Does any of this pass the laugh test?

Even if we assume that not only Russians but official Russians were behind the DNC hack, I'm having a hard time understand the compelling nature of an argument that they did it to put Trump over the finish line.  As HotAir comments, "A DNC hack would be a really indirect way of electing any Republican, let alone Trump."  It's like something out of The DaVinci Code.  For once, Julian Assange is sounding more credible; he claims the source of the leak was a disgruntled Bernie supporter at the DNC.

That Russians, official or otherwise, wanted to jack with public confidence in our institutions seems reasonable enough, but the rest of it is a bit Rube Goldberg for my taste.  In any case, if all it takes to undermine confidence in our institutions is the publication of completely genuine and true information about the inner workings of the DNC, bring it on.

An anti-Cabinet

I can really get behind the appointment of cabinet secretaries whose primary aim is to get their departments to quit exceeding their authority and screwing everything up for everybody.

The Russian candidate

From HotAir:

Weirdly, the Russian government is doing Tillerson no favors. If Putin and his loyalists want Tillerson at State, the obvious play right now is to lie low and not say anything too encouraging, especially with anti-Trumpers of all stripes aggravated by the CIA news about Russia interfering in the campaign. Instead you’ve got excited quotes from Russian apparatchiks showing up in English-language media today. “The choice of Tillerson is sensational. Trump continues to amaze,” said one Russian senator. “This is a fantastic team. These are people that Russia can do business with,” a consultant to Putin’s staff agreed. Um, okay. John Bolton it is, then.

One interesting question for Trump’s first year, regardless of who ends up at State: What sort of face-saving “victories” will Putin hand to him to encourage entente between the two countries? Trump’s not going to lift sanctions or pull back from eastern Europe for nothing; he’ll be flogged by hawks for “weakness,” which will irritate him to no end and could sway public opinion unless he has concessions from Russia to point at. Putin must be prepared to do something to make America’s strongman look superficially “strong,” but what? He could lend the U.S. some help in reining in China, but he needs to be careful about making too much of an enemy of a much, much more populous nuclear power on his border. The U.S. can pull back internationally; there’s no place Putin can “pull back to” to avoid China. Perhaps Russia will suddenly discover that it’s badly understocked on luxury hotels? The new Trump International in Vladivostok will be the classiest of all Trump properties, that I can tell you.

The whole thing may have been worth the silly hoopla if it gets the press back into the habit of evaluating U.S. officials in terms of their loyalty to this country's interests instead of how cool they sound holding forth in the faculty lounge.

Get Out Of Your Defensive Crouch

So, yesterday, Instapundit linked a piece entitled "Abandoning Defensive Crouch Conservatism." The phrase (by Randy Barnett, who led the fight against Obamacare all the way to the Supreme Court) struck me because I've heard it several times lately from others. One of those others has been asked to join the new administration.

I'd like to propose that you take stock of some of your recent reactions, to see how much of them entail a defensive crouch. Do you find yourself thinking or saying things like these?

* There's no point in working with the left, because they always change the rules.

* No part of government can be trusted.

* We can't afford to compromise or we'll get rolled.

Those are defensive reactions, which are understandable given eight years out of power. What you have in front of you is the opportunity to change these things.

* You won't have to work with the left, because Republicans will control the whole government. They have to decide whether to work with you. Are there things they want that you also want? Those things can now be used to your advantage, as reasons to get them to go along with your larger program.

* The broken parts of the government can be fixed -- or better yet, insofar as they conflict with the 10th Amendment, reduced or eliminated. The government will work a lot better if it is a lot smaller, for the reasons we've so often discussed regarding Schumpeter and ossification. It also happens to be the Constitutional thing to do.

* Don't get rolled, get involved. This is your chance -- and it may be the last chance -- to change the course of the American nation for something healthier and better.

Trump can't do it alone, and frankly he may not be up to the task. He lacks the experience we'd have looked for by preference, he does have some conflicts of interest that will dog him, and he may not have the proper temperament or mindset for the job he's undertaking. But all of you have something to offer to the things you care about most. Each of you has a certain expertise that could help in the monumental task of reform that stands ahead of us. It won't happen if we don't find ways to help make it happen.

I'm not suggesting that you should all rush off to join the Trump administration. It may be that more important things exist to be done at the state or local level, or that your own expertise better fits something closer to home. Nor am I suggesting that we should all pull together to support Trump, right or wrong. I think he'll be wrong a lot of the time, and one of the most important things we should be doing is pulling in the right direction when he tries to go in the wrong one.

I am suggesting it's time to stop thinking defensively about the government, and start thinking offensively. It's time to start hitting, making reforms, devising strategies and then implementing them. Do it wherever you can, wherever you are. This is a chance, but it's only a chance, it's no more than a chance, and it'll likely come to little good without you. Find a place to push.

A Brief Guide to Russian Hacking of the US Election

Over at RCP, Charles Lipson provides a useful summary of the issue and makes a reasonable suggestion for how to proceed.

He summarizes what we know, including the fact that no credible source gives any evidence for the idea that Trump didn't win, and then states that this is a matter of election integrity which everyone should be concerned about. He proposes something like the 9/11 commission to investigate and highlight areas of vulnerability.

Overall, I think he's on the right track. One problem for me is that I increasingly don't trust any part of the US government to conduct a reasonable, non-partisan investigation. The failure to indict Clinton was a big blow to that confidence.

Is there any part of the government we can really trust to do the right thing anymore? Or am I being uncharitable?

All Hat and No Cattle, Prof

Maybe substance is overrated. In an article titled "How fascist is Donald Trump? There's actually a formula for that", Prof. John McNeill at Georgetown U. measures Trump's level of fascism on "the 11 attributes of fascism". Those are:

Ideological Attributes

1. Hyper-nationalism
2. Militarism
3. Glorification of violence and willingness to use it in politics
4. Fetishization of youth
5. Fetishization of masculinity
6. Leader cult
7. Lost-golden-age syndrome
8. Self-definition by opposition

Attributes as a Political Movement

1. Mass mobilization and mass party
2. Hierarchical party structures and tendency to purge the disloyal
3. Theatricality

Isn't something missing? Maybe, totalitarianism? Corporatism? You know, fundamental stuff that's a lot more central to defining fascism than fetishization of youth or theatricality? Maybe?

Of course, the WaPo also recently published Donald Trump is actually a fascist and Don't compare Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. It belittles Hitler, so there you are.

Update: To be fair to McNeill, he does give Trump only 26 of a possible 44 Benitos (the standard unit of fascism?) on those 11 attributes, each rated from 0-4.

Also, has the WaPo just gone nuts? I've exceeded my free article limit, but if Stephen Green is right, here's another: New York should seize Trump Tower.

Conflicts of Interest

Vox has been compiling a list of all of Trump's known conflicts of interest. It prompted me to a thought experiment wondering if corporate involvement in foreign economies doesn't cancel out at some point.

Consider a President who was secretly completely motivated by personal greed. If that President had 1 foreign investment, that 1 investment would determine his actions whenever they were threatened (or, inversely, could be grown). That's an obvious problem for us as Americans.

If he has more than one, however, there might be at least some cases when there are opportunity costs. Taking this action would benefit that investment, whereas the alternative action would benefit another. There might be important facts about the size of the investment that would rule, but the overall effect of multiple conflicts of interest is to reduce the power of each on his decision-making process if (and only if) they conflict.

With a small enough set of foreign investments, such conflicts should be rare. However, as the set grows, conflicts become more frequent. An adequately diversified President, even the totally corrupt one of the thought experiment, might eventually be as unmoved by his conflicts of interest as a president with no foreign investments at all.

This isn't to defend Trump, whom I think really should take seriously the conflicts-of-interest problem. It's just interesting to realize that adding many new ones doesn't make the situation worse: arguably, it makes the situation better.

A Major Opportunity

Potentially a huge upside to Trump's victory is that the left will start taking Federalism and State's Rights seriously again. If we get as far as reinvigorating the 10th Amendment, we may attain an America that doesn't have to wrap itself in hatred for each other constantly (and especially on even-numbered Novemembers).

That's hopeful, at least.

You're Probably Not Going to "See the Evidence," Baer

A former CIA officer should know that the evidence he's asking for, to be of use in evaluating the truth of the claim, would have to reveal the sources and methods of collection. Otherwise, you'd have stuff that reads like, "We assess with high confidence that Russia had the goal of electing Donald Trump, and here's the evidence: [Redacted] and on [Redacted] date [Redacted] [Redacted] [Redacted]..."

All you'd end up with evidence of is that the CIA had produced an assessment.

Now, one of the immediate and pressing problems facing American intelligence is these Russian information warfare programs. Giving up our sources and methods would cripple our ability to address these programs. We would have to start all over from zero.

Of course, President Obama could choose to do that anyway. Or he could reveal only part of the evidence, sacrificing only part of our collection efforts in order to make what he thought was the strongest aspect of the case.

The bipartisan group of Senators speaking to this issue, by the way, are talking more sense.

'While protecting classified material, we have an obligation to inform the public about recent cyberattacks that have cut to the heart of our free society.

'Democrats and Republicans must work together, and across the jurisdictional lines of the Congress, to examine these recent incidents thoroughly and devise comprehensive solutions to deter and defend against further cyberattacks.

'This cannot become a partisan issue. The stakes are too high for our country.

'We are committed to working in this bipartisan manner, and we will seek to unify our colleagues around the goal of investigating and stopping the grave threats that cyberattacks conducted by foreign governments pose to our national security.'

Richard Fernandez recommends a two-step solution as an initial measure to prevent future concerns:

1) Go back to paper ballots,

2) Require a secure ID to vote on Election Day.

If you do those two things, the concerns about the vote being hacked largely disappear. You still have the Tammany Hall concerns, but not the computer hacking issues. Nobody would be able to electronically alter vote totals: you'd have to get physical access to the election sites, and the ballots themselves.

UPDATE:

Apparently Baer is not the only former CIA officer who has not thought through the ramifications of publicizing our sources and methods, on the very topic we are most sensitive about right now. This one does, at least, know who is at fault for the information not being public already.

Obama knew before any other policy maker that the Russian government attempted — and possibly succeeded — in altering the outcome of an American presidential election to Russia’s (at least theoretical) advantage. So, the obvious and deeply troubling question is this: why did Obama not make the CIA assessment, and all supporting raw intelligence used in its production, public within a day of receiving it? It’s possible he believes the CIA’s case is not as strong as the CIA asserts....

The mistake the seven Senators made in their declassification request letter to Obama was in not giving him a deadline to make the information public. They should do so now and tell him that if he has not made the information public by close of business on December 12 — one week before the Electoral College meets — they will take to the Senate floor during Tuesday’s pro forma session and read into the record everything in their possession on Russian interference in our election.

I’m not holding my breath that they will do this, but if these same Senators truly believe the CIA’s evidence of Russian interference — or even steering — of our 2016 presidential election is credible, they have a duty to communicate that evidence to American voters, and now.

You want highly classified information touching on how we know about Russia's efforts to influence our election systems read into the public record? Leaving aside the legal questions related to intentionally exposing Top Secret information -- after the continued support of the Democratic Party for Hillary Clinton, I have to assume that we just don't care about the laws pertaining to handling classified information any more -- are you sure that's really the best way to proceed here? At least Nancy Pelosi's daughter is calling for "temporary security clearances" for Electors, although I doubt she has any idea what would be involved in cranking out 535 of those in a week.

Get a Grip, Please

Michael Tomasky calls for "World War III: Democrats and America vs. Trump and Russia."

Republican leaders, he kindly allows, are not actually traitors. But they are a hair's breadth from traitors. Those are his exact words.

A foreign government may have determined the outcome of a presidential election. And not Canada or Costa Rica, but Russia: the United States’ chief historic adversary and an oligarchy ruled by a tyrant who has systematically taken away rights.... On top of all the above, leaders of one of our two political parties—I’ll let you hazard a guess as to which one—argued against letting the American public know about all this before the election, reportedly saying it would be too partisan. That’s not hardball politics. That’s a hair’s breath away from treason.

Not one person in the Republican leadership had any authority to block the declassification of that CIA report. Also, not one person in the Republican leadership had any authority to require it to be declassified. Their "arguing" was purely advisory. The head of the CIA could have done it. However, given the politically explosive nature of the revelations, he likely deferred to his boss, the President of the United States, whose original classification authority is broad enough to have ordered the review partially or wholly declassified before the election.

For some reason, a man well known for unilateral actions taken without any Congressional approval elected not to do it.  Barack Obama chose not to go public with this without Republicans providing him with political cover.

McConnell, according to the Post story, showed no concern about the truth of the allegations. And bear this nugget in mind: This was not Barack Obama trying to persuade him to join in this bipartisan effort. This was Lisa Monaco, the president’s counterterrorism adviser; and Jeh Johnson, the Secretary of Homeland Security secretary; and FBI Director James Comey. McConnell told Comey, in essence, to go take a jump in the lake. McConnell was interested only in party, not at all in country. That’s not treason, but it sure isn’t patriotism.

So Obama decided he didn't want to do this on his own. Again, though, that was completely his decision alone.  Barack Obama didn't need to persuade anyone to join in any bipartisan effort. He had the full power to do what he decided to do independently, and no Republican could have stopped him.

All the Republican leadership is plausibly guilty of is refusing to give the President political cover to destroy their candidate in the last days of an election. Why would they refuse this tremendous opportunity to show their patriotism? Perhaps because the FBI isn't on the same page as the CIA.

And yet, there is skepticism within the American government, particularly at the F.B.I., that this evidence adds up to proof that the Russians had the specific objective of getting Mr. Trump elected.

A senior American law enforcement official said the F.B.I. believed that the Russians probably had a combination of goals, including damaging Mrs. Clinton and undermining American democratic institutions. Whether one of those goals was to install Mr. Trump remains unclear to the F.B.I., he said.

The official played down any disagreement between the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., and suggested that the C.I.A.’s conclusions were probably more nuanced than they were being framed in the news media.

The agencies’ differences in judgment may also reflect different methods of investigating the Russian interference. The F.B.I., which has both a law enforcement and an intelligence role, is held to higher standards of proof in examining people involved in the hacking because it has an eye toward eventual criminal prosecutions. The C.I.A. has a broader mandate to develop intelligence assessments.

Having said that, I think the CIA is perfectly correct here. Of course Russia was involved in influence operations to try to sway the outcome of the election, and there's every reason to think that they wanted Trump to win. As I wrote yesterday, this preference makes sense just given Clinton's repeated devotion to a No-Fly Zone in Syria that would have put American warplanes flying against Russian warplanes, creating an extreme risk of war between these nuclear powers. The fact that Trump thinks of Russia as a great place to do business is icing on the cake. They didn't need any additional reason to prefer him: the Syria policy difference is fully sufficient to explain the Russian support. They have invested heavily in a major strategic push there, which at best would have been badly endangered by Clinton's policy; at worst, they'd have found themselves with a nuclear exchange over downed warplanes.

So, to recap:

1) Republican leaders are not only not traitors, they didn't have any power to betray you. They couldn't do anything to stop this from being declassified. Talk to Barack Obama. He's the one who made the call.

2) The FBI dispute with the CIA gives Republicans plausible reasons to question the wisdom of suffering a huge political blow, even though I think the CIA is quite right. It's not ridiculous to think the FBI is right, and given the dispute, I can see why ordinary rational people would not elect to pay a huge cost to get this out there right before an election.

3) That Russia supports Trump in no way implies that Trump has been suborned or bribed by Russia. There are perfectly rational strategic reasons for them to support Trump that are more than adequate to account for their support. Clinton represented a serious threat to Russian interests, and maybe a serious threat to the Russian mainland if things escalated into full-scale nuclear war. Indeed, Russia's reaction to our election is perhaps the most fully rational thing that the 2016 election has produced.

So let's tone down this talk of 'treason.'  It's not wise, and it's not warranted.

Lot of Hacking to Go Around

Why would someone at DHS hack the state of Georgia, though? Presumably they could get whatever information they wanted, either just by asking or certainly with a Federal court order.

The Real Threat to Science is on the Left

So writes John Tierney:

First, there’s the Left’s opposition to genetically modified foods, which stifled research into what could have been a second Green Revolution to feed Africa. Second, there’s the campaign by animal-rights activists against medical researchers, whose work has already been hampered and would be devastated if the activists succeeded in banning animal experimentation. Third, there’s the resistance in academia to studying the genetic underpinnings of human behavior, which has cut off many social scientists from the recent revolutions in genetics and neuroscience. Each of these abuses is far more significant than anything done by conservatives, and there are plenty of others. The only successful war on science is the one waged by the Left.

He goes on to argue that "two huge threats to science are peculiar to the Left—and they’re getting worse." The first is confirmation bias, which is getting worse as the sciences follow the arts in sorting out conservatives in favor of those with left-leaning minds.

The second, obviously related, is the threat that comes of mixing science and politics.

Dostoevsky vs. Socrates

It's interesting to me that this article in the Guardian leaves Dostoevsky's question rhetorical.

Oh, tell me who was it first announced, who was it first proclaimed, that man only does nasty things because he does not know his own interests; and that if he were enlightened, if his eyes were opened to his real normal interests, man would at once cease to do nasty things, would at once become good and noble because, being enlightened and understanding his real advantage, he would see his own advantage in the good and nothing else?

It was Socrates, of course -- he makes that argument in the Protagoras, at the very beginning of the philosophical tradition. It's presented as part of a utilitarian argument -- i.e., that good and evil cash out in terms of pleasure or pain -- that Socrates doesn't seem very wedded to in other dialogues. But his idea that evil is a kind of ignorance is something that appears very regularly in his words as Plato reports them. I won't reproduce the long argument here, but if you want to follow it, scroll to "When men are overcome by eating and drinking and other sensual desires which are pleasant..."

We have firmer reason to think that Socrates held this view, too, because Aristotle also ascribes it to him in the Nicomachean Ethics (scroll to section two of this part, which is Book VII).

Also it is interesting to me that the Guardian author, Pankaj Mishra, seems to regard the rhetorical question as adequately forceful to settle the matter -- at least in the light of, as he cites them, Nietzsche, Max Weber, and Freud. In fact, Socrates has kind of a good argument. Aristotle devoted a substantial part of a book to considering the problem.

We know that people do act in ways that they certainly must know are not in their best interests. The classic case is addiction, but that medicalizes the problem in a way that may make it seem as if the moral philosophy no longer applies. Rather, many who drink as if they were alcoholics prove to have no physical addiction to alcohol. They know, of course, that there is a long term harm that is all but certain if they continue in this manner; the only thing that can save them from it is dying young.

But of course dying young is a possibility, in which case the harm is completely avoided, and whatever pleasures came from the drink were obtained free of charge. So you have a case of an immediate certain gain (at least of pleasure) in return for an uncertain future harm. However, the gain is marginal, and the harm is extreme.

This is one kind of calculation that Nassim Taleb says human beings regularly make badly. So it may be the answer is not that humans are irrational, but that this is a place where human reason regularly leads to a conclusion that is in conflict with itself. The best choice is regularly indicated by reason to be just what a more formal examination of the case would suggest it is not. That is, we very regularly choose the short-term certain gain and dare the uncertain (but quite likely) immense future harm. But our formal examination suggests this is not the wise way to proceed, even though it is how we do in fact reason.

Perhaps it is that we came up in a more dangerous world, one in which the probability of living long enough for those future harms to materialize was not so very high. Socrates, though, was an old man when he died (of execution, not illness). Life spans haven't grown that much in recorded history; it's just that more people died of things like childbirth and childhood. And it would seem that both of those examples would favor an evolutionary response that mitigated against pursuing immediate pleasures in favor of longer-term gains.

So let's not treat this as an easy or settled matter. It's still an interesting question.

A Journalist and the Principle of Distinction

A Marine-turned-journalist was suspended by the Blaze for taking some shots at ISIS while on assignment for them:

Jason Buttrill, a former Marine and a foreign affairs correspondent for the Glenn Beck-owned Blaze ... fired six times at ISIS fighters with a rifle while on the Mosul front.

 

"Exclusive: TheBlaze’s Jason Buttrill shoots at ISIS members and shares footage from the Mosul front," reads the headline. The story is still live on the site despite The Blaze's recalling Buttrill from Mosul and suspending him from the publication. 

 

The reprimand by The Blaze comes after Jason Stern of the Committee to Protect Journalists warned Buttrill that his actions could be deadly for other journalists in or near war zones. 

 

“Jason, journalists are detained and killed all over the world over false accusations of being combatants,” Stern tweeted on Friday. “This doesn't help.” 

I don't care much for the argument Stern is making. America's enemies haven't respected non-combatant roles like that of the journalist for at least half a century, so the idea that some journalist's misconduct will lead to more problems is a bit blind, I think.*

 

No, my question is about the ethics and legality of it. Mr. Buttrill was there as a journalist; should he be taking part in combat? I don't know the details, but for the sake of argument, let's assume that this was not self-defense. If someone isn't officially part of one of the combatant groups, and it is not self-defense, should that person engage in the fighting?

There is part of me that wonders what right-minded person would not shoot at members of ISIS, given the opportunity. But another part of me is bothered by this. Doesn't it violate the principle of distinction between civilians and combatants? If that's right, then Buttrill might have been an unlawful combatant.

Or, maybe I don't really understand this. I am not any kind of lawyer, so this is quite likely. Or, maybe in a war like this where the enemy doesn't make even a pretense of following the law it just doesn't matter. And, of course, whether it's lawful or not doesn't necessarily answer the ethical question.

 

Any thoughts?

 

###

 

*I have the same problem with arguments against torture that go "if we do it, they'll do it." I am not supporting torture, but that particular argument against it doesn't make sense since pretty much every enemy we've faced for the last century has used torture against captured American soldiers. Maybe the Nazi's were an exception, but the Japanese certainly did, and every enemy since.

My Theme Song for the Last Several Months

Just a bit further, then time to catch up. Think I might head out to the woods for a while.

However, I'm a bit afraid I'll go away for a week and come back to find Hillary's taken over in a CIA-led coup. :-(

Bad Advice From The Boss

Headline: "Obama Urges Troops To “Criticize Our President” & “Protest Against Authority” In Final Address."

Servicemembers wanting to take the President's advice here might want to brush up on a couple of articles of the UCMJ, just to be safe. A servicemember can criticize the President, and it sometimes may even be that one should, but some of the things that President Obama has said about his successor could merit significant punishment.

Don't worry, though: I'm sure there will be plenty of criticism of the President to go around.

Not Exactly a Russia Hawk

On the other hand, our apparent next Secretary of State does have extensive experience working closely with Russia on oil and gas contracts. He has shown himself capable of getting things done with Putin's government, in other words.

In the wake of yesterday's revelations that Russian hacking was aimed at benefiting the Trump campaign, I suppose the appointment of someone with close business ties to Russia must be troubling to Trump's critics. On the other hand, it nicely explains why Russia would have supported him against Clinton. Clinton's stated intent was to throw up a No Fly Zone in Syria that would have had American warplanes flying against Russian ones, the very next step away from war. Trump, like this new Secretary of State nominee, thinks of Russia first and foremost as a business partner.

Why would Russia try to put its finger on the scale of America's election? This is why. It is, from the perspective of statecraft, quite a sharp set of moves: for the cheap price of some influence operations, they avoided the immediate risk of a hot war with the United States, and gained an opportunity to advance their business interests in a more favorable environment.

I do not take seriously the suggestion that Trump or his new nominee are Russian pawns -- but they don't have to be. It was a good move for Russia if they are just not quite so eager to start a new war, and interested instead in economic development. The fact that both men have extensive business interests in Russia also gives the Russians levers to work against them (which is one reason Trump really should put his stuff in a blind trust, though I doubt that he will -- I expect him to pass the business to his children, where it will still serve Russia' interests). You don't need to bribe them or suborn them. You just give them reasons not to want to fight, because there's so much to gain by not fighting.

Putin is a vicious man, but he's also a very smart one. Russia has a weak position but he has played it excellently. Without in any sense excusing his acts of tyranny, it is easy to admire his skill. I wonder if anyone on our team is going to be as good at this game, or if we even have anyone who sees it as a game of strategy in the same way.

"Combatting Political Islam"

A piece by two experts on the subject, David Reaboi and Kyle Shideler.

For decades, a bipartisan American foreign policy consensus has endorsed engagement with and promotion of Islamists in an attempt to use them as a counterweight, to either other Islamic terror groups or larger geopolitical adversaries.

Seeking to engage Muslim Brotherhood officials or franchises has a long historical pedigree within our foreign policy establishment. As Ian Johnson documented in his outstanding history, A Mosque in Munich, America first turned to Islamists in the early days of the Cold War in order to nurture alternatives to the Soviets. During that time, however, many in the U.S. foreign policy establishment seemed to recognize that, ultimately, the long-term objectives of the Islamists were both anti-democratic and harmful to American national interests. An internal analysis from the period noted that leading Muslim Brotherhood figure Said Ramadan—then a guest in the Eisenhower White House who was backed by the CIA—was “a fascist” and obsessed with seizing power.

Unfortunately, such a blunt assessment of the U.S. government’s Islamist interlocutors seems as quaint today as a 1950s TV commercial. By 2009 skepticism of Islamists’ long-term goals had been thoroughly abandoned, as President Obama formally announced the full-throated promotion of political Islam as the legitimate expression of democratic will throughout the Middle East.

In addition to the piece, you should really read that Mosque in Munich book. It goes sadly well with the immediately previous post. It's a great story of an early CIA mission with all the swagger they used to have in the postwar period, and it provides a helpful introduction to the deep history of some of the current conflicts involving political Islam. If you know someone who likes such stories, it might make a good Christmas gift.

At Least Someone Has A Sense of Humor About It

Courts to "Install" Clinton?

As far as I know, nobody is even thinking about filing a suit along these lines -- but the thought has crossed the mind of a writer at the Huff Po. This approach would not end well.

...at least one court decision suggests there is some federal authority to invalidate the election outcome after the fact.

In 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand the ruling of a federal district judge in Pennsylvania that invalidated a state senate election and ordered the vacancy be filled by the losing opponent.

The Pennsylvania state senate held a special election in November 1993 to fill a seat that had been left vacant by the death of the previous democratic senator, and pitted Republican Bruce Marks against Democrat William G. Stinson for the spot. Stinson was named the winner, but massive fraud was later uncovered that resulted in litigation.

Two of the elected officials who testified in the Pennsylvania case said under oath that they were aware of the fraud, had intentionally failed to enforce laws, and hurried to certify Stinson the winner in order to bury the story. The narrative recalls the Washington Post’s revelation that Republican Mitch McConnell was aware of the CIA’s conclusion that Russians had intervened and opted to do nothing.

In February 1994, after Stinson had already taken office, a federal judge ordered he “be removed from his State Senate office and that [his opponent, Bruce Marks] be certified the winner within 72 hours.”

Stinson appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, but ultimately, this was the first known case in which a federal judge reversed an election outcome. In January 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the ruling to stand.

On what basis could a Federal court claim the power to decide who would run a co-equal branch of government? Or do we not recognize any limits on Federal courts now?

We're getting into dangerous waters.