Thursday, January 31, 2019
One way politicians rob the poor to pay the rich
Here is John Stossel on how politicians rob the poor to pay the rich using sports stadiums as an example.
JS is on target.
Roughly, when you subsidize something like a sports stadium, the marginal utility from paying marginal costs for stadium events (including cost of capital) is lower than it would be from spending the same money by private citizens for things that are not subsidized. This follows from 1) consumers setting price equal to marginal value and, 2) the fact that price is below marginal cost when goods are subsidized.
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Sunday is the Super Bowl.
I look forward to playing poker and watching. It's easy to do both because in a three-hour-plus NFL game there are just 11 minutes of actual football action.
So we'll have plenty of time to watch Atlanta politicians take credit for the stadium that will host the game. Atlanta's former mayor calls it "simply the best facility in the world."
But politicians aren't likely to talk about how taxpayers were forced to donate more than $700 million to the owner of Atlanta's football team, billionaire Arthur Blank, to get him to build the stadium.
In addition to the subsidies, the Falcons get all the money from parking, restaurants and merchandise sales. Sweet deal.
But not an unusual one. Some NFL teams collect even more in government subsidies than it cost to build their stadiums.
So taxpayers, most of whom never attend a game, subsidize billionaires.
Seems like a scam.
I don't fault Blank for grabbing the money. I like the guy. He made our lives better by founding Home Depot. We're both stutterers who donate money to AIS, a stuttering treatment program.
Since politicians give money away, Blank's shareholders would consider him irresponsible not to take it.
The problem is that politicians give away your money in the first place.
I understand why they do it.
They like going to games and telling voters, "I brought the team to our town!"
Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman and her cronies recently funneled $750 million of taxpayer money to the owners of the Oakland Raiders to get them to move the team to Vegas.
Reporter Jon Ralston asked her, "Why should there be one cent of public money when you have two guys who could pay for this themselves?"
The mayor replied lamely, "I think it really is a benefit to us that really could spill over into something."
Spill over into ... something. Politicians always claim giving taxpayer money to team owners will "spill over" to the whole community.
They call their handouts investments — a "terrific investment," as the mayor of Atlanta put it.
But it's not a good investment. It's a bad one.
Politicians point to that extra business activity that occurs when the football team plays at home, but the Atlanta Falcons, like most NFL teams, play just 10 home games. The stadium is used for some concerts and soccer games, but most days little or nothing happens there.
That's why economists who study stadium subsidies call them a bad deal for taxpayers.
The problem is the seen vs. the unseen, as economist Frederic Bastiat put it. All of us see the people at the games buying beer and hotdogs.
But we don't see the larger number of citizens, who had their money taken from them to spend on the stadium, not buying things.
We don't see two fewer customers in a restaurant or the home remodeling that never got done. Those humbler projects lack the political clout and don't get the media attention that politicians and the stadium-builders get.
So this Sunday, when Atlanta politicians brag about their beautiful stadium, and clueless media claim that it created lots of jobs, let's also remember the jobs the subsidies destroyed — and the tax money that was given to rich people.
The problem isn't just Atlanta, and it isn't just sports.
Most every time government presumes to tell us where and how our money should be spent rather than leaving it up to free individuals, it creates a loss.
Politicians announce whatever project they fund with great fanfare, implying you should be thankful to them — as if football, or the arts, or whatever is unveiled in the latest ribbon-cutting ceremony, couldn't exist without politicians moving money from your pocket to the pockets of their cronies.
But really, government shrinks your ability to make choices every time it steers money away from what you might choose to spend it on.
Football is popular enough to thrive without politicians subsidizing it.
JS is on target.
Roughly, when you subsidize something like a sports stadium, the marginal utility from paying marginal costs for stadium events (including cost of capital) is lower than it would be from spending the same money by private citizens for things that are not subsidized. This follows from 1) consumers setting price equal to marginal value and, 2) the fact that price is below marginal cost when goods are subsidized.
-----------------------------------------------------
Sunday is the Super Bowl.
I look forward to playing poker and watching. It's easy to do both because in a three-hour-plus NFL game there are just 11 minutes of actual football action.
So we'll have plenty of time to watch Atlanta politicians take credit for the stadium that will host the game. Atlanta's former mayor calls it "simply the best facility in the world."
But politicians aren't likely to talk about how taxpayers were forced to donate more than $700 million to the owner of Atlanta's football team, billionaire Arthur Blank, to get him to build the stadium.
In addition to the subsidies, the Falcons get all the money from parking, restaurants and merchandise sales. Sweet deal.
But not an unusual one. Some NFL teams collect even more in government subsidies than it cost to build their stadiums.
So taxpayers, most of whom never attend a game, subsidize billionaires.
Seems like a scam.
I don't fault Blank for grabbing the money. I like the guy. He made our lives better by founding Home Depot. We're both stutterers who donate money to AIS, a stuttering treatment program.
Since politicians give money away, Blank's shareholders would consider him irresponsible not to take it.
The problem is that politicians give away your money in the first place.
I understand why they do it.
They like going to games and telling voters, "I brought the team to our town!"
Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman and her cronies recently funneled $750 million of taxpayer money to the owners of the Oakland Raiders to get them to move the team to Vegas.
Reporter Jon Ralston asked her, "Why should there be one cent of public money when you have two guys who could pay for this themselves?"
The mayor replied lamely, "I think it really is a benefit to us that really could spill over into something."
Spill over into ... something. Politicians always claim giving taxpayer money to team owners will "spill over" to the whole community.
They call their handouts investments — a "terrific investment," as the mayor of Atlanta put it.
But it's not a good investment. It's a bad one.
Politicians point to that extra business activity that occurs when the football team plays at home, but the Atlanta Falcons, like most NFL teams, play just 10 home games. The stadium is used for some concerts and soccer games, but most days little or nothing happens there.
That's why economists who study stadium subsidies call them a bad deal for taxpayers.
The problem is the seen vs. the unseen, as economist Frederic Bastiat put it. All of us see the people at the games buying beer and hotdogs.
But we don't see the larger number of citizens, who had their money taken from them to spend on the stadium, not buying things.
We don't see two fewer customers in a restaurant or the home remodeling that never got done. Those humbler projects lack the political clout and don't get the media attention that politicians and the stadium-builders get.
So this Sunday, when Atlanta politicians brag about their beautiful stadium, and clueless media claim that it created lots of jobs, let's also remember the jobs the subsidies destroyed — and the tax money that was given to rich people.
The problem isn't just Atlanta, and it isn't just sports.
Most every time government presumes to tell us where and how our money should be spent rather than leaving it up to free individuals, it creates a loss.
Politicians announce whatever project they fund with great fanfare, implying you should be thankful to them — as if football, or the arts, or whatever is unveiled in the latest ribbon-cutting ceremony, couldn't exist without politicians moving money from your pocket to the pockets of their cronies.
But really, government shrinks your ability to make choices every time it steers money away from what you might choose to spend it on.
Football is popular enough to thrive without politicians subsidizing it.
Gestapo in America
Here is a Townhall column by Judge Andrew Napolitano.
JAN is on target.
Meuller's tactics show a disregard for justice and a concern only for obtaining convictions. They have no place in a free society.
Meuller deserves to be fired over this.
----------------------------------------------
Last Friday, on a quiet residential street at 6 in the morning, the neighborhood exploded in light, noise and terror. Seventeen SUVs and two armored vehicles arrived in front of one house. Each vehicle had sirens blaring and lights flashing. The house, which abutted a canal, was soon surrounded by 29 government agents, each wearing military garb, each carrying a handgun and most carrying high-powered automatic rifles.
In the canal were two amphibious watercraft, out of which more heavily armed government agents came. Circling above all this was a helicopter equipped with long-range precision weaponry and high-powered spotlights.
Four agents approached the front door to the house. Two held a battering ram, and two pointed their rifles at the door. One of the agents shouted and banged on the front door until the terrified owner of the house emerged, barefoot and wearing shorts and a T-shirt. He was greeted in the dark at his open front door by two rifle barrels aimed at his head.
This was not a movie set; it was not a foreign city in a war zone; it was not the arrest of the Venezuelan opposition leader in Caracas. It was Middle America, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The agents worked for the FBI, and the target of this operation was not a drug kingpin or a terrorist operative or a kidnapper of babies. It was a peaceful American in his own home -- a political operative and longtime friend of President Donald Trump's, named Roger Stone.
Why were there more FBI agents sent to arrest Stone than Navy SEALs sent to kill Osama bin Laden? Why jackboots in the morning in America? Here is the back story.
Stone has been both a paid formal adviser and an unpaid informal adviser to Trump for 40 years. He was fired from Trump's presidential campaign during the summer of 2015, but he continued to work on his own to help Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. Some of that help -- according to the government -- involved the release of embarrassing Clinton emails that had probably been hacked by Russian agents.
Last Thursday, one of special counsel Robert Mueller's grand juries indicted Stone on five counts of lying to Congress, one count of witness intimidation and one count of obstruction of justice. His Gestapo-like arrest followed his indictment by just a few hours.
Stone was represented by counsel throughout the time of his testimony before Congress last year. He was the recipient of grand jury subpoenas for his text messages, his emails and other records -- all of which, through his counsel, he surrendered. He claims that when asked by members of the House Intelligence Committee about certain aspects of these, he innocently forgot about them. Who could remember each of 1 million texts and emails?
In the real world -- where the influence of politics into law enforcement is kept to a harmless minimum -- defense counsel is generally known to prosecutors throughout their investigation of a target. According to Stone, federal prosecutors have known for a year who his lawyers are. Also in the real world, when a defendant has been indicted for a nonviolent crime, has no criminal record and is not a flight risk or an imminent danger to society, prosecutors inform defense counsel of the indictment, send the defense counsel a copy of it and request the peaceful and dignified surrender of the indicted person.
In the current, unreal world -- where politics deeply infuse law enforcement -- prosecutors use brute force to send a message of terror to innocent defendants. Like all defendants at the time of arrest, Stone is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
What message does brute force send? It is a message of terror, and it has no place in American life. As if to add embarrassment to terror, the feds may have tipped off CNN, which carried all this live in real time.
When I interviewed Stone on Fox Nation -- after a judge released him without requiring him to post bail -- he told me that he will not cave to this terror but he is willing to speak with the prosecutors. Stone wavered a bit when I pressed him on the nature and extent of any communication between his lawyers and Mueller's team and on the nature of any cooperation by him personally with Mueller. As a practical matter, his lawyers must communicate with Mueller's team to address the logistics of pretrial events, as well as their discovery of the evidence in the government's possession.
One item in the government's possession that is very problematic constitutionally is the transcript of the testimony Stone gave to the House Intelligence Committee, wherein the indictment accuses Stone of lying. Because that testimony is classified, Stone is not permitted to see it, and his lawyers -- who may view it only in a secret facility -- may not copy it.
How can they defend against these charges? How can it be that the government has a piece of paper that allegedly is proof of the crime charged and the defendant's lawyers may not copy it? Didn't the government waive the classified nature of this document by Stone's very presence at the hearing where the document was created? What remains of the constitutional guarantee of confronting one's accusers and challenging their evidence?
If Stone goes to trial, the soonest it could be held is early 2020 -- in the midst of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary and 2 1/2 years after Mueller's appointment.
No innocent American merits the governmental treatment Stone received. It was the behavior of a police state where the laws are written to help the government achieve its ends, not to guarantee the freedom of the people -- and where police break the laws they are sworn to enforce. Regrettably, what happened to Roger Stone could happen to anyone.
JAN is on target.
Meuller's tactics show a disregard for justice and a concern only for obtaining convictions. They have no place in a free society.
Meuller deserves to be fired over this.
----------------------------------------------
Last Friday, on a quiet residential street at 6 in the morning, the neighborhood exploded in light, noise and terror. Seventeen SUVs and two armored vehicles arrived in front of one house. Each vehicle had sirens blaring and lights flashing. The house, which abutted a canal, was soon surrounded by 29 government agents, each wearing military garb, each carrying a handgun and most carrying high-powered automatic rifles.
In the canal were two amphibious watercraft, out of which more heavily armed government agents came. Circling above all this was a helicopter equipped with long-range precision weaponry and high-powered spotlights.
Four agents approached the front door to the house. Two held a battering ram, and two pointed their rifles at the door. One of the agents shouted and banged on the front door until the terrified owner of the house emerged, barefoot and wearing shorts and a T-shirt. He was greeted in the dark at his open front door by two rifle barrels aimed at his head.
This was not a movie set; it was not a foreign city in a war zone; it was not the arrest of the Venezuelan opposition leader in Caracas. It was Middle America, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The agents worked for the FBI, and the target of this operation was not a drug kingpin or a terrorist operative or a kidnapper of babies. It was a peaceful American in his own home -- a political operative and longtime friend of President Donald Trump's, named Roger Stone.
Why were there more FBI agents sent to arrest Stone than Navy SEALs sent to kill Osama bin Laden? Why jackboots in the morning in America? Here is the back story.
Stone has been both a paid formal adviser and an unpaid informal adviser to Trump for 40 years. He was fired from Trump's presidential campaign during the summer of 2015, but he continued to work on his own to help Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. Some of that help -- according to the government -- involved the release of embarrassing Clinton emails that had probably been hacked by Russian agents.
Last Thursday, one of special counsel Robert Mueller's grand juries indicted Stone on five counts of lying to Congress, one count of witness intimidation and one count of obstruction of justice. His Gestapo-like arrest followed his indictment by just a few hours.
Stone was represented by counsel throughout the time of his testimony before Congress last year. He was the recipient of grand jury subpoenas for his text messages, his emails and other records -- all of which, through his counsel, he surrendered. He claims that when asked by members of the House Intelligence Committee about certain aspects of these, he innocently forgot about them. Who could remember each of 1 million texts and emails?
In the real world -- where the influence of politics into law enforcement is kept to a harmless minimum -- defense counsel is generally known to prosecutors throughout their investigation of a target. According to Stone, federal prosecutors have known for a year who his lawyers are. Also in the real world, when a defendant has been indicted for a nonviolent crime, has no criminal record and is not a flight risk or an imminent danger to society, prosecutors inform defense counsel of the indictment, send the defense counsel a copy of it and request the peaceful and dignified surrender of the indicted person.
In the current, unreal world -- where politics deeply infuse law enforcement -- prosecutors use brute force to send a message of terror to innocent defendants. Like all defendants at the time of arrest, Stone is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
What message does brute force send? It is a message of terror, and it has no place in American life. As if to add embarrassment to terror, the feds may have tipped off CNN, which carried all this live in real time.
When I interviewed Stone on Fox Nation -- after a judge released him without requiring him to post bail -- he told me that he will not cave to this terror but he is willing to speak with the prosecutors. Stone wavered a bit when I pressed him on the nature and extent of any communication between his lawyers and Mueller's team and on the nature of any cooperation by him personally with Mueller. As a practical matter, his lawyers must communicate with Mueller's team to address the logistics of pretrial events, as well as their discovery of the evidence in the government's possession.
One item in the government's possession that is very problematic constitutionally is the transcript of the testimony Stone gave to the House Intelligence Committee, wherein the indictment accuses Stone of lying. Because that testimony is classified, Stone is not permitted to see it, and his lawyers -- who may view it only in a secret facility -- may not copy it.
How can they defend against these charges? How can it be that the government has a piece of paper that allegedly is proof of the crime charged and the defendant's lawyers may not copy it? Didn't the government waive the classified nature of this document by Stone's very presence at the hearing where the document was created? What remains of the constitutional guarantee of confronting one's accusers and challenging their evidence?
If Stone goes to trial, the soonest it could be held is early 2020 -- in the midst of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary and 2 1/2 years after Mueller's appointment.
No innocent American merits the governmental treatment Stone received. It was the behavior of a police state where the laws are written to help the government achieve its ends, not to guarantee the freedom of the people -- and where police break the laws they are sworn to enforce. Regrettably, what happened to Roger Stone could happen to anyone.
Wednesday, January 30, 2019
Demonizing White Men
Here is a column by Walter Williams.
WW is on target.
The kind of polemics against white men that WW is concerned about is no only bizarre, but runs the risk of creating racists. There is something very wrong (mentally) with people who make such irrational (add about a dozen appropriately negative adjectives) statements.
Here is his biographical information - you should take him seriously.
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Dr. Walter E. Williams holds a B.A. in economics from California State University, Los Angeles, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from UCLA. He also holds a Doctor of Humane Letters from Virginia Union University and Grove City College, Doctor of Laws from Washington and Jefferson College and Doctor Honoris Causa en Ciencias Sociales from Universidad Francisco Marroquin, in Guatemala, where he is also Professor Honorario.
Dr. Williams has served on the faculty of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics, since 1980; from 1995 to 2001, he served as department chairman. He has also served on the faculties of Los Angeles City College, California State University Los Angeles, and Temple University in Philadelphia, and Grove City College, Grove City, Pa.
Don Lemon, a CNN anchorman, said, "We have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, most of them radicalized to the right, and we have to start doing something about them." Steven Clifford, former King Broadcasting CEO, said, "I will be leading a great movement to prohibit straight white males, who I believe supported Donald Trump by about 85 percent, from exercising the franchise (to vote), and I think that will save our democracy." Teen Vogue, a magazine targeting teenage girls, wrote, "Not only is white male terrorism as dangerous as Islamic extremism, but our collective safety rests in rooting out the source of their radicalization." Economist Paul Krugman, a New York Times columnist, wrote a column titled "The Angry White Male Caucus," in which he explained, "Trumpism is all about the fear of losing traditional privilege."
There have been similar despicable statements made by academics. James Livingston, a Rutgers history professor: "OK, officially, I now hate white people. ... I hereby resign from my race. F--- these people." Stacey Patton, a Morgan State University professor: "There is nothing more dangerous in the United States than a white man who has expected to succeed and finds himself falling behind." Stony Brook University sociology professor Michael Kimmel explained, "White men's anger comes from the potent fusion of two sentiments: entitlement and a sense of victimization."
Then there's the political arena. Sen. Bernie Sanders: "There's no question that in Georgia and in Florida racism has reared its ugly head. And you have candidates who ran against (Andrew) Gillum and ran against Stacey Adams who were racist. ... And that is an outrage." Michael Avenatti, criticizing the GOP senators during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings: "These old white men still don't understand that assault victims and women deserve respect and to be heard." "What troubles me is ... they're all white men," commented former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm regarding GOP senators questioning Christine Blasey Ford at the Kavanaugh hearings. William Falk, editor-in-chief of The Week, said, "There's something odd about the overwhelming white maleness of Washington's current leadership."
Not to be outdone, entertainers have hopped on the demonizing-white-men bandwagon. Joy Behar, talking on ABC's "The View" about senators supporting Kavanaugh, said: "These white men -- old, by the way -- are not protecting women. They're protecting a man who is probably guilty." Actress Gabourey Sidibe, also on "The View," said: "Older white men are a problem, y'all, for everyone. We're all at risk." Moira Donegan wrote an article for The Guardian titled "Half of white women continue to vote Republican. What's wrong with them?" Renee Graham wrote a column in The Boston Globe that counseled, "Memo to black men: Stop voting Republican." Comedian Chelsea Handler tweeted, "Just a friendly reminder for the weekend: No white after Labor Day, and no old, white racist men after the midterms. Get out and vote."
That is just a partial list of statements that would be viewed and condemned as racist simply by replacing "white men" with "black men," "Mexican men" or "Asian men." You can bet the rent money that university presidents and media executives would sanction any of their employees for making similar broad, sweeping statements about nonwhite men. Suppose a white anchorman said, "Black people are the greatest murder threat in this country." I guarantee you that he'd be shown the door.
There are only two ways to explain the silence by people who should know better. Either they agree with the sentiments expressed or they are out-and-out cowards. Decent American people ought to soundly reject and condemn this brazen attack on white men. I think that the attack is on masculinity itself and that white men are a convenient scapegoat -- for now.
WW is on target.
The kind of polemics against white men that WW is concerned about is no only bizarre, but runs the risk of creating racists. There is something very wrong (mentally) with people who make such irrational (add about a dozen appropriately negative adjectives) statements.
Here is his biographical information - you should take him seriously.
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Dr. Walter E. Williams holds a B.A. in economics from California State University, Los Angeles, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from UCLA. He also holds a Doctor of Humane Letters from Virginia Union University and Grove City College, Doctor of Laws from Washington and Jefferson College and Doctor Honoris Causa en Ciencias Sociales from Universidad Francisco Marroquin, in Guatemala, where he is also Professor Honorario.
Dr. Williams has served on the faculty of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics, since 1980; from 1995 to 2001, he served as department chairman. He has also served on the faculties of Los Angeles City College, California State University Los Angeles, and Temple University in Philadelphia, and Grove City College, Grove City, Pa.
-----------------------------------------------
Rush Limbaugh's December 2018 Limbaugh Letter has an article titled "Demonizing White Men." It highlights -- with actual quotations from people in the media, academia and the political and entertainment arenas -- the attack on white men as a class. You can decide whether these statements are decent, moral or even sensible. Should we support their visions?Don Lemon, a CNN anchorman, said, "We have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, most of them radicalized to the right, and we have to start doing something about them." Steven Clifford, former King Broadcasting CEO, said, "I will be leading a great movement to prohibit straight white males, who I believe supported Donald Trump by about 85 percent, from exercising the franchise (to vote), and I think that will save our democracy." Teen Vogue, a magazine targeting teenage girls, wrote, "Not only is white male terrorism as dangerous as Islamic extremism, but our collective safety rests in rooting out the source of their radicalization." Economist Paul Krugman, a New York Times columnist, wrote a column titled "The Angry White Male Caucus," in which he explained, "Trumpism is all about the fear of losing traditional privilege."
There have been similar despicable statements made by academics. James Livingston, a Rutgers history professor: "OK, officially, I now hate white people. ... I hereby resign from my race. F--- these people." Stacey Patton, a Morgan State University professor: "There is nothing more dangerous in the United States than a white man who has expected to succeed and finds himself falling behind." Stony Brook University sociology professor Michael Kimmel explained, "White men's anger comes from the potent fusion of two sentiments: entitlement and a sense of victimization."
Then there's the political arena. Sen. Bernie Sanders: "There's no question that in Georgia and in Florida racism has reared its ugly head. And you have candidates who ran against (Andrew) Gillum and ran against Stacey Adams who were racist. ... And that is an outrage." Michael Avenatti, criticizing the GOP senators during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings: "These old white men still don't understand that assault victims and women deserve respect and to be heard." "What troubles me is ... they're all white men," commented former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm regarding GOP senators questioning Christine Blasey Ford at the Kavanaugh hearings. William Falk, editor-in-chief of The Week, said, "There's something odd about the overwhelming white maleness of Washington's current leadership."
Not to be outdone, entertainers have hopped on the demonizing-white-men bandwagon. Joy Behar, talking on ABC's "The View" about senators supporting Kavanaugh, said: "These white men -- old, by the way -- are not protecting women. They're protecting a man who is probably guilty." Actress Gabourey Sidibe, also on "The View," said: "Older white men are a problem, y'all, for everyone. We're all at risk." Moira Donegan wrote an article for The Guardian titled "Half of white women continue to vote Republican. What's wrong with them?" Renee Graham wrote a column in The Boston Globe that counseled, "Memo to black men: Stop voting Republican." Comedian Chelsea Handler tweeted, "Just a friendly reminder for the weekend: No white after Labor Day, and no old, white racist men after the midterms. Get out and vote."
That is just a partial list of statements that would be viewed and condemned as racist simply by replacing "white men" with "black men," "Mexican men" or "Asian men." You can bet the rent money that university presidents and media executives would sanction any of their employees for making similar broad, sweeping statements about nonwhite men. Suppose a white anchorman said, "Black people are the greatest murder threat in this country." I guarantee you that he'd be shown the door.
There are only two ways to explain the silence by people who should know better. Either they agree with the sentiments expressed or they are out-and-out cowards. Decent American people ought to soundly reject and condemn this brazen attack on white men. I think that the attack is on masculinity itself and that white men are a convenient scapegoat -- for now.
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
Minimum wages are a bad idea
Here is Thomas Sowell at Townhall.com.
Some of TS's experience is:
Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, September 1980 – present
Professor of Economics, U.C.L.A., September 1974 – June 1980
Visiting Professor of Economics, Amherst College, September 1977 – January 1978
Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, April – August 1977
Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, July 1976 – March 1977
Project Director, The Urban Institute, August 1972 – July 1974
Associate Professor of Economics, U.C.L.A., September 1970 – June 1972
Associate Professor of Economics, Brandeis University, September 1969 – June 1970
Assistant Professor of Economics, Cornell University, September 1965 – June 1969
Economic Analyst, American Telephone & TelegraphCo., June 1964 – August 1965
Lecturer in Economics, Howard University, September 1963 – June 1964
Instructor in Economics, Douglass College, Rutgers University, September 1962 – June 1963
Labor Economist, U.S. Department of Labor, June 1961 – August 1962
I know because I was that black 17-year-old. And, decades later, I did research on economic conditions back then.
Back in 1948, the unemployment rate for 17-year-old black males was just under 10 percent, and no higher than the unemployment rate among white male 17-year-olds.
How could that be, when we have for decades gotten used to seeing unemployment rates for teenage males that have been some multiple of what it was then -- and with black teenage unemployment often twice as high, or higher, than white teenage unemployment?
Many people automatically assume that racism explains the large difference in unemployment rates between black and white teenagers today. Was there no racism in 1948? No sane person who was alive in 1948 could believe that. Racism was worse -- and of course there was no Civil Rights Act of 1964 then.
How then could there be this low unemployment rate, with virtually no racial difference? Racism is despicable. But that tells us nothing about what weight it has -- compared to other factors -- as a cause of particular social problems such as unemployment.
Perhaps the most widely condemned racism in the second half of the 20th century was that in South Africa under apartheid, when an openly racist government proclaimed white supremacy, and denied blacks basic human rights. Yet, even under such a regime, there were particular occupations in which black workers outnumbered white workers -- even though it was illegal to hire any blacks at all in those particular occupations. Economics carried weight, even in South Africa under apartheid.
In the United States, what was unusual about 1948 was that, for all practical purposes, there was no minimum wage law in effect. There was a minimum wage law on the books. But it was passed in 1938, and a decade of high inflation had raised money wages, for even low-level jobs, above that minimum wage.
Among the effects of a minimum wage law, when it is effective, is that many unskilled and inexperienced workers are priced out of a job, when employers do not find them worth what the law specifies. Another effect of a minimum wage law is that it can lead to a chronic surplus of job applicants.
When an employer has 40 qualified applicants for 20 jobs, it costs the employer nothing to refuse to hire 10 qualified black applicants. But if he has no more than 20 qualified applicants, that is a different ball game.
The point here is that economic factors carry weight, and sometimes, under some conditions, those economic factors carry more weight than racism. Even in South Africa under apartheid.
In the United States, as the minimum wage rate specified in the law began to be raised, beginning in the 1950s, so as to catch up with inflation and then keep up with inflation, the minimum wage law became effective in practice once again -- and a racial gap in unemployment rates opened up and expanded.
As a black teenager, I was lucky enough to be looking for jobs when the minimum wage law was rendered ineffective by inflation. I was also lucky enough to have gone through New York schools at a time when they still had high educational standards.
Decades later, when examining the math textbook used by some young relatives of mine, who were living where I grew up in Harlem, I discovered that the math they were being taught in the 11th grade was less than what I had been taught in the 9th grade.
The opportunities open to my young relatives in Harlem -- and to other young blacks elsewhere -- were not nearly as good as the opportunities open to me back in 1948.
Many of the seemingly compassionate policies promoted by the progressives in later years -- whether in economics or in education -- have had outcomes the opposite of what was expected. One of the tragedies of our times is that so many people judge by rhetoric, rather than by results.
Some of TS's experience is:
Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, September 1980 – present
Professor of Economics, U.C.L.A., September 1974 – June 1980
Visiting Professor of Economics, Amherst College, September 1977 – January 1978
Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, April – August 1977
Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, July 1976 – March 1977
Project Director, The Urban Institute, August 1972 – July 1974
Associate Professor of Economics, U.C.L.A., September 1970 – June 1972
Associate Professor of Economics, Brandeis University, September 1969 – June 1970
Assistant Professor of Economics, Cornell University, September 1965 – June 1969
Economic Analyst, American Telephone & TelegraphCo., June 1964 – August 1965
Lecturer in Economics, Howard University, September 1963 – June 1964
Instructor in Economics, Douglass College, Rutgers University, September 1962 – June 1963
Labor Economist, U.S. Department of Labor, June 1961 – August 1962
After reading TS's column, you will know that those who love minimum wages because they help the least well off no not what they are talking about.
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Seventy-one years ago this month -- in January 1948 -- a black, 17-year-old high school dropout left home. The last grade he had completed was the 9th grade. He had no skills, little experience, and not a lot of maturity. Yet he was able to find jobs to support himself, to a far greater extent than someone similar can find jobs today.I know because I was that black 17-year-old. And, decades later, I did research on economic conditions back then.
Back in 1948, the unemployment rate for 17-year-old black males was just under 10 percent, and no higher than the unemployment rate among white male 17-year-olds.
How could that be, when we have for decades gotten used to seeing unemployment rates for teenage males that have been some multiple of what it was then -- and with black teenage unemployment often twice as high, or higher, than white teenage unemployment?
Many people automatically assume that racism explains the large difference in unemployment rates between black and white teenagers today. Was there no racism in 1948? No sane person who was alive in 1948 could believe that. Racism was worse -- and of course there was no Civil Rights Act of 1964 then.
How then could there be this low unemployment rate, with virtually no racial difference? Racism is despicable. But that tells us nothing about what weight it has -- compared to other factors -- as a cause of particular social problems such as unemployment.
Perhaps the most widely condemned racism in the second half of the 20th century was that in South Africa under apartheid, when an openly racist government proclaimed white supremacy, and denied blacks basic human rights. Yet, even under such a regime, there were particular occupations in which black workers outnumbered white workers -- even though it was illegal to hire any blacks at all in those particular occupations. Economics carried weight, even in South Africa under apartheid.
In the United States, what was unusual about 1948 was that, for all practical purposes, there was no minimum wage law in effect. There was a minimum wage law on the books. But it was passed in 1938, and a decade of high inflation had raised money wages, for even low-level jobs, above that minimum wage.
Among the effects of a minimum wage law, when it is effective, is that many unskilled and inexperienced workers are priced out of a job, when employers do not find them worth what the law specifies. Another effect of a minimum wage law is that it can lead to a chronic surplus of job applicants.
When an employer has 40 qualified applicants for 20 jobs, it costs the employer nothing to refuse to hire 10 qualified black applicants. But if he has no more than 20 qualified applicants, that is a different ball game.
The point here is that economic factors carry weight, and sometimes, under some conditions, those economic factors carry more weight than racism. Even in South Africa under apartheid.
In the United States, as the minimum wage rate specified in the law began to be raised, beginning in the 1950s, so as to catch up with inflation and then keep up with inflation, the minimum wage law became effective in practice once again -- and a racial gap in unemployment rates opened up and expanded.
As a black teenager, I was lucky enough to be looking for jobs when the minimum wage law was rendered ineffective by inflation. I was also lucky enough to have gone through New York schools at a time when they still had high educational standards.
Decades later, when examining the math textbook used by some young relatives of mine, who were living where I grew up in Harlem, I discovered that the math they were being taught in the 11th grade was less than what I had been taught in the 9th grade.
The opportunities open to my young relatives in Harlem -- and to other young blacks elsewhere -- were not nearly as good as the opportunities open to me back in 1948.
Many of the seemingly compassionate policies promoted by the progressives in later years -- whether in economics or in education -- have had outcomes the opposite of what was expected. One of the tragedies of our times is that so many people judge by rhetoric, rather than by results.
Sunday, January 27, 2019
Jonathan Turley puts the Roger Stone indictment in perspective
More evidence that the media and politicians such as Adam Schiff are not a credible source of either facts assessments of Trump related developments.
More concerning than the media's "fake news" and politicians' "fake assessments" is how RS's arrest was carried out. Such Government behavior in these circumstances is unwarranted and even tyrannical. We are all at risk if the Government is allowed to act so inappropriately. I note that "friends" of the prosecutors who have committed equal or worse crimes are treated differently.
---------------------------------------------
The arrest of Roger Stone by Special Counsel Robert Mueller could not have been more dramatically presented. The pre-dawn raid of Stone’s house by a contingent of heavily armed, body-armored agents could easily have fit the arrest of El Chapo rather than an elderly crank with a Nixon fetish.
Despite the breathless media accounts, the actual indictment of Stone is most notable for what it does not include. This was supposed to be the long-rumored linchpin to Russian collusion: The Russians fed information to Wikileaks which fed the information to Stone who fed the information to the Trump campaign.
The raid on Stone’s home clearly made for great television, but the Stone indictment hardly makes for a great collusion case. Let’s be honest. After more than a year of investigation, Mueller nailed a gadfly on false statements, witness tampering and obstruction rather than illegal collusion with Russia.
That’s what has been happening all along. Mueller has almost exclusively charged non-Russian defendants with either false statements or other process crimes.
Maybe Mueller has more evidence
This does not mean that Mueller cannot reveal a wealth of evidence of collusion in the final scene like some Agatha Christie novel. Yet, coverage has been saturated with speculation on possible collusion angles without observing that little evidence has been raised in numerous and lengthy indictments since July 2017.
This is not to say that Mueller was wrong to pursue and ultimately indict Stone. There was ample reason why Mueller targeted Stone initially. After all, Stone suggested to others that he was the conduit of hacked information from Wikileaks but he later insisted that he was not actually speaking to Julian Assange and that he had no direct knowledge that Russians were responsible for the Democratic hacks.
Mueller had every reason to pursue Stone, but it quickly became evident that Stone is a clown-like figure who reveled in the attention of scandal. He was someone who publicly admitted to being a trickster and still admires Richard Nixon (whose image in tattooed on his back).
Moreover, some of these charges are obviously well-founded. Stone said that he did not write to key individuals. He did. He allegedly spoke directly to a potential witness and pressured him to change his account. Like Paul Manafort’s contacting potential witnesses through his monitored phone (while under house arrest), stupidity alone might justify a prison stint.
Mueller however seems to have a strikingly inconsistent approach to these targets. With some targets, Mueller followed the common practice of allowing them to surrender. For Manafort and and Stone, Mueller carried out heavy-handed raids. With Michael Cohen, Mueller matter-of-factly in a footnote noted that he made various false statements but was allowed to simply correct them.With Stonethe allegedly false statements were all related to part of his congressional testimony regarding the meaning of prior public statements and past written communications with Wikileaks.
Sensational style, not criminal intent
In some ways, the Stone prosecution could highlight an element of the defense that could used by Trump himself. Many of the most sinister statements by Stone are consistent with this sensational style of speech and there is a question of intent.
Stone for example told one witness to “Stonewall it. Plead the fifth. Anything to save the plan’ . . . Richard Nixon.” The Special Counsel also recounts how Stone told a “You are a rat. A stoolie. You backstab your friends-run your mouth my lawyers are dying Rip you to shreds.” He also allegedly threatened the man’s dog and said that he would “take that dog away from you.” Hardly nice, but Stone is likely to point out that he spoke publicly in the same fashion and he is known for such colorful language.
In the end, however, Stone could have talked himself into an indictment just as Trump could well tweet himself into an impeachment.
The main issue however remains the lack of objectivity of the coverage of the indictment. Stone has featured prominently in theories seeking “smoking gun” evidence of collusion. There is nothing smoking in this indictment. There is no suggestion of involvement or knowledge by Stone in the hacking. Stone has suggested that he was a conduit of hacked information from Wikileaks but he later insisted that he was not actually speaking to Julian Assange and that he had no direct knowledge that Russians were responsible for the Democratic hackings. The indictment does not contradict that later account.
The indictment clearly states that Stone told multiple campaign officials that he had such information and the question is who “directed” campaign officials to reach out to Stone. Obviously, many will want to know if that person was President Trump or his close aides. On the other hand, it also references people like Steve Bannon as not even returning his calls.
The important thing is that, even if Stone and the campaign did seek the email information, it would not be a crime. The crime is the conspiracy to hack the email system. Campaigns often seek confidential information obtained by journalists, leakers, whistleblowers and others. Indeed, the Clinton campaign (while denying its role before the election) funded the Steele dossier investigation to dig up dirt on Trump, including dirt from Russian intelligence figures. Even if Stone implicated Trump in seeking the information, it would merely establish the type of dirty politics that Stone expressly embraced as his curious calling and talent.
Nailing Roger Stone on false statements was hardly a challenge. Stone could not give an interview without contradicting himself on national television. The question is, without Stone, what is left of the hack-and-attack conspiracy between the Russians and the Trump campaign? Like the Trump Tower meeting, the Stone angle seems to have fizzled out. On closer examination, there clearly appears to be dirty politics but nothing that can be fairly described as a criminal conspiracy.
Mueller has been unrelenting in pursuing Stone. Now he has him. For whatever it is worth.
More concerning than the media's "fake news" and politicians' "fake assessments" is how RS's arrest was carried out. Such Government behavior in these circumstances is unwarranted and even tyrannical. We are all at risk if the Government is allowed to act so inappropriately. I note that "friends" of the prosecutors who have committed equal or worse crimes are treated differently.
---------------------------------------------
The arrest of Roger Stone by Special Counsel Robert Mueller could not have been more dramatically presented. The pre-dawn raid of Stone’s house by a contingent of heavily armed, body-armored agents could easily have fit the arrest of El Chapo rather than an elderly crank with a Nixon fetish.
Despite the breathless media accounts, the actual indictment of Stone is most notable for what it does not include. This was supposed to be the long-rumored linchpin to Russian collusion: The Russians fed information to Wikileaks which fed the information to Stone who fed the information to the Trump campaign.
The raid on Stone’s home clearly made for great television, but the Stone indictment hardly makes for a great collusion case. Let’s be honest. After more than a year of investigation, Mueller nailed a gadfly on false statements, witness tampering and obstruction rather than illegal collusion with Russia.
That’s what has been happening all along. Mueller has almost exclusively charged non-Russian defendants with either false statements or other process crimes.
Maybe Mueller has more evidence
This does not mean that Mueller cannot reveal a wealth of evidence of collusion in the final scene like some Agatha Christie novel. Yet, coverage has been saturated with speculation on possible collusion angles without observing that little evidence has been raised in numerous and lengthy indictments since July 2017.
This is not to say that Mueller was wrong to pursue and ultimately indict Stone. There was ample reason why Mueller targeted Stone initially. After all, Stone suggested to others that he was the conduit of hacked information from Wikileaks but he later insisted that he was not actually speaking to Julian Assange and that he had no direct knowledge that Russians were responsible for the Democratic hacks.
Mueller had every reason to pursue Stone, but it quickly became evident that Stone is a clown-like figure who reveled in the attention of scandal. He was someone who publicly admitted to being a trickster and still admires Richard Nixon (whose image in tattooed on his back).
Moreover, some of these charges are obviously well-founded. Stone said that he did not write to key individuals. He did. He allegedly spoke directly to a potential witness and pressured him to change his account. Like Paul Manafort’s contacting potential witnesses through his monitored phone (while under house arrest), stupidity alone might justify a prison stint.
Mueller however seems to have a strikingly inconsistent approach to these targets. With some targets, Mueller followed the common practice of allowing them to surrender. For Manafort and and Stone, Mueller carried out heavy-handed raids. With Michael Cohen, Mueller matter-of-factly in a footnote noted that he made various false statements but was allowed to simply correct them.With Stonethe allegedly false statements were all related to part of his congressional testimony regarding the meaning of prior public statements and past written communications with Wikileaks.
Sensational style, not criminal intent
In some ways, the Stone prosecution could highlight an element of the defense that could used by Trump himself. Many of the most sinister statements by Stone are consistent with this sensational style of speech and there is a question of intent.
Stone for example told one witness to “Stonewall it. Plead the fifth. Anything to save the plan’ . . . Richard Nixon.” The Special Counsel also recounts how Stone told a “You are a rat. A stoolie. You backstab your friends-run your mouth my lawyers are dying Rip you to shreds.” He also allegedly threatened the man’s dog and said that he would “take that dog away from you.” Hardly nice, but Stone is likely to point out that he spoke publicly in the same fashion and he is known for such colorful language.
In the end, however, Stone could have talked himself into an indictment just as Trump could well tweet himself into an impeachment.
The main issue however remains the lack of objectivity of the coverage of the indictment. Stone has featured prominently in theories seeking “smoking gun” evidence of collusion. There is nothing smoking in this indictment. There is no suggestion of involvement or knowledge by Stone in the hacking. Stone has suggested that he was a conduit of hacked information from Wikileaks but he later insisted that he was not actually speaking to Julian Assange and that he had no direct knowledge that Russians were responsible for the Democratic hackings. The indictment does not contradict that later account.
The indictment clearly states that Stone told multiple campaign officials that he had such information and the question is who “directed” campaign officials to reach out to Stone. Obviously, many will want to know if that person was President Trump or his close aides. On the other hand, it also references people like Steve Bannon as not even returning his calls.
The important thing is that, even if Stone and the campaign did seek the email information, it would not be a crime. The crime is the conspiracy to hack the email system. Campaigns often seek confidential information obtained by journalists, leakers, whistleblowers and others. Indeed, the Clinton campaign (while denying its role before the election) funded the Steele dossier investigation to dig up dirt on Trump, including dirt from Russian intelligence figures. Even if Stone implicated Trump in seeking the information, it would merely establish the type of dirty politics that Stone expressly embraced as his curious calling and talent.
Nailing Roger Stone on false statements was hardly a challenge. Stone could not give an interview without contradicting himself on national television. The question is, without Stone, what is left of the hack-and-attack conspiracy between the Russians and the Trump campaign? Like the Trump Tower meeting, the Stone angle seems to have fizzled out. On closer examination, there clearly appears to be dirty politics but nothing that can be fairly described as a criminal conspiracy.
Mueller has been unrelenting in pursuing Stone. Now he has him. For whatever it is worth.
Thursday, January 24, 2019
BuzzFeed's CEO, Jonah Peretti is guilty of more than fake news
Here is a column by John Lott about Jonah Peretti's fraudulent anti-gun behavior.
JL is an economist and was formerly chief economist at the United States Sentencing Commission. Lott is also a leading expert on guns and op-eds on that issue are done in conjunction with the Crime Prevention Research Center. He is the author of nine books including "More Guns, Less Crime." His latest book is "The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies.
The story dominated the news on Friday, with Democrats calling for Trump to be impeached. MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” opened with the announcement that this revelation was “a big one.” CNN’s “New Day” host John Berman claimed the disclosure was so dramatic he almost spilled his coffee.
But by late Friday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office issued a very rare rebuke saying that BuzzFeed’s account was “not accurate.” This was hardly BuzzFeed’s first embarrassment. As Trump reminded people, “it was BuzzFeed that released the totally discredited 'Dossier,' paid for by Crooked Hillary Clinton and the Democrats . . .”
BuzzFeed’s culture of fake news starts at the top with founder and CEO Jonah Peretti, who has a history of knowingly spreading false information. He has used fraudulent websites and email accounts to pose as people he wished to defame. I was one of his victims.
Peretti’s first victim was MBA student Jeff Goldblatt, who had set up a dating service called the Rejection Hotline. This was inadvertently in competition with Peretti’s newly created rejectionline.com. Peretti’s sister and co-founder, Chelsea, contacted Goldblatt to gain information on his business. She “interviewed” him, under the false identity of New York-based reporter Vanessa Holmes.
Then Jonah Peretti set up the website JeffGoldblatt.com, under the pretense that it was Goldblatt’s personal website. Peretti sent out emails from me@JeffGoldblatt.com that, according to Goldblatt, “contained multiple lies about me and portrayed me as an arrogant jerk who was bragging about how I stole the idea of the New York City Rejection Line.”
Goldblatt contacted me after Peretti did the same thing to me in 2003. In my case, Peretti set up AskJohnLott.org and used the email address john@AskJohnLott.org. Peretti’s expropriation of my name wasn’t for financial gain, but to support gun control.
Pretending to be me, Peretti sent out hundreds of thousands of emails lobbying against the proposed “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.” This bill, which was being debated at the time (it ultimately passed in 2005), protected gun makers from abusive lawsuits that were solely designed to put them out of business with overwhelming legal fees. Peretti even purchased advertising for his fake website on Google, and the advertising promoting "my“ appeared at the very beginning of any search results on my name.
I was already relatively well-known in 2003 to those who care about the gun control debate because of my book “More Guns, Less Crime.” Peretti sent emails under my name to convince people that I had changed my mind and come out against the Act. The emails then urged people to ask their congressmen and Senators to oppose the bill.
A number of the recipients were people I knew, and some wrote back using the John@AskJohnLott.org email address and questioned why I would have changed my mind. But Peretti continued the charade of being me in multiple email chains.
I first learned about the website from James K. Glassman, a former Washington Post columnist, who later served as U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. He shared the email exchange with me that he had with Peretti's fake John Lott.
Peretti also used my name and picture to advise people on how to violate gun control laws. Soon, I received hundreds of angry phone calls from people who were upset that I was supposedly advising them to break the law.
My emails to john@AskJohnLott.org asking who was behind the effort were ignored. The website’s registration didn’t help, as it was supposedly registered to me.
I spent money to find out who was behind these efforts. When I contacted Peretti, he denied any involvement. After I hired lawyers, Peretti finally included a disclaimer on the website, stating that he intended to parody me. But he still refused to take down the website down or stop sending emails.
Goldblatt didn’t have the money for a legal battle, so I included him in my case.
After a year-and-a-half, we finally reach a legal settlement. Peretti, who worked for a company called Eyebeam, publicly acknowledged: “The AskJohnLott.org site was created by The Eyebeam Atelier, Inc. This site was never associated, endorsed or otherwise affiliated with John R. Lott, Jr. E-mail sent from the AskJohnLott.org domain that was identified as coming from Lott was also never associated, endorsed or otherwise affiliated with John R. Lott, Jr. Eyebeam deeply regrets any confusion and offers a formal apology to John R. Lott, Jr. The terms of the settlement are confidential.”
Peretti also apologized to Goldblatt and took down JeffGoldblatt.com. I received an undisclosed monetary settlement.
People are again asking how BuzzFeed could possibly publish such “fake” news against Trump. They need look no further than BuzzFeed’s CEO and founder Jonah Peretti.
JL is an economist and was formerly chief economist at the United States Sentencing Commission. Lott is also a leading expert on guns and op-eds on that issue are done in conjunction with the Crime Prevention Research Center. He is the author of nine books including "More Guns, Less Crime." His latest book is "The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies.
--------------------------------------------
BuzzFeed, a popular “news” website, has once again been shamed for publishing fake allegations against Donald Trump. BuzzFeed’s anonymously sourced report claimed that President Trump ordered his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about a proposed business deal in Moscow. Supposedly, two unnamed federal law enforcement officials claimed that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office had the goods. They were purported to have collected emails, texts, and testimony proving the explosive claim.The story dominated the news on Friday, with Democrats calling for Trump to be impeached. MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” opened with the announcement that this revelation was “a big one.” CNN’s “New Day” host John Berman claimed the disclosure was so dramatic he almost spilled his coffee.
But by late Friday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office issued a very rare rebuke saying that BuzzFeed’s account was “not accurate.” This was hardly BuzzFeed’s first embarrassment. As Trump reminded people, “it was BuzzFeed that released the totally discredited 'Dossier,' paid for by Crooked Hillary Clinton and the Democrats . . .”
BuzzFeed’s culture of fake news starts at the top with founder and CEO Jonah Peretti, who has a history of knowingly spreading false information. He has used fraudulent websites and email accounts to pose as people he wished to defame. I was one of his victims.
Peretti’s first victim was MBA student Jeff Goldblatt, who had set up a dating service called the Rejection Hotline. This was inadvertently in competition with Peretti’s newly created rejectionline.com. Peretti’s sister and co-founder, Chelsea, contacted Goldblatt to gain information on his business. She “interviewed” him, under the false identity of New York-based reporter Vanessa Holmes.
Then Jonah Peretti set up the website JeffGoldblatt.com, under the pretense that it was Goldblatt’s personal website. Peretti sent out emails from me@JeffGoldblatt.com that, according to Goldblatt, “contained multiple lies about me and portrayed me as an arrogant jerk who was bragging about how I stole the idea of the New York City Rejection Line.”
Goldblatt contacted me after Peretti did the same thing to me in 2003. In my case, Peretti set up AskJohnLott.org and used the email address john@AskJohnLott.org. Peretti’s expropriation of my name wasn’t for financial gain, but to support gun control.
Pretending to be me, Peretti sent out hundreds of thousands of emails lobbying against the proposed “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.” This bill, which was being debated at the time (it ultimately passed in 2005), protected gun makers from abusive lawsuits that were solely designed to put them out of business with overwhelming legal fees. Peretti even purchased advertising for his fake website on Google, and the advertising promoting "my“ appeared at the very beginning of any search results on my name.
I was already relatively well-known in 2003 to those who care about the gun control debate because of my book “More Guns, Less Crime.” Peretti sent emails under my name to convince people that I had changed my mind and come out against the Act. The emails then urged people to ask their congressmen and Senators to oppose the bill.
A number of the recipients were people I knew, and some wrote back using the John@AskJohnLott.org email address and questioned why I would have changed my mind. But Peretti continued the charade of being me in multiple email chains.
I first learned about the website from James K. Glassman, a former Washington Post columnist, who later served as U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. He shared the email exchange with me that he had with Peretti's fake John Lott.
Peretti also used my name and picture to advise people on how to violate gun control laws. Soon, I received hundreds of angry phone calls from people who were upset that I was supposedly advising them to break the law.
My emails to john@AskJohnLott.org asking who was behind the effort were ignored. The website’s registration didn’t help, as it was supposedly registered to me.
I spent money to find out who was behind these efforts. When I contacted Peretti, he denied any involvement. After I hired lawyers, Peretti finally included a disclaimer on the website, stating that he intended to parody me. But he still refused to take down the website down or stop sending emails.
Goldblatt didn’t have the money for a legal battle, so I included him in my case.
After a year-and-a-half, we finally reach a legal settlement. Peretti, who worked for a company called Eyebeam, publicly acknowledged: “The AskJohnLott.org site was created by The Eyebeam Atelier, Inc. This site was never associated, endorsed or otherwise affiliated with John R. Lott, Jr. E-mail sent from the AskJohnLott.org domain that was identified as coming from Lott was also never associated, endorsed or otherwise affiliated with John R. Lott, Jr. Eyebeam deeply regrets any confusion and offers a formal apology to John R. Lott, Jr. The terms of the settlement are confidential.”
Peretti also apologized to Goldblatt and took down JeffGoldblatt.com. I received an undisclosed monetary settlement.
People are again asking how BuzzFeed could possibly publish such “fake” news against Trump. They need look no further than BuzzFeed’s CEO and founder Jonah Peretti.
Saturday, January 19, 2019
An aspect of climate change you probably have not heard of
Here is a link to a research paper in AGU100 - Advance Earth and Space Science - Geophysical Research Letters.
It turns out that atmospheric pollution reduces global warming.
Here is the abstract.
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Limiting global warming to 1.5 or 2.0°C requires strong mitigation of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Concurrently, emissions of anthropogenic aerosols will decline, due to coemission with GHG, and measures to improve air quality. However, the combined climate effect of GHG and aerosol emissions over the industrial era is poorly constrained. Here we show the climate impacts from removing present‐day anthropogenic aerosol emissions and compare them to the impacts from moderate GHG‐dominated global warming. Removing aerosols induces a global mean surface heating of 0.5–1.1°C, and precipitation increase of 2.0–4.6%. Extreme weather indices also increase. We find a higher sensitivity of extreme events to aerosol reductions, per degree of surface warming, in particular over the major aerosol emission regions. Under near‐term warming, we find that regional climate change will depend strongly on the balance between aerosol and GHG forcing.
Some perspective on "climate deniers"
Here is a link to a blog entry, "National Climate Assessment: A crisis of epistemic overconfidence"
by Judith Curry, President (co-owner) of Climate Forecast Applications Network (CFAN) and previously Professor and Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
JC's column puts those who like to accuse others of being "climate deniers" in perspective. Perhaps they are the climate deniers.
Here are some excerpts.
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I’ve just completed rereading Vol I of the NCA4. There is so much here of concern that it is difficult to know where to start.
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To illustrate the overconfidence problem with the NCA4 Report, consider the following Key Conclusion from Chapter 1 Our Globally Changing Climate:
“Longer-term climate records over past centuries and millennia indicate that average temperatures in recent decades over much of the world have been much higher, and have risen faster during this time period, than at any time in the past 1,700 years or more, the time period for which the global distribution of surface temperatures can be reconstructed. (High confidence)”
This statement really struck me, since it is at odds with the conclusion from the IPCC AR5 WG1 Chapter 5 on paleoclimate:
“For average annual NH temperatures, the period 1983–2012 was very likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 800 years (high confidence) and likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years (medium confidence).
While my knowledge of paleoclimate is relatively limited, I don’t find the AR5 conclusion to be unreasonable, but it seems rather overconfident with the conclusion regarding the last 1400 years. The NCA4 conclusion, which is stronger than the AR5 conclusion and with greater confidence, made me wonder whether there was some new research that I was unaware of, and whether the authors included young scientists with a new perspective.
Fortunately, the NCA includes a section at the end of each Chapter that provides a traceability analysis for each of the key conclusions:
“Traceable Accounts for each Key Finding: 1) document the process and rationale the authors used in reaching the conclusions in their Key Finding, 2) provide additional information to readers about the quality of the information used, 3) allow traceability to resources and data, and 4) describe the level of likelihood and confidence in the Key Finding. Thus, the Traceable Accounts represent a synthesis of the chapter author team’s judgment of the validity of findings, as determined through evaluation of evidence and agreement in the scientific literature.”
Here is text from the traceability account for the paleoclimate conclusion:
“Description of evidence base. The Key Finding and supporting text summarizes extensive evidence documented in the climate science literature and are similar to statements made in previous national (NCA3) and international assessments. There are many recent studies of the paleoclimate leading to this conclusion including those cited in the report (e.g., Mann et al. 2008; PAGES 2k Consortium 2013).”
“Major uncertainties: Despite the extensive increase in knowledge in the last few decades, there are still many uncertainties in understanding the hemispheric and global changes in climate over Earth’s history, including that of the last few millennia. Additional research efforts in this direction can help reduce those uncertainties.”
“Assessment of confidence based on evidence and agreement, including short description of nature of evidence and level of agreement : There is high confidence for current temperatures to be higher than they have been in at least 1,700 years and perhaps much longer.
I read all this with acute cognitive dissonance. Apart from Steve McIntyre’s takedown of Mann et al. 2008 and PAGES 2K Consortium (for the latest, see PAGES2K: North American Tree Ring Proxies), how can you ‘square’ high confidence with “there are still many uncertainties in understanding the hemispheric and global changes in climate over Earth’s history, including that of the last few millennia”?
Further, Chapter 5 of the AR5 includes 1+ pages on uncertainties in temperature reconstructions for the past 200o years (section 5.3.5.2), a few choice quotes:
“Reconstructing NH, SH or global-mean temperature variations over the last 2000 years remains a challenge due to limitations of spatial sampling, uncertainties in individual proxy records and challenges associated with the statistical methods used to calibrate and integrate multi-proxy information”
“A key finding is that the methods used for many published reconstructions can underestimate the amplitude of the low-frequency variability”
“data are still sparse in the tropics, SH and over the oceans”
“Limitations in proxy data and reconstruction methods suggest that published uncertainties will underestimate the full range of uncertainties of large-scale temperature reconstructions.”
Heck, does all this even justify the AR5’s ‘medium’ confidence level?
I checked the relevant references in the NCA4 Chapter 1; only two (Mann et al., 2008; PAGES 2013), both of which were referenced by the AR5. The one figure from this section was from — you guessed it — Mann et al. (2008).
I next wondered: exactly who were the paleoclimate experts that came up with this stuff? Here is the author list for Chapter 1:
Wuebbles, D.J., D.R. Easterling, K. Hayhoe, T. Knutson, R.E. Kopp, J.P. Kossin, K.E. Kunkel, A.N. LeGrande, C. Mears, W.V. Sweet, P.C. Taylor, R.S. Vose, and M.F. Wehner
I am fairly familiar with half of these scientists (a few of them I have a great deal of respect for), somewhat familiar with another 25%, and unfamiliar with the rest. I looked these up to see which of them were the paleoclimate experts. There are only two authors (Kopp and LeGrande) that appear to have any expertise in paleoclimate, albeit on topics that don’t directly relate to the Key Finding. This is in contrast to an entire chapter in the IPCC AR5 being devoted to paleoclimate, with substantial expertise among the authors.
A pretty big lapse, not having an expert on your author team related to one of 6 key findings. This isn’t to say that a non-expert can’t do a good job of assessing this topic with a sufficient level of effort. However the level of effort here didn’t seem to extend to reading the IPCC AR5 Chapter 5, particularly section 5.3.5.2.
Why wasn’t this caught by the reviewers? The NCA4 advertises an extensive in house and external review process, including the National Academies.
I took some heat for my Report On Sea Level Rise and Climate Change, since it had only a single author and wasn’t peer reviewed. Well, the NCA provides a good example of how multiple authors and peer review is no panacea for providing a useful assessment report.
And finally, does this issue related to whether current temperatures were warmer than the medieval warm period really matter? Well yes, it is very important in context of detection and attribution arguments (which will be the subject of forthcoming posts).
This is but one example of overconfidence in the NCA4.
I don’t regard myself as overconfident with regards to climate science; in fact some have accused me of being underconfident. My experience in owning a company that makes weather and climate predictions (whose skill is regularly evaluated) has been extremely humbling in this regard. Further, I study and read the literature from philosophy of science, risk management, social psychology and law regarding uncertainty, evidence, judgement, confidence, argumentation.
The most disturbing point here is that overconfidence seems to ‘pay’ in terms of influence of an individual in political debates about science. There doesn’t seem to be much downside for the individuals/groups to eventually being proven wrong. So scientific overconfidence seems to be a victimless crime, with the only ‘victim’ being science itself and then the public who has to live with inappropriate decisions based on this overconfident information
So what are the implications of all this for understanding overconfidence in the IPCC and particularly the NCA? Cognitive biases in the context of an institutionalized consensus building process have arguably resulted in the consensus becoming increasingly confirmed in a self-reinforcing way, with ever growing confidence. The ‘merchants of doubt’ meme has motivated activist scientists (as well as the institutions that support and assess climate science) to downplay uncertainty and overhype confidence in the interests of motivating action on mitigation.
There are numerous strategies that have been studied and employed to help avoid overconfidence in scientific judgments. However, the IPCC and particularly the NCA introduces systemic bias through the assessment process, including consensus seeking.
As a community, we need to do better — a LOT better. The IPCC actually reflects on these issues in terms of carefully considering uncertainty guidance and selection of a relatively diverse group of authors, although the core problems still remain. The NCA appears not to reflect on any of this, resulting in a document with poorly justified and overconfident conclusions.
Climate change is a very serious issue — depending on your perspective, there will be much future loss and damage from either climate change itself or from the policies designed to prevent climate change. Not only do we need to think harder and more carefully about this, but we need to think better, with better ways justifying our arguments and assessing uncertainty, confidence and ignorance.
Sub-personal biases are unavoidable, although as scientists we should work hard to be aware and try to overcome these biases. Multiple scientists with different perspectives can be a big help, but it doesn’t help if you assign a group of ‘pals’ to do the assessment. The issue of systemic bias introduced by institutional constraints and guidelines is of greatest concern.
The task of synthesis and assessment is an important one, and it requires some different skills than a researcher pursuing a narrow research problem. First and foremost, the assessors need to do their homework and read tons of papers, consider multiple perspectives, understand sources of and reasons for disagreement, play ‘devils advocate’, and ask ‘how could we be wrong?’
Instead, what we see in at least some of the sections of the NCA4 is bootstrapping on previous assessments and then inflating the confidence without justification.
by Judith Curry, President (co-owner) of Climate Forecast Applications Network (CFAN) and previously Professor and Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
JC's column puts those who like to accuse others of being "climate deniers" in perspective. Perhaps they are the climate deniers.
Here are some excerpts.
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I’ve just completed rereading Vol I of the NCA4. There is so much here of concern that it is difficult to know where to start.
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To illustrate the overconfidence problem with the NCA4 Report, consider the following Key Conclusion from Chapter 1 Our Globally Changing Climate:
“Longer-term climate records over past centuries and millennia indicate that average temperatures in recent decades over much of the world have been much higher, and have risen faster during this time period, than at any time in the past 1,700 years or more, the time period for which the global distribution of surface temperatures can be reconstructed. (High confidence)”
This statement really struck me, since it is at odds with the conclusion from the IPCC AR5 WG1 Chapter 5 on paleoclimate:
“For average annual NH temperatures, the period 1983–2012 was very likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 800 years (high confidence) and likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years (medium confidence).
While my knowledge of paleoclimate is relatively limited, I don’t find the AR5 conclusion to be unreasonable, but it seems rather overconfident with the conclusion regarding the last 1400 years. The NCA4 conclusion, which is stronger than the AR5 conclusion and with greater confidence, made me wonder whether there was some new research that I was unaware of, and whether the authors included young scientists with a new perspective.
Fortunately, the NCA includes a section at the end of each Chapter that provides a traceability analysis for each of the key conclusions:
“Traceable Accounts for each Key Finding: 1) document the process and rationale the authors used in reaching the conclusions in their Key Finding, 2) provide additional information to readers about the quality of the information used, 3) allow traceability to resources and data, and 4) describe the level of likelihood and confidence in the Key Finding. Thus, the Traceable Accounts represent a synthesis of the chapter author team’s judgment of the validity of findings, as determined through evaluation of evidence and agreement in the scientific literature.”
Here is text from the traceability account for the paleoclimate conclusion:
“Description of evidence base. The Key Finding and supporting text summarizes extensive evidence documented in the climate science literature and are similar to statements made in previous national (NCA3) and international assessments. There are many recent studies of the paleoclimate leading to this conclusion including those cited in the report (e.g., Mann et al. 2008; PAGES 2k Consortium 2013).”
“Major uncertainties: Despite the extensive increase in knowledge in the last few decades, there are still many uncertainties in understanding the hemispheric and global changes in climate over Earth’s history, including that of the last few millennia. Additional research efforts in this direction can help reduce those uncertainties.”
“Assessment of confidence based on evidence and agreement, including short description of nature of evidence and level of agreement : There is high confidence for current temperatures to be higher than they have been in at least 1,700 years and perhaps much longer.
I read all this with acute cognitive dissonance. Apart from Steve McIntyre’s takedown of Mann et al. 2008 and PAGES 2K Consortium (for the latest, see PAGES2K: North American Tree Ring Proxies), how can you ‘square’ high confidence with “there are still many uncertainties in understanding the hemispheric and global changes in climate over Earth’s history, including that of the last few millennia”?
Further, Chapter 5 of the AR5 includes 1+ pages on uncertainties in temperature reconstructions for the past 200o years (section 5.3.5.2), a few choice quotes:
“Reconstructing NH, SH or global-mean temperature variations over the last 2000 years remains a challenge due to limitations of spatial sampling, uncertainties in individual proxy records and challenges associated with the statistical methods used to calibrate and integrate multi-proxy information”
“A key finding is that the methods used for many published reconstructions can underestimate the amplitude of the low-frequency variability”
“data are still sparse in the tropics, SH and over the oceans”
“Limitations in proxy data and reconstruction methods suggest that published uncertainties will underestimate the full range of uncertainties of large-scale temperature reconstructions.”
Heck, does all this even justify the AR5’s ‘medium’ confidence level?
I checked the relevant references in the NCA4 Chapter 1; only two (Mann et al., 2008; PAGES 2013), both of which were referenced by the AR5. The one figure from this section was from — you guessed it — Mann et al. (2008).
I next wondered: exactly who were the paleoclimate experts that came up with this stuff? Here is the author list for Chapter 1:
Wuebbles, D.J., D.R. Easterling, K. Hayhoe, T. Knutson, R.E. Kopp, J.P. Kossin, K.E. Kunkel, A.N. LeGrande, C. Mears, W.V. Sweet, P.C. Taylor, R.S. Vose, and M.F. Wehner
I am fairly familiar with half of these scientists (a few of them I have a great deal of respect for), somewhat familiar with another 25%, and unfamiliar with the rest. I looked these up to see which of them were the paleoclimate experts. There are only two authors (Kopp and LeGrande) that appear to have any expertise in paleoclimate, albeit on topics that don’t directly relate to the Key Finding. This is in contrast to an entire chapter in the IPCC AR5 being devoted to paleoclimate, with substantial expertise among the authors.
A pretty big lapse, not having an expert on your author team related to one of 6 key findings. This isn’t to say that a non-expert can’t do a good job of assessing this topic with a sufficient level of effort. However the level of effort here didn’t seem to extend to reading the IPCC AR5 Chapter 5, particularly section 5.3.5.2.
Why wasn’t this caught by the reviewers? The NCA4 advertises an extensive in house and external review process, including the National Academies.
I took some heat for my Report On Sea Level Rise and Climate Change, since it had only a single author and wasn’t peer reviewed. Well, the NCA provides a good example of how multiple authors and peer review is no panacea for providing a useful assessment report.
And finally, does this issue related to whether current temperatures were warmer than the medieval warm period really matter? Well yes, it is very important in context of detection and attribution arguments (which will be the subject of forthcoming posts).
This is but one example of overconfidence in the NCA4.
-----
Nearly everyone is overconfident. See these previous articles:- The lure of incredible certitude
- We are all confident idiots.
- It pays to be overconfident, even if you have no idea what you are doing
I don’t regard myself as overconfident with regards to climate science; in fact some have accused me of being underconfident. My experience in owning a company that makes weather and climate predictions (whose skill is regularly evaluated) has been extremely humbling in this regard. Further, I study and read the literature from philosophy of science, risk management, social psychology and law regarding uncertainty, evidence, judgement, confidence, argumentation.
The most disturbing point here is that overconfidence seems to ‘pay’ in terms of influence of an individual in political debates about science. There doesn’t seem to be much downside for the individuals/groups to eventually being proven wrong. So scientific overconfidence seems to be a victimless crime, with the only ‘victim’ being science itself and then the public who has to live with inappropriate decisions based on this overconfident information
So what are the implications of all this for understanding overconfidence in the IPCC and particularly the NCA? Cognitive biases in the context of an institutionalized consensus building process have arguably resulted in the consensus becoming increasingly confirmed in a self-reinforcing way, with ever growing confidence. The ‘merchants of doubt’ meme has motivated activist scientists (as well as the institutions that support and assess climate science) to downplay uncertainty and overhype confidence in the interests of motivating action on mitigation.
There are numerous strategies that have been studied and employed to help avoid overconfidence in scientific judgments. However, the IPCC and particularly the NCA introduces systemic bias through the assessment process, including consensus seeking.
As a community, we need to do better — a LOT better. The IPCC actually reflects on these issues in terms of carefully considering uncertainty guidance and selection of a relatively diverse group of authors, although the core problems still remain. The NCA appears not to reflect on any of this, resulting in a document with poorly justified and overconfident conclusions.
Climate change is a very serious issue — depending on your perspective, there will be much future loss and damage from either climate change itself or from the policies designed to prevent climate change. Not only do we need to think harder and more carefully about this, but we need to think better, with better ways justifying our arguments and assessing uncertainty, confidence and ignorance.
Sub-personal biases are unavoidable, although as scientists we should work hard to be aware and try to overcome these biases. Multiple scientists with different perspectives can be a big help, but it doesn’t help if you assign a group of ‘pals’ to do the assessment. The issue of systemic bias introduced by institutional constraints and guidelines is of greatest concern.
The task of synthesis and assessment is an important one, and it requires some different skills than a researcher pursuing a narrow research problem. First and foremost, the assessors need to do their homework and read tons of papers, consider multiple perspectives, understand sources of and reasons for disagreement, play ‘devils advocate’, and ask ‘how could we be wrong?’
Instead, what we see in at least some of the sections of the NCA4 is bootstrapping on previous assessments and then inflating the confidence without justification.
Friday, January 18, 2019
Five Myths About Bill Barr
From Jonathan Turley's blog.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University.
The Democrats and the Media are at it again - they are not credible.
Politics can operate on the same flawed premise, as shown in the debate over the confirmation of William Barr to be the next United States attorney general. Barr has been given the treatment in blogs and articles, creating a menacing image of a lawyer fundamentally opposed to the Russia investigation and blindly beholden to the interests of President Trump.
I testified Wednesday in favor of his confirmation before the Senate Judiciary Committee. I have known Barr for many years and represented him, along with other former attorneys general, during the Bill Clinton impeachment period. He is one of the best lawyers I have ever known, as well as one of the most educated and circumspect. For that reason, I have been taken aback by many false accounts of his views and background.
People are free to disagree with his view of executive power or with his tough on crime approach. However, critics seems to be more interested in reconstructing his record than in recognizing it. Even the most direct answers seem to get distorted. For example, when asked if he would make public any report by special counsel Robert Mueller, Barr said he believes that the public needs to see as much of the record as possible and would seek to release the report to the fullest extent allowed by law.
That is the most that any nominee for attorney general can ethically say without seeing the report, which could contain grand jury or privileged information that Barr would be required to redact. Yet, that response is now being portrayed as sinister and equivocating. It would have been unethical and unprofessional for Barr to promise anything more than that during his Senate hearing. Thus, before legend becomes fact, it would be useful to address five common myths floating in the public about him.
Myth 1: Barr believes the president of the United States is above the law.
Before this confirmation hearing this week, Senator Richard Blumenthal said that a 2018 memorandum that Barr wrote to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is “deeply worrisome because in effect he says the president is above the law.” Many critics have agreed. That is not what the memorandum says or even suggests. Indeed, it explicitly states the opposite. Barr has repeatedly stated that a president can be charged with criminal conduct in office. Moreover, even if presidential misconduct does not fall under the obstruction provision, he has repeatedly stated that such acts can be criminal under other provisions, constitute an abuse of power, and violate the presidential duty to faithfully execute the laws.
Myth 2: Barr believes the president cannot be charged with obstruction.
Perhaps the most common misrepresentation I have seen is that Barr maintains that a sitting president cannot be charged with obstruction of justice. That is indeed entirely untrue, as his memorandum expressly states. Barr wrote, “Obviously, the president and any other official can commit obstruction in this classic sense of sabotaging a proceeding’s truth finding function,” adding, “If a president knowingly destroys or alters evidence, suborns perjury, or induces a witness to change testimony, or commits any act deliberately impairing the integrity or availability of evidence, then he, like anyone else, commits the crime of obstruction.”
Barr has repeatedly and expressly disagreed with the White House legal team that a sitting president cannot be charged with obstruction of justice as a constitutional matter. He told the Senate, “If a president, acting with the requisite intent, engages in the kind of evidence impairment the statute prohibits, regardless whether it involves the exercise of his or her constitutional powers or not, then a president commits obstruction of justice under the statute. It is as simple as that.”
Myth 3: Barr speculated on possible use of obstruction against Trump.
Critics have characterized the premise of his memorandum as “bizarre” or “strange” and described it as “based entirely on made up facts.” Barr has been chastised for suggesting he that knows the “legal theory” of Mueller, and that he understands the “fact pattern” Mueller is investigating. The problem, however, is that Barr says precisely the opposite. At the outset of his memorandum, Barr says he is “in the dark about many facts” and was addressing only what is a commonly known focus of the investigation, which is the firing of FBI Director James Comey. We know that because it was one of the key factors behind the appointment of a special counsel. On his first day of testimony, various senators assumed the same fact.
Indeed, there are hundreds of articles on the obstruction issue addressed by Barr. One of his most vocal critics on this point wrote a lengthy piece on the same issue last year. He then proceeded, within days of his column criticizing Barr, to write another column exploring the hitherto “strange” focus of an obstruction case. Another critic wrote a New York Times column blasting Barr for the bizarre speculation on the bringing of an obstruction claim yet, last year, wrote another New York Times column exploring precisely that issue. What would be “bizarre” is a denial that Mueller has looked at the firing of Comey as a possible act of obstruction.
Myth 4: Barr thinks an attorney general must take orders from the president on investigation and prosecutions.
Critics have noted Barr stated, “The Constitution itself places no limit on the president’s authority to act on matters which concern him or his own conduct. On the contrary, the Constitution’s grant of law enforcement power to the president is plenary.” That is demonstrably true, as the Constitution does not contain any such limits. That does not mean executive actions taken for personal reasons would be lawful, or that the attorney general must carry out presidential orders on investigations.
Indeed, Barr has discussed how a president can be charged with criminal conduct and how the attorney general has a responsibility to protect the Justice Department from political influence. He stated that interference from a president could constitute not just obstruction but other crimes, and would presumably be an abuse of power and a violation of the duty to faithfully execute the laws of the United States. Barr has said that, while a president can raise certain issues or cases to the Justice Department, the attorney general makes his or her own decisions on how to prosecute. An Attorney General takes not one but two oaths: first as a lawyer to act ethically and second as a government lawyer to uphold the Constitution. Barr has said that Justice Department officials acted appropriately in resisting Nixon and resigning before they took improper action.
Myth 5: Barr was selected to scuttle the special counsel investigation.
Some have insisted that Barr was appointed to curtail Mueller and that he opposes the Russia investigation. That again is demonstrably false. Barr praised the appointment of Mueller and has never opposed the Russia investigation. He has repeatedly stated that he believes Mueller must be allowed to complete his investigation and that, as attorney general, he would turn over as much of the report to Congress as possible under existing law. He has stated, “I believe the country needs a credible and thorough investigation into Russia’s efforts to meddle in our democratic process, including the extent of any collusion by Americans, and thus feel strongly that the special counsel must be permitted to finish his work.”
None of that is the stuff of legend, of course, as these all just facts. Yet, this is Washington, where legends have a nasty habit of becoming fact.
-------------------------------------------------
In the classic Western film, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” Ranse Stoddard discloses to a newspaper editor that the legend about his shooting notorious gunman Liberty Valance was wrong. After hearing the true story of the demise of Valance and of Stoddard missing him entirely in their famous gunfight, Maxwell Scott rips up the account and says, “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”Politics can operate on the same flawed premise, as shown in the debate over the confirmation of William Barr to be the next United States attorney general. Barr has been given the treatment in blogs and articles, creating a menacing image of a lawyer fundamentally opposed to the Russia investigation and blindly beholden to the interests of President Trump.
I testified Wednesday in favor of his confirmation before the Senate Judiciary Committee. I have known Barr for many years and represented him, along with other former attorneys general, during the Bill Clinton impeachment period. He is one of the best lawyers I have ever known, as well as one of the most educated and circumspect. For that reason, I have been taken aback by many false accounts of his views and background.
People are free to disagree with his view of executive power or with his tough on crime approach. However, critics seems to be more interested in reconstructing his record than in recognizing it. Even the most direct answers seem to get distorted. For example, when asked if he would make public any report by special counsel Robert Mueller, Barr said he believes that the public needs to see as much of the record as possible and would seek to release the report to the fullest extent allowed by law.
That is the most that any nominee for attorney general can ethically say without seeing the report, which could contain grand jury or privileged information that Barr would be required to redact. Yet, that response is now being portrayed as sinister and equivocating. It would have been unethical and unprofessional for Barr to promise anything more than that during his Senate hearing. Thus, before legend becomes fact, it would be useful to address five common myths floating in the public about him.
Myth 1: Barr believes the president of the United States is above the law.
Before this confirmation hearing this week, Senator Richard Blumenthal said that a 2018 memorandum that Barr wrote to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is “deeply worrisome because in effect he says the president is above the law.” Many critics have agreed. That is not what the memorandum says or even suggests. Indeed, it explicitly states the opposite. Barr has repeatedly stated that a president can be charged with criminal conduct in office. Moreover, even if presidential misconduct does not fall under the obstruction provision, he has repeatedly stated that such acts can be criminal under other provisions, constitute an abuse of power, and violate the presidential duty to faithfully execute the laws.
Myth 2: Barr believes the president cannot be charged with obstruction.
Perhaps the most common misrepresentation I have seen is that Barr maintains that a sitting president cannot be charged with obstruction of justice. That is indeed entirely untrue, as his memorandum expressly states. Barr wrote, “Obviously, the president and any other official can commit obstruction in this classic sense of sabotaging a proceeding’s truth finding function,” adding, “If a president knowingly destroys or alters evidence, suborns perjury, or induces a witness to change testimony, or commits any act deliberately impairing the integrity or availability of evidence, then he, like anyone else, commits the crime of obstruction.”
Barr has repeatedly and expressly disagreed with the White House legal team that a sitting president cannot be charged with obstruction of justice as a constitutional matter. He told the Senate, “If a president, acting with the requisite intent, engages in the kind of evidence impairment the statute prohibits, regardless whether it involves the exercise of his or her constitutional powers or not, then a president commits obstruction of justice under the statute. It is as simple as that.”
Myth 3: Barr speculated on possible use of obstruction against Trump.
Critics have characterized the premise of his memorandum as “bizarre” or “strange” and described it as “based entirely on made up facts.” Barr has been chastised for suggesting he that knows the “legal theory” of Mueller, and that he understands the “fact pattern” Mueller is investigating. The problem, however, is that Barr says precisely the opposite. At the outset of his memorandum, Barr says he is “in the dark about many facts” and was addressing only what is a commonly known focus of the investigation, which is the firing of FBI Director James Comey. We know that because it was one of the key factors behind the appointment of a special counsel. On his first day of testimony, various senators assumed the same fact.
Indeed, there are hundreds of articles on the obstruction issue addressed by Barr. One of his most vocal critics on this point wrote a lengthy piece on the same issue last year. He then proceeded, within days of his column criticizing Barr, to write another column exploring the hitherto “strange” focus of an obstruction case. Another critic wrote a New York Times column blasting Barr for the bizarre speculation on the bringing of an obstruction claim yet, last year, wrote another New York Times column exploring precisely that issue. What would be “bizarre” is a denial that Mueller has looked at the firing of Comey as a possible act of obstruction.
Myth 4: Barr thinks an attorney general must take orders from the president on investigation and prosecutions.
Critics have noted Barr stated, “The Constitution itself places no limit on the president’s authority to act on matters which concern him or his own conduct. On the contrary, the Constitution’s grant of law enforcement power to the president is plenary.” That is demonstrably true, as the Constitution does not contain any such limits. That does not mean executive actions taken for personal reasons would be lawful, or that the attorney general must carry out presidential orders on investigations.
Indeed, Barr has discussed how a president can be charged with criminal conduct and how the attorney general has a responsibility to protect the Justice Department from political influence. He stated that interference from a president could constitute not just obstruction but other crimes, and would presumably be an abuse of power and a violation of the duty to faithfully execute the laws of the United States. Barr has said that, while a president can raise certain issues or cases to the Justice Department, the attorney general makes his or her own decisions on how to prosecute. An Attorney General takes not one but two oaths: first as a lawyer to act ethically and second as a government lawyer to uphold the Constitution. Barr has said that Justice Department officials acted appropriately in resisting Nixon and resigning before they took improper action.
Myth 5: Barr was selected to scuttle the special counsel investigation.
Some have insisted that Barr was appointed to curtail Mueller and that he opposes the Russia investigation. That again is demonstrably false. Barr praised the appointment of Mueller and has never opposed the Russia investigation. He has repeatedly stated that he believes Mueller must be allowed to complete his investigation and that, as attorney general, he would turn over as much of the report to Congress as possible under existing law. He has stated, “I believe the country needs a credible and thorough investigation into Russia’s efforts to meddle in our democratic process, including the extent of any collusion by Americans, and thus feel strongly that the special counsel must be permitted to finish his work.”
None of that is the stuff of legend, of course, as these all just facts. Yet, this is Washington, where legends have a nasty habit of becoming fact.
Wednesday, January 16, 2019
Thursday, January 10, 2019
Jonathan Turley on Trump’s authority to declare a national emergency on the southern border
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He served as counsel for members opposing United States involvement in the Libyan war and as attorney for the House of Representatives in their challenge to the unappropriated use of federal funds under ObamaCare.
In the latest “constitutional crisis” declared on Capitol Hill, Democrats are adamant that they will not fund the signature pledge of Trump to build a border wall. In response, Trump has threatened to start construction unilaterally under his emergency powers if Congress refuses to yield to his demand for more than $5 billion. Critics turned to the Constitution and found clear authority against Trump. Representative Adam Schiff, Berkeley law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky, Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman, and many others denounced such a move as flagrantly unconstitutional.
The concern is well founded even if the conclusion is not. Congress has refused the funds needed for the wall, so Trump is openly claiming the right to unilaterally order construction by declaring a national emergency. On its face, that order would undermine the core role of Congress in our system of checks and balances. I happen to agree that an emergency declaration to build the wall is unwise and unnecessary. However, the declaration is not unconstitutional. Schiff, now chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, insists that Trump “does not have the power to execute” this order because “if Harry Truman could not nationalize the steel industry during wartime, this president does not have the power to declare an emergency and build a multibillion dollar wall on the border.”
The problem is Trump does have that power because Congress gave it to him. Schiff is referring to the historic case of Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company versus Charles Sawyer, in which the Supreme Court rejected the use of inherent executive powers by President Truman to seize steel mills during a labor dispute. He wanted to claim a national security emergency if steel production halted during the Korean War. In a powerful check on executive authority, the Supreme Court rejected his rationale for unilateral action. The Supreme Court was correct. But that was in 1952.
More than two decades later, Congress expressly gave presidents the authority to declare such emergencies and act unilaterally. The 1976 National Emergencies Act gives presidents sweeping authority as well as allowance in federal regulations to declare an “immigration emergency” to deal with an “influx of aliens which either is of such magnitude or exhibits such other characteristics that effective administration of the immigration laws of the United States is beyond the existing capabilities” of immigration authorities “in the affected area or areas.” The basis for such an invocation generally includes the “likelihood of continued growth in the magnitude of the influx,” rising criminal activity, as well as high “demands on law enforcement agencies” and “other circumstances.”
Democrats have not objected to use of this authority regularly by past presidents, including roughly 30 such emergencies that continue to this day. Other statutes afford additional emergency powers. Indeed, a report by the Congressional Research Service in 2007 stated, “Under the powers delegated by such statutes, the president may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of United States citizens.”
Congress spent decades yielding authority to the executive branch. When it agreed with the president, such mighty authority was even celebrated. But now, consider the objections from Representative Joaquin Castro, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. He has declared that it would be “profoundly inappropriate for the president of the United States to circumvent the legislative branch and single handedly, against the will of the American people and the American Congress, put up a wall.”
This is a curious statement from one of many lawmakers who supported Obama when he openly circumvented Congress on immigration reforms. Obama ordered agencies to stop enforcing some federal laws and used executive orders to do precisely what Congress refused to do. When Obama declared in a State of the Union address that he would circumvent Congress if it failed to approve his immigration reforms, Democrats cheered at the notion of their own circumvention, if not obsolescence.
Likewise, Castro and his colleagues supported Obama when he ordered the payment of billions out of the Treasury into ObamaCare, after being denied the funds by Congress. These same Democrats were largely silent when Obama attacked Libya without a declaration of war or legislative authorization. Obama funded the Libyan war out of money slushing around in the Pentagon, without a specific appropriation. I represented lawmakers who opposed the Libyan war. I also served as attorney for the entire House of Representatives in successfully opposing the ObamaCare payments. Most Democrats opposed both these lawsuits.
Congress can act to stop circumvention under the National Emergencies Act. Trump must notify Congress of his declaration and detail the powers being claimed under that law. Congress could and should negate the declaration with a vote of both chambers. However, that does not make the declaration unconstitutional. Any declaration would create a myriad of legal issues and likely face an immediate legal challenge. Two questions that a court would have to consider are the source of the authority and the source of any funds. The latter is where some challenges could arise.
Congress gave Trump such authority in the National Emergencies Act, augmenting claims of inherent authority, but the source of the funds could be more challenging. Under two laws in Title 10 and Title 33 of the United States Code, he could seek to use unobligated funds originally set aside for military construction projects, or divert funds from Army civil works projects. There are limitations on the use of such money, and there could be strong challenges to the use of unobligated funds in other areas. There is money there to start but not nearly enough to finish such a wall without proper appropriation. Recall Obama funded the undeclared war in Libya out of money slushing around in the Pentagon, without the new strict constitutionalists objecting from the Democratic side of the aisle.
Courts generally have deferred to the judgments of presidents on the basis for such national emergencies, and dozens of such declarations have been made without serious judicial review. Indeed, many of the very same politicians and pundits declared the various travel ban orders to be facially unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court ultimately lifted the injunctions of lower courts. Moreover, Trump does not have to ultimately prevail to achieve part of his objective. Even if a court were to enjoin construction, the declaration could afford Trump the political cover to end the government shutdown, as the issue moved its way through the courts.
While the matter could be expedited to move through the courts in a matter of months, the government could seek to slow litigation to push any final decision into 2020. There are compelling arguments against funding the entire wall demanded by Trump, although some added border barriers clearly are warranted. However, one can oppose an emergency declaration without claiming that it is facially unconstitutional. It is not.
Here is his column. Both the legal analysis and perspective on the duplicity of the politicians involved are superb.
---------------------------------------------------------
Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story once marveled, “How easily men satisfy themselves that the Constitution is exactly what they wish it to be.” If Story returned to life today, he would find these to be familiar times, as politicians and pundits have decided that the Constitution bars an action by President Trump, even when they reached the diametrically opposite conclusion on similar actions taken by President Obama during his term.In the latest “constitutional crisis” declared on Capitol Hill, Democrats are adamant that they will not fund the signature pledge of Trump to build a border wall. In response, Trump has threatened to start construction unilaterally under his emergency powers if Congress refuses to yield to his demand for more than $5 billion. Critics turned to the Constitution and found clear authority against Trump. Representative Adam Schiff, Berkeley law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky, Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman, and many others denounced such a move as flagrantly unconstitutional.
The concern is well founded even if the conclusion is not. Congress has refused the funds needed for the wall, so Trump is openly claiming the right to unilaterally order construction by declaring a national emergency. On its face, that order would undermine the core role of Congress in our system of checks and balances. I happen to agree that an emergency declaration to build the wall is unwise and unnecessary. However, the declaration is not unconstitutional. Schiff, now chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, insists that Trump “does not have the power to execute” this order because “if Harry Truman could not nationalize the steel industry during wartime, this president does not have the power to declare an emergency and build a multibillion dollar wall on the border.”
The problem is Trump does have that power because Congress gave it to him. Schiff is referring to the historic case of Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company versus Charles Sawyer, in which the Supreme Court rejected the use of inherent executive powers by President Truman to seize steel mills during a labor dispute. He wanted to claim a national security emergency if steel production halted during the Korean War. In a powerful check on executive authority, the Supreme Court rejected his rationale for unilateral action. The Supreme Court was correct. But that was in 1952.
More than two decades later, Congress expressly gave presidents the authority to declare such emergencies and act unilaterally. The 1976 National Emergencies Act gives presidents sweeping authority as well as allowance in federal regulations to declare an “immigration emergency” to deal with an “influx of aliens which either is of such magnitude or exhibits such other characteristics that effective administration of the immigration laws of the United States is beyond the existing capabilities” of immigration authorities “in the affected area or areas.” The basis for such an invocation generally includes the “likelihood of continued growth in the magnitude of the influx,” rising criminal activity, as well as high “demands on law enforcement agencies” and “other circumstances.”
Democrats have not objected to use of this authority regularly by past presidents, including roughly 30 such emergencies that continue to this day. Other statutes afford additional emergency powers. Indeed, a report by the Congressional Research Service in 2007 stated, “Under the powers delegated by such statutes, the president may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of United States citizens.”
Congress spent decades yielding authority to the executive branch. When it agreed with the president, such mighty authority was even celebrated. But now, consider the objections from Representative Joaquin Castro, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. He has declared that it would be “profoundly inappropriate for the president of the United States to circumvent the legislative branch and single handedly, against the will of the American people and the American Congress, put up a wall.”
This is a curious statement from one of many lawmakers who supported Obama when he openly circumvented Congress on immigration reforms. Obama ordered agencies to stop enforcing some federal laws and used executive orders to do precisely what Congress refused to do. When Obama declared in a State of the Union address that he would circumvent Congress if it failed to approve his immigration reforms, Democrats cheered at the notion of their own circumvention, if not obsolescence.
Likewise, Castro and his colleagues supported Obama when he ordered the payment of billions out of the Treasury into ObamaCare, after being denied the funds by Congress. These same Democrats were largely silent when Obama attacked Libya without a declaration of war or legislative authorization. Obama funded the Libyan war out of money slushing around in the Pentagon, without a specific appropriation. I represented lawmakers who opposed the Libyan war. I also served as attorney for the entire House of Representatives in successfully opposing the ObamaCare payments. Most Democrats opposed both these lawsuits.
Congress can act to stop circumvention under the National Emergencies Act. Trump must notify Congress of his declaration and detail the powers being claimed under that law. Congress could and should negate the declaration with a vote of both chambers. However, that does not make the declaration unconstitutional. Any declaration would create a myriad of legal issues and likely face an immediate legal challenge. Two questions that a court would have to consider are the source of the authority and the source of any funds. The latter is where some challenges could arise.
Congress gave Trump such authority in the National Emergencies Act, augmenting claims of inherent authority, but the source of the funds could be more challenging. Under two laws in Title 10 and Title 33 of the United States Code, he could seek to use unobligated funds originally set aside for military construction projects, or divert funds from Army civil works projects. There are limitations on the use of such money, and there could be strong challenges to the use of unobligated funds in other areas. There is money there to start but not nearly enough to finish such a wall without proper appropriation. Recall Obama funded the undeclared war in Libya out of money slushing around in the Pentagon, without the new strict constitutionalists objecting from the Democratic side of the aisle.
Courts generally have deferred to the judgments of presidents on the basis for such national emergencies, and dozens of such declarations have been made without serious judicial review. Indeed, many of the very same politicians and pundits declared the various travel ban orders to be facially unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court ultimately lifted the injunctions of lower courts. Moreover, Trump does not have to ultimately prevail to achieve part of his objective. Even if a court were to enjoin construction, the declaration could afford Trump the political cover to end the government shutdown, as the issue moved its way through the courts.
While the matter could be expedited to move through the courts in a matter of months, the government could seek to slow litigation to push any final decision into 2020. There are compelling arguments against funding the entire wall demanded by Trump, although some added border barriers clearly are warranted. However, one can oppose an emergency declaration without claiming that it is facially unconstitutional. It is not.
Wednesday, January 09, 2019
Walter Williams on Black Education
Walter Williams holds a bachelor's degree in economics from California State University (1965) and a master's degree (1967) and doctorate (1972) in economics from the University of California at Los Angeles. In 1980, he joined the faculty of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and is currently the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics. He has also served on the faculties of Los Angeles City College (1967-69), California State University (1967-1971) and Temple University (1973-1980). From 1963 to 1967, he was a group supervisor of juvenile delinquents for the Los Angeles County Probation Department.
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In reference to efforts to teach black children, the president of the St. Petersburg, Florida, chapter of the NAACP, Maria Scruggs, said: "The (school) district has shown they just can't do it. ... Now it's time for the community to step in." That's a recognition that politicians and the education establishment, after decades of promises, cannot do much to narrow the huge educational achievement gap between Asians and whites on the one hand and blacks on the other.
The most crucial input for a child's education cannot be provided by schools or politicians. Continued calls for higher education budgets will produce disappointing results, as they have in the past. There are certain minimum requirements that must be met for any child, regardless of race, to do well in school. Someone must make the youngster do his homework -- and possibly help him with it. Someone must ensure that he gets eight hours of sleep. Someone must feed him wholesome meals, including breakfast. Finally, someone must ensure that he gets to school on time, behaves in school and respects the teachers. If these minimum requirements are not met -- and they can be met even if a family is poor -- all else is for naught.
Scruggs says that it's time for the black community to accept part of the blame. Part of the problem is the lack of parents' involvement in their children's education -- for example, their not attending parent-teacher nights. Having children's books around the house and reading to preschoolers is vitally important. According to Mariah Evans, who headed a 20-year worldwide study that found "the presence of books in the home" to be the top predictor of whether a child will attain a high level of education, "one of the things that is most striking ... about it is that the book's effect appears to be even larger and more important for children from very disadvantaged homes." By the way, one doesn't have to be rich to have books around the house. Plus, there are libraries.
One vital measure for community involvement in black education is that of preventing youngsters who are alien and hostile to the educational process from making education impossible for everybody else. That can be accomplished by ignoring politicians and the liberal vision that restricts schools from removing students who pose severe disciplinary problems. The problem goes beyond simple misbehavior. An article in Education Week last year, titled "When Students Assault Teachers, Effects Can Be Lasting," reported: "In the 2015-16 school year, 5.8 percent of the nation's 3.8 million teachers were physically attacked by a student. Almost 10 percent were threatened with injury, according to federal education data" (http://tinyurl.com/y7ndtyom).
Given the huge educational achievement gap between blacks and whites, one might ask whether black people can afford to allow students who have little interest in being educated to make education impossible for others. Students who assault teachers ought to be summarily removed from the school. One might ask, "Williams, what are we going to do with those expelled students?" I do not know, but I do know one thing for sure: Black people cannot afford to allow them to remain in school and sabotage the educational chances of everyone else.
The educational achievement gap between blacks and whites is hidden from black students and their families. All too often, a black student with a high school diploma cannot read, write or compute at a sixth- or seventh-grade level. This tends to make high school diplomas held by blacks less valuable in the eyes of employers. As such, it sparks racial division where it otherwise would not exist. There have been complaints that police and fire departments and other civil service jobs don't have many black employees. The problem is that to get hired in the first place -- and get promoted if hired -- one needs to pass a civil service exam. If one's high school diploma is fraudulent -- meaning he has not mastered the 12th-grade levels of all subjects -- he is seriously handicapped.
I say hats off to the vision being promoted by the NAACP's Maria Scruggs. She and her supporters have their work cut out for them, but it's doable.
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In reference to efforts to teach black children, the president of the St. Petersburg, Florida, chapter of the NAACP, Maria Scruggs, said: "The (school) district has shown they just can't do it. ... Now it's time for the community to step in." That's a recognition that politicians and the education establishment, after decades of promises, cannot do much to narrow the huge educational achievement gap between Asians and whites on the one hand and blacks on the other.
The most crucial input for a child's education cannot be provided by schools or politicians. Continued calls for higher education budgets will produce disappointing results, as they have in the past. There are certain minimum requirements that must be met for any child, regardless of race, to do well in school. Someone must make the youngster do his homework -- and possibly help him with it. Someone must ensure that he gets eight hours of sleep. Someone must feed him wholesome meals, including breakfast. Finally, someone must ensure that he gets to school on time, behaves in school and respects the teachers. If these minimum requirements are not met -- and they can be met even if a family is poor -- all else is for naught.
Scruggs says that it's time for the black community to accept part of the blame. Part of the problem is the lack of parents' involvement in their children's education -- for example, their not attending parent-teacher nights. Having children's books around the house and reading to preschoolers is vitally important. According to Mariah Evans, who headed a 20-year worldwide study that found "the presence of books in the home" to be the top predictor of whether a child will attain a high level of education, "one of the things that is most striking ... about it is that the book's effect appears to be even larger and more important for children from very disadvantaged homes." By the way, one doesn't have to be rich to have books around the house. Plus, there are libraries.
One vital measure for community involvement in black education is that of preventing youngsters who are alien and hostile to the educational process from making education impossible for everybody else. That can be accomplished by ignoring politicians and the liberal vision that restricts schools from removing students who pose severe disciplinary problems. The problem goes beyond simple misbehavior. An article in Education Week last year, titled "When Students Assault Teachers, Effects Can Be Lasting," reported: "In the 2015-16 school year, 5.8 percent of the nation's 3.8 million teachers were physically attacked by a student. Almost 10 percent were threatened with injury, according to federal education data" (http://tinyurl.com/y7ndtyom).
Given the huge educational achievement gap between blacks and whites, one might ask whether black people can afford to allow students who have little interest in being educated to make education impossible for others. Students who assault teachers ought to be summarily removed from the school. One might ask, "Williams, what are we going to do with those expelled students?" I do not know, but I do know one thing for sure: Black people cannot afford to allow them to remain in school and sabotage the educational chances of everyone else.
The educational achievement gap between blacks and whites is hidden from black students and their families. All too often, a black student with a high school diploma cannot read, write or compute at a sixth- or seventh-grade level. This tends to make high school diplomas held by blacks less valuable in the eyes of employers. As such, it sparks racial division where it otherwise would not exist. There have been complaints that police and fire departments and other civil service jobs don't have many black employees. The problem is that to get hired in the first place -- and get promoted if hired -- one needs to pass a civil service exam. If one's high school diploma is fraudulent -- meaning he has not mastered the 12th-grade levels of all subjects -- he is seriously handicapped.
I say hats off to the vision being promoted by the NAACP's Maria Scruggs. She and her supporters have their work cut out for them, but it's doable.
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