mean anything at all, it describes the freedom and rights that all individuals must be guaranteed in a civilized society.

But the standard idea of the “common good” as used by [Sohrab] Ahmari [one of Thompson’s targets] is an abstraction that is greater than the sum of the individual men and women who make up a society. Thus the central problem with the anti-concept “common good” is that has no basis in objective reality, which means that it’s literally nothing other than a philosophic fantasy—a creation of the human imagination.

So far, not too bad. “The common good” as used by Ahmari is just another term for social-welfare function. And Thompson is right when he says that it has no basis in objective reality. It is, indeed, a creation of the human imagination. How can anyone meaningfully measure and sum the happiness or unhappiness of the hundreds of millions more persons now living in the United States. (or the billions more now living on Earth)? How, for instance, can anyone say that A’s enjoyment at inflicting pain on B (a non-masochistic) exceeds the pain suffered by B, resulting in an increase in “the common good”? Or conversely?

But the first paragraph quoted above is problematic. Freedom — or liberty — isn’t the necessary condition for living well. Liberty is living well, that is, in peaceful, willing coexistence and its concomitant: beneficially cooperative behavior.

The preconditions for liberty are mutual trust, respect, and forbearance. The third member of that triad requires trust in a transgressor’s ability and willingness to correct himself, either voluntarily or through a socially accepted sanction ranging from reproof to harsh punishment. For the sake of social comity, incorrigibility must therefore be treated by permanent removal from society, through exile, imprisonment, or execution.

Liberty, in sum, isn’t just a personal state of affairs. Rather, it’s a social state of affairs. And attaining it requires social agreement as to what constitutes expected and permissible behavior, and how to treat failures to behave as expected or to behave impermissibly. For, contrary to libertarian dogma, the underpinnings of liberty — mutual trust, respect, and forbearance — require the fulfillment of understood obligations, such as the obligation of able-bodied men to defend a community against invasion; the obligation of parents to instruct their children in society’s mores; or the obligation of men and women to enter into marriage before having children, the better to ensure that the children are raised in a secure and stable environment.

But what if the members of a polity differ strongly and fundamentally in their views of behavioral expectations and how to treat deviancy from those expectations? Where that is the case, there will be irreconcilable differences between factions within the polity, and those factions will strive constantly to rise to power so that they can impose their views on other factions. Where that is the case, liberty is impossible because mutual trust, respect, and forbearance are impossible.

Liberty, in other words, is a chimera in any polity whose members hold strong and irreconcilable views about behavioral norms, and where exit is practically impossible. The Founders and Framers overlooked those conditions because America was then much more homogeneous, culturally; the States were far more independent of each other; and migration to open territory was a real possibility.

Thus the Declaration of Independence opens with this high-flown sentiment:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

And the Constitution begins just as glibly:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

But neither document delves the meaning of liberty or its essential — social — prerequisites, because such delving was unnecessary in the conditions of the time: great cultural homogeneity, weak central government, and the real possibility of exit. Political union, loose at was, was conjoined with something much closer to cultural homogeneity than is now the case.

Paradoxically, America was far more united, culturally, at the time of the bloody Civil War than it is today, when cosmopolitan elites and “real people” are engaged in a bitter and socially and economically destructive cold civil war.

Unless the present clash is resolved in a way that enables the opposing cultures to coexist independently of each other (except for voluntary, arms-length commercial transactions), liberty will continue to be an empty word in the United States.

Related page: Social Norms and Liberty (with a long list of related posts at the end)

Just Another Thing or Two about COVID-19

Though it’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future, and I sort of promised not to make any more predictions about the spread of COVID-19 in the United States because the data are unreliable (examples at the link and here). But I can’t resist saying a few more things about the matter.

Specifically, since my last substantive post about COVID-19 statistics, I now project 2 million cases and 135,000 deaths by mid-August, as against my earlier projections of 1.3 million and 90,000. The new estimates rely on the same database as the old ones, so they aren’t any more reliable than the old ones.

But I have revised my calculations so that they are based on 7-day average numbers of cases and deaths. This is an attempt to smooth over obvious lags in reporting (sudden drops in numbers of cases and deaths followed by sudden surges).

The equations in these two graphs …

… yield these projections:

Those are nationwide numbers. The good news (pending the results of “re-opening”) is that the daily number of new cases has declined sharply from the peaks of late March and late April. But there’s still a long way to go. The first graph in this post is worrisome because recent observations are a bit above the trend line; that is, the incidence of new cases may not be declining quite as rapidly as the equation suggests.

The number of new deaths has declined also, from the peak 7-day average of 2,041 on April 21 to 1,430 as of May 15. Overall, the rate of new deaths per new case seems to have stabilized at 5.7 percent. (The overall percentage will be somewhat higher because the deaths/case rate was higher than 5.7 for quite a while.)

Of course, the situation varies widely from State to State (and, obviously, within each State):

(I am using same assignment of States to regions as used by my data source.)

Nine of the 12 States of the Northeast (including D.C.) are among the top 12 in deaths per resident. The exceptions are the more rural Northeastern States: Main, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

In general, States with large, densely populated metropolitan areas have fared worse than less-urbanized States with smaller cities. That’s unsurprising, of course. But it also underscores the resistance of large swaths of the populace to “New York” rules.

Other related posts:

Contagion Nation?
“Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”

“It’s Tough to Make Predictions, Especially about the Future”

A lot of people have said it, or something like it, though probably not Yogi Berra, to whom it’s often attributed.

Here’s another saying, which is also apt here: History does not repeat itself. The historians repeat one another.

I am accordingly amused by something called cliodynamics, which is discussed at length by Amanda Rees in “Are There Laws of History?” (Aeon, May 2020). The Wikipedia article about cliodynamics describes it as

a transdisciplinary area of research integrating cultural evolution, economic history/cliometrics, macrosociology, the mathematical modeling of historical processes during the longue durée [the long term], and the construction and analysis of historical databases. Cliodynamics treats history as science. Its practitioners develop theories that explain such dynamical processes as the rise and fall of empires, population booms and busts, spread and disappearance of religions. These theories are translated into mathematical models. Finally, model predictions are tested against data. Thus, building and analyzing massive databases of historical and archaeological information is one of the most important goals of cliodynamics.

I won’t dwell on the methods of cliodynamics, which involve making up numbers about various kinds of phenomena and then making up models which purport to describe, mathematically, the interactions among the phenomena. Underlying it all is the practitioner’s broad knowledge of historical events, which he converts (with the proper selection of numerical values and mathematical relationships) into such things as the Kondratiev wave, a post-hoc explanation of a series of arbitrarily denominated and subjectively measured economic eras.

In sum, if you seek patterns you will find them, but pattern-making (modeling) is not science. (There’s a lot more here.)

Here’s a simple demonstration of what’s going on with cliodynamics. Using the RANDBETWEEN function of Excel, I generated two columns of random numbers ranging in value from 0 to 1,000, with 1,000 numbers in each column. I designated the values in the left column as x variables and the numbers in the right column as y variables. I then arbitrarily chose the first 10 pairs of numbers and plotted them:

As it turns out, the relationship, even though it seems rather loose, has only a 21-percent chance of being due to chance. In the language of statistics, two-tailed p=0.21.

Of course, the relationship is due entirely to chance because it’s the relationship between two sets of random numbers. So much for statistical tests of “significance”.

Moreover, I could have found “more significant” relationships had I combed carefully through the 1,000 pairs of random number with my pattern-seeking brain.

But being an honest person with scientific integrity, I will show you the plot of all 1,000 pairs of random numbers:

I didn’t bother to find a correlation between the x and y values because there is none. And that’s the messy reality of human history. Yes, there have been many determined (i.e., sought-for) outcomes — such as America’s independence from Great Britain and Hitler’s rise to power. But they are not predetermined outcomes. Their realization depended on the surrounding circumstances of the moment, which were myriad, non-quantifiable, and largely random in relation to the event under examination (the revolution, the putsch, etc.). The outcomes only seem inevitable and predictable in hindsight.

Cliodynamics is a variant of the anthropic principle, which is that he laws of physics appear to be fine-tuned to support human life because we humans happen to be here to observe the laws of physics. In the case of cliodynamics, the past seems to consist of inevitable events because we are here in the present looking back (rather hazily) at the events that occurred in the past.

Cliodynametricians, meet Nostradamus. He “foresaw” the future long before you did.

Obamagate

In case you haven’t seen my page “Obamagate (a.k.a. Spygate and Russiagate)“, which I’ve just updated, I’m reproducing it below. But you should go there from time to time because the list of related reading at the bottom of the page keeps growing, and is certain to expand greatly in the coming weeks and months.

I have added to the list of related reading at the bottom of this page many times since publishing it on August 31, 2018. There have, however, been only two substantive revisions (noted by boldface), neither of which has altered my original thesis about the origin and purposes of the conspiracy. On 05/03/20 I included former FBI director James Comey as a full-fledged member of the post-election phase of the conspiracy, based on Andrew McCarthy’s article of 05/02/20 (see “related reading”). On 05/12/20 I limited former deputy AG Sally Yates’s role to the post-election phase (based on McCarthy’s article), and (based on Francis Menton’s article of 5/11/20) I acknowledged the possibility that the post-election phase of the conspiracy was really meant to be a coverup of the pre-election attempt to discredit Trump with the Steele dossier. Also, in view of the confirmation of Obama’s central role in the conspirace, which I had posited from the beginning, I began on 05/11/20 to refer to the affair as Obamagate.

The persecution of General Flynn, as it turns out, was an essential element of the post-election coverup attempt. See McCarthy’s article of 05/20/20 for a complete explanation.

Neither Donald Trump nor anyone acting on his behalf colluded with Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

The original story about collusion, the Steele Dossier, was cooked up by the White House and the Clinton campaign. The story was then used to launch a three-pronged attack on Trump and the Trump campaign. The first prong was to infiltrate and spy on the campaign, seeking (a) to compromise campaign officials and (b) learn what “dirt” the campaign had on Clinton. The second prong was to boost Clinton’s candidacy by casting Trump as a dupe of Putin. The third prong was to discredit Trump, should he somehow win the election, in furtherance of the already-planned resistance to a Trump administration. (According to Menton, the effort to discredit Trump may have been just a welcome side effect of the underlying effort to deflect attention from Obama’s role in the pre-election conspiracy to defeat Trump.)

The investigation led by Robert Mueller is a continuation and expansion of FBI investigations that had been aimed at “proving” a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. Mueller’s investigation was expanded to include the possibility that Trump obstructed justice by attempting to interfere with the FBI investigations. All of this investigatory activity was and is intended to provide ammunition for Trump’s impeachment and removal from office. That would leave a Republican in the White House, but — as with the forced resignation of Nixon — it would weaken the GOP, cause a “Blue wave” election in 2018, and result in the election of a Democrat president in 2020.

(Aside: The effort to brand Trump as a dupe of Russia is ironic, given the anti-anti-communist history of the Democrat party, Barack Obama’s fecklessness in his dealings with Russia, and his stated willingness to advance Russia’s interests while abandoning traditional European allies. Then there was FDR, who was surrounded and guided by Soviet agents.)

Why was it important to defeat Trump if possible, and to discredit or remove him if — by some quirk of fate — he won the election?

First, Obama wanted to protect his “legacy”, which included the fraudulent trifecta of Obamacare, the Iran nuclear deal, and the Paris climate accord. The massive increase in the number of federal regulations under Obama was also at risk, along with his tax increase, embrace of Islam, and encouragement of illegal immigration (and millions of potential Democrat voters).

Second, members of the Obama administration, including Obama himself, were anxious to thwart efforts by the Trump campaign to obtain derogatory information about Hillary Clinton. Such information included, but was not limited to, incriminating e-mails that Russians had retrieved from the illegal private server set up for Clinton’s use. That Obama knew about the private server implicated him in the illegality.

In sum, helping Hillary win — with the aid of the CIA, Justice Department, and FBI — was supposed to protect Obama and his “legacy”. One way of doing that was to ensure a victory by Hillary. (The Obama-directed whitewash of her illegal e-mail operation was meant to defuse that issue.) The other way of protecting Obama’s “legacy” was to cripple Trump’s presidency, should he somehow manage to win, and thus hinder Trump’s effectiveness. The media could be counted out to fan the flames of resistance, as they have done with great vigor.

The entire Obamate operation is reminiscent of Obama’s role in the IRS’s persecution of conservative non-profit groups. Obama spoke out against “hate groups” and Lois Lerner et al. got the message. Lerner’s loyalty to Obama was rewarded with a whitewash by Obama’s. Department of Justice and FBI.

In the case of Obamagate, Obama expressed his “concern” about Russia’s attempt to influence the election. Obama’s “concern” was eagerly seized upon by hyper-partisan members of his administration, including (but not limited to):

Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s confidante and chief strategist

CIA Director John (the Red) Brennan (probably Obama’s action officer for the operation)

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper

National Security Adviser Susan Rice

Attorney General Loretta Lynch

Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, who became Acting Attorney General in the first weeks of the Trump administration, and who was fired for refusing to defend Trump’s “travel ban” (which the Supreme Court ultimately upheld). (Yates didn’t become involved in the conspiracy until after the election, as indicated by Susan Rice’s memo of January 20, 2017, in which she notes that Obama asked Yates and Comey to stay behind after the end of a meeting of January 5, 2020, presumably so that he could fill them in on the effort to frame General Flynn and discuss how they were to deal with the incoming administration. Again, see Menton’s piece dated May 11, 2020 in “related reading”.)

Deputy Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr, a subordinate of Sally Yates and Christopher Steele’s contact in the Department of Justice

Nelli Ohr, wife of Bruce Ohr, who was hired by Fusion GPS to do opposition research for the Clinton campaign

Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe

FBI General Counsel James Baker, in charge of FISA requests and leaker of the Steele Dossier (possibly a dupe)

Peter Strzok, chief of the FBI’s counterintelligence section;

Lisa Page, the FBI attorney (and Strzok’s paramour), who (with Strzok) was assigned to the Mueller investigation.

What about FBI Director James Comey? He was initially an outsider, a nominal Republican in a Democrat administration, and possibly a willing dupe at first (see the pieces by VDH dated August 7, 2018, and Margot Cleveland dated December 20, 2019. But if he was initially a willing dupe with his own agenda, it seems that he had became a full-fledged conspirator by the time of Trump’s inauguration (see the piece by Andrew McCarthy dated May 2, 2020).

Related reading, in chronological order:

National Sentinel: “The Spygate Files: Timeline to the Biggest Political Scandal in American History”

Paul Roderick Gregory, “The Timeline of IRS Targeting of Conservative Groups“, Forbes, June 25, 2013

Jay Sukelow, “Obama’s Fingerprints All Over IRS Tea Party Scandal“, Fox News Opinion, October 20, 2013

Andrew C. McCarthy, “Obama’s Growing Conflict of Interest in the Clinton E-mail Scandal“, National Review, February 3, 2016

Miles Terry, “President Obama’s IRS Scandal: Seven Years & Counting“, ACLJ, August 2016

Andrew C. McCarthy, “Obama’s Conflict Tanked the Clinton E-mail Investigation — As Predicted“, National Review, September 26, 2016

Andrew C. McCarthy, “The Obama Administration’s Uranium One Scandal“, National Review, October 21, 2017

Andrew C. McCarthy, “Was the Steele Dossier the FBI’s ‘Insurance Policy’?“, National Review, December 23, 2017

Andrew C. McCarthy, “Clinton-Obama E-mails: The Key to Understanding Why Hillary Wasn’t Indicted“, National Review, January 23, 2018

George Parry, “Did Fusion GPS’s Anti-Trump Researcher Avoid Surveillance With A Ham Radio?“, The Federalist, March 2, 2018

Andrew C. McCarthy, “In Politicized Justice Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures“, National Review, May 19, 2018

Andrew C. McCarthy, “The Real Origination Story of the Trump-Russia Investigation“, National Review, May 22, 2018

Sharyl Atkisson, “8 Signs Pointing to a Counterintelligence Operation Deployed Against Trump’s Campaign“, The Hill, May 23, 2018

Julie Kelly, “The Open Secret of the FBI’s Investigation of Trump’s Campaign“, American Greatness, May 25, 2018

Roger Kimball, “For Your Eyes Only: A Short History of Democrat-Spy Collusion“, Spectator USA, May 25, 2018

Daniel John Sobieski, “Jarrett and Obama Are Behind Spygate“, American Thinker, May 26, 2018

Francis Menton, “‘Russia’: Bona Fide Basis for Investigation or Preposterous Cover Story?“, Manhattan Contrarian, May 27, 2018

Michael Barone, “Obama’s Spying Scandal Is Starting to Look a Lot Like Watergate“, New York Post, May 27, 2018

C. Michael Shaw, “Spygate Is a Bigger Scandal Than Watergate“, The New American, May 28, 2018

David Harsanyi, “Obama Says ‘I Didn’t Have Scandals.’ So What Are All These?“, The Federalist, May 29, 2018

Andrew C. McCarthy, “The Obama Administration’s Hypocritical Pretext for Spying on the Trump Campaign“, National Review, May 29, 2018

Andrew C. McCarthy, “Yes, the FBI Was Investigating the Trump Campaign When It Spied“, National Review, May 30, 2018

Scott Johnson, “The Curious Case of Mr. Downer“, Power Line, June 1, 2018

C. Michael Shaw, “FBI’s Violation of Rules in Spying on Trump Campaign Further Exposes Deep State“, The New American, June 1, 2018

Jason Veley, “Confirmed: Barack Obama Was Running the Entire Spygate Operation That Violated Federal Law to Spy on Trump Campaign Officials“, Natural News, June 1, 2018

MJA, “Peter Strzok Asks Lisa Page: ‘You Get All Your OCONUS Lures Approved?’“, iOTWReport.com, June 5, 2018

Andrew C. McCarthy, “Clinton E-mails: What the IG Report Refuses to Admit“, National Review, June 19, 2018

George Neumayr, “Mueller Has Strzok Out“, The American Spectator, June 20, 2018

Alex Swoyer, “Sen. Lindsey Graham Quizzes Inspector General over Peter Strzok’s ‘Insurance Policy’ Text“, The Washington Times, June 21, 2018

George Neumayr, “Hillary’s Fiends in High Places“, The American Spectator, June 22, 2018

Lee Smith, “Seven Mysterious Preludes to the FBI’s Trump-Russia Probe“, RealClearInvestigations, June 26, 2018

John Solomon, “Memos Detail FBI’s ‘Hurry the F Up Pressure’ to Probe Trump Campaign“, The Hill, July 6, 2018

Scott Johnson, “The Brennan Factor Revisited“, Power Line, July 20, 2018

John Hinderaker, “First Thoughts on the Carter Page FISA Application“, Power Line, July 21, 2018

John Hinderaker, “The Associated Press Lies about the FISA Application“, Power Line, July 22, 2018

Michael Ledeen, “Why Are the Democrats and the Spooks Suddenly So Ferociously Anti-Putin?” PJ Media, July 22, 2018

Thomas Lifson, “Ten Problems with the Release of the Heavily Redacted FISA Warrants on Carter Page“, American Thinker, July 22, 2018

Hans A. von Spakovsky, “The Clinton State Department Major Security Breach That Everyone Is Ignoring“, The Heritage Foundation, July 22, 2018

Steve Byas, “Does Strzok Have a Perjury Problem?“, The New American, July 23, 2018

Daniel J. Flynn, “Did the FBI Lie to the FISA Court?“, The American Spectator, July 23, 2018

Victor Davis Hanson, “Just How Far Will the Left Go?“, American Greatness, July 23, 2018

Scott Johnson, “Devin Nunes Vindicated“, Power Line, July 23, 2018

Andrew C. McCarthy, “FISA Applications Confirm: The FBI Relied on the Unverified Steele Dossier“, National Review, July 23, 2018

Ed Morrissey, “Reuters: Butina Met with Two ‘Senior’ Government Officials — in 2015“, Hot Air, July 23, 2015

Jason Beale, “James Comey’s Own Words Suggest FBI, DOJ Hid Dossier Funding From The FISA Judge“, The Federalist, July 24, 2018

Victor Davis Hanson, “Russianism“, National Review, July 24, 2018

Dennis Prager, “The Greatest Hysteria in American History“, RealClearPolitics, July 24, 2018

Ned Ryun, “None Dared Call It Treason … When It Was a Democrat“, American Greatness, July 24, 2018

Katarina Trinko, “What the Carter Page FISA Warrant Reveals about the Trump-Russia Investigation“, The Daily Signal, July 24, 2018

Jason Beale, “It’s Suspicious That The FBI And DOJ Didn’t Check Into Christopher Steele’s Leaks To The Press“, The Federalist, July 25, 2018

Julie Kelly, “Vindication for Carter Page“, American Greatness, July 25, 2018

Mollie Hemingway, “Media Gaslighting Can’t Hide Fact Trump Campaign Was Spied On“, The Federalist, July 26, 2018

Paul Mirengoff, “What the FBI Didn’t Tell the FISA Court“, Power Line, July 27, 2018

Scott Johnson, “The Story So Far“, Power Line, July 29, 2018

Willis Krumholz, “The Facts Behind The Trump Tower Meeting Are Incriminating, But Not For Trump“, The Federalist, July 30, 2018

Dan Perkins, “The FBI, Hillary’s Computers, and the Russians“, American Thinker, July 30, 2018

Ned Ryun, “Americans Need Clear Answers on FISA Abuse“, American Greatness, July 30, 2018

Scott Johnson, “Contra the Dross of Doss (3)“, Power Line, July 31, 2018

Margot Cleveland, “If You Inspect The FISA Applications Closely, More Mysteries Arise About Joseph Mifsud“, The Federalist, August 2, 2018

George Neumayr, “Never Forget the Brennan-Brit Plot to Nail Trump“, The American Spectator, August 3, 2018

Byron York, “!2 Times Christopher Steel Fed Trump-Russia Allegations to the FBI after the Election“, Washington Examiner, August 3, 2018

Victor Davis Hanson, “The Police Were Not Policed“, National Review, August 7, 2018

Byron York, “Emails Show 2016 Links among Steele, Ohr, Simpson — with Russian Oligarch in Background“, Washington Examiner, August 8, 2016

John Solomon, “The Handwritten Notes Exposing What Fusion GPS Told DOJ About Trump“, The Hill, August 9, 2018

George Neumayr, “Strzok Out, Ohr In“, The American Spectator, August 13, 2018

Lee Smith, “2016 Trump Tower Meeting Looks Increasingly Like a Setup by Russian and Clinton Operatives“, RealClearInvestigations, August 13, 2018

Margot Cleveland, “New Info Indicates Clinton-Funded Oppo Research Launched FBI’s Trump Investigation“, The Federalist, August 14, 2018

Margot Cleveland, “Notes Suggest FBI Employees Plotted To Keep Using Steele After He Broke FBI Rules“, The Federalist, August 14, 2018

Chuck Ross, “Fusion GPS Founder Shared ‘False Story’ About GOP Lawyer In Meeting With DOJ’s Bruce Ohr“, The Daily Caller, August 14, 2018

Margot Cleveland, “How Bruce Ohr Could Implicate High-Ranking Obama Officials In Spygate“, The Federalist, August 15, 2018

Margot Cleveland, “New Details Show Firing Strzok Didn’t Remove All The Compromised FBI Agents Involved In Russiagate“, The Federalist, August 15, 2018

Adam Mill, “Bruce Ohr May Have Broken More Than The Law By Pushing His Wife’s Opposition Research To The FBI“, The Federalist, August 16, 2018

Steve Baldwin, “Did Trump Really Save America from Socialism?“, The American Spectator, August 16, 2018

Kimberley Strassel, “What Was Bruce Ohr Doing?“, The Wall Street Journal, August 16, 2018

Catherine Herridge, “DOJ’s Bruce Ohr Wrote Christopher Steele Was ‘very concerned about Comey’s firing — afraid they will be exposed’“, Fox News, August 17, 2018

George Neumayr, “John Brennan, a Security Risk from the Start“, The American Spectator, August 17, 2018

u/lonestarbeliever, “Connecting Some Dots“, Reddit, August 21, 2018 (This illustrates the ease with which conspiracy theories can be constructed, which isn’t to say that it’s wrong.)

Scott Johnson, “The Weiner Laptop Revisited“, Power Line, August 23, 2018

Paul Sperry, “Despite Comey Assurances, FBI Failed To Examine Vast Bulk Of Weiner Laptop Emails“, The Federalist, August 24, 2018

Bre Payton, “FBI Agent Says DOJ Used Leaked Stories It Planted To Get FISA Warrants“, The Federalist, August 28, 2018

Jay Greenberg, “Bruce Ohr Testimony Exposes Even Deeper Cesspit of FBI Corruption“, Neon Nettle, August 29, 2018

Thomas Lifson, “Ohr Speaks! (Behind Closed Doors“, American Thinker, August 29, 2018

Aaron Klein, “Email Logs Reveal Correspondence Between Clinton Associate, Fusion GPS, and Russians at Trump Tower Meeting“, Breitbart.com, August 31, 2018

Laura Barrón-López, “Bruce Ohr, FBI Together Attempted to Flip Russian Oligarchs to Gather Information on Trump Campaign: Report“, Washington Examiner, September 1, 2018

Paul Mirengoff, “The FBI’s Anti-Trump Leak Strategy“, Power Line, September 10, 2018

Thomas Lifson, “Newly Revealed Texts Reveal Strzok and Page Conspired to Release Information Intended to Damage Trump on Russiagate“, American Thinker, September 11, 2018

Paul Minrengoff, “The FBI’s Anti-Trump Leak Strategy, Part Two“, Power Line, September 12, 2018

Andrew C. McCarthy, “Reading the FISA Redactions“, National Review, September 14, 2018

Andrew C. McCarthy, “In the Russia Probe, It’s ‘Qui S’excuse S’accuse’“, National Review, September 15, 2018

Scott Johnson, “Whose Stuff Did Steele Shovel?“, Power Line, September 18, 2018

Michael Barone, “The Air Has Seeped Out of the Russia/Collusion Balloon“, Washington Examiner, September 19, 2018

John Solomon, “Collusion Bombshell: DNC Lawyers Met with FBI on Russia Allegations before Surveillance Warrant“, The Hill, October 3, 2018

John Solomon, “FBI’s Smoking Gun: Redactions Protected Political Embarrassment, Not ‘National Security’“, The Hill, October 7, 2018

Scott Johnson, “What We Have Learned So Far“, Power Line, October 30, 2018

Scott Johnson, “What We Have Learned So Far” [2], Power Line, November 11, 2018

John Hinderaker, “The Ultimate Fake News”, Power Line, November 18, 2018

George Neumayr, “Why Britain Doesn’t Want Trump to Declassify Obamagate Docs“, The American Spectator, November 27, 2018

Margot Cleveland, “New Details Reinforce That The FBI Used Fake Pretexts To Start Investigating Trump“, The Federalist, November 30, 2018

John Solomon, “Trump, Russia and Lessons from the Mob: Did ‘Godfathers’ Steer Collusion Probe?“, The Hill, November 30, 2018

Sidney Powell, “New Facts Indicate Mueller Destroyed Evidence, Obstructed Justice“, The Daily Caller, December 16, 2018

Fuzzy Slippers, “IG Report: Strzok, Page iPhones Wiped Clean, Thousands of Texts Destroyed Before IG Could Review Them“, Legal Insurrection, December 16, 2018

Lee Smith, “New Documents Suggest the Steele Dossier Was a Deliberate Setup for Trump“, The Federalist, January 2, 2019

Jed Babbin, “The Most Successful Coverup“, The American Spectator, January 7, 2019

Paul Mirengoff, “Report: FBI Opened Inquiry into Whether Trump Was Working for the Russians“, Power Line, January 11, 2019

Scott Johnson, “More Mueller Madmess“, Power Line, January 12, 2019

C. Michael Shaw, “Whistleblowr: Obama-era Deep State Surveillance Program Spied on Trump, Judges, Others“, The New American, January 12, 2019

Andrew C. McCarthy, “FBI Russia Investigation Was Always about Trump“, Fox News, January 13, 2019

Gregg Jarrett, “An FBI That Is Corrupt and Dishonest — Latest Reports Offer Only More Proof“, Fox News, January 14, 2019

Mollie Hemingway, “Top Mueller Officials Coordinated with Fusion GPS Spouse in 2016“, The Federalist, January 17, 2019

Catherine Herridge and Cyd Upson, “New Details of 2016 Meeting with Trump Dossier Author Conflict with Dems’ Timeline“, Fox News, January 28, 2019

Scott Johnson, “Coup’s Next“, Power Line, February 16, 2019 (a roundup of links to commentary about Andrew McCabe’s admission of the FBI’s attempt to remove Trump from office)

Andrew McCarthy, “McCabe, Rosenstein, and the Real Truth about the 25th Amendment Coup Attempt“, Fox News, February 16, 2019

Francis Menton, “Comments on Andrew McCabe and the FBI Coup Plotters“, Manhattan Contrarian, February 16, 2019

Victor Davis Hanson, “Autopsy of a Dead Coup“, American Greatness, February 17, 2019

Greg Re, “Lisa Page Admitted Obama DOJ Ordered Stand-Down on Clinton Email Prosecution, GOP Rep Says“, Fox News, March 12, 2019

Greg Re, ” DOJ Reached Agreement with Clinton Lawyers to Block FBI Access to Clinton Foundation Emails, Strzok Says“, Fox News, March 14, 2019

Margot Cleveland, “Did Peter Strzok Lie, Or Was There A Spy Targeting The Trump Camp aign? “, The Federalist, March 19, 2019

Dan Mills, “Lisa Page Transcripts Reveal Huge Preferences For Clinton During Email Scandal Investigation“, The Federalist, March 19, 2019

Andrew C. McCarthy, “After Mueller’s Exoneration of Trump, Full Disclosure“, National Review, March 23, 2019

Sharyl Atkisson (eponymous blog), “— Media Mistakes in the Trump Era: The Definitive List“, as of March 24, 2019

William P. Barr, Letter to the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, March 24, 2019

Sean Davis, “In Letter To Congress, Attorney General Confirms Mueller Found No Evidence Of Collusion By Trump“, The Federalist, March 24, 2019

Margot Cleveland, “Who Launched An Investigation Into Trump’s Campaign Before Crossfire Hurricane?“, The Federalist, March 25, 2019

William L. Krumholz, “Russiagate’s Damage To The Country Will Take Years To Realize“, The Federalist, March 25, 2019

Jeffrey Lord, “What Did Obama Know and When Did He Know It?“, The American Spectator, March 25, 2019

Adam Mill, “In New York, Deputy U.S. Attorney Jumps Sinking Russiagate Ship“, The Federalist, March 25, 2019

Adam Mill, “No, Barr’s Summary Of The Mueller Report Does Not Support Trump’s Alleged Obstruction“, The Federalist, March 25, 2019

Andrew C. McCarthy, “How Long Has Mueller Known There Was No Trump-Russia Collusion?“, Fox News, March 26, 2019

Sean Davis, “The Only 2016 Campaign That Deliberately Colluded With Russians Was Hillary Clinton’s“, The Federalist, March 28, 2019

Melissa Mackenzie, “Mueller Russia Hoax: Keep Yer Eye on the Ball“, The American Spectator, March 28, 2019

George Parry, “Was Mueller’s Investigation a Cover Up?“, The American Spectator, March 28, 2019

Victor Davis Hanson, “The Tables Turn in Russian Collusion Hunt“, American Greatness, March 31, 2019

Victor Davis Hanson, “All the Progressive Plotters“, American Greatness, April 8, 2019

Mollie Hemingway, “AG Barr Confirms Multiple Intel Agencies Implicated in Anti-Trump Spying Operation“, The Federalist, March 10, 2019

Madeline Osburn, “Top FBI Lawyer Testified Rosenstein Discussed Removing Trump from Office“, The Federalist, April 10, 2019

Mollie Hemingway, “New York Times Admits Obama Admin Deployed Multiple Spies Against Trump Campaign In 2016“, The Federalist, May 2, 2019

Joseph DiGenova (interview), “Obama Knew about CIA Chief John Brennan’s Illicit Anti-Trump Targeting Scheme!“, YouTube, May 14, 2019

John Solomon, “State Department’s Red Flag on Steele Went to a Senior FBI Man Well before FISA Warrant“, The Hill, May 14. 2019

Andrew C. McCarthy, “The Steele Dossier and the ‘VERIFIED APPLICATION’ That Wasn’t“, National Review, May 18, 2019

Victor Davis Hanson, “He Did It, Not Me!“, American Greatness, May 19, 2019

Thomas Lifson, “Joe DiGenova Blows the Lid off the Real Scandal: The Russia Hoax Was a Cover-up Effort for Obama’s Political Spying since 2012“, American Thinker, May 28, 2019

Stephen F. Cohen, “How Did Russiagate Begin?“, The Nation, May 30, 2019

Jed Babbin, “Who Ran Crossfire Hurricane?“, The American Spectator, June 3, 2019

Margot Cleveland, “Why Did The Obama Administration Ignore Reports Of Russian Election Meddling?“, The Federalist, June 4, 2019

Jay Sekulow, “Obama Administration’s Anti-Trump Actions Revealed in Newly Disclosed Documents“, Fox News, June 25, 2019

Paul Sperry, “Justice Dept. Watchdog Has Evidence Comey Probed Trump, on the Sly“, RealClearInvestigations, July 22, 2019 (This supports my view that Comey was acting on his own, for his own reasons, and was at most a “useful idiot” for the concerted, Brennan-led effort to frame Trump.)

Jed Babbin, “The Comey-Brennan Conspiracy to Violate Trump’s Civil Rights“, The American Spectator, September 2, 2019 (Did Comey and Brennan conspire knowingly, or did Comey happen to act in ways that served Brennan’s conspiracy? We shall see — maybe.)

George Parry, “Michael Flynn Graymails the Government“, The American Spectator, September 16, 2019 (Will the FBI risk disclosure of its dirty tactics in its persecution of Michael Flynn? Flynn’s new lawyer thinks it won’t.)

Krystina Skurk, “Andrew McCarthy Unveils the Real Russia Collusion Narrative“, The Federalist, October 11, 2019

Michael Horowitz, Inspector General of the Department of Justice, “Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation“, December 9, 2019

Margot Cleveland, “IG Report Hints James Comey Was In On FBI’s FISA Misconduct“, The Federalist, December 20, 2019

Alan J. Favish, “The Horowitz Report: Yes, It Gets Worse“, American Thinker, December 22, 2019

Victor Davis Hanson, “Impeachment Fallouts“, National Review, December 31, 2019

James Re, “James Comey Focus of FBI Leak Investigation, Report Says“, Fox News, January 16, 2020 (This report, about which I have no doubts, doesn’t contradict my view that Comey was a useful idiot of the conspirators, who happened to advance the conspiracy while trying (a) to stay on Trump’s good side and (b) trying to undermine him after (a) failed.)

Paul R. Gregory, “Why Was the Steele Dossier Not Dismissed As a Fake?“, Defining Ideas, February 3, 2020

David Krayden, “Former NSC Chief: John Brennan Buried Evidence That Putin Actually Favored Hillary in 2016“, The Daily Caller, April 23, 2020

Susan Davis, “Explosive New Flynn Documents Show FBI’s Goal Was ‘To Get Him Fired’“, The Federalist, April 29, 2020

Chrissy Clark, “Christopher Steele Testifies Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice Knew about Anti-Trump Research“, The Federalist, April 29, 2020

Sean Davis, “BREAKING: FBI Closed Flynn Case, Dubbed ‘Crossfire Razor,’ In Early 2017, Until Strzok Ordered It To Stay Open“, The Federalist, April 30, 2020

Chuck Ross, “Text Messages Reveal Peter Strzok Intervened FBI’s Planned Closure of Michael Flynn Investigation“, The Daily Signal, April 30, 2020

Tristan Justice, “Comey Bragged About Violating FBI Policy To Ambush Flynn In Corrupt Setup“, The Federalist, April 30, 2020

Andrew C. McCarthy, “The FBI Set Flynn Up to Preserve the Trump–Russia Probe“, National Review, May 2, 2020

Neo, “John Brennan Again“, The New Neo, May 4, 2020

Margot Cleveland, “Your Guide to the Obama Administration’s Hit on Michael Flynn“, The Federalist, May 4, 2020

Mary Chastain, “DOJ Documents: Rosenstein Expanded Russia Probe Beyond Scope, Obama and Biden Knew Details From Flynn’s Wire-Tapped Calls“, Legal Insurrection, May 8, 2020

Mollie Hemingway, “Obama, Biden Oval Office Meeting On January 5 Was Key To Entire Anti-Trump Operation“, The Federalist, May 8, 2020

Margot Cleveland, “Why Did Obama Tell the FBI to Hide Its Activities from the Trump Administration?“, The Federalist, May 11, 2020

Francis Menton, “So What Was the Russia Hoax Really About?“, Manhattan Contrarian, May 11, 2020

Jeffrey Lord, “Obamagate“, The American Spectator, May 12, 2020

“Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”

Most Americans who graduated from high school before the mid-1960s — when patriotism was still a permissible attitude — would know that the man who said, famously, “give me liberty or give me death” was Patrick Henry. Henry said it at the end of his speech to the Second Virginia Convention on March 23, 1775. The speech convinced the convention to pass a resolution to provide troops for the Revolutionary War.

What Henry said applies with full force in today’s crucial moment, when the fearful are being goaded and coerced by state-worshipers into abandoning what is left of their liberty. The final sentences of Henry’s speech put today’s choice starkly:

What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

The difference between then and now is that the citizens of Virginia had on their side — the side of liberty — the stalwarts who adopted the resolution and put it into effect. Those stalwarts, in addition to Patrick Henry, included Richard Henry Lee (grandfather of “Light Horse Harry” Lee and great-grandfather of Robert E. Lee), Benjamin Harrison (father of future president William Henry Harrison and great-grandfather of future president Benjamin Harrison), Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington.

Where are their spiritual descendants today? I ask because there is much truth in a piece that is making its way around the internet:

When the State tells you it’s safe to go to The Home Depot to buy a sponge but it’s too dangerous to go to a florist and buy flowers—it’s not about your health.

When the State shuts down millions of private businesses but doesn’t lay off a single government employee—it’s not about your health.

When the State bans dentists because it’s unsafe, but deems abortion visits safe—it’s not about your health.

When the State prevents you from buying cucumber seeds because it’s too dangerous, but allows in-person lottery ticket sales—it’s not about your health.

When the State tells you it’s too dangerous to go golf alone, fish alone or be in a motorboat alone, but the Governor can get his stage make up done, and hair done for 5 TV appearances a week—it’s not about your health.

When the state puts you IN a jail cell for walking in a park with your child because it’s too dangerous but lets criminals OUT of jail cells for their health—it’s not about YOUR health!

When the state tells you it’s too dangerous to get treated by a doctor of chiropractic or physical therapy treatments yet deems a liquor store essential—it’s not about your health!

When the State lets you go to the grocery store or hardware store but is demanding mail-in voting, IT’S NOT ABOUT YOUR HEALTH.

Yes, there’s a good deal of conspiracy-minded paranoia behind sentiments like that. But the screed also points to a truth: Governments across this once-free nation are making dictatorial decisions that are harming tens of millions of Americans, socially and economically, instead of letting those Americans decide for themselves what risks to take. That is to say, Americans are being deprived of (more of) their liberty because of the possibility that a small fraction of them might die.

Reducing the small fraction to an even smaller one is the official excuse for inflicting economic and social devastation on Americans. What’s the truth of the matter? There are many truths:

1. Elected officials prefer to err on the side of caution — in the guise of “caring” for the health of their constituents — to guard against second-wave effects. Rightly or wrongly — and mostly wrongly — they suffer electoral consequences for things that go wrong when they are in office, even those things are unavoidable or have nothing to do with official actions.

2. Elected officials (and government employees generally) are insulated from the economic effects of lockdowns, and have no skin in the game. Moreover, most of them — especially in the central government, State governments, and governments of cities — mingle with and take their cues from information, media, and academic elites who likewise have no skin in the game. Thus their focus, according to #1, is keeping the death toll low.

3. The personal consequences of economic devastation, for the tens of millions of Americans who aren’t insulated from it, aren’t big news. The media instead plays up the consequences of the disease — debilitation and death — in keeping with its age-old tradition: If it bleeds, it leads.

4. The tens of millions of Americans who are suffering economically are represented by demonstrators (often armed) who are portrayed as “selfish” Walmartians. They are the present equivalent (for elite snobs) of Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables”. And Trump is the leading “deplorable” because of his “racist” insistence on calling a virus that originated in China the “China virus”.

5. To the extent that the destruction of small businesses and the nation’s soaring unemployment rate are news, they stand (somehow, in the mind of smug elites) as proof that the “Trump economy” was somehow phony.

6. Therefore, Trump is discredited and doesn’t deserve reelection. Especially because his early, optimistic pronouncements about COVID-19 somehow caused the federal bureaucracy (a.k.a. the deep state) and many State and local governments (mostly those run by Democrats) to respond inadequately to the pandemic.

All of this plays well, not only to the insiders who perpetrate it but also — and importantly — to the tens of millions of Americans who haven’t a clue about what it means to lose a business or a job because they are economically secure thanks to a government job (or other sinecure), retirement income (especially from a government source), parental support, or ample savings. Fear wins with them because they might die but aren’t going to suffer financially.

To look at it another way, in America the COVID-19 pandemic is another front in the culture war between “cosmopolitan elites” (and their cosseted sycophants) and “real people“.

It is also another way for the ruling classes (for that is what they are) to secure their economic and social dominance, as Joel Kotkin explains in “The Pandemic Road to Serfdom” (The American Mind, May 1, 2020):

Even before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, America, like most higher-income countries, was already heading toward a neo-feudal future: massive inequality, ever-greater concentrations of power, and increasingly widespread embrace of a uniform (albeit secular) religion. The pandemic, all too reminiscent of the great plagues of the Middle Ages, seems destined to accelerate this process….

[A]s jobs are destroyed on Main Street, others, like those at well-positioned Amazon, are created by the hundreds of thousands. It is also a rosy new dawn for online collaboration applications like Zoom, Google Hangouts, Facebook Rooms, Microsoft Teams, and Slack, the fastest-growing business app on record. Also greatly enhanced will be those who provide the infrastructure for the conquering digital economy, including chipmakers like Intel and cloud-computing behemoths like (yet again) Amazon and Microsoft.

The pandemic seems likely to further consolidate the tech industry shift from its garage-based startup past, with firms like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon increasingly resembling Japan’s long-dominant keiretsu. The pandemic may have squashed many new companies that are now short on capital. In contrast, the oligarchic firms, which control upwards of 80% of such key markets as search, social media, cloud computing, and computer operating systems, now enjoy an even greater edge in garnering ever more of the nation’s technical talent.

Ultimately the pandemic will provide the new elite with opportunities to gain control of a whole set of coveted industries, from entertainment and media to finance and space travel. Perhaps most concerning will be their ability to control all aspects of information as the last vestiges of local and small-town journalism face Covid-driven “extinction level” events. What is now left of the “legacy” media—the Atlantic, Time, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times—has fallen increasingly under their control. Nine of the 13 richest people under age 40 are in the tech industry: the odds are favorable that the new elite will maintain their control over information for generations….

In contrast, the pandemic has proven an utter disaster for much of the Third Estate [the “commoners”]. The most evident damage can be seen at the malls, or on Main Street, where millions of small firms have been forced to close and, at least in some locations, may be forced to stay locked down for many more months….

In the aftermath of the lockdowns, small independent firms will be harder-pressed to compete against larger competitors with better access to capital and better positioning to wait out the pandemic. In the coming months, we might see many of our favorite local gyms and bars, or taco stands and family-owned Chinese restaurants, replaced by either online options or larger chains….

With the yeomanry thundering mostly from the Right, the protests of “essential” blue-collar workers could help boost the socialist cause. Roughly half of American households have no emergency savings and face an uncertain future as jobs disappear. A new class of ex-workers now finds the dole a more amenable or viable option than hard and dangerous work for relatively low pay. Bernie Sanders may have lost the nomination, but the message he ran on is amplified at a time when soup kitchens, as during the Depression, are now serving New York artists, writers, and musicians. The pandemic will likely increase the strong socialist tendency among both millennials and the successor Z generation….

Ultimately … disorder [born of joblessness] threatens the power of both the oligarchs and the clerisy. Their likely response may be embracing what I call “oligarchal socialism,” where the very notion of work disappears in favor of a regime of cash allotments. This notion of providing what Marx called “proletarian alms,” widely supported in Silicon Valley, could prove a lasting legacy of the pandemic. This is how Rome, as slaves replaced the middle orders, kept its citizenry in line, and how the Medieval order in times of economic stress relied on the charitable efforts of the Church.

The virus that now dominates our daily lives may soon begin to slowly fade, but it will have a deep, protracted impact on our society and class structure. Covid-19 will likely leave us with conditions that more resemble feudalism than anyone could have imagined just a few years ago.

As Rahm Emanuel, then Obama’s chief-of-staff-in-waiting, said during the financial crisis of late 2008,

You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.

What that means now, in addition to the entrenchment of the ruling oligarchy, is probably a permanent expansion of governmental power. As with the New Deal and Great Society, the current wave of handouts has engorged the rolls of those who depend on government and look to it (mostly in vain) for “solutions” to whatever problems seem beyond their (government-enfeebled) ability to solve through private action. And, “deplorables” aside, government’s role as nagging nanny (however incompetent) has been reinforced, and will be exploited to a fare-thee-well.

That’s what the mere possibility of death has done to liberty in the year 2020 A.D.

Other related reading:

F.H. Buckley, “What’s at Risk in Redivided America?“, The American Spectator, May 9, 2020

Wendell Cox, “Majority of COVID-19 Deaths in Nursing Homes: New Report“, newgeography, May 12, 2020

Dov Fischer, “A Time to Hate“, The American Spectator, May 11, 2020

Daniel Horowitz, “Simple Arithmetic Demonstrates that the Epidemic, outside Nursing Homes, Is Essentially Over“, Conservative Review, May 7, 2020

Arnold Kling, “The Future That We Won’t Have“, askblog, May 10, 2020

Francis Menton, “Why Are Government Employees Supposedly Immune to Layoffs?“, Manhattan Contrarian, May 6, 2020

Norbert Michel, “1% of Counties Home to Half of COVID-19 Cases, Over Half of Deaths“, The Daily Signal, May 12, 2020

Dave Middleton, “‘Predictive Models’ Rarely Are Predictive“, Watts Up With That?, May 8, 2020

Dave Middleton, “Lockdown Fail in One Easy Graph“, Watts Up With That?, May 12, 2020

Wilfred Reilly, “The Lockdowns Still Aren’t Working“, Spiked, May 8, 2020

Believe Some Persons

Democrats don’t really “believe all women”, at least insofar as the women in question are claiming that they have been sexually assaulted by Democrat politicians. First, there was Bill Clinton. Now, there is Joe Biden. It follows that women are to be believed only when they accuse Republican office-seekers, or persons nominated to office by Republicans.

The foregoing is obvious and has been noted many times by conservative writers. So I won’t dwell on it here.

What I want to know is why women should be believed automatically in the first place. Is there something about women that causes them to utter the truth unfailingly? Are women in fact less prone to lying than men? The evidence is mixed — if you can call psychological studies “evidence”. And we know what such studies are worth, which is to say not much.

There are some reasons to believe a person unreservedly; for example:

The person isn’t trying to sell you something, where the something might be a used car, a house, or a story that will advance that person’s interest (including revenge against particular person of class of persons).

You have known that person for a very long time and have never known the person to attempt deception, other than to tell a “white lie” to spare another person’s feelings (e.g., you’re not fat) or to get a child to do the right thing (e.g., Santa Claus is watching you).

You are engaged in a business relationship with the person and it is a sure thing that he will suffer financially if he is being less than honest about his side of the deal.

Accusations of sexual assault don’t fit the bill, unless you know have known the accuser for a long time and trust her (or him) because of her (or his) record of veracity. But accusations should be taken seriously and investigated.

As for Christine Blasey Ford: Her story was incredible from the beginning because of its vagueness, lack of corroboration, her known animus toward conservatives, and Brett Kavanaugh’s track record with respect to women.

As for Tara Reade: Her story isn’t incredible because of its specificity, partial corroboration, Read’s long-standing political views (a rather left-wing Democrat), and Joe Biden’s track record with respect to women.

But I am withholding judgement about Reade’s story — unlike most Democrats (who refuse to credit it) and too many Republicans (who are eager to believe it).

Is a Perfect Electoral Storm Brewing?

The storm that I have in mind is one that sweeps the board for the GOP in November. What might its ingredients be? Here’s my non-exhaustive list:

THE ECONOMY

An economic recovery that is largely limited to States governed by Republicans, while States controlled by Democrats continue to flounder.

A quick, nationwide economic recovery, including a stock-market rally and the rehiring of millions of workers.

DEMOCRAT POLITICS

Solid evidence supporting Tara Reade’s claims about Joe Biden.

AND/OR

A rancorous Democrat convention which, at least, leaves Biden badly damaged and results in the abstention of Bernie supporters in November, and which saddles Biden with a VP candidate who will drive away independent voters (e.g., Stacey Abrams).

A pre-convention deal that allows Biden to withdraw gracefully (though not without shame) and substitutes a more dynamic and less tainted candidate who has his own baggage (e.g., Cuomo and his failure to protect nursing homes from COVID-19).

SPYGATE (A.K.A. RUSSIAGATE)

The indictment of senior officials (e.g., John Brennan, Susan Rice, James Comey) of the Obama administration on charges related to Spygate (e.g., obstruction of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice, filing false claims with the FISA court, perjury).

AND A CLINCHER

The inclusion of a thinly disguised Barack Obama as an “unnamed” conspirator in the indictment.

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

The collapse of Iran’s regime.

AND/OR

An attempt by Iran’s regime to disrupt the flow of oil from the Middle East that is met with prompt, devastating, and decisive action by the U.S.

AND/OR

The death or overthrow of Kim.

AND/OR

Conclusive evidence of China’s malfeasance in the COVID-19 pandemic.

There must be a lot more, but that will do for a start.

Lockdown or Re-open?

UPDATED 05/03/20

Why are governments forcing businesses to close, costing tens of millions of jobs at least temporarily (and millions permanently), thus causing unemployment compensation claims to soar while tax revenues drop, and therefore causing some states to verge on bankruptcy, while also inflating unemployment compensation payouts and thereby making many workers reluctant to return to work even if they could? Nowhere mentioned in that breathless litany are the social and economic effects of lockdowns and job losses on families, friendships, social circles, etc., etc., etc.

The comfortable and fearful — a set that contains mostly leftists, who tend to be more affluent and more neurotic than the “deplorables” whom they disdain — are wont to worry about the consequence of re-opening “too soon” (i.e., before they are personally affected by lockdowns). That consequence, of course, is the possibility that the rate of COVID-19 infections and deaths will rise rather than fall to zero.

But so what? Suppose that a doctor — of all people — were to reopen his practice, tell patients that he will take every reasonable precaution to shield them from infection, require them to take similar precautions, have them sign releases holding him harmless should they later be found to have contracted COVID-19. Wouldn’t you go to that doctor if you needed to, rather than have him try to diagnose you telemedically? I would.

The same kinds of protocols could be followed by businesses of all kinds, and followed not only with respect to customers but also employees. Aren’t there tens of millions of citizens who would rather shop and work in the real world rather than in the virtual world? There certainly are tens of millions who would rather go to work instead of collecting unemployment compensation and watching their savings dwindle (if they have any to begin with). Moreover, the protocols could be backed by State governments granting to employers immunity from criminal and civil prosecutions if they follow specified procedures and all parties execute standard forms.

Why are governments preventing citizens from taking reasonable, informed risks so that the affluent and neurotic can sleep more easily — and enjoy watching frustrated “deplorables” protest in vain? Oh, that’s it. The suffering of “deplorables” given pleasure to leftists (e.g., this), and they’re in charge in too many places.

Which just goes to show, once again, that there’s no such thing as a social-welfare function. How can the pleasure gained by leftists possibly offset the pain they are causing to tens of millions of real Americans?

P.S. Jay Cost elaborates on the tension between the “haves” and the rest of us. The “haves” keep lecturing the rest of us to think of others. But it’s they who aren’t thinking of others; they’re only thinking of themselves. Well, if they don’t want to be exposed to COVID-19, they can just shelter in place while everyone else makes the economy work for the benefit of them (i.e., the “haves”).

My blue-collar roots are showing.

Oh, That Deep State

Andrew McCarthy argues, convincingly, that General Flynn was set up so that the plot to remove Trump from office could proceed unimpeded:

The objective of the Obama administration and its FBI hierarchy was to continue the Trump–Russia investigation, even after President Trump took office, and even though President Trump was the quarry. The investigation would hamstring Trump’s capacity to govern and reverse Obama policies. Continuing it would allow the FBI to keep digging until it finally came up with a crime or impeachable offense that they were then confident they would find. Remember, even then, the bureau was telling the FISA court that Trump’s campaign was suspected of collaborating in Russia’s election interference. FBI brass had also pushed for the intelligence community to include the Steele dossier — the bogus compendium of Trump–Russia collusion allegations — in its report assessing Russia’s meddling in the campaign.

But how could the FBI sustain an investigation targeting the president when the president would have the power to shut the investigation down?

The only way the bureau could pull that off would be to conceal from the president the fullness of the Russia investigation — in particular, the fact that Trump was the target.

That is why Flynn had to go….

… The former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency knew how the spy agencies worked. He knew where and how they kept secrets. He had enough scars from tangles with the intelligence bureaucracy that he knew how the game was played — how intelligence officials exploited information, or selectively withheld it.

… After 33 years in the Army chain of command, the decorated former combat commander grasped that the FBI, like other executive-branch components, worked for the president. As NSA, Flynn would ensure that Trump ran the intelligence agencies, not be run by them. If Flynn wanted to know what was going on in intelligence investigations, he’d be able to find out — he wouldn’t take Jim Comey’s “no” for an answer. He was loyal to Trump, not to the intelligence establishment or the “policy community.” And he was White House staff, not a cabinet appointee — i.e., he did not have to wait interminably on an iffy Senate confirmation; he would be on the job from the very first moments of the new administration, getting his arms around what the executive branch intelligence apparatus was up to….If no way could be found to sideline Flynn (the way Attorney General Jeff Sessions would later be sidelined), then Flynn was going to find out about Crossfire Hurricane. He was going to be a hands-on NSA, so that was a given.

From there, McCarthy explains in detail how Flynn was set up. Here’s the bottom line:

In sum, the FBI could create a scenario in which (a) Flynn might be subject to prosecution, (b) there could be grounds for terminating him, and (c) he would surely be seen as too conflicted about Russia to be made privy to details of the bureau’s Trump–Russia investigation.

The text messages and notes disclosed in the last week show that not everyone was comfortable with this plan. Bill Priestap, the counterintelligence chief, expressed deep misgivings. The objective of the plan seemed unclear, even improper: Were they trying to advance an investigation in good faith, or just “get [Flynn] to lie so we can prosecute him or get him fired?” Why were they not going to refresh Flynn’s recollection with the recording or a transcript, as the FBI would do with similarly situated interviewees? Why did the bureau think it needed to be so “aggressive” with Flynn?

Strzok and Page fretted in text messages on Monday, January 23, that Priestap was not getting the picture. His protests were irking McCabe. By Tuesday morning, a few hours before the January 24 interview, the deputy director was even more frustrated because Priestap had repeated his concerns to Director Comey. If Comey wavered, the plan could be scotched.

The director did not waver. The FBI’s top officials met at headquarters. Comey approved the plan to have Strzok and agent Joe Pientka visit Flynn at his office — no heads-up to others at the White House would be provided. McCabe was to call Flynn to arrange the meeting, assisted by Strzok in thinking through what to tell the NSA. The idea was to put Flynn at ease — make him feel like it would just be a chat between veteran national-security guys, not a criminal investigation; discourage Flynn from getting a lawyer; disabuse him of any thought of involving the White House counsel or chief-of-staff. Just a quick meeting so they could put to rest all this Russia noise in the media. No big deal.

The rest is history.

There’s only one aspect of this narrative that changes my view of the conspiracy: Comey’s role as a co-conspirator. I had maintained that he was merely a useful tool who was pursuing his own vindictive agenda. I am now prepared to include him as full partner in the conspiracy, at least in its post-election phase.

At any rate, see “Obamagate (a.k.a. Spygate and Russiagate)” for a concise summary of the plot and a long list of related reading.

Contagion Nation?

The coronavirus outbreak in the United States is of a piece with the steady rise in influenza cases over the past 13 years, which is the period for which CDC maintains tallies of flu tests and test results.

Here are some raw statistics, representing weekly results since the 40th week of 1997:

The rate of positive tests has remained steady since 1997, with a slight upward bump coincident with the swine flu epidemic of 2009-2010:

The steadiness of the positive-test percentage suggests that the presence of flu-like symptoms was just as likely to have prompted testing in 1997 as in 2020. Another way to put it is that the first graph accurately represents a steady rise in the occurrence of flu-like symptoms in the population.

This can be seen in the following graph:

Despite the fairly stable incidence of positive tests, the number of positive tests has grown far more rapidly than the population of the U.S.

The bottom line: Americans have become increasingly prone to contract flu-like illnesses. Though the increase can’t be explained by the overall rise in the country’s population, it is probably due in part to greater population density in urban areas. It is probably also due in part to the weakening of immune systems relative to the ability of viruses to mutate.

It is possible that influenza won’t be as prevalent in the future as more Americans take precautions against contagion in the wake of COVID-19. But memories are short, and precautions are easily cast aside when the world seems to have returned to normal. So I expect that in a few years the incidence of flu will resume its long-term rise.

Ain’t It the Truth?

I’m reading Charles Murray’s Human Diversity, which I mention here. (It’s a book that leftists will hate, even though they won’t read it, just as they hated The Bell Curve without having read it.)

The following passage is consistent with my up-close and personal observations of women, which span more than six decades:

In the psychological literature, rumination refers to thoughts, typically autobiographical, that a person mentally rehearses over and over, usually not productively. When they are negative thoughts, rumination amounts to brooding. Taken to an extreme, rumination can become depression. In the 1990s, Susan Nolen-Hoeksema led several studies establishing that women were more likely than men to ruminate, particularly in response to negative events. In the early 2000s, two studies using brain imaging established a biological basis for those findings…. The finding in both studies was that males quickly became habituated to a stimulus—the response in the amygdala decreased rapidly after the first few exposures—whereas it persisted among women. In 2013, researchers at the Harvard Medical School (Joseph Andreano was the first author) tested whether this pattern replicated for both positive and negative stimuli. It did not. As in previous studies, men showed higher amygdala activity for novel stimuli than women no matter whether the stimulus was negative, neutral, or positive. For familiar positive stimuli, men again had a higher response than women. But when it came to negative stimuli, men quickly habituated while women continued to show substantial amygdala activity even after repeated exposure. The difference was large enough that it reached statistical significance despite the small sample size.

Now recall the table in chapter 2 that showed the prevalence of personality disorders by sex. Men had higher incidence rates on the autism spectrum, conduct disorders, ADHD, and schizophrenia, among others. Women had higher prevalence on another set, including three that involve rumination: major depression, generalized anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The findings I have just summarized point to a sex difference both in the intensity of initial reaction to negative stimuli and in the persistence of that reaction, which in turn point to a difference in rumination.

Amen. The world-class worriers-brooders-haters whom I have known were (and are) women.

Why the UBI Is a Bad Idea

There are many reasons to oppose a universal basic income — a guaranteed stipend to be granted to every adult American citizen (or person regardless of age, or resident regardless of citizenship). I won’t enumerate all of the reasons, when one should be enough:

1. Almost every adult citizen (even including many with sever mental or physical handicaps) is capable of producing something of value for others.

2. A UBI is a disincentive to work, that is, to produce.

3. A UBI would nevertheless given its recipients a claim on the output of others.

4. Ergo: a smaller “pie” (total output), shares of which would be given to persons who had no hand in making the “pie” (or less of a hand than would otherwise be the case), and shares of which would therefore be taken from persons who actually had a hand in making the “pie”.

UBI is just another kind of government-enforced form of charity, which — like other forms — disincentivizes work (among beneficiaries and taxpayers alike) and reduces economic output. It also disincentivizes private charity.

Private charity actually incentivizes work (on the part of givers) because it is one of the ends that is served by work, along with affording the necessities and luxuries of life for oneself and one’s family. Private charity is also less likely to disincentivize work by its beneficiaries because it can be more easily aimed at those who need it in order to be capable of work (basic shelter, food, clothing, etc.), and can be tied to the actual performance of work (e.g., Goodwill Industries).

Scrooge, before his conversion to soft-headedness, was right about workhouses. Ironically, they were government-run institutions that had it right: charity in the form of gainful, productive employment. But then charity became a right, and the rest is history.

As the old saying goes, a hand up is better than a handout. Or, as another one goes, give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.

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