Tyrant-proofing the White House

Amidst all the hysteria in this Presidential Election cycle, one thing that's often forgotten is that the Presidency was never supposed to matter this much. The Founding Fathers did not give the President the power to declare war, and they certainly didn't give him the power unilaterally assassinate people based on suspicion.

In fact, if you look at Article II of the Constitution, where the Presidency is defined, it doesn't give the President much power at all. He can make treaties if the Senate confirms them, and he can appoint judges and officials, which the Senate must also confirm. Beyond that, he's basically charged with giving a State of the Union address and ensuring that the "laws be faithfully executed". Indeed that's why it's called the Executive Branch. Not because he's empowered to execute people; but because he's empowered to execute the laws passed by Congress.

Of course, I realize 1789 was a while ago, and we stopped adhering to many parts of the Constitution long before President Obama. But the underlying principles remain the same. The Founders did not grant significant powers to the President, because they did not want that much power to be concentrated in a single individual. That made sense in 1789. It still makes sense now.

Fortunately, as the election of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump grows increasingly likely, the folly of having an all-powerful President is becoming more clear. Even if you trust your team's guy (or gal) with those powers (including making war, torturing, indefinitely detaining people, assassination, warrantless surveillance, etc.), hopefully you're not willing to trust the other team's. And in an election year where the remaining slate of candidates is this uniformly bad, that realization could become widespread.

To that end, we're recommending an exceptional piece at The Atlantic by Conor Friedersdorf, in which he catalogs the most expansive and readily abused powers of the President today and suggests a common sense case for tyrant-proofing the White House. 

US Kills 150 People in Somalia; Media Offers Collective Shrug

The ongoing US assassination program just completed one of its most deadly strikes on record in the country of Somalia, killing an estimated 150 people. Rest assured though, the US government said that all the victims were "militants". The US government also stated that the airstrikes were in self-defense, so you know, no big deal.

Of course, the US isn't actually at war in Somalia. No evidence has been provided as to the identity of any of the dead. And no details have been provided as to precisely who these 150 people were allegedly threatening that necessitated their execution. The Pentagon press release merely indicated that the attack was on an al Shabaab training camp.

Yet in spite of the clear lack of information, the killing of 150 people in a neutral country does not entail a scandal or even warrant comments from the President of the United States. It's just a normal event. The Pentagon's version of events was reported uncritically throughout most of the US media. Not enough details were offered to really corroborate the story, and no major US outlet bothered to try. Somalia is pretty far away, after all.

If this sounds problematic, it should. A few important questions come to mind:

• What is al Shabaab and why is the US trying to kill its members?
• How can we assume all 150 people were not civilians given that the US government has a policy of labeling all fighting-age males as militants, until proven otherwise?
• How can we exclusively trust the US government's version of events, given that it has a vested interest in how the story gets reported? 
• Why are there US troops in Somalia to be threatened in the first place?
• Is it remotely legal for a country to assassinate people in a foreign country with which it is not at war?

On the question of al Shabaab, the background is both important and informative. When the War on Terror kicked off in 2001, Somalia remained largely ungoverned. In this void, the US backed local warlords in Somalia to engage in counterterrorism activities, even though none of the 9/11hijackers were from Somalia. Being warlords, however, they grabbed what power they could and committed various forms of brutality. After a few years of escalating civil war, a group of Somali religious leaders put together a coalition of groups that was finally able to marginalize the warlords and establish some semblance of authority and stability in Somalia. This coalition was called the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), and al Shabaab, which means "the youth," was a minor subgroup within this coalition.

Unfortunately, the US government was unwilling to tolerate Islamic self-government in Somalia. So the US supported neighboring Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia, in an attempt to weaken or overthrow the new Somali government. After two more years of chaos and violence, Somalia eventually drove the Ethiopians out in 2008, led by the fighters of Al Shabaab. With Ethiopia out, the leaders of the ICU agreed to make a deal with the US and use a secular form of government that the US preferred. But the Al Shabaab movement denounced the deal as betrayal, and effectively declared another round of civil war. At this point, after being emboldened and radicalized by years of fighting, Al Shabaab also declared allegiance to Al Qaeda and thus made its way onto the US hit list, where it remains today. In effect, Al Shabaab is the perfect example of how the US War on Terror can be counterproductive.

Though it seems impossible, the story of Somalia actually gets worse from then on, eventually culminating in a famine that killed hundreds of thousands of people. If you're interested to know more, check out this excellent summary by Scott Horton in The Future of Freedom.

And to answer the rest of the questions posed above, check out this great write-up from Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept, which explores them in-depth:

Nobody Knows the Identity of the 150 People Killed by U.S. in Somalia, but Most Are Certain They Deserved It

Turkey Takes Over Opposition Newspaper to Silence Dissent

In the latest installment of Our Allies Did WHAT?, the Republic of Turkey forcefully took over an opposition newspaper called Zaman after it published a series of articles critical of President Erdogan's administration. Zaman was not technically shut down; rather, the paper came under new leadership and started printing stories that were friendly to the government on the next day it was open.

The whole episode sounds distinctly like something out of a formal dictatorship or a dystopian novel. Zaman had apparently gotten into trouble with the authorities by publishing multiple articles that alleged extensive corruption under Erdogan. Erdogan's government reportedly described one of the paper's backers, a US-based Islamic cleric, as a terrorist and suggested the goal of the criticism was to  overthrow the Turkish government. Using this narrative, Erdogan's administration convinced a Turkish court to order Zaman placed under new court-appointed management (and thereby cease its opposition).

Turkish police moved to implement the order on Friday and were confronted by thousands of protesters in front of the Zaman headquarters. The police used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the protesters and proceeded to storm the office building on Saturday. Then Sunday's edition of the paper came out the next day with no criticism, and no mention of the paper's takeover.

Without being an expert in Turkish politics, one obviously can't say with certainty whether the claims of corruption (or, for that matter, the claims of a coup) are credible. But historical precedent suggests that "terrorism" is probably the leading excuse for authoritarian policies all around the world--and there's no reason to think Turkey is any exception. (America certainly wouldn't be.) Indeed, as we speak, Turkey is using the same pretext of terrorism to attack the Kurds in Syria, which have been the strongest allies of Russia and the United States in the fight against ISIS. Erdogan also inflamed fears of terrorism and Kurdish nationalism (which many in Turkey view as largely interchangeable terms) to help his party win the recent parliamentary elections. So given this context, allegations of terrorism from Erdogan certainly warrant skepticism.

Moreover, if the corruption claims really were illegitimate, it stands to reason that refuting the claims outright would be a much more effective way to silence a scandal than forcefully silencing their author. Thus, common sense suggests that the concerns raised by Zaman, which is also Turkey's largest newspaper, probably had an uncomfortable amount of truth to them. The front page headline of the last edition published by the free Zaman read, "Constitution Suspended."

In spite of these brazen actions by Turkey, however, official criticism has been relatively mild. Turkey remains a member of NATO in good standing, even though they have done the following in recent periods:
*Supported the Al Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra Front in Syria to assist with the revolution.
*Shot down a Russian plane, in a deliberate and pre-meditated ambush, that further inflamed tensions between major powers over Syria
*Bombed the Syrian and Iraqi Kurds that are key allies in the fight against ISIS, as noted above.
*And now eliminated the pretense of a free press domestically.

Of course, none of this should be taken as a call for the US to actively antagonize or impose sanctions against Turkey. But they're the sort of things that should make US policymakers think hard about the relationship. The amount of hypocrisy required to preserve the alliance seems to grow by the day, and Turkey is potentially on the brink of directly challenging Russia militarily in Syria.

Given that the actions above directly contradict any conceivable definition of US interests or values, now seems like a great time to consider neutrality.

NYT Declares That the Two-State Solution for Israel Is Dead

It has been well-understood among alternative media outlets for some time that the alleged two-state solution for Israel-Palestine was little more than a charade. Now, it appears The New York Times has caught up, with one of its lead columnists recently writing that the era of the one-state solution is upon us.

This really is a remarkable development. Not because the article is particularly good or insightful, but because of where the article is appearing. For all its flaws, the NYT remains a deeply influential news outlet. Perhaps not for most everyday Americans, but it certainly is important for many powerful people in business, academia, and politics. Indeed, it is entirely common for politicians to cite stories in the NYT to buttress their arguments. So the fact that they are willing to take a position like this, one that would be previously viewed as radical, is significant in itself.

It also happens to be the correct position. As it stands, the West Bank region that would theoretically comprise a future Palestinian state has been hopelessly carved up by Israeli settlements. There are essentially islands of Palestinian-dominated lands that are divided from each by settlements with extensive walls in between them. Thus, as a practical matter, a two-state solution would require uprooting thousands of (generally radical) Israeli settlers from their homes and sending them back to Israel proper. And this is a near impossibility.

To understand why, it's useful to consider an analogy that could make sense in an American context. As most people know, much of the land that comprises the US today was originally taken from Native Americans many years ago, some of it through peaceful sales but most through force. If there was an ongoing occupation or open conflict with the Native Americans today, there might be an argument that the Native Americans need to have their original holdings (the ones taken through force) restored. In a way, it's easy to see how that would be just. In another way, the generation growing up on the once stolen land of today had nothing to do with perpetrating the original crime, which could complicate the calculation somewhat. Either way, as a practical matter, no one would have any illusions that it could practically be achieved in any case. You'd have to uproot entire communities, and no conceivable political scenario would allow that to occur. Of course, this is a somewhat extreme example since Americans are multiple generations removed from the initial confiscation. But really, you only need one generation to pass before something becomes effectively the norm. It thus follows that many settlers in the West Bank view it as their proper home and would be unwilling to give it up without a fight.

And actually, we don't really have to speculate that this is the case. Israel knows its settlers are unwilling to leave their land from experience. Back in 2005, Israel removed settlers on a smaller scale from the Gaza Strip. Even though the policy only affected a small part of the overall population (some 9,000 according to Ha'aretz), the decision was furiously protested and left a very negative legacy. Applying a similar policy to any meaningful portion of the West Bank settler population (estimated at 500,000 Israelis) would clearly be an impossibility.

As a result, the two-state solution has been dead for some time. It is based on a false premise; that the Israeli settlers could be removed. The reality is that no Israeli politician would dream of implementing such a thing. But discussions of a two-state solution have been a helpful distraction. It makes the US happy and the EU happy, and it helps shield Israel's occupation policies from scrutiny--since after all, they are temporary (ahem, and have been for nearly 50 years). As long as the discussions continued, the status quo did as well.

But the Palestinians and the Middle East deserve more than the status quo. Israel has already de facto annexed much of the West Bank. What is needed is for the annexation to become official and for them to grant all Palestinians in their borders the full citizenship and due process rights that are accorded to regular Israelis. That's what the one-state solution ultimately entails, and at this point, it's all that's left.

For more on this, I'll refer you to the original NYT piece from Thomas Friedman. Be forewarned that the commentary in this piece, particularly about Iran, should be taken with several grains of salt. The NYT is not known for its even-handed coverage of Middle Eastern affairs after all. Here's that piece.

You can also check out this opinion at Common Dreams, which dovetails well the sentiments expressed above.

And finally, you can check out this related piece on the Israel-Palestine conflict that we did a few months back for some more general background.

Initial Legal Victory for Apple Against FBI on Encryption

The FBI is currently engaged in a very public legal battle with Apple over encryption. As we discussed recently, the FBI wants Apple to build a program that will allow the FBI to hack into an iPhone. Apple refused the initial request and so the FBI is trying to convince a judge to force them to do so. The main case in question involves the phone of one of the deceased suspects in the San Bernardino terror attack. In other words, it's a case where the defendant in question is about the least sympathetic character imaginable to the American public--and of course, this was not a coincidence. The threat of terrorism is the best, if not the only, chance the FBI has to get Apple to create what amounts to a special backdoor to their product for the government.

The government initially claimed that this was an isolated incident and that it was not trying to establish a broader precedent. It was quickly discovered, however, that they were trying to force Apple to play a similar role in several other cases around the country--using the same legal justification as used for the San Bernardino case.

This week, one of those other cases was decided, and it was decided squarely in favor of Apple. The judge's ruling is very thoughtful and offers a thorough rebuke to the government's position on virtually every count. Here were a few of the important points made in the ruling:

• The key issue at stake was whether the government had the right compel a service from a private individual or company that was not involved in any alleged wrongdoing. The judge concluded the government had no such authority.
• The FBI was deliberately trying to get new powers through the court's because it wouldn't be able actually get a law passed by the Congress
• Related, The FBI clearly was trying to establish a precedent despite claiming otherwise.
• Complying with the request would be a massive liability for Apple's brand that it could not be adequately compensated for.
• The government argued that Apple had a duty to assist in the investigation because it was a US company that benefited from the existence of and services provided by the US government. The judge rightly mocked this argument, noting it could be used to justify virtually any burden on private citizens or companies.

It's easy to get bogged down in the weeds when it comes to a technical discussion on encryption. But in reality, the most important questions here are not technological in nature. No one seems to dispute that Apple could assist in this case. And it's actually not that relevant whether Apple's assistance would create a major security vulnerability in their other devices (though most experts, and Apple itself, claim that it certainly would).

There are really two key issues here: coercion and privacy.

On the question of coercion, the judge hit the nail on the head. If a suspected criminal had a safe in his house and the FBI got a warrant to search it, the FBI could lawfully try to break into said safe. But the FBI could not coerce a random locksmith or the safe's manufacturer into helping them break it. They could ask for assistance, and the manufacturer or locksmith could willingly provide it. But there can be no justification for forcing them to do so. To believe otherwise is to believe that conscription is okay, and it would lead to outcomes that are "impermissibly absurd" in the words of the ruling.

In this case, Apple is the same as the safe manufacturer. It cannot acquire responsibilities because one of its millions of customers happened to commit a crime it had nothing to do with.

The question of privacy is just as important. In the context of this debate, the FBI recently claimed that Apple and others were effectively creating "warrantproof" devices--the idea being that encryption is basically preventing the FBI from doing its job. (Given that most "terrorists" the FBI catches these days it also created with informants originally, I'm definitely open to the argument that the FBI is not doing its job.) But encryption isn't the problem. And the fact that the FBI (or law enforcement generally) isn't able to access every piece of information available in a case, is not a new or unique problem.

To prove this, consider what an investigation must have entailed before the advent of smart phones. In that environment, most communication would have taken place through written correspondence, phone calls, or in person. It's true that written correspondence would have been accessible to the law enforcement agencies of yore, but how many criminals would be dumb enough to commit illicit (and therefore unenforceable) plans and contracts to writing? And even if they did so for convenient communication, how likely is it they would keep a record of overtly incriminating evidence close at hand? I'm going to suggest it's not too likely, for anyone with the slightest intelligence.

So most of the communication must have taken place through phone calls and in-person conversations. The only record of those communications would be the other people involved, which law enforcement would be able interrogate and subpoena to get the necessary evidence in the case. That was their only option then. And it remains an option today.

Clearly, it could be useful from the FBI's perspective to have the power to search a smart phone, which contains much more detailed information and communication than has ever been available before. But even without this ability, they likely already have access to vastly more information about their suspects than was ever possible in the past, through detailed phone records, social media, credit card transactions, and so on.

So the idea that they cannot possibly do their job because of encryption is deeply unpersuasive. It suggests that they are either a) overtly lying for political purposes or b) deeply incompetent compared to their predecessors. Either way, it's not clear how conscripting private companies or banning encryption is likely to solve the underlying problem.

For more on this story and the details of the judge's excellent ruling, check out this article at The Intercept from Glenn Greenwald and Jenna McLaughlin:

Apple Wins Major Court Victory in a Case Similar to San Bernardino

Donald Trump's Surprising Service to Humanity - Destroying Neoconservatism

In this deeply depressing Presidential Election, it is important to highlight the few bright spots. And as odd as it sounds to say, Donald Trump has provided one of the most important ones.

Of course, I don't mean his candidacy as such. To the extent that Trump has expressed consistent positions on specific issues, they are mostly bad--trade, immigration, free speech, torture, etc. But even so, Trump has made a powerful contribution to American politics by breaking the hold of neoconservatism over the Republican Party--and possibly destroying the party altogether.

The neoconservative movement is a group that has dominated American foreign policy circles since at least the reign of George W. Bush. It has been the leading proponent of all of our recent wars, and basically sees no problem that can't be solved by American military power. Amongst other horrible ideas, the neoconservatives have been highly influential in supporting the following:

• Expanding NATO, which inevitably led to colder relations with Russia.
• In line with the above, strongly supporting the US-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014.
• Overthrowing the Taliban regime and occupying Afghanistan after 9/11 (apologies for the crazed stream-of-consciousness block text in that link)
• Lying to the American people to justify invading Iraq in 2003
• Bombing Iran, which reached a fever pitch around 2007
• America's torture program (and not prosecuting any of the perpetrators)
• America's massive NSA spying apparatus, and prosecuting whistleblower Edward Snowden
• Military intervention in Libya in 2011
• US intervention in Syria to overthrow Bashar al Assad (by backing jihadist groups)
• Opposing the Iran nuclear negotiations
• Supporting Israel's occupation of Palestine under all circumstances
• Hatred of Muslims generally

So while that list isn't quite everything that's wrong in the world, it's a good start.

In any case. what's unique about Donald Trump is that he is a leading presidential candidate, and he is not owned by them. As best as anyone can tell, he doesn't appear to hold that many of their core views. In recent debates, for example, he made explicit statements that don't usually appear in a Republican Presidential debate:

• Supporting an even-handed approach to the Israel-Palestine question
• Accusing the second Bush Administration of knowingly going to war with Iraq on a false pretense
• Saying the world would be better if the US had not overthrown Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Qaddafi in Libya

Whether Trump actually takes these views to heart or not is irrelevant. The point is that he made these arguments and still managed to dominate the competition on Super Tuesday. And so the spell of neoconservatism appears to have been broken. Whatever you think of Trump in general, this is a service to humanity.

With that, we'll let Justin Raimondo elaborate on this theme at Antiwar.com. I don't share all of Raimondo's optimism for what a Trump Presidency would look like in practice, but his survey of Trump's impact on the neoconservative movement is delightful. Here's the piece:

Super Tuesday Funeral: Neoconservatism, An Obituary

The Connection Between Racism and the Minimum Wage

The debate over the minimum wage is often viewed in binary terms. Proponents of the minimum wage see themselves fighting for the interests of the poor, and see their opponents as siding with business and profits.

But back when the minimum wage first became a serious proposal in early 1900s, the debate was much different--and worse. Back then, there was a virtual consensus that imposing or raising the minimum wage would in fact reduce the number of jobs available. Most also understood that the negative impacts of the minimum wage would fall overwhelming on the backs of minorities and the lowest-skilled workers. But for many of the early supporters of the legislation, these outcomes were seen as a benefit, not a flaw. In fact, racism, as embodied by the terrifying eugenics movement, was at the heart of the initial push for a minimum wage, as explained in a new essay published by the Foundation for Economic Education.

Eugenics

If this sounds surprising to you, you can be forgiven. Then as now, the minimum wage was part of the progressive agenda. The problem is that eugenics was also part of that agenda (though it had some bipartisan appeal as well).

In case you're unfamiliar, eugenics was essentially an academic form of racism. It saw white people as a genetically superior race, and thought eliminating or minimizing the population of "inferior races" was an admirable goal for society. This concept was very much in vogue in the early Twentieth Century, and many methods were proposed to advance it--ranging from simply encouraging extensive procreation among the desired races to sterilization programs to outright genocide. Eugenics' most infamous adherent was Adolf Hitler, and it was at the core of his extermination program against Jews and other "inferior races" in the Holocaust. Once this horrifying episode came to light, however, the movement largely died out.

Viewed in this context, of course, the minimum wage could be seen as a minor issue. But it is instructive, and important to know where it came from. Like some other policies that haunt us to this day, the minimum wage was conceived as a racist policy.

Economic Reasoning

Before we refer you to the full piece, so you can read all the terrible arguments for yourself, we'll briefly touch on the economic reasoning that explains why the minimum wage is likely to adversely impact minorities and least skilled workers the most. The basic problem is that the minimum wage causes more, and potentially better qualified, people to enter the labor market that wouldn't otherwise be there.

To see this, first imagine a world where the prevailing wage is a mere $5 per hour. At this rate, many people who don't actually need to work, will probably conclude it's not worth their time. For instance, high school and college students that are supported by their parents might be interested in having some extra spending money. But they probably wouldn't be willing to give up nights or weekends for just $5 an hour. Conversely, people that are deeply in poverty and may need to feed their families--those people probably would be willing to work for such a wage. We can lament the fact that there are people in this position, but we still have to acknowledge that for such people, being employed at $5 an hour is likely preferable to not being employed at all.

Before proceeding to the counterexample, we should note that people in the deepest levels of poverty usually don't have the best resume. Maybe they have a criminal record or a history of drug use. Maybe they had an unstable family life that prevented them from consistently holding down a job. Whatever the exact reasons and causes, the fact is that they probably have attributes that make them somewhat undesirable to employ.

Now let's consider that a minimum wage is passed at $15 an hour. At this level, many new people will be willing to enter the job market. And for unskilled positions, all will be competing at the same $15 level. Obviously, this puts the average poor person at a large disadvantage. Prospective employers are now choosing between young (and probably white) college and high school kids with good backgrounds but no experience on the one hand, and very poor people with a rough employment history on the other. If they're all getting paid the same amount, it's not a stretch to assume many employers are going to favor the college and high school kids. Instead of the poor person being left with a bad job at $5 an hour, they have nothing at all, which is unquestionably worse. They aren't gaining any work experience, and they are completely dependent on the state or charity for their existence.

Before the minimum wage, many employers might have been willing to take a chance on an ex-con or a historically unreliable worker if they could pay a reduced rate. If they have to pay everyone the same rate, however, this is unlikely.

Above, we explained why the minimum wage is likely to have a disproportionate impact on the poorest people, regardless of race. But where race comes into it is that minorities such as blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately represented among the lowest income groups and among the prison population. These facts alone make the impacts of a minimum wage de facto racist against those groups. It is not at all required to make our case, but if one further assumes there is any kind of bias against these minorities in hiring more generally, that would make the impact of the minimum wage even worse.

Bearing these facts in mind, prepare to be shocked and appalled by the early justifications for a minimum wage:

The Eugenics Plot of the Minimum Wage

You can also check out our earlier long-form primer on the basic economic principles underlying the minimum wage debate.