MISHANDLED CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS CAUSE AN UPROAR

 

A week is a longtime in politics.  Democrats (including this commentator) went from criticizing Republicans for taking five days to elect a Speaker of the House to initially defending President Biden for retaining classified documents in his office and home.  In truth, Biden’s lack of care and remorse in mishandling classified documents is troubling. Moreover, the lack of transparency when Biden attorneys discovered the documents in November 2022, then failed to publically reveal the unauthorized possession for two months raises further questions.

The law on unauthorized retention of classified documents is clear:

 

“Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.”  18 U.S. Code § 1924

 

At a minimum, both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump appear to have been irresponsible. The key question for finding criminal culpability is whether either knowingly removed the documents and intended to retain such documents.

Attorney General Merrick Garland correctly recognized that while the situations were different, both cases required the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the facts. The question is how and why classified information was stored in unauthorized locations.  Even the liberal comedian, Jimmy Kimmel, realized the dilemma on late night TV, “We can’t hold Trump accountable for leaving documents around and not Biden….It’s alarming when you realize how much of our national security relies on old men keeping track of loose papers.”

Within months, the classified document disclosures have cursed the houses of both Republicans and Democrats and presented some interesting questions.  How can elected officials not put partisan politics aside and treat this breach of national security as a serious non-sectarian issue? Why is this not an opportunity to realize that presidential staffs of both political parties have mishandled classified documents and that this  problem urgently needs to be addressed? How many senior officials in previous White House administrations retained classified documents that were never discovered? Why are our local libraries more adept at retrieving overdue books than the National Archives in keeping track of classified documents?

Unfortunately, there is nothing new in emotionally charged political advisors slanting or altering obvious facts to favor a political position or elected official. Studies have shown that even with independent scientists, results are influenced by the choices they make when they analyze the same set of facts.

For example, in one experiment, twenty-nine scientific teams were given identical documented facts about soccer games. Each team was asked to answer one question, "Are dark-skinned players more likely to be given red card penalties than light-skinned ones?" The conclusions of the different teams were inconsistent because of latent biases within each team.

Much more pronounced are the self-confirming bias at work when partisan political actors are presented with the same set of facts. Accordingly, the public must endure spokespersons for Trump and Biden, attacking the other’s conduct while asserting that their own boss is free from guilt.  

Trump’s conduct in obstructing justice and in refusing to return classified documents are correctly being treated as separate questions of criminal liability. So far, there is no evidence of intentional wrongdoing by Biden. However, both situations require a formal investigation to determine what initially went wrong in removing and storing the documents.

Why did the appropriate agencies not know about the missing classified documents?  Under the present “honor” system, the National Archives is not aware that such documents exist until they are turned over by an outgoing presidential administration. There is no cataloging of classified documents within the White House. Security agencies that create and classify the documents have no monitoring system after their work product is forwarded to the White House.

In Trump’s case, the National Archives knew documents were missing only because he boasted about them or showed them to third parties who then notified the Archives. (For example, Trump’s famous letter to North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un). In the case of then Vice President Biden, the Obama administration generated tens of millions pages of documents and emails, which are still being sorted and cataloged. Without the self-reporting of Biden’s attorneys, his retention of classified documents would not have been known.

At a minimum, Congress should consider passing a law that requires outgoing presidents to sign a certification that “all presidential records and classified materials have been surrendered, not copied or transferred to a third party.” In addition, each White House administration should be mandated to implement a “sign-in, sign-out” system that carefully documents the location of all classified material.

The overwhelming volume of classified documents adds to the monitoring problem. Many security experts believe that entirely too much national security information is marked classified and too little timely declassified. For years, officials have stamped documents “secret” in a system that does not penalize over-classification and makes declassification difficult and time-consuming.   

The process for supervising classified documents is archaic and requires reform. Rather than balking at taking any responsibility, President Biden should lead reform efforts to implement management procedures that ensure classified documents do not end up in garages or closets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

  

 ‘Man can rebuild a pyramid, but he can’t rebuild a giraffe.” ~ Joy Adamson

Global warming, the pandemic and new research on wild animal behaviors have stimulated an examination of humans coexisting with animals in the wild. Behavioral scientists, wildlife advocates and even philosophers have weighed in on how wild animals should be treated as humans continue to erase what is left of “the wild.”

The human-wildlife conflict precedes recorded history.  Early humans competed with wildlife for food and resources.  Large animals used for food were hunted to extinction. Certain species were domesticated for food or for labor. Later in history, carnivores were eradicated. Before the twentieth century, there were few efforts to study wildlife conservation or coexistence. However, over the past twenty years, this interdisciplinary field of study has grown rapidly.

Research on human-wildlife conflict and coexistence has centered on several elements:  (1) The identification of actions by humans or wildlife that have an adverse effect on the other, (2) Focusing on threats posed by wildlife to humans, economic security, or recreation, (3) Developing management tools to diminish the negative consequences associated with wildlife while enhancing the positive aspects of rewilding.

In recent years, wildlife advocates have emphasized the plight of large carnivores. Humans have persecuted and caused severe range reduction to wolves worldwide, jaguars in the Americas, lions and wild dogs in Africa and tigers in Asia. Today, there are significant rewilding efforts.  It is unclear whether these efforts can reverse the high risk of extinction. Habitat fragmentation has isolated remaining carnivore populations, thereby reducing genetic diversity.

While large carnivores have captured the attention of the public and wildlife organizations, we must not lose sight of wildlife extinction on a much broader scale. A recent 1,500-page report commissioned by the United Nations was an exhaustive study of the decline of biodiversity across the globe.  The conclusions were troubling. On our major land habitats, populations of wild animals have declined by more than two-thirds since 1970, while the human population has more than doubled. Human activity including farming, logging, poaching, fishing and mining have altered the natural world at a rate “unprecedented in human history.”

In addition, the study found that global warming has added to wildlife decline.  Warmer weather has shifted and shrunk the local climates of many mammals, birds, insects, fish and plants, pushing many closer to extinction. It is well-documented that polar bears are vanishing as ice sheets melt in the Arctic.  Many other species will also be lost unless countries step up conservation efforts

The honeybee is a great example of the need to maximize survival efforts. These indispensable insects pollinate more than 75% of all fruits, vegetables and nuts cultivated worldwide. Bee colonies have been dying off at a rapid rate due to human stressors including pesticides, disease and climate change. Bees must be restored to an environment where they can survive, or we risk losing the most efficient pollinator on the planet.

In our own back yards, the increase in wild animals coexisting in cities and suburbia has become a hot topic. During the pandemic lock-down, I watched a red fox calmly trotting down the middle of the W&J campus.  Mountain lions who cross the Golden Gate Bridge are observed on the streets of San Francisco. In many locations, coyotes and bears are spotted in backyards with increasing frequency. In Florida, alligators are often found in garages and swimming pools.

Managing this wildlife invasion comes with conflicting opinions. Some residents applaud being surrounded by nature. Others are indignant that deer are eating the flowers and that coyotes are eating their small dogs. A new theory is that many wild animals excel at adapting to urban areas in ways that humans never anticipated. Perhaps we need to consider that wildlife needs to be “observed” as partners in their own conservation rather than “controlled” like herds of cattle.

Recently, the New York Review of Books featured a thought-provoking essay by the philosopher Martha Nussbaum. (A Peopled Wilderness, December 6, 2022 issue.) Her premise is that “We need to find new ways to act toward animals in a world dominated everywhere by human power and activity.” She admits that her proposals are controversial and provocative.

First, she agrees that conservationism has done good things in preserving wild places. However, she believes that our efforts are about making humans feel good and have little to do with the wild animals themselves.  Second, she believes that modern ecological thinking has refuted the idea of the “balance of nature.” She states that humans can improve the lives of wild animals by intervening on their behalf. Third, she believes that intervention should include prevention of starvation or disease and even suppression of predatory behavior in the wild. She concludes that it is not an ethically defensible choice to permit nature to indiscriminately kill wild animals.

The argument against her philosophy is full-throated. Many conservationists believe that wild animals should live their lives as nature intended. They point out that without predation, the prey of carnivores would multiply out-of-control and destroy vegetation, leaving them to starve. They believe the natural order should be left alone to carry on as determined by evolution and the complex relationships between species.

Research on humans and wild animals will continue to evolve. The solutions will determine what it means to be “human” on the one hand and “wild” on the other.

 

BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE

 

 “Don’t believe the happy talk that this was a healthy display of democracy.”

Wall Street Journal

 

Recent events in electing a Speaker of the House of Representatives have highlighted a rebellious group of Republican members. This four per cent of Congress sought to cause institutional dysfunction and figuratively “burn down the House” by refusing to support the first choice for Speaker of most Republicans, Kevin McCarthy.

Through four days and fifteen agonizing ballots, front-runner McCarthy made numerous concessions to the dissenters to gain their support.  Without a Speaker, the House of Representatives could not function.  Newly elected members were unable to take the oath of office. Regrettably, electing a Speaker is not a one-time crisis in the House of Representatives.  It has become a dress rehearsal for more serious impasses over the next two years.

To their credit, the majority of Republican Representatives, who value the House as an institution, argued that every day without a functioning House and Speaker was unprecedented and dangerous. It certainly undermined America’s confidence that Republicans could govern. The insurgent group of twenty Representatives who opposed Kevin McCarthy as Speaker did not care about perceptions. They sought to govern under a new set of rules that would weaken the House leadership and give more influence to individual members on the far right.

The composition of the twenty dissident Representatives paints an interesting picture on the fragmentation of the Republican Party. Most were elected in solidly Republican districts and were all endorsed by Donald Trump. All are members of the House’s far right Freedom Caucus. All supported Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign, and many were knee deep in the January 6 insurrection (which took place exactly two years before the current revolt). Except for Pennsylvania Represenative Scott Perry, all are from the Sun Belt. Their brand of governing is anti-establishment chaos, not the art of political compromise.

The militants have now accomplished their goal to turn the House of Representatives into an ungovernable legislative body incapable of passing meaningful legislation. The new mandate of the House will be to muck up the federal government by refusing to raise the debt ceiling or to cooperate with the Senate. There will be no procedures in place to control the deeply divided Republicans. The primary function of the Republican led House will be to form committees to investigate President Biden and his family, members of his cabinet, the FBI, and eighty two year old Tony Fauci, the former national pandemic advisor.

The militant 20 were well aware that they would be in the strongest position to influence House leadership and rules at the beginning of the new term. The Freedom Caucus was able to wrangle significant concessions from the Republican majority. These included the need for only a single member to raise the issue of replacing the new Speaker, obtaining key committee assignments for Freedom Caucus members and promised votes on controversial issues that have no chance of becoming law. The renegade twenty will influence House rules and governance for the next two years.

A recent editorial in the conservative Wall Street Journal said it best:

“More than a few Republicans, alas, have a history of preferring combative sound bites to actual governing, and the fiasco Tuesday is an ominous sign of old habits being reasserted……They’re getting off to the kind of start that will persuade even their own voters to send them back to the minority in short order.”

In our own politically contentious Pennsylvania, a perfect storm of events following the November midterm elections threatened to cause a state constitutional crisis. Unlike Washington D.C., fire hoses were used to put out the blaze before the Pennsylvania State House could burn down.

The Pennsylvania Democrats won more House seats in November, but because of a death and two resignations, Republicans temporarily hold more seats until special elections take place later this year. Similar to events at the nation’s Capital, the first order of business was to elect a new Speaker. Both parties believed they were entitled to fill this most important position with one of their own.

To the surprise of many observers, a political compromise was brokered to elect a moderate Democrat, Represenative Mark Rozzi from Berks County. Following intense bipartisan negotiations, Rozzi agreed to serve as House Speaker as an Independent. The vote was an amazing 115-85 with many Republicans voting for the Democrat.

Mr. Rozzi has announced plans to hire staffers from both sides of the aisle and to take a nonpartisan policy-first approach on legislative issues. No one is quite sure how this experiment will work out in practice. Many of the lingering questions about how the House will operate, how committee chairs will be chosen and what will happen after the special elections, remain unanswered. Nonetheless, the House stands intact and can proceed with the business of governing Pennsylvania.

Most voters in America want their national and state governments to function, even if people they did not vote for run those institutions. Unfortunately, in our nation’s Capital, we are in a period of political fragmentation where political power is dispersed and democracy is difficult to implement.

Mr. McCarthy has won the Speakership but lost collective power. This will bedevil his leadership. Congress will work no better than the Italian Parliament where nothing is accomplished due to numerous political factions fighting for control.

WHEN INVALID OPINIONS BECOME ACCEPTED FACTS

 

“An opinion that has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.”

Bertrand Russell

 

An opinion is a judgment, subject to change, depending upon interpretation of evidence. A fact is verifiable and beyond argument. In recent years, people across the ideological spectrum have turned to opinion oriented cable channels and the internet over “straight news.” This and other factors like “confirmation bias” have resulted in distorted beliefs and behaviors.

In 2018, a Pew Research Center survey sought to determine the public’s ability to distinguish between five factual and five opinion statements. The study explored whether the public sees distinctions between news that is based upon objective evidence and news that is not. The results showed little better than random guessing on the part of the participants.

The survey concluded that those who place high levels of trust in the objective news media are better able than those that berate the media to accurately identify news-related statements as factual or opinion. Almost forty percent who trusted the objective media, correctly identified all five factual statements, compared with eighteen percent of those who have not much or no trust in the media. The public’s level of interest in current events showed little difference in distinguishing fact from opinion.  

It will come as no surprise that another Pew Research report found that “ideological silos” are now common on both the left and right. People with down-the-line ideological positions – especially conservatives – are more likely to proclaim that most of their close friends share their political views.  The report also determined that many Republicans and Democrats have growing contempt for the opposing political party.

A recent overnight trip to Somerset County, Pennsylvania gave me the opportunity to observe the above Pew Report findings in real time. Somerset County leans heavily Republican. Many voters continue to support Donald Trump.  Newly minted “Trump 2024” signs have replaced the roadside “Trump Pence” signs.

Somerset County is rural, white and Protestant with few recent immigrants.  Family farms populate the landscape and have long provided the backbone of the local economy. Unlike the neighboring counties to the west, there is no Marcellus Shale deposit to invigorate the economy through fracking.  When dairy farms go out of business, so do the local feed stores and other enterprises dependent on farming.

In the county seat of Somerset and the other scattered towns, public housing is common for the sizable low-income population. Many older residents struggle to survive on social security. This year, the cost of heating oil is a major concern. The Somerset County public school system is below standard. Teacher’s salaries are low, making it difficult to attract qualified educators to work in Somerset.

The findings of the Pew Report are confirmed in Somerset County. Few residents appear to trust the objective media to provide accurate information. However, discussing politics is a prevalent pastime. The conversations are replete with negative “opinions” of Democrats in general and President Biden in particular. These judgments are treated as “fact.” Many invalid opinions are discussed in the living rooms, grocery stores, bank lobbies, phone conversations and on social media until they transition into accepted facts as solid as cement. Some examples follow:

President Biden has committed treason by not closing the southern border to keep the American people safe from crime and drugs. The facts are that Trump left Biden with a patchwork of border deterrent policies, some with dubious legal underpinnings. Solving the nation’s immigration crisis will involve addressing the root causes with a broad legislative solution. Republicans in Congress have refused to discuss comprehensive legislation.

President Biden has intentionally cut back the supply of oil by embracing green energy policies to force up gasoline prices. In fact, Biden made a plea for increased production and refining, while also announcing the planned December release of 15 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Domestic producers are maximizing profits rather than spending money to open drill rigs to produce more oil and gas.

Democrats have printed trillions of dollars without increasing the supply of goods thereby increasing inflation. Blaming inflation exclusively on Democratic spending proposals ignores the trillions of dollars in pandemic spending supported by Republicans and approved by then-President Donald Trump. Moreover, supply chain issues and the Ukraine conflict have been major contributors to worldwide inflation.

Democrats have decreased police budgets resulting in more crime on the streets. The facts show that cities did not substantively cut their 2021/22 police spending as part of defunding initiatives. Instead, cities moved funds to create alternative departments to answer 911 calls involving mental health and other non-violent crimes. As gun violence increased in 2022, Democratic mayors across America sought additional police funding.

President Biden is providing billions in aid to Ukraine while permitting elderly Somerset County residents to freeze in their homes. Foreign policy experts from both political parties agree that aiding Ukraine is one of the best investments the U.S. has undertaken in decades to protect the liberal democratic system. Regarding assistance to low income Americans, Republicans have rejected Democratic efforts to provide support.

Why does it matter whether an utterance is labeled opinion or fact? As I learned from my sojourn to Somerset County, it is possible to have a rational discussion concerning an opinion. However, an erroneous fact shared by the community is beyond reproach. Better to keep silent, return home and write a commentary.