Will the Supremes Dump Donald? And the Doctorow Doctrine on AI

So now there's speculation that the U.S. Supreme Court might back up Colorado and disqualify Trump, by saying 'it's up to each state.' I am skeptical. In fact, there's just one way that could happen....

... and that would be if Thomas, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and especially John Roberts get orders to do so, from the oligarchy that they serve. 

Why would the oligarch masters order such a hit on Trump, the best asset they ever had? Their greatest tool promoting neo-feudalism vs. against the American Enlightenment Experiment?

Two reasons based on two possibilities. 

It could happen either ...

(a) ...if Trump is losing big, if Trump seems on the verge of torching their main weapon against modernity, the Republican Party... 

...or else ...

(b) ...if he wins, bigtime! Whereupon he keeps his declared word and then goes full brownshirt, exactly as he's now promising! Whereupon - as at the end of Cabaret or in The Manchurian Candidate - the oligarchs realize too late that they can no longer control their tool. And he'll rampage through the aristocracy that nurtured him, the way Hitler did.

Either way, they lose! So yeah, they are talking about dumping him. But how? His MAGA/confederate/brownshirt popularity means that no pliably-controlled 'mainstream' tool, like Nikki Haley, will come to the rescue. 

So what are the Masters' options? 

Here I'll speculate, starting with a question...

... what is the consensus aim of the world oligarchic putsch? Is there still a common goal among the casino mafiosi, hedge moguls, carbon lords/sheiks, prepper fetishists, inheritance brats and "ex"-commissar "former"-stalinists in the slightly-relabeled KGB?

1. The goal may still be utter demolition of the American-led Enlightenment, that blocks any return to 6000 years of inheritance-based rule by lords, kings and priests. This has been their project for 30 years, already, by inciting a hot new phase of the recurring, 240 year US Civil War. 

Certainly many of the Prepper fetishists and sheiks dream of an "Event" tearing down the USA. 

Only now one sees signs that some of the smarter oligs are staring to reconsider this risky gamble, this killing of the goose that laid all their golden eggs.

Alas, despite tome recent defections, there's still a LOT of money and power dedicated to this all-or-nothing gamble. And the core of this scheme remains, as for 106 years, in Moscow.

Sure, the 'former' commie Putinists look like they are weakening, in Ukraine. Still, they are the ones holding masses of blackmail kompromat on prominent westerners, especially most of the high goppers. So, Putin remains the putative leader of those who want an America in flames. And again... he has the blackmail files on hundreds, including likely Supreme Court 'justices.' (See links* below.)

If that goal truly remains the oligarchy's consensus, then the thing they'll want to do with Trump is obvious! 

Martyrdom. 

The 'Howard Beale' option, in such a way as to blame lib'ruls and incite a tsunami of Timothy McVeighs - and much more - across our land.

2. What if the goal is to salvage something of a Republican Party that they can still control, while maintaining a USA that continues to generate wealth and science and new medical advances to save oligarch lives... plus space junkets and all the things that make their wealth worthwhile to any sane person? 

In that case, a gentler easing out of Trump will suffice. And orders will go out to Roberts & co., telling them to do just that... 

...and it becomes Nikki Haley after all! Counting on enough women voters to defect and save them. (Her latest flubs mayshift that.)

True, dumping Trump will incite civil war within the GOP, as ol Don rages against every betrayal by former friends, going third party pyrotechnically. And yes, November 2024 would thus see a huge blue wave, leading to a surge of legislation that's badly needed for the nation's good... including some rise in taxation of the rich. And it's likely many blackmailed goppers will slide into retirement...

...but the saner aristocrats might swallow that. They may realize that being merely very-rich in a vibrant, scientific and free civilization is more fun - and conducive of long life - than trying for feudal lordship amid ashes, hated by all the surviving nerds who know bio, cyber, nuclear, nano and who - volcanically angry - also know the detailed locations of every prepper redoubt.

Anyway, in U.S. politics everything is ephemeral. By 2026, a reformed Republican Party would come roaring back. Count on it. Just - pretty please - make it one with a scintilla of modernity and loyalty and sanity. 

== So, will they or won't they? ==

Hence, do I think the Supremes will actually disqualify Trump? Even if Thomas, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and especially John Roberts get orders to do so, from the oligarchy they serve?

Nah. At this point they are far more afraid of MAGA brownshirts than they are of feudal overlords with blackmail kompromat. Roberts & co. will protect Donald. And we'll have to take him out at the ballot box, ourselves.

*Links regarding likely blackmail of the GOP establishment:

*GOP lawmaker says fellow Republicans compromised by sex and drugs.

* Political Blackmail: The Hidden Danger to Public Servants.

* Talking Feds: From Russia with kompromat.

(Side note: by siding with Colorado and dumping Trump, Roberts might thus proclaim: "See? We ARE neutral! So when Dems resume power, please don't reform or expand the Court?")

== The Doctorow Doctrine? ==

Cory Doctorow takes on the “AI Bubble” with his usual fury and indignant panache, blending a very substantial amount of knowledge with equal dollops of tendentious cynicism (his trademark) and – frankly – this time throwing in more outrageously false statements than I have ever seen him issue before. (Especially in the first paragraph!) The result is very much worth reading, for litanies of examples and keen insights, while you should remain wary about those tendentiously compulsive cynical declarations.

Is this whole ‘AI thing’ an overhyped bubble?  Sure, as an economic or commercial investment. For one thing, Cory is right about the vast energy requirements of these art-and-language emulators. For another, ‘gollms’ or generative large language models are inherently incapable of sapience!  Though they will soon be profoundly good at faking it, passing most Turing tests by simple, brute force sentence-completion. Moreover, efficiencies will arise, as these prematurely labeled ‘intelligences’ focus on optimizations.

 

Still, none of that truly matters. Because this time success vs failure won’t be measured by investor losses in tens of billions of dollars, but rather in terms of manipulative POWER… the power to spread Turing-passed falsehoods that make today’s disinformation waves seem like Mother Goose.

In fact, the real issue is whether there can be anything like an Enlightenment Civilization issuing forth and surviving and even augmenting, from the arrival of these tools. A civilization in which ‘truth’ and ‘fact’ are still things. One where predatory liars are caught and deterred often enough for us to stumble forward in at least some confidence and overall safety. 

 

That can only happen if we utilize the same tool that enabled the last 200 years of gradually improving civilization to continue our historically miraculous escape from six millennia of brutal, feudal predation.

That tool? It’s called reciprocal accountability amid general transparency. The very same tool that Cory is attempting to apply upon those he deems to be fools or villains… and that I am applying to him, as I type. We both have the same habit, learned from the same civilization, though we differ in awareness of that fact.

 

There is no other conceivable solution than incentivized reciprocal accountability. In fact there is no other even plausible method in our toolbox. Just as we learned to somewhat tame those hyper-intelligent predators called lawyers, by siccing them upon each other, we desperately need to figure out – quick – how to get AIs holding each other accountable, both on our behalf and for incentive rewards – or else this experiment is done.  

 

I talk about one approach to doing this in my WIRED article. 

 

We have a window of opportunity to get these new entities competing with each other to catch liars on our behalf. And that matters to me, far more than whether the Uber company is commercial toast.

 

-----

Oh, in addition to the WIRED piece... my related NEWSWEEK op-ed (June’22) dealt with ‘empathy bots’’ that feign sapience and personhood. And the most accurate multi-year prediction I ever made. So far.

Ways to Corner John Roberts... and why 'cornering' doesn't interest the paladins on our own side

At bottom, below, I'll make (yet-again) my case for agile tactics that might actually win the fight for fact-based rejection of lies. 

But let's start with a central nexus of today's rationalization for treason.

"The final days of the US supreme court’s term offered a clear look at the way its new 6-3 conservative majority is bluntly using its power to reshape American life, but its next term is also set to hear cases that could prove equally, or even more, consequential."

I make no promises. But I think folks despair too easily. One trick will be to corner Roberts and Gorsuch, the two rightists who might actually care - just a little - about the law and logic and history's judgement. Enough to perhaps squirm and realize they are cornered by some fresh tactics. 

I have offered some such - though alas, none of the brainiac legal minds on the Union side of this desperate struggle seem at all interested in trying a new argument, a new tactic. Here are just two from Polemical Judo:

1. FLIP the demands for Voter ID! Griping about ID requirements only makes dems look like they intend to cheat, even though nearly all the actual cheating is by the other side. So turn it around! Why are red states making it harder for their resident citizens of color or the poor or divorced women or naturalized to GET their ID? Closing DMV offices in blue counties for example?

That should be the point of attack using two words. Compliance Assistance. Republicans demand it for corporations and the rich. Whenever a 'new, onerous burden" of regulation falls upon them, government must provide assistance complying with the new regs. 

The fact that these states make voter ID compliance harder for the poor etc. is so blatant that it could even peel away just a few more 'ostrich republicans' - and that peeling away is - demographically - all we need. Moreover, some oligarchy-shills will feel cornered into some partial remediation. Roberts, at least, might feel cornered.

Do not dismiss that possibility with a shrug. That's lazy! The principle is pure. And I have seen no sign of any of our paladins using it. See the COMPLIANCE ASSISTANCE maneuver. 

2. I've yammered before about how John Roberts admits that gerrymandering is a loathsome cheat! But his ROBERTS DOCTRINE justifies doing nothing about it because:

 (a) the Court can't interfere in the sovereignty of state legislatures - even if they were 'elected' via immense cheating - and

 (b) no proposed solution (e.g. neutral commissions) is proved INHERENTLY to solve the problem. Hence, he can rationalize that the replacement of elected map drawers with un-accountable 'commissioners' is no systematic improvement. So, leave the cheaters free to cheat!

Of course this is hypocritical and partisan. Both rationales (both!) are eviscerated here, with an offered Minimal Overlap Solution to gerrymandering that directly addresses every Roberts criterion and is simple and would work instantly. It needn't be applied in every case in order to demolish his Doctrine, showing there is at least one way to dismantle gerrymandering's worst cheat effects without replacing the legislature with commissions.

And again, not a single one of the paladins on our side is able even to conceive of the possibility of using such judo, instead of the same grunting sumo they've tried for decades.

== The way to corner and demolish lie-fetishists is... ==

"More than 100 Republican nominees for statewide office or Congress this year have falsely claimed that election fraud helped defeat Donald Trump in 2020. Almost 150 members of Congress — more than half of Republicans there — voted to overturn the 2020 election result." ...yet... "...it’s jarring to see how little effort its proponents have put into making an argument on behalf of their claims. They have offered no good evidence, because there is not any. " 

In fact... "the rare examples of cheating from 2020 tend to involve Trump supporters."

Alas, that's not the big problem, which is utter ineptitude by Dem pols and by pundits to apply basic psychology. 

Try going back to every episode of this mad-mania since 1778. The principal EMOTIONAL drivers behind royalist/confederate/MAGA treasons have been romanticism and machismo. 

These explain the racism, the gun-fetishism, the aversion to negotiation and obeisance to oligarchy. And replacement of fact with incantation. (The last one is also done on the far-left.)

Macho, especially can be eviscerated, by creating clearly-parsed and relentlessly hammered challenges, making their refusal blatantly an expression of personal cowardice. These challenges do not have to be demands for cash-wagers... though that approach is the most direct and the one these fellows fear most. (They always, always whine and writhe - embarrassing themselves - and then flee.) 

Dig it. Instead of following around the latest QAnon ravings, then the next, like Whack-a-Mole, perpetually whining "that's not true!" PICK A FEW and hang onto them. Pound away for months, if necessary - even years, despite every effort to change the subject and distract with newer lies and fables. Keep hammering as publicly as possible and demanding the foxites stand their ground, or else flee and admit that one was false. Only then move on to others.

Oh, you can offer a lengthy list of lies you intend to get to. But the trick is to sink your teeth into a few - or even just one - chomp hard and never let go, shaking a particular lie over and over until they are seen fleeing in disgrace. 

Sure, it seems hopeless to discredit each lie, individually, one by one, in the face of a lie-tsunami, when there are 40,000 registered Trump false statements, alone. But the thing you are discrediting is not the lie, but the liar

This Is In Effect What The Sandy Hill Parents Did To Alex Jones. And Dominion Voting Systems to Pillow Guy. Please look over those two statements and let them sink in. It has been laborious, but by far the most-effective approach.

And hell-yeah, offering cash stakes for a wager is another version that shows your own confidence. They never, ever step up with their own stakes, opening their cowardice and evasion to ridicule. Macho demolished. 

Alas, what the Dominion and Sandy Hook examples show is that 99% of the politicians and supporters of our good, Union side in this struggle appear to have the tactical sense or learning ability of a tadpole. The fact that no one in high places or punditry will even consider this method - which I have tested for almost a decade and lay out in Polemical Judo - is proof that aliens must be using an IQ reduction ray on us! 

Because even the smart-good side appears to have no savvy whatsoever.

Faithless electors? Revisiting the Electoral College

Folks on both right & left rejoice over the near unanimous decision that states can force 'faithless" electors to vote as the state's voter majority declared, for president. Well, you'll not be surprised to learn that I have a more complicated opinion. This decision might - maybe - scotch scenarios where -say- Wisconsin GOP legislators try to steal the state's electoral votes from Biden. And yes, as-is the Electoral College is a travesty, not behaving like a "college" of sages, at all. 

OTOH, for Kagan to write that electors were never meant to be anything other than mathematical conduits is disingenuous. The very word "College" suggests that in the ideal case they might meet and deliberate to choose the very best person as Chief Executive.

Distance made that ideal impossible, in olden times. Today, it's a mockery because parties assign slates of names as electors pledged to their candidate... and in most states voters never even see the electors' names. But that doesn't have to be so! Especially in these modern, cyber-times. One could envision a dozen different ways that electors themselves might be chosen with voter input, making them more than honorary rewards for party service.

But something else. Back in late November 2016, I tried to circulate a notion... that one moderately rich person might rent a luxury resort hotel somewhere, provide extra security, and simply declare: 

"All recently elected Electors may come at free business class travel and stay for two weeks, unbothered by anyone except hotel service staff. They may do or say anything they like, relax, argue, be a 'college' or not. Hands-off."

Three sentences that would rock the nation. 

If more than 270 did show up, there'd be a 'quorum' of sorts for conversation and argument, though the voting would still come back home in each state capital, in mid-December. And sure, the electors would mostly be party loyalists, even hacks. Still, faced with the intolerable, a deal might be struck.

Still, picture it. Envision this had happened in 2016... and the subsequent Kaine-Pence Administration...

Oh, I agree with most of what Lawrence Lessig and his colleagues at EQUAL CITIZEN try to accomplish re electoral reform. Even when I disagree a bit, as in their Electoral College endeavor, I still urge you to swing by and give it a close look. 

Oh finally note this case was actually very specific: "Monday’s ruling upholds a $1,000 fine against Peter Chiafalo, one of three Washington state electors who cast their ballots for Colin Powell rather than for Democrat Hillary Clinton, who won the state’s popular vote." 

Hence the Court declared that states may “punish” electors who decide to go their own way. It still doesn’t prevent the actual act of voting for someone other than their party’s candidate. Hence, an elector might vote against a monster as a willing, sacrificial act… or else take the penalty as the cost of a bribe. As usual, the Court has ‘clarified’ almost nothing.

== What this cathedral stands for, really ==

The new, 6 billion ruble Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces, in Moscow, is a grand statement of Vladimir Putin’s vision of what is most important in Russia: Russian Orthodox faith, national pride and the armed services. Steps are made of steel from captured Nazi tanks.

And yes, Papa Stalin was a wise leader and father of the nation who never signed any pacts with Hitler! Try to put it all together. Putin's glorification of the Eastern Orthodox Church while keeping the Soviet KGB intact, except for its name, and filling the ranks of Russian government and billionaire oligarchy with former commissars who were raised for decades reciting Leninist catechisms as sacred scripture. Putin once declared that the fall of the USSR was "history's greatest tragedy."

What do these contradictions mean? It's simple. Marxism-Leninism was always just another "potemkin" surface of symbols and incantations to justify a streltsy-feudal system - augmented by secret police - that has gone unchanged since the czars. So they switched symbols and incantations quicker than a Vegas magician backstage between scenes? So?

They had tried and utterly failed to suborn the Western left and trade unions for 80 years. But switching emblems and chants to "traditionalism," with strong mafia flavors and by flattering/blackmailing western aristocrats, they have swiftly and completely take over the Right in America and Europe.

Again, these are the very same men, using the same tools aimed at the same end, with different lipstick. And the western Right has thrown themselves at their feet. 

Alexis de Tocqueville predicted - long before there was a Karl Marx - that the final struggled over humanity's fate would be between Russia and America. It was understandably narrowminded to leave out China! But impressive, nonetheless.

PS... Get and read Sorokin's amazing short sci fi novel "Day of the Oprichnik."

Here’s a link to the Obama Administration’s pandemic guidance booklet - and then to a line by line comparison vs. the fumbled, murderously incompetent actual behavior of the entire GOP establishment and Fox-zone.

== They are on our side, get used to it ==

My longstanding assertion that we can count on the US military officer corps is backed up in powerful stuff by Luncian Truscott IV - a West Point graduate - who is scion of five generations of American military heroes (including one featured in the movie ‘Patton’). He’s also a Jefferson descendant (like many black folks). This Truscott article about the military’s loathing of Trump concludes with:

“It's getting serious out there, folks. The word "treason," as in giving aid and comfort to the enemy, is being thrown around not only on op-ed pages but in Congress. This may turn into yet another Ukraine aid scandal, in which Trump commits impeachable offenses and simply gets away with it because Republicans refuse to confront his treachery, let alone  do anything about it. But he's surrounded by people in important, powerful positions who are privy to big, important secrets, and they want him out of office. With their leaks about the Russian bounties, they have in effect put a bounty on Trump's head. He has been wounded by the coronavirus, he's wounded by the economy, he's wounded by Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the streets and he's getting grievously wounded by this. 

“You know he's desperate when he starts calling a real threat to the lives of our soldiers fighting on foreign soil a "hoax." Trump is a threat to our national security. He's not a president. He's a co-conspirator with dictators who are enemies of this country. He's a traitor, and he needs to go."

Oh, it's not just Kremlin "bounties" on US soldier lives, or the endless "deep state" insults or the slavish devotion and kowtowing to Putin or the relentless destruction of our alliances. The officer corps is furious that this miserable narcissist ordered an entire valuable, irreplaceable West Point graduating class to congregate and risk infection by a disease with longstanding CHRONIC repercussions just so he could yammer at them for 20 minutes then stumble down a ramp.

Any of you lefties who kneejerk refuse to accept as allies the brave women and men who wear crewcuts and hairbuns... you are too stupid for words.

== Last chance for unusual tactics? ==

We're getting locked in to the campaigns for November. I have tried everything to get my book of political ideas - Polemical Judo - before the eyes of anyone who might be interested in agile, new tactics (any one of which could have made a big difference, this year), and have got nowhere. Alas.

Well then, some humility. I'll do what I can, like urging many of you to step up, across the next few months. For example, this site offers not only ways to donate, but direct methods  for you to volunteer. Voter registration, for example. Phone banks. (Now you can do however many hours you feel like, from your own home.)  Or watch Trevor Noah who will give you links to volunteers as a poll worker, thus helping to thwart the coming wave of cheating.

== And finally… ==

A professor in Shanghai has offered a controversial solution to two major problems in China, an excess of 34 million males, plus a reluctance of Chinese women to have more than one child. The “solution”: allow women to have multiple husbands, and they will have multiple babies. What starts out almost sounding woman-liberating soon gets spoiled, however: “Plus, it would just be more efficient, he continued, suggesting that women would have no trouble meeting the physical needs of multiple husbands…. It’s common for prostitutes to serve more than 10 clients in a day,” Ng wrote, before taking off on another offensive tangent. “Making meals for three husbands won’t take much more time than for two husbands,” he added.

Okay, one starts to see a pattern why Russian, Japanese and Chinese women have been going on a low-simmer reproductive strike.

A way to bypass the Roberts Court and get every document. Turn their evasion tricks to our advantage.

Will any Democratic politician or leader ever see outside the box? Today's topic is the core constitutional crisis - far more urgent than Impeachment - in which Republican-appointed judges are canceling the very notion of Congressional oversight and Presidential accountability.

"A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court for the District of Columbia ruled at the end of February that it lacked the power to order former White House counsel Donald McGahn to testify before the House Judiciary Committee.... The majority, made up of two Republican appointees, ruled that this was not the sort of dispute that federal courts were authorized to resolve: Congress and the White House should negotiate." It appears that centuries of precedent count for less than GOP fears that hearings might reveal an ocean of turpitude.

Standard methods for dealing with executive misbehavior — e.g. Congressional investigations — have been stymied by unprecedented stonewalling. Traditional, Constitutionally explicit oversight prerogatives that go back two centuries are now flouted as the White House moons every check or balance. Moreover, we’ve learned it’s futile to sue the Trump Administration in GOP-suborned courts.

Only what’s fascinating — opening a huge window of opportunity — is how the Roberts Court has rationalized abetting this executive putsch. There’s a potentially powerful silver lining, one that’s amazing.

First, I am not the only one suggesting that House Democrats bypass the courts. In this article, Josh Chafetz, a professor of law at Cornell Law School, asserts that Congress already has tools and powers. And he is right that, in theory: 

"For one thing, it can arrest people who refuse to testify and hold them until their contempt is purged (that is, until they comply with the subpoena). Although neither house of Congress has used this power in decades, it used to frequently, and there’s no reason that it could not be revived, given the political will. For another thing, it can use its power of the purse and prohibit the expenditure of funds on, say, the White House Counsel’s Office, until McGahn comes around. Of course, the Senate might refuse to go along with such an appropriations rider, or the president might threaten to veto the appropriations bill containing it."

While I respect Professor Chafetz - and he is aiming in positive directions - alas, he just doesn't get it. Schiff & Nadler do not have to send Capitol Police out to do gun battles with the Secret Service or William Barr's praetorian guards on the streets of Washington. There is a better way, and it will work - simply work - without the slightest drama.

== Can you follow this logic? ==

Okay, now pay attention.

In order to evade going on record regarding the merits of any case, or openly declaring void 250 years of Congressional oversight power, Chief Justice John Roberts and his Republican majority have instead repeatedly ruled against plaintiffs on the narrow basis of “standing,” nitpicking some technicality that renders - say - House Democrats ‘unqualified’ to file concerning subpoena enforcement, or emoluments or demands for documents.

 Or else - and now we get to the really creative part - they declare these issues “non-justiciable” matters that courts inherently cannot act upon, because doing so would infringe upon “the prerogatives of another independent branch.” (It's how they managed to leave in place cheats like gerrymandering, despite rising citizen abhorrence of the crime.) This consistent squirm excuse is accompanied with chiding admonitions for Congress and the Executive to “settle it among yourselves...” 

...with the convenient outcome that this always benefits Trumpian faits accompli.

== Turning their trick into a trap! ==

Now think about that… as not a single Democratic politician, or independent scholar, consultant or pundit seems to have done.

In fact, Roberts and his co-conspirators have painted themselves into a corner! One in which the advantage would veer to Congressional oversight committees. Further, having stepped away, Roberts will be unable to step back in, to interfere when that stone wall collapses.

Both here and in Polemical Judo I have made clear there is a way to accomplish that. For Congressional Democrats to sidestep suborned courts altogether! The method is bold, but totally justified under the Roberts Doctrine, a judo flip that would work.

In fact, there is no conceivable way it would *not* work!

And if any of you knows anyone who might know someone who can get the ear of Chairmen Schiff or Nadler… I could explain it in two minutes.

Oh, don’t ask me to explain it here. While the method does not depend utterly on surprise, an element of surprise could make its first use especially effective. So I’ll not blab except to someone with access.

Yes, sure, it’s already in my book. But there are so many notions there… more than 100 under-used or never-used tactics that could help in this fight… that I’m not worried about losing that first surprise. Anyone who reads Polemical Judo looking for it will find something else to get excited about, before chapter four.

Bait n' switch and distraction from the High Court. Don't be fooled.

 One man... one man... has chosen to send us on the path to civil war. And I’m asking those of you with some attention span to closely follow the reasoning... or rather rationalization... applied by Chief Justice John Roberts for allowing continued electoral cheating that even he called blatant. His rationale: that Federal courts may not interfere in the sovereign power of state legislatures even if those legislatures were outrageously, unfairly and illegitimately chosen by cheating. Cheating that then warps future elections so that cheating always wins. 

The Court has ruled that the people of such a state have no visible recourse to stop the cheating... not even by appealing to the Supreme Court of the United States of America. 

This is one of those moments when your grandchildren will ask: "Where were you when you heard...?" It ranks up there with Pearl Harbor, the Kennedy assassination, 9/11... and especially the firing on Ft. Sumter. This could be the day when hope died that our institutions weren't fatally suborned, as they had been in the 1850s. 

I knew it was coming, telegraphed in the oral hearings. It’s why I published my Minimal Overlap proposal which - unlike any other gerrymander-fix - is simple (three sentences), requires no complex "commissions," and grants state assemblies much of the leeway Roberts demanded... while decisively eliminating the fundamental injustice. (Yes, all that in three sentences. A senior federal appeals court judge called it interesting and plausible.) 

But I'm not here today to rail against that predictable decision, when John Roberts chose to be remembered in history alongside Roger Taney, as we'll now slog our way out of confederate treason, one muddy, cheating-biased battle after another.  

No, I want to point to other cases that supposedly show “balance,” as justices Roberts, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and even Thomas play a subtle game, each of them siding with the liberals on one or another side matter, in order to proclaim: “See? I am not a pure dogmatist tool!” 

Step back for the kind of perspective that (alas) you'll get nowhere else.

== The great pretense of ‘balance' ==

Look at the nuance and trickery here. Time and again the confederate cabal that used to be the Republican Party uses a method pioneered by Donald Trump across his life of ‘deals’ and Rupert Murdoch across his life of lies. 

Distract from your real aim by attacking something the other side cares about that seemed already settled. 

Hurt people, lots of people... 

... then agree to stop if they’ll give you everything you wanted (and more) from the original negotiation.

This method served Trump well in the world of slumlords, casinos and shivving construction contractors. He tried it with DACA and putting kids in cages and screeching at our allies and so far the method has 100% failed him. That is, till it proved effective on the Roberts Court.

 Having delivered on the only truly important matter - giving a free pass to gerrymander-cheating that will let the GOP retain power in 30 states even in the face of an anti-Trump electoral wave - Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Roberts and even Thomas get to be ‘swing votes’ and appear ‘judicious’ and evenhanded in decisions that mattered very little… like reiterating the right of federal agencies to interpret ambiguous rules. 

Or the silly uproar over citizenship questions on the census. 

Oh, you fell for that one?
As if that distraction ever mattered, or would have made a big difference in census compliance?
Or could not have been countered with a vigorous outreach campaign? 

Admit it, you fell for that one.  

As for DACA, that too was always intended to be a threat, a nasty hurting of innocents, followed by “concession,” once they got the real thing they want.

Stop giving in to distractions! The gerrymandering decision was McConnell’s goal, top to bottom, for the last four years. It was everything. And now we must pick up the only tool for citizen sovereignty that remains, once the US Supreme Court betrays the people.

(Late addendum! Aaaaand the Post fell for the trick, hook, line and sinker! "Data shows that Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh have disagreed more than any pair of new justices chosen by the same president in decades." Yep, they have the Post suckered and everyone else, giggling I presume.)

== Side note: does this help House subpoenas? ==

In bowing to state-level gerrymander-cheaters, Roberts declared the courts must defer to the sovereign authority of legislatures. Okay then, does that mean he'll support the right of committees in the U.S. House of Representatives to compel testimony and access records, while investigating Trumpist corruption? 

(For 25 years GOP-led committees asserted those powers in 'Clinton investigations' that found absolutely nothing, whatsoever.) 

No. Of course he won't. 

But it does suggest the writhe-maneuver Roberts will use -- side-stepping any ruling at all - claiming the Court cannot intervene in a tiff between the Legislative and Executive Branch. 

Malarkey? Yes. But It leaves Pelosi & co. having to enforce subpoenas with just the Capitol Police, while Trump and A.G. William Barr have every other big guy with a gun in D.C.

Or do they? There is a way around this. A clever approach that I will not relate here.

But let's get back to the main topic, the gerrymandering decision that appears to leave us with no recourse against treason-level cheating, other than revolution. Well... almost no recourse.

== One last option? ==

One of you, Erik Brandsberg, suggested a drastic measure that could work, short of violent revolution.  It is quite clear in the Constitution: "Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members. 

"The majority in the House of Representatives can set guidelines for electoral fairness, as long as they are not extreme, written to be impartial, providing for equal representation, etc. The rules should be clear and indisputable in their application... based on the fairness of the districts they were elected from. This is a power bestowed upon the house and senate individually that no other branch or chamber can dictate." 

A boldly aggressive move... but Mitch McConnell has declared this to be nothing less than a knife fight. He chuckles and brags about it. And so...

== And finally... ==

The well-reported outrage about Trump’s meeting (again) with his KGB-trained handler, Vladimir Putin, revolves around their jocular mocking of concern about Kremlin interference in U.S. elections, and the even creepier jests about “getting rid” of journalists. 

(See a vivid portrayal of just a hundred of the journalists killed or disappeared under the New Czar; and Trump then praised MBS, the journalist-killing Saudi prince.)

But there’s a more telling moment. It's when Trump agreed with Putin’s earlier statement the ‘liberalism’ was ‘obsolete.’ In fact, they meant two different things. Two Scoops referred to U.S. Democrats.

But Putin, in an interview with the Financial Times, meant a far broader definition of the term -- the entire experiment in “liberal” democracy, flat-fair markets, open accountability, free speech and all the other innovations pushed by Locke, Adam Smith and the U.S. founders. Its day is done, he declared, confidently.

To see where he intends this to take this planet instead, with Czarist instincts and KGB ferocity - but freed of any Marxist idealist incantations - I recommend you get a short but chilling, near-future science fiction novel by Vladimir Sorokin called DAY OF THE OPRICHNIK. Then two novels about the coming U.S. Civil War: TEARS OF ABRAHAM by Sean Smith and OUR WAR by Craig DiLouie (pre-order).

Our ancestors stood up. You may have to.

Science Fiction and Freedom

While in San Francisco for a panel on artificial consciousness, I had an opportunity to stop by the headquarters of the Electronic Frontier Foundation -- dedicated to preserving your freedom online and off.  As part of their 25th year anniversary celebration, EFF released Pwning Tomorrow, an anthology of science fiction stories by Bruce Sterling, Ramaz Naam, Charlie Jane Anders, Cory Doctorow, David Brin, Lauren Beukes, and others. You can download it for a donation to this worthy organization.

== Politics-Economics of Star Wars ==

"Between authority and anarchy lies argument..." Adam Gopnik offers a cogent, if-brief appraisal of the late Antonin Scalia, and the essentially political nature of the Supreme Court ...

... framed with biting reference to the Star Wars Jedi Council! A riff that’s very much in tune with my own critique in Star Wars on Trial.  Well worth your time.

Following up on my blog-essay-review of the latest Star Wars film… Nautilus Magazine interviewed me about Star Wars. I’ve already said that I found the latest version, from J.J. Abrams and Disney to be pleasantly diverting, with very strong characterization, okay dialogue… if unimaginative plotting. It’s greatest virtue is showing almost no sign of the relentlessly awful, anti-enlightenment preaching George Lucas crammed increasingly into his epic saga, over the years. Here is my full review of The Force Awakens… and here is the Nautilus interview, pinning me with followup questions!

See this thorough appraisal of the galactic economics of Star Wars.  The sort of thing that might help to transform a sillier-than-Tolkien fantasy series into actual science fiction.  From "It's a Trap: Emperor Palpatine's Poison Pill" by Zachary Feinstein:

"In this paper we study the financial repercussions of the destruction of two fully armed and operational moon-sized battle stations ("Death Stars") in a 4-year period and the dissolution of the galactic government in Star Wars. The emphasis of this work is to calibrate and simulate a model of the banking and financial systems within the galaxy. Along these lines, we measure the level of systemic risk that may have been generated by the death of Emperor Palpatine and the destruction of the second Death Star. We conclude by finding the economic resources the Rebel Alliance would need to have in reserve in order to prevent a financial crisis from gripping the galaxy through an optimally allocated banking bailout."

Almost perfectly in synchrony and fascinating parallel, this article looks at the reaction in China to release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which has led, as well, to the first real surge of (legal and illegal) viewings of the other six episodes.  I was struck especially by this bit near the end: 

“Some are learning that the saga is as much about politics and individuals fighting against a repressive government as light sabers and spacecraft—but the lesson they’re taking away isn’t what George Lucas may have intended. “A democratic parliament seems to be chaotic while a dictator-run empire seems to be stable. That’s worth our thinking,” one blogger wrote on Douban.”  

A good insight.  Except, of course, that (as I've shown in Star Wars on Trial) contempt toward democracy is exactly the lesson George Lucas intended. He said so openly and publicly. How ironic that that message is ignored in the West, but Chinese viewers notice it, clear as day.  Go figure.

Here’s an interesting article about why politics matters even… perhaps especially… in the Star Wars Universe. “Lucas took inspiration both from ancient history and current events, sometimes even using the films as social commentary. If anything, in order to capture the public imagination, the Sequel Trilogy needs more, not less, politics.”

Alas, the author, Dom Nardi, starts with a wrong premise… “The Civil War was essentially a debate between North and South about the authority of the federal government.”  

Sorry, but that’s just wrong. Starting in 1852, the southern states, having dominated the US federal government for at least 30 years, used its power - through US Marshals and Supreme Court decisions, to unleash platoons of irregular southern cavalry on rampages across all northern states, grabbing neighbors almost at random and hauling them away to misery. 

When local militias tried to resist the slave-hunter parties, southern presidents called in federal troops to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act. The South was all in favor of a strong federal government and wanted to use it to repress northern abolitionist newspapers, a goal laid down explicitly in the secession declarations. (Actually read them!) They only became anti-federal the instant it appeared the presidency would no longer be their private sinecure.

Exactly, by the way, their reaction when President Obama was elected.

But that is an aside about a pet peeve.  My real complaint here is that Dom Nardi doesn’t note the fundamental political fact of the Star Wars series, which is contempt for democracy — even the remote possibility that something like the Republic can function.  The secretive and extra-judicial Jedi order may - at the command of Yoda alone - withhold crucial information (a withholding that in fact leads to disaster.) Only the Empire is shown as efficient and capable of getting things done.

== More Science Fiction ==

Speaking of the recurring American fever.... What would happen if the U.S. split apart into warring states -- set off by a far-reaching conspiracy?  I've read (in manuscript) a new novel by Sean T. Smith about a near future hot American civil war. Washington and San Francisco get nuked pretty early. TEARS OF ABRAHAM is a page-turner filled with vivid, believable action and characters you care about, along with sober, thoughtful insights into what it may mean - when the chips are down - to be an American. The book will be released (pre-order now) March 22. 

The same day, my new short story collection, Insistence of Vision, will be released.. with some of my best recent stories.

Oh, SFWA has established a new Speaker's Bureau -- with links to authors willing to make public appearances, and speak about the literature of the future. I've striven for 15 years to see this happen.  It is still primitive.  But yay to Cat Rambo and the other SFWA volunteer organizers!