The KHIT Blog: This man

Saturday, February 18, 2023

This man

is seriously mentally ill.

Up at 1 a.m. at Mar a Lago to rant incoherently on his "Truth Social" platform. It would be comical were it not so.

ON A SERIOUS NOTE

I highly recommend Elie Honig's new book.

Chapter 17
United States v. Donald John Trump

Donald Trump has, as of this writing, never been charged with a crime. He has been investigated criminally at the federal level and in several states for crimes ranging from endangering-the-republic serious to the technical and obscure. But he has never been criminally charged, ever, with anything.

That’s a far cry, of course, from saying that Trump has never actually committed a crime. To the contrary, as I’ll argue here, he has committed many crimes, dozens even (depending how thinly we slice each of his criminal episodes into component parts), often in open public view. He has simply gotten away with it.

Trump might still face charges at some point; it’s possible he gets charged by somebody, somewhere, with something, between the writing of this book and publication. (The Fulton County district attorney in Georgia seems the most likely of anyone to file charges, as we’ll discuss in chapter 19.) But given the time that has lapsed, and the complex legal, structural, and political obstacles that any prosecution is certain to encounter, Trump’s ultimate conviction and imprisonment are now more the stuff of fantastical Twitter memes than reality.

So, looking back at Trump’s history of criminality, we need to consider the counterfactual. What charges might Trump have faced, in a (hypothetical) world where he received no formal legal protection while he was president, and none of the other advantages that bosses commonly enjoy and exploit, both during and after his presidency? What if Trump had done all he did, but was just an ordinary guy? And what if prosecutors had taken action quickly and decisively, without spinning their wheels for years and allowing the political landscape to shift under their feet?

Before we begin, I need to make this clear: I reject the casual assertion that a prosecution of Trump would be easy, or a given. I’ve worked long enough as a prosecutor to know that there’s no such thing as an automatic conviction, and that a criminal case against a former president would be extraordinarily difficult, regardless of the strength of the evidence. But we also need to move beyond the defeatist shrug of the shoulders—“Well, it’s complicated, he was the president, it’s never been done before, it’ll cause dissension, what are you gonna do?” There’s a substantive discussion to be had between these poles.

We do not, of course, have all the facts that were available to prosecutors—or would have been available, had they opened criminal investigations and pursued them in a timely and aggressive manner. But we do know an awful lot, often more than enough to conclude with confidence that Trump did in fact commit a particular crime.

We know about Trump’s conduct, first, because journalism about his misdeeds has been remarkable for its scope, depth, and accuracy. There have been sporadic misfires, but by and large, media reporting about Trump’s conduct has been spot-on, and countless scoops have later been definitively confirmed. Of course we’ll rely here only on those factual allegations that have now been established beyond serious dispute.

Over time, even more evidence has entered the public domain. Grand jury materials have now been publicly disclosed, as criminal cases against Trump’s cohorts (and, at times, co-conspirators) have progressed and concluded. Judges have ordered the Justice Department to turn over internal documents to Congress, media outlets, and public transparency advocates. Congress, inspectors general, and others have uncovered new evidence through their investigative work; the House January 6 Select Committee has uncovered particularly damning evidence about Trump’s quest to steal the 2020 election. People who were directly involved in Trump’s crimes, or witnessed them, have come forward (at times, conveniently, just a bit too late for prosecutors or other investigators to make meaningful use of their information). Heck, Trump himself has openly admitted much of his wrongdoing—bragged about it, even—in his tweets (pre-ban) and other public statements. The amount and quality of evidence varies by crime, but we have an ample factual record to proceed here…

Honig, Elie. Untouchable (pp. 201-203). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Yeah.

And, then, there's this mess. Fox News execs and show hosts caught red-handed via the Dominion defamation lawsuit discovery process stating multiple times off the record that they knew the Trump "stolen election" allegations had zero credible evidence justifying them.

So, you'll enjoy this: we put what Fox hosts Carlson, Hannity, and Ingraham said, on air, side by side with what they were saying to each other on text, in private, when the cameras stopped rolling.

It's a must-watch and it's pretty shocking:pic.twitter.com/tkrkzpF5tY
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) February 18, 2023

ERRATUM

OK, then…

Running for President? Lordy.

ON DECK

Release date Feb 21, 2023

Click cover image
"A carefully researched work of intellectual history, and an urgently needed political analysis." --Jane Mayer

“[A] scorching indictment of free market fundamentalism … and how we can change, before it's too late.”-Esquire, Best Books of Winter 2023

The bestselling authors of Merchants of Doubt offer a profound, startling history of one of America's most tenacious--and destructive--false ideas: the myth of the "free market."

In their bestselling book Merchants of Doubt, Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway revealed the origins of climate change denial. Now, they unfold the truth about another disastrous dogma: the “magic of the marketplace.”

In the early 20th century, business elites, trade associations, wealthy powerbrokers, and media allies set out to build a new American orthodoxy: down with “big government” and up with unfettered markets. With startling archival evidence, Oreskes and Conway document campaigns to rewrite textbooks, combat unions, and defend child labor. They detail the ploys that turned hardline economists Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman into household names; recount the libertarian roots of the Little House on the Prairie books; and tune into the General Electric-sponsored TV show that beamed free-market doctrine to millions and launched Ronald Reagan's political career.

By the 1970s, this propaganda was succeeding. Free market ideology would define the next half-century across Republican and Democratic administrations, giving us a housing crisis, the opioid scourge, climate destruction, and a baleful response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Only by understanding this history can we imagine a future where markets will serve, not stifle, democracy.
Recall my coverage of Dr. Oreskes' prior book “Why Trust Science?”

Waiting impatiently to download and study.

UPDATE ON THE MENTALLY ILL DONALD

Sir, your neurological calamity is still covered by Obamacare.

__________

No comments:

Brave New Health

Commonwell Health Alliance

Another important read (pdf)

I love this kind of stuff. It sustains and humbles me. "As politicians, advertisers, salesmen, and propagandists for various political, economic, moral, religious, psychic, environmental, dietary, and artistic doctrinaire positions know only too well, fallible human minds are easily tricked, by clever verbiage... Common language—or at least, the English language—has an almost universal tendency to disguise epistemological statements by putting them into a grammatical form which suggests to the unwary an ontological statement. A major source of error in current probability theory arises from an unthinking failure to perceive this."

Quotes

"An economist is a person who sees something that works in practice and tries to figure out whether it will work in theory."

- J.D. Kleinke, medical economist
___

"The only person who enjoys change is a baby with a wet diaper."

"Every misspent dollar in our health care system is part of somebody's paycheck.

- Brent James, M.D., M.Stat

“We could do healthcare, at markedly higher quality, for everyone in this country, without rationing or denying anybody the care that they need, without having the government dictate how doctors practice or whether hospitals could expand, at half the cost we do it now.”

- Health Care Futurist Joe Flower

Most of the sciences, unlike parts of medical science, are not concerned with the impossible. There is not complementary and alternative physics, or chemistry, or biochemistry, or engineering. These disciplines compare their ideas against reality, and, if the ideas are found wanting, abandoned."

- Mark A. Crislip, MD

"Q: How much alcohol is too much?
A: More than your doctor drinks."

- a physician I once heard speak during a CME presentation

“Just because science doesn’t know everything, doesn’t mean you get to fill in the gaps with whatever fairy tale most appeals to you.”

- Dara O’Briain

'[I]t is one small step from using the computer for "helping" doctors to monitoring them, judging them, dictating to them what to do, and withdrawing payment for computer non-compliance. The use of computer data is a multi-edged sword. It can be used for the "good," facilitating diagnosis and treatment and making it more accurate and up-to-date, and for “evil,” invading privacy, inviting security breechs, and making decisions based on the opinions of remote authorities rather than those present at the patient-doctor encounter.'

- Richard Reece, MD

“[T]here ARE statistics which are non-political. Just because The Washington Post/Fox News reports the temperature is 75 degrees doesn’t mean it’s really snowing and sunscreen is a liberal/conservative plot. Even if you earn a living being ideological.”

- Michael L. Millenson

"It is a generally a fairly convincing argument that people shouldn’t have to be subsidized to undertake a change which is in their best interest.

The reconciliation seems to be that EHR is not supposed to make a doctor’s practice more efficient and higher quality. It is supposed to make the system of care more efficient and higher quality, which is not the same thing. Those of you who took calc recall that maximizing the total of variables is not achieved by maximizing any one variable and this is a perfect example of that.

Those of you have served in combat certainly noticed that too — if everyone works as a team the unit takes fewer casualties. If you try to save your own hide, you might, but at the expense of more casualties overall."

- Al Lewis

"There are two ideas to keep in mind about Bayesian reasoning and how we tend to mess it up. The first is that base rates matter, even in the presence of evidence about the case at hand. This is often not intuitively obvious. The second is that intuitive impressions of the diagnosticity of evidence are often exaggerated."

- Daniel Kahneman, "Thinking, Fast and Slow"

"Physicians apply advanced scientific knowledge, but they must do so without the favorable conditions that experimental scientists create for themselves. Multitasking is forced on physicians, often in chaotic environments and under severe time and resource constraints."

- Lawrence and Lincoln Weed, "Medicine in Denial"

"It’s time to stop the whining about Obama care and acknowledge we already have universal health care. We just pay for it in the stupidest way possible that ensures problems are that much more disastrous and complicated when they’re finally treated."

- Mark Hoofnagle, MD, PhD

"Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily."

- Thomas Szasz, MD
___

"Of course, one reason that process metrics* are so popular is that processes are much easier to define and measure than outcomes."

- The Skeptical Scalpel
___

"There is an “illusion of validity” for any random data point, a seductive sense that is colored by what we hope will be true. Mountains of pharmaceutical claims are often made from mere molehills of data."

- Danielle Ofri, MD
___

"Joy empowers people. It is a source of energy that enables people to hope and plan and change their lives for the better. Spend some time around someone who is relentlessly negative and how do you feel–drained, right? More and more research shows that joy is not something that just happens to you, like a bolt of lightening out of the blue. Joy is, instead, a habit to cultivate. Negative thinking and despair are the crabgrass of our souls–weeds that take root and spread, sometimes to all areas of life. Joy, in contrast, is a soul’s rose–hardy when cared for, able to put down roots over time and withstand disease and extremes. Like a rose, however, your joy can become blighted from neglect or harsh conditions. We all need to tend to our joy–to prune away the badness, and to know that, even though it may look like a prickly bare root, if you invest time in a joyous outlook, gorgeous things will bloom, even in the harshest conditions."

- Dr. Jan Gurley
___

"'Solutions' exist only in mathematics."

- Karen Martin
___

"The issue of how to regulate clinical software is, in the long run, indistinguishable from the issue of how to regulate medicine. The only difference is that medicine is practiced in the open, without secrecy, subject to peer review, and under a merit-based state license."

- Adrian Gropper, MD
___

"Economist, rope, tree: some assembly required."

- Source unknown

DISCLAIMER:

I write this blog wholly on my own time and my own dime. The views proffered are expressly my own as a concerned and active citizen/taxpayer (in addition to being the result of my substantive experience in the various IT fields), and in no way reflect any policy views of my former employer, notwithstanding that some of the thinking has indeed obviously been spurred by the implications of the work with which I have been doing for them.

FAIR USE POLICY
I cite a ton of news and web sources spanning the breadth of relevant technical and policy domains, sometimes at substantial length. I believe I remain well within the bounds of "Fair Use," as [1] I am not doing any of this for profit, [2] I always provide attribution and links -- which, [3] far from negatively impacting any copyright holders' commercial interests, might actually increase traffic to and interest in their offerings.

Nonetheless, should I post anything of yours regarding which you have any objection, just let me know and I will remove it forthwith.

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Saturday, February 18, 2023

This man

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