Trump’s End Game

I haven’t written anything for quite a long stretch about our national crisis. To my mind, there hasn’t been much to say. Trump continues to show daily why he is completely unfit to be President. He does terrible things, and the Republican party shows no inclination to do anything to rein him in. (See for example, my March 21, 2018 piece on Susan Collins.) Daily I read many interesting, illuminating things, but consistently I find I have little to add to the regular commentaries of (for example) E. J. Dionne and Andrew Sullivan.

Every day brings fresh dangers, but deep down they are the same ones over and over. Denigration of national purpose, corruption, risk of war, abuse of power: never rinse and yet repeat endlessly.

On the impeachment question, of course I see the case for impeachment now, and nearly as clearly I see the prudential reasons not to rush into impeachment with the McConnell wall holding so firmly. Moreover a fresh problem could lie in removing Trump to put Pence in a place to run as the incumbent in 2020.

Now I find myself thinking a new thought. The situation is changing. Trump is seeing the same thing that I am: that nothing is changing. He lost the 2018 midterms. His own approval ratings are stuck. (He’s currently at 41.7% approval; 53.0 disapproval.) He has a year and a quarter to secure not just his re-election but his legacy, and that matters to him. He craves ‘greatness’.

Realizing this stuck situation, he is realizing he needs to do dramatic things to unstick the situation. What sorts of dramatic things? Two kinds.

(1) Create crises, blame them on the Democrats (calling them traitors), then conjure a solution of only his own devising. He has used the declared national emergency on the southern border to justify funding for the Wall without Congressional approval and to justify tariffs by fiat.

That cycle of crisis/resolution has the added effect of binding the Republican party leadership (especially those in Congress) more tightly to him. Each crisis embodies an abuse of power. When the Republicans do nothing, they ratify that abuse.

(2) Stonewall completely every investigation or inquiry into his conduct. He’s realized if these investigations/inquiries are going to continue (and they will and they should) then his best defense is a completely forward position. Yield nothing. Allow no testimony. Hand over no documents. Moreover, whatever accusation is made against him, use the Executive branch and the Congressional Republicans to accuse the Democrats (traitors!) of exactly the same behavior. Better to bluster about Executive privilege than to yield an inch. It’s hard to imagine there aren’t things he’s wanting to keep out of the light of day, but it doesn’t matter; the stonewalling is itself abuse of power.

This stonewalling will also have the effect of further binding the Republican party leadership to him. As they do nothing in the face of each episode stonewalling, they ratify these abuses of power as well. What’s more, this binding reaches into the courts, too, even more than the manufactured crises.

He will also continue to slander and lie and divert attention, but he has been on that path from the beginning.

These new dynamics will encounter no meaningful countervailing force so long as only Democrats are opposing him. Trump will stay completely on the offensive. That will be his strategy. The pressure can only continue to build. He needs to up the ante. Otherwise: stuck. He cannot and will not cede initiative to the House leadership. Nothing will change unless he wins it all by crashing the Constitutional order or unless some in the Republican Party decide something else is important to them than having Trump remain in office.

Meanings “Cob”

There is perhaps no monosyllable in any language that has so many distinct meanings as cob. It may be thought curious to enumerate them. As a VERB, it signifies, 1, to strike; 2, to pull the ear or hair; 3, to throw; and 4, to outdo. As a noun, it stands for-5, a seed-basket; 6, the material of mud walls; 7, a hay-stack of small dimensions; 8, clover seed; 9, an Hiberno-Spanish coin; 10, a lump or piece; 11, a sea-gull; 12, the fish called the miller’s thumb; 13, a harbour, as the Cobb of Lyme-Regis; 14, a young herring; 15, a leader or chief; 16, a wealthy or influential person; 17, a small horse; 18, a spider (whence cob-web); 19, the bird called a shoveller.

That’s from Forebears, a website devoted to tracking down the origins of family and place names.

H/T Language Log

Meanings: Glamour

February 16, 2019

The word “glamour” passed before me this morning, someone mentioned the word, and I found myself wondering about its origin.  I could scarcely think of another English language word with the same spelling pattern.  Here’s the etymology:

glamour (n.)

1720, Scottish, “magic, enchantment” (especially in phrase to cast the glamor), a variant of Scottish gramarye “magic, enchantment, spell,” said to be an alteration of English grammar (q.v.) in a specialized use of that word’s medieval sense of “any sort of scholarship, especially occult learning,” the latter sense attested from c. 1500 in English but said to have been more common in Medieval Latin. Popularized in English by the writings of Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). Sense of “magical beauty, alluring charm” first recorded 1840. As that quality of attractiveness especially associated with Hollywood, high-fashion, celebrity, etc., by 1939.

Jamieson’s 1825 supplement to his “Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language” has glamour-gift “the power of enchantment; metaph. applied to female fascination.” Jamieson’s original edition (1808) looked to Old Norse for the source of the word. Zoëga’s Old Icelandic dictionary has glám-sýni“illusion,” probably from the same root as gleam.

So a Scottish root.  And with suggestions of magic and enchantment — but also of occult learning.

Why Brett Kavanaugh Should Not Be Confirmed

I am inclined to believe Christine Blasey Ford’s account and I have serious doubts about Brett Kavanaugh’s denial of what took place between them in 1982. The two accounts are in stark opposition to one another, but, for me, there is enough additional context in the two other accusations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh, in the testimony of friends of his about his behavior as a young man, and in his Yearbook page to make his flat denials simply not credible.

Would I vote to convict him in a criminal case? No, but this matter has not been adjudicated in a way that remotely resembles a criminal case. This is not a criminal case, where the burden of proof rests with the prosecution and the accused has a presumption of innocence. In this matter, a nomination to the Supreme Court, there is no presumption to believe an accused person.  In this kind of consideration, serious doubts about character should count against a nominee.

Nevertheless, these accusations of sexual misconduct are not the reasons I believe any United States Senator should vote AGAINST confirming this nomination. These are the reasons.

First, this President should not be appointing anyone to the Supreme Court. He has shown such unremitting contempt for the rule of law and for the institutions of justice in the United States that no one he appoints should be considered.

This is the most important reason, and it only gains greater weight in the wake of the refusal of the Senate to consider President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland. Here was a duly elected President, one who won a majority of votes and had no stain on the legitimacy of his election making the nomination. Trump not only lost the popular vote and has shown contempt for the rule of law but a Special Prosecutor is working through the question of whether he conspired with a foreign power to steal the election.

Second, Kavanaugh has shown a legal propensity to undermine the accountability of the President and the Executive Branch. These views are in conflict with a proper reading of the Constitution.

Third, we should not appoint to the Supreme Court people who have been deeply involved in partisan politics. Such nominees should be rejected out of hand. Kavanaugh had reasons I do not fault for being involved in the Bush-Gore election matter and in the Starr impeachment investigation, but I believe these should rule him out of consideration for a Supreme Court nomination.

Finally, even if we credit Kavanaugh with reasons to be angry about the accusations of sexual impropriety against him, his opening statement yesterday showed a disqualifying degree of partisanship. Even in the face of provocation, a judge needs to be impartial and measured.

A Government of Laws, Not of Men

June 7, 2018

I had an opinion piece in yesterday’s Brunswick Times Record.  It concerns Trump’s claim that he could pardon himself — or rather with unsatisfactory reactions to that claim.

“As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong?” So said Donald Trump in a jaw-dropping tweet at 5:35 a.m. on June 4. That’s an astonishing claim.

My practice is to pay as little attention as possible to what Donald J. Trump says because what he says is consistently untrue and cruel, often both. But I do make it a practice to notice what others say when Trump lies or crudely demeans. I look to members of Congress, and to business and civic leaders to set a tone for the nation. I look to them to uphold norms of truthfulness, decency and civic virtue. Too often these days I’m disappointed and dismayed.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a constitutional lawyer, was asked by a reporter if he agreed with the president that the president could pardon himself. Eighteen seconds of silence followed before Cruz said “That is not a constitutional issue I’ve studied.”

This claim by Trump is not, fundamentally, a matter for lawyers to settle. It is not a question that requires a law degree or careful study of precedents and the text of the Constitution. This question goes right to the heart of what we, the American people, committed ourselves to in declaring independence from Great Britain in 1776. This is a matter around which all citizens of this nation should today unite simply and clearly.

We are establishing “a government of laws, not of men,” John Adams said. It is a phrase that has been repeated thousands of times: in 4th of July speeches and in moments of political crisis. No one is above the law. No man is a law unto himself. In the pledge of allegiance we all promise over and over again “liberty and justice for all.” That doesn’t permit exceptions for tyrants or presidents – or anyone.

Maine Independent Senator Angus King called the claim “troubling because the implication is that a president can never be held to account.” “Troubling? I hoped I would hear a stronger denunciation, something like “False” or “Unacceptable.”

Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins, waffled even worse, saying that ‘self pardoning’ would be a “tremendous abuse” of Trump’s authority, as well as “remarkably unwise.” That statement from our senior senator seems to accept that a president could pardon himself. Say it ain’t so.

I look to our two Senators, our two Representatives, our Governor and everyone who is running for election or re-election next week to firmly and proudly declare that no man or woman is above the law, that no man or woman can distort the law for his or her own purposes, that we are a government of laws not of men.

This is the fundamental proposition of which Abraham Lincoln reminded a torn and weary nation when he called us “a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” — equally subject to the law.

Doug Bennett is a Topsham resident

The Education-Jobs Connection

June 5, 2018

Timothy Taylor of the consistently informative Conversable Economist blog provides a useful summary of and commentary on the connection — the not very healthy current connection — between our education system (K-16) and the labor market.  Mostly he’s commenting on a recent Council on Foreign Relations Report arising from a task force chaired by John Engler and Penny Pritzker, The Work Ahead Machines, Skills, and U.S. Leadership in the Twenty-First Century.

Here’s the central predicament as Taylor sees it:

It seems to me that a lot of employers would prefer not to be involved in training, and just want educators to do it, while a lot of educators would prefer that employers remain at arms-length from their curriculum and classrooms. I think some of the discomfort of Americans with the US labor market, despite the very low unemployment rates, comes from a concern that our society is not coming to grips with issue of building job skills that lead to secure and productive careers.

George Mason University & the Kochs

May 1, 2018

I’ll get to George Johnson in a minute.

First, my hat is off today for Samantha Parsons, a former George Mason University student whose Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests have brought into the light of day a series of agreements between George Mason University and various Koch brothers foundations that gave those foundations a say in who was appointed to professorships at George Mason.  The money to endow the chairs came from the Koch brothers.  The positions were in ‘free market’ economics.  Inside Higher Education has a good overview of the scandal.

Angel Cabrera, the current GMU President told the faculty in an e-mail “I was made aware of a number of gift agreements that were accepted by the university between 2003 and 2011 and raise questions concerning donor influence in academic matters.”  High marks for passive voice.  (Did he really not know before?) And even higher marks for trying to downplay the issue: “raise questions”?  “influence?”  Cabrera also said the agreements”fall short of the standards of academic independence I expect any gift to meet.”  “Fall short?”  Are we talking about a continuum here or a bright line?  Memo to Cabrera: this not only walks and talks like a duck; this has duck DNA.

George Mason University has been caught violating one of the key principles of academic freedom.  We construct university governance out of two different ways of doing things, trying to mesh the two harmoniously.  On the one hand, we have the standard model of organizational governance: a governing board, a president, various vice presidents and so forth: a hierarchical system designed to focus responsibility.  One the other hand we have a self-regulating guild of professionals, each new member named to the guild by their predecessors.  The first system is meant to insure financial health; the second is meant to insure fidelity to the truth-seeking norms of the academy.  Shared governance, we call it.

Says the relevant statement of the American Association of University Professors, “The faculty has primary responsibility for such fundamental areas as curriculum, subject matter and methods of instruction, research, faculty status, and those aspects of student life which relate to the educational process.”  Primary responsibility for faculty status means current professors make decisions about who else is named to the faculty, subject in extraordinary circumstances to denial by the president or (even more rarely) the governing board.  But appointments never start with the president or governing board, and never, never, never with donors.  Said Inside Higher Education:

All 10 of the now-public agreements relate to the university’s Mercatus Center for free market research, a locus of Koch-funded activity. Three of the agreements involve Koch. The two most recent, from 2007 and2009, stipulate the creation of a five-member selection committee to select a professor, with two of those committee members chosen by donors. The other Koch agreement, from 1990, also afforded Koch a role in naming a professor to fund.

The University has long denied any donor role in naming professors to the Koch-funded professorships.  With the release of these documents, it is clear they were lying.

I took note that the first agreement goes back to 1990.  That’s when George Johnson was GMU’s President.  (You can see the agreement here, with Johnson’s signature.)  Johnson was Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Temple University when I was appointed to a faculty position there in 1973.  (Earlier he had been a Professor of English and Chair of the English Department.)  He left Temple to go to GMU in 1978 and served as President there until 1996.  He died in 2017.

I had just one one-on-one conversation with Johnson while I was at Temple.  He struck me as very smart.  He went out of his way to show me how little I understood then about university governance (true) and how much he did.  I could see he was formidable, but I didn’t like him much.  I learned early in my years at Temple that he had referred to the political science department (of which I was a member) as a “parking lot department.”  By which he meant the following.  When buildings were renovated (and there was a good deal of new building at Temple in the early 1970s), some departments needed to be displaced — housed in temporary quarters, often in trailers in parking lots.  The less valuable departments were the ones to be sent to the trailers.  “Parking lot departments”: He could be dismissive like that.

Now we know he could also sign an agreement that violated academic freedom.  It goes back to him,