A FREE PRESS COMES WITH REPONSIBILITIES

“Journalism is the first rough draft of history.” Phillip Graham

The United States Constitution contains both a Free Speech and Free Press clause. Together, they give us our right to “freedom of expression.”    Each clause plays a distinct and important role in protecting our democracy.

Traditionally, elected officials from both political parties had a stake in maintaining a cordial relationship with the American press.  Journalists wanted access to information that would provide timely news.  Politicians sought reporting that was friendly to their positions and wanted the voting public to believe they were being cooperative and transparent. Neither side got exactly what they wished for, but the system appeared to work. For example, following the disaster in Vietnam and crisis of Watergate, 72% of the public continued to trust the news media.

Unfortunately, when Donald Trump was elected president, everything changed. He had no reason to be cordial or cooperative with the press. He waged a war against objective news with considerable success. Trump continues to convince millions of his followers that anything they see or hear in the “non-Trump” media is false. Today, only 14% of Republicans trust the mainstream news media.

This commentary discusses two issues that consider the obligations for maintaining a free press. First, I will briefly examine some history of journalism in America, which has often not been a shining example of fairness and accuracy. Second, in today’s frenzied news environment, where disinformation and conspiracy theories run rampant, I will discuss why each us has a duty to carefully separate hard news from opinion. In order for a democracy to flourish, freedom of the press comes with both journalistic and consumer responsibilities.

Placing journalism into historical perspective shines a light on troubling past practices. Unfortunately, some bad habits have returned to our social media “sound-bite” world. Before WWII, most newspapers focused on sensationalist “yellow journalism” rather than important civic events. Accurate reporting, nonpartisanship and accountability were not goals. Eye-catching headlines that increased distribution and sales were all that mattered. In addition, the wealthy owners of each media outlet skewed the news for personal gain or for political advantage well beyond the editorial page.

Until the 1960s, journalism was a white, male oriented career. Female and Black reporters were excluded from organizations like the National Press Club. Editors did not assign Blacks or women to cover national affairs.  The Washington Post did not hired its first reporter of color until 1951.

During the cold war era, journalists often did not reveal in their reporting what they learned about national-security matters. Many were recent veterans who supported an official Washington agenda to contain Communist expansion by keeping secrets from the public.  In 1977, Carl Bernstein, who helped expose the Watergate scandal, wrote an article for Rolling Stone magazine on the relationship between the CIA and the press. His investigation discovered that since 1952 hundreds of reporters worked undercover for the spy agency. Some of the nation’s most renowned journalists were on the list. They claimed a duty to pass on to the CIA sensitive information learned on overseas assignments.

Walter Lippmann was a renowned political commentator with a career spanning 60 years. He was in the vanguard of an effort by the mainstream media to seek the pursuit of truth, along with a commitment to public responsibility. These goals have been hampered in the last two decades by a shrinking print press that has seen one in four American newspapers shutdown. The reputable news sources that are left must compete against social media and cable news networks who want to return to sensationalism or who pander to more extremist political views.  

One of my favorite journalism quotes comes from the 1947 Commission on Freedom of the Press: “It is no longer enough to report the fact truthfully. It is now necessary to report the truth about the fact.” With so many information sources refusing to follow this creed and purposefully distorting facts, each of us has a responsibility to seek out the truth with as much rigor and depth as possible.

Many of my conservative friends would disagree with my view that the New York Times and network news deliver accurate and fair reporting. However, even the most jaded right wing operative cannot deny that former Attorney General William Barr misrepresented the initial findings of the Mueller Report to the American people. Moreover, last week it was disclosed, through internal emails, that Fox news had repeatedly reported election fraud lies on its channel, knowing that the information was false.  There was internal discussion of the Fox network’s stock price trumping the truth.

Let me suggest how to escape the slanted information from cable news and dishonest officials. The free press also provides us with detailed source documents. Three examples are the 2019 Mueller Report; the Report issued the same year by the House Intelligent Committee on Trump’s pressuring of Ukraine; and the January 6 Committee Report. Granted, reading these reports takes considerable time and effort. (All are available online.) However, not doing so leaves an individual at the mercy of conflicting opinions that seek to muddy the waters.

These reports offer an excellent opportunity to become educated with corroborated factual investigations concerning the former president’s behavior and decision-making. In addition, the reports reveal what should be avoided and what requires immediate repair to keep our American experiment with the free press alive and well.

 

 

 

 

  

PUBLIC EDUCATION IS UNDER ATTACK

Public Education is under attack in America. Right wing conservatives and Christian nationalists have launched cultural wars against teachers unions, masking policies during the pandemic, the content of school libraries and textbooks, school districts that teach accurate history and LQBTQ students in public schools. Public education is the crown jewel of our democratic, constitutional republic. It is time for concerned citizens to take a stand.

By the mid-1800s, most states had adopted three basic assumptions governing public education. First, public elementary schools should be free and supported by taxes. Second, teachers should be trained educators. Third, children should be required to attend school. With this blueprint, the US population quickly developed one of the highest literacy rates in the world.

There are many advantages to a robust public school system. While the average private school tuition is $20,000/year, public schools are free. There is access to education for every child in the community. Students are exposed to diversity with classmates from different cultures and income levels that do not think, act or look exactly like them. Public schools offer advanced educational and extracurricular opportunities. They have a staff of special education and learning specialists, typically not found in private schools. While teachers in public schools are required to be certified, there is no such mandate in private schools.

To understand why an education system with these assets is now on the defensive and under attack, a review of recent cultural history is in order. Until the civil rights era, public and private schools coexisted with little conflict. In the 1960s, two Supreme Court cases removed religion from the public schools to preserve the separation of church and state.  It became illegal for public school districts to require religious studies or for school authorities to perform prayer. When this mandate was added to the previous Supreme Court decision to integrate public schools, many white evangelical parents rebelled. The widely held suspicion was that the federal government had schemed to put Blacks into schools and drive God out. Immediately, hundreds of alternative private schools were established attached to evangelical churches. Most had no minority students.

In the early 1970s, the IRS threatened to take away the tax-exempt status of private church schools that were not integrated. There was a new uproar criticizing government interference in the business of the church. Christian families who wanted unfettered school choice claimed they were being persecuted for their religious beliefs. It did not take long for former right wing supporters of Senator Barry Goldwater to mobilize evangelicals into the powerful political force that dominates today’s Republican Party.

With similar goals, radical conservatives and evangelicals concluded, both figuratively and literally, that their political merger was “a match made in heaven.” Today they maintain that only their movement can save the nation from the apocalypse, even if it means adopting anti-democratic views and a conspiracy based approach to politics.

White Christian nationalism has set its sights on disrupting numerous well-established democratic institutions.  Public education is at the top of this list. Republican activist, Christopher Rufo, recently spoke at the conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan. He emphasized his strategy “To get to universal school choice, you really need to operate from a premise of universal public school mistrust.” He advised the students “to be ruthless and brutal” in creating their own narrative. If public learning does not look, sound and feel white and Christian, than it must change or be removed. Lies, smears and distortions that create fear and anger in parents are the right wing formula for attacking public education.

School administrators are now forced to confront a host of disruptive cultural issues. Moreover, extremist parents are demanding academic content that omits diversity. Radical school choice legislation further diminishes the public schools.

This is unfortunate because parents and schoolboards should be working to strengthen public education following the learning setbacks caused by the pandemic. Critical issues include expanding pre-K education, addressing shortages of teachers and bus drivers, focusing on post-pandemic behavioral problems and finding ways to replace lost learning. Our youngest students in reading and math have fallen the furthest behind.

Republicans interested in entering the 2024 presidential primary are using right wing education demands to gain momentum with these primary voters. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law the Parental Rights in Education Act, (the Don’t Say Gay Bill) banning instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity through third grade. He has limited what the public schools can say about racism and rejected 41% of textbooks because the content conflicted with the personal beliefs of religious conservatives in the Education Department. Most recently, DeSantis banned the College Board’s Advanced Placement course in African American studies for high school students.

What is to be done? One positive development is the recent Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruling that found that our state's funding of public education falls woefully short and violates students' constitutional rights. The opinion sides with poorer districts in a lawsuit that was first launched eight years ago. If the opinion stands, there will be billions of dollars in additional annual support for public education in Pennsylvania.

Concerned citizens can support this court ruling and demand more state funding for deprived school districts. Locally there are opportunities to mentor a student, join a parent organization or attend school board meetings to show support. Our public schools are worth the effort.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE EVOLUTION OF ADDICTION AND RECOVERY

Twenty years ago, I relocated to Washington County, got sober and started a new life. The people I met in the local recovery community were warm and supportive. They taught me how to persevere as a recovering alcoholic. Over the past several decades, the meaning of addiction and approaches to recovery have been transformed in meaningful ways. This commentary will discuss some of these important developments nationally and in Washington County.

As late as the 1990s, an individual’s drug and/or alcohol addiction continued to carry the erroneous stigma of a flawed, weak-willed character. The prevailing opinion was that those afflicted could not be trusted to perform well in society. While the recovery fellowships and medical profession recognized addiction as a disease, the average person was not buying it. There appeared to be no rational explanation for an addict or alcoholic going through negative life-altering consequences and unimaginable withdrawal symptoms only to chronically repeat the addiction cycle.

Over time, this impression has changed. Several events moved the needle toward treating addiction as a serious medical condition, requiring society’s compassion not disdain. First, in the 1980s, drug dealers converted cocaine powder into smokable "crack" that could be sold in smaller quantities and to more people. Unlike alcoholism that is progressive and takes years to develop or opioid (narcotic) addiction that progresses over a period of months, crack addiction was occurring in first time users. By the mid-1990s, crack use was an epidemic in the inner cities, but found in suburbia as well.

Second was the prescription-opioid crisis (Vicodin, OxyContin) that became widespread after 2010.  Pharmaceutical companies claimed that the risk of addiction to prescription opioids was very low and gave reassurances to prescribers.  To compound the problem, these companies sought large profits by promoting the use of powerful opioids to patients who did not require them.

The Council of Economic Advisers estimated that in 2018 alone, the cost of opioid addiction (including the value of lives lost) was $696 billion. Synthetic drugs distributed by “pill-mill” pain clinics decimated rural communities. (With recent litigation awards, Pennsylvania will receive more than $2 billion from these drug manufacturers to help fight addiction.)

Third, by 2014, the opioid fentanyl illegally entered the country in larger quantities and started to kill not only chronic heroin users, but also thrill seeking young people. Fentanyl is twenty times cheaper to produce and fifty times stronger than heroin. More recently, dealers began lacing other street drugs with fentanyl to increase potency. Weekend partiers now overdose in large numbers.

Lastly, the pandemic had a profound impact on addiction. Statistics showed that alcohol consumption in 2020 was 15% higher than just before the pandemic. There are troubling signs that the stay-at-home drinking binge has not abated. In addition, drug induced deaths skyrocketed during the pandemic. Many believe that the absence of in-person drug and alcohol fellowship meetings during the COVID lockdown, a lifeline for many recovering people, contributed to the problem.

Today, everyone knows someone who is fighting addiction. Most people accept addiction as a brain disease. The habitual intake of harmful chemicals causes changes in the brain systems that involve pleasure, reward, motivation and memory. Physical and psychological cravings and uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms make it more difficult for a person to stop using drugs or alcohol. The general population now understands that without medical intervention and therapy, addicts will continue to use a substance despite harmful or dangerous consequences.

Washington County has always been in the vanguard of addressing addiction through sound recovery options. There is a vibrant recovery community with multiple fellowship meetings every day of the week. When I sought treatment over twenty years ago, Greenbriar Treatment Center was already well established. After leaving Greenbriar, I was fortunate to become a resident of a local recovery house for six months that broadened my ability to live as a sober individual. Today, there are three long-term recovery houses for men and four for women that operate within the county.

In recent years, local government and the courts have recognized that addiction and recovery require pro-active solutions other than incarceration. President Judge, John DiSalle, supervises Washington County’s Drug Court along with a full time probation officer and case manager. This team works together to support and monitor a participant’s recovery. The twenty-three month program maintains a critical balance between supervision and encouragement.

Former District Attorney Eugene Vittone was instrumental in organizing the Washington County Drug and Alcohol Commission in 2003. He was proud of how this independent non-profit worked collaboratively with county government to facilitate its prevention programs. The aim was to help alcoholics and addicts recover in a nonjudgmental way. The D&A Commission now offers support in job training, housing, transportation, childcare and connections to mental health resources. Washington County was one of the first in the Commonwealth to provide naloxone, a life-saving medication used in the event of a suspected overdose, to first responders and the public.

Not all is well in the local recovery community. New legislation designed to provide state oversight of drug and alcohol recovery houses has made it difficult for small, independent operators in Washington County to comply. Some misplaced regulations undermine the “house rules” voted on by the residents to keep order and insure sobriety. Local recovery houses have stayed in business and continued to get referrals because they know what works. Unfortunately, state bureaucrats, even with good intentions, do not.

 

LIBERALISM AND NON PARTISAN PRIMARIES CAN HOLD THE CENTER

 

Following the midterm elections there was a brief period of political optimism in the air. Voters rejected election denier and extremist candidates in critical states. Observers held out hope that the center could hold and again become the norm in American politics.

The new year quickly dashed any good will engendered by the election and replaced it with “over the moon” partisan conflict at our nation’s Capital. In the House of Representatives, any chance that rational debate could take place was quashed when far right zealots were handed the keys to important committees. Republicans have refused to remove one of their own, George Santos, from Congress for his abhorrent conduct in lying about his background and family to gain office. There are no plans to consider compromise legislation on abortion, immigration reform, gun control or the federal budget. Clearly, holding onto power has won out over problem solving and integrity.

Both the President and former President (and now former Vice President) are mired in investigations regarding the mishandling of classified documents. Denial, lack of transparency and attacking the other for similar conduct have undermined efforts to fix the problem. What should be a middling, procedural snafu has morphed into a legal nightmare for both political parties.

The single institution thought to transcend political power, the Supreme Court, has been degraded by political posturing and infighting among the Justices. The present Supreme Court majority has moved to reverse long-standing precedential decisions on abortion and other cultural issues.

In the streets of America, political violence is becoming almost as common as mass shootings. The United States Capitol Police are debating whether to reorganize to become more like the Secret Service. This would enable them to provide around the clock protection for members of Congress.

In the words of poet William Butler Yeats, “When things fall apart, the center cannot hold.” I believe that, because of America’s dedication to “liberalism,” it is possible that the center can hold notwithstanding our distressing political environment. In simple terms, civic duty must replace gaining power as the fundemental goal of our government representatives. Officials must be elected that have no interest in controlling government to advance their singular ideological objectives. Government must return to being a level playing field where pluralism provides protection from majorities and mobs.

Most Americans believe in liberalism without stopping to consider what this important political theory embodies. (It is not a term that describes Democratic progressives.) Liberalism is the flexible foundation of our constitutional republic. It allows for the contradictory objectives of liberty/individualism (valued by conservatives) and equality/community (valued by progressives) to coexist at the same time. American liberalism was built on the foundation of property rights, honoring contracts and capitalism. However, those who value liberalism are always mindful that these economic principles can be abused and cause unwarranted inequality or discrimination. Liberalism in our democracy is constantly in flux. There is a continuing search for a grand compromise between individual freedom on one hand and human universality on the other.

A majority of Americans understand that a nation of 330 million individuals cannot be expected to agree on everything. The foremost role of government is to provide a framework to discuss our differences. Represenative democracy provides an open forum for citizens who are ethnically diverse and who have different opinions on politics, economics and culture.

American democracy can never be an all or nothing proposition. If Catholic countries can compromise on abortion legislation, if poorer nations can find solutions to much worse immigration problems and if countries with appalling domestic violence can adopt fair gun control policies, so can the United States of America.

Once liberalism is understood and championed by the voting public, the country should adopt voting laws that will enable it to proliferate. This would involve reforming the primary election system in America. Liberalism is set up to fail by primary politics that favor partisan zealots who place party and power above nation and compromise. In many primary elections a minority of extremist party officials and their supporters choose like-minded candidates that end up in Congress. These partisan primaries disenfranchise Independent voters, distort representation and fuel anti-liberalism once the candidates are elected.

There are currently three methods for conducting primary elections:

Closed Primaries.  In Pennsylvania and twelve other states, only those registered with a political party are able to vote in the primary. Fifteen states conduct semi-closed primaries. Candidates are incentivized to only seek the support of the partisan voters in their base.

Open Primaries. Twenty-one states employ an open primary system. Independent voters are allowed to vote in either party’s primary. Candidates must broaden their appeal beyond their partisan base.

Nonpartisan Primaries. Two states employ this system where all candidates run on one single primary ballot, regardless of party affiliation. All voters vote in the same primary election with the top two candidates advancing to a general election.

The nonpartisan primary model is by far the best at preserving liberalism. All voters’ voices matter no matter which party has a registration advantage. More voters participate in the primary.  The candidates elected in the general are more centered in their positions. All states should adopt this primary system as an important step in electing non-polarizing candidates who can “hold the center.”

 

 

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.