Maddow, Mueller and the dems push a dare at McConnell

First announcements: On December 18, my friend Robert Kuhn became only the second American to receive the China ReformFriendship Medal, said to be China’s highest award; it was given by President Xi Jinping and Chinese leaders at the 40^th anniversary of 'opening up' in the Great Hall of the People.  Robert is also the host of the future-oriented TV series Closer toTruth, that had me on for topics ranging from SETI to philosophy of science, religion, ESP to human destiny in the cosmos.  See his optimistic appraisal of the likelihood of a positive deal with China over matters like state subsidies and IP protection.

Alas, the PRC is now pushing an initiative for Trump to get crowing points over what doesn't matter -the trade deficit - to distract from what does matter, theft of he West's innovation and invention. And hence -- this is by far the most important article you can read about China's leadership caste, by an Australian diplomat/journalist of immense insight. Join the site (free) in order to read it. Follow this with my own insights, which dovetail with Garnaut's, about Chinese PRC mythologies about central planning and AI. More on this at the end.

And scroll down for links to my latest podcasts.

== An open letter to Rachel Maddow… ==

Dear Ms. Maddow,

Now that your ratings have surpassed Sean Hannity’s, may I offer a suggestion? One that could both devastate Fox and spur another ratings boost for you? It’s simple: challenge Hannity to exchange rebuttal segments! Offer him 2 minutes, three times a week, if he’ll reciprocate.

First, it would be a profound statement of confidence that you are the one with facts on your side. 

Second, Hannity and his Fox masters know your mere six-minutes-per-week on Fox would be far more deadly to them, hence they will refuse! Whereupon you can call “chicken!” (Note: Fox led the charge to end the old version of the Rebuttal Rule: I wonder why?) 

If you had done this in the past, Ol’ Sean (or O’Reilly) would sneer “She’s trying to chase our ratings.” Now you can say – with a sly wink - “I’m taking pity on a failing competitor.”

If they accept, you’d torch Fox to the ground, in just 360 seconds. (It’s also one way to get Donald Trump to watch some of your stuff.) But far more important would be spreading the concept of rebuttal, even challenging opponents to wagers, and the thing that terrifies the Murdochians most… the very notion of “fact.” 

Which is why they now wage war on every single fact-using profession, from scientists, teachers, journalists, doctors, economists, civil servants and skilled labor...all the way to the professionals in the FBI, intelligence agencies and Military Officer Corps, whom the cult now derides as "deep state" monsters. (More on this, below.)

Yes, you’d have to be short and punchy. I could offer some one-line zingers. But it won’t come to that. They’ll refuse, in desperate panic. So the only thing you’ll have to say is: “Chicken! B’b’bkaw!”

== What Mueller is really targeting ==

I predicted it will all turn out to be about money laundering. This article by Michael HIrsch - How Russian Money Helped Save Trump's Business -   begins your education about what will soon be emerging as much bigger than anything so far: “in the aftermath of Trump’s earlier financial troubles" (three bankruptcies that stiffed his U.S. creditors) “he could not get anybody in the United States to lend him anything. It was all coming out of Russia.” Officially, his comeback was financed by two German lenders, Deutsche Bank and Bayerische Vereinsbank. But the EU is sifting the former, tracing vast flows of Russian money from Putin allies.

Seriously, don’t skim this. Each paragraph makes clear it’s worse than you thought. Then it gets worse. Then it goes downhill. And somewhere along the way, it stopped being about “deals” or even a “swamp” and almost certainly became about leverage, even blackmail.

“Russian efforts either to recruit somebody as an asset or effectively coerce them into becoming an asset historically typically rely on compromise of either a financial nature or a sexual nature,” said David Kris, a former assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. And no, a "pee tape" would not suffice.

Find someone, anywhere, who was talking about "leadership subornation" and "blackmail as a war weapon" in the 1990s.

== Democrats pick (almost) the right first priority ==

Yes, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) nailed it with #WheresMitch? This was not Trump's Shut Down! He can't veto a government re-start that doesn't reach his desk. This is all stage managed by Putin's real asset in the U.S. Mitch McConnell. (Lefty or not, I'm starting to think AOC may be more than just faddish hype. Pace yourself. But you go.)

As for legislating? The Democrats’ HR1 anti-corruption bill is a litany of desperately needed reforms… their equivalent of a “Contract With America” that I wish were sold half as well as that historic work of razzle-dazzle. 

Every one of HR1's many component measures would help restore American democracy and vastly improve accountability. We might quibble or negotiate this or that. But the intent of almost every measure is to restrict or eliminate cheating, from demanding paper ballots to prevent tampering and easier voter registration to applying pressure against gerrymandering (yes, even in Blue States like Maryland); from demanding transparency of large political donors to insisting presidents and candidates release their tax returns and restricting “emoluments; from keeping congressfolk off corporate boards to transparency in the “swamp” of lobbying. 

And yes, this utterly refutes any jerk out there who says “the parties are the same.”

DP leaders are right to prioritize these matters ahead of the things the party’s left salivates-for, like “Medicare for All.” Those desiderata should win or lose based on the merits of their case! But that case can never be made, so long as cheating (set up by a whole generation of Republican shysters like Dennis “friend to boys” Hastert and Mitch McConnell) prevails. My only complaints are:

1) Even more important than electoral and ethics reform is re-establishing the very concept of “fact” in American life. The core element of today's confederate cult is to wage war on every single fact-using profession, from scientists, teachers, journalists, doctors, economists, civil servants and skilled labor...all the way to the professionals in the FBI, intelligence agencies and Military Officer Corps, whom the cult now derides as "deep state" monsters. This pattern is perfect and utterly damning. And my FACT Act proposes 12 measures that might end the War on Fact.

2) McConnell’s corrupt GOP Senate majority will ignore HR1, of course. So the House should start sending over the provisions one-by-one, daring every Republican Senator to specifically oppose each, individually. A dozen or so of these goppers will have to find one or two to support… they might do so together, for their own electoral survival… and McConnell may decide to let Trump take the heat, with his veto pen. Fine, this a ground game of yards.

3) Add a measure demanding that all of a president's foreign meetings be witnessed by trustworthy US officials. (See below.)

== Transparency, liberty… and blockchain… ==

I’ve been featured on several libertarian-themed podcasts, lately. This one, sponsored by AEI (American Enterprise Institute) and hosted by Jim Pethokoukis, focused on surveillance, transparency and the future of freedom. I challenge preconceptions, garrulously, of course. And it is always good to help sinners regain both light and loyalty to the Enlightenment.

Another is the “CoinSpice” podcast where I’m interviewed about blockchain, autonomous “semi-AI algorithms” already roaming the web, and advice for a new generation of “ICO” coin hotshots to stay out of jail.

How is it that I give so many interviews or speak at so many libertarian events, when they know I will poke hard at the mistaken directions taken by this once-promising movement? Two reasons. First, I think the underlying themes of individualism and liberty are important enough to try weaning these fellows off the current fad of oligarchy-worship. (Forbes and Koch have spent many millions, subsidizing orgs like Cato and AEI to achieve this hypnosis, kicking aside the once-important word “competition” in favor of idolatry of property.)

Second, they keep inviting me! Of all the political factions on today’s landscape, only libertarians seem passionately interested (well, some of them) in being challenged and facing tough questioning. And yes, I challenge.

==  Finally... Donald Trump, don't eat! ==

We’ve all seen reasons to oppose any further Trump private meetings with communist or ex-communist or mafia foreign leaders. First, nothing good ever came of it — and they stink of being blatant de-briefing sessions, issuing fresh orders to Putin’s agent. But there’s an added reason why Two Scoops should give up this filthy habit. Self-preservation. 

He still views himself (delusionally) as an Adonis. But Putin sees an asset turning into a liability, serving to unify the Union side of this civil war that Vlad cleverly helped Rupert to ignite. There comes a point where mafia dons start thinking cement overshoes, and how much more useful their raving “asset” would be, as a martyr. 

Close your eyes. Picture a silky-smooth President Pence reassuring and luring-back some of the officer corps, while riling the 33% confederates into fury over martyred dear-leader Trump. 

Fer crying out loud Donald, when you are with Kim DON’T EAT ANYTHING! Yes, you imagine it is only liberals and western-civilization types and smartypants who have it in for you, and despots are your pals. But remember how rapacious you were, in business, and consider that you may have outlasted your usefulness to your best pals. (God bless the US Secret Service. Pay them!)

Now consider how stupid this plausible scenario actually makes Don and the dons. He won’t be careful, thinking he’s still valuable to them. And they won’t consider the long range, lethal consequences. That there is nothing Mike Pence prays for, daily, more than - absolutely literally - the End of the World. 

The Fact Act - Restoring Science Integrity

- I'm asked to get specific. 

"All right, Brin, you're convincing that there's an all-out war against facts and all fact-using professions, from science, journalism and teaching to the FBI and Officer Corps. But what can we do about it?"

I've spoken on this at Google and Facebook, at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and many other places where there's rising concern over what seems to be a concerted campaign not only against those professions -- (see Shawn Otto's The War on Science and Tom Nichols's book The Death of Expertise) -- but against even the notion that there's such a thing as Objective Reality! That anything is testable or provable.

Mind you, this stab at the heart of enlightenment civilization won't be blunted by corporate or government action, alone. One-by-one, we must sway our fellow citizens to forego the drug high of incantations and assertions, returning instead to the adult art of pragmatic negotiation.

But law and politics can play a role!  And so -- suppose we get a Congress that's willing to push back against idiocracy. What item should be number one on its 'contract' or to-do list? How about ending the War on Facts?

I wrote the following at the request of the Internet Caucus of the recent convention in San Diego, of the California Democratic Party. It is posted in full on my website here.

== Ending the tyranny of lies and liars... without a "Ministry of Truth" ==

The "Fact Act" will help restore access to useful and confirmable information for public officials, politicians and citizens. Rather than establishing some suspect "Ministry of Truth,"¹ this legislation will encourage systems that use diversity, competition and grownup adversarial methods, helping leaders and the public to parse lies and distractions from assertions that are supported by strong evidence.²

Under the Fact Act, Congress will:

ONE: Restore the nonpartisan Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), shut down in the Gingrich era.³ Protect the Congressional Budget Office and Government Accountability Office. Take measures to ensure that scientific processes in government agencies will be both subject to critical accountability and liberated from partisan political pressures.

TWO: Restore full funding and staffing to the executive Office of Science and Technology Policy (OTSP). This bill further requires that the President must fill, by law, the position of White House Science Adviser from a diverse and bipartisan slate of qualified candidates offered by the Academy of Science, and the Academy will choose one, if the president does not. The Science Adviser shall have uninterrupted access to the President for at least two one-hour sessions per month.⁴

THREE: Each member of Congress shall be summoned to choose, from his or her home district, two advisers: one a scientist and one a statistician, funded to counsel the member on matters of verifiable fact, and to take press or public questions referred to them by the member. They will not opine on political issues, only upon the degree to which assertions are supported by factual evidence.

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Likely effects? (a) Congress-members will no longer be able to shrug off fact/scientific questions with "I’m not a scientist." (b) Any member's refusal to appoint these advisers will be an implicit insult to the member's home district, implying she or he could find no one qualified.

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FOUR: These congressional advisers — scientists and statisticians — shall gather a shadow "Fact Congress" (FC) twice a year to supervise the restored OTA and OSTP and ensure nonpartisan professionalism. Eclectic diversity and potent minority input will ensure there is no "Ministry of Truth."

Without usurping Congressional authority over policy and confirmations, the FC will question top scientific appointees regarding grasp of important concepts in their field, e.g., ability to clearly describe factual disputes and forecast potential policy outcomes and tradeoffs, including levels of uncertainty.

If more than one quarter of Senators or Representatives submit a question to the Fact Congress, the FC will respond with advice according to best available models. Congress-members may bring their FC advisers to House or Senate committee hearings and may charge them to form ad-hoc shadow committees, to assist with explications of fact.

FIVE: The Fact Act must restore the media Rebuttal Rule, prying open "echo chamber" propaganda mills. Any channel or station using airwaves or accepting advertising will be required to offer five minutes per day during prime time and ten minutes at other times to reputable adversaries chosen by Competitive Argument Societies (CAS) that are approved by one quarter of the members of the Fact Congress.⁵

Example: If the 25% most-conservative members of the FC approve the 'Herbert Hoover Competitive Argument Society,' then HHCAS may send a rebuttal spokesmen to MSNBC, tackling Rachel Maddow. A CAS chosen by the most liberal 1/4 of the Fact Congress will get rebuttal time on Fox.

Rebuttals shall feature under-banners offering links for more details... plus links to refutation of the rebuttal, or else to fact-debates offered by pairs of competing CAS.⁶

Any channel or station not using the airwaves or accepting advertising that nevertheless engages in avid political polemic, with the intent to influence electoral outcomes, will be required to offer — at intervals &md a small link, in one corner, that the viewer can use (or not) to access counter-arguments, or else to track the sources of both the channel’s assertions and funding.

SIX: Under auspices of the Fact Congress, Competitive Argument Societies (CAS) and other entities will be offered infrastructure and encouragement to engage in public debates over policy or else disputations over fact. Fact disputations will argue matters of verifiable or falsifiable evidence, aiming to narrow — but never eliminate — uncertainties and to target specific questions meriting further study. Amateur or non-credentialed participation will be encouraged.

SEVEN: Whistleblower protections will be upgraded to encourage early/discreet problem solving within institutions, and later (if necessary) protection of whistleblowers who feel they are unfairly repressed by their own institution. By offering a scaled sequence of safe and secure steps, the Fact Act will encourage first self-reform, but ultimately the adversarial discovery of cleansing truth.

EIGHT: To encourage the establishment of a wide variety of competing, credible fact-checking services, Congress will appoint a commission of sages from all parties, starting with the former presidents and retirees from the Supreme Court and top federal appeals courts, along with other eminent Americans with unimpeachable reputations. Among the duties of this panel will be to issue findings when a fact-checking service is accused of "partisanship."

NINE: Under the 13th and 14th Amendments, this act requires that states mandating Voter ID requirements must offer substantial and effective compliance assistance, helping affected citizens to acquire their entitled legal ID and register to vote. Any state that fails to provide such assistance, substantially reducing the fraction of eligible citizens turned away at the polls, shall be assumed in violation of equal protection and engaged in illegal voter suppression.

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Corporations demand compliance assistance when government imposes new regulations. So, why can’t poor folks get help to comply with voter ID laws? If a state does this, then its demand for Voter ID might be sincere. Alas, not one red state allocates a cent to help poor citizens, elderly, the young, or divorced women comply with onerous new restrictions on franchisement. Most have moved to close DMV offices in counties where many Democrats live! (Why do no Democrats make this point? Opposing voter ID leaves Democrats open to accusations of excusing cheaters, but denouncing the GOP's corporate-citizen "compliance assistance hypocrisy" is a clear win.)

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TEN: Congressional committees and procedures will be reformed so that members will be free to negotiate as individuals, with less power vested in the majority leaders to control legislation. Each member — whether in the majority or minority — will have authority to issue one subpoena per year, compelling adversarial testimony before a congressional committee of his or her choosing for as long as five hours, so that the minority will always be able to question the party in power. These member subpoenas will have priority over those issued by committee chairs.

ELEVEN: The seventy-three Inspectors General of federal departments and agencies shall be brought under an independent office of the Inspector General of the United States (IGUS), whose appointment must be ratified by the council of sages (see SEVEN) as well as the Senate. IGUS officers shall be commissioned, uniformed, trained and held to quasi-military standards of discretion, honesty and meticulous devotion to law.

TWELVE: This act directs the administration to negotiate treaties extending transparency, accountability and truth worldwide.

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endnotes

1. The "Ministry of Truth" Orwellian accusation will surely be trotted-out , it must be prepared-for.

2. This principle underlies our competitive, fact-using arenas: markets, democracy, science and justice courts. We know how to do this.

3. Even Republican appointees on OTA kept demurring from GOP dogma, saying "That's just not true," so it was eliminated.

4. Donald Trump is the first President since Truman not to fill this post. Evidently, even far-right candidates like David Gelernter made the mistake of saying to him: "I'll tell you, when something is clearly false." That was, apparently, unacceptable.

5. This "one quarter" provision ensures there can be no accusation of majority bullying or "voting on facts."

6. Again, emphasizing the competitive nature of these measures will stymie accusations of a "Ministry of Truth" or "free speech repression."