The White House released this document on Wednesday, September 25, 2019. It details a July call between President Trump and President Zelensky of the Ukraine. About midway through it, there is a warning of the contents not being a “verbatim transcript.” I have taken some time to include the notes (red) which are found at the end of the post and have notated the particular passages to which the notes are detailing. If you need direction other than the notation at the end of the sentences, I can do so. I did not want to alter this more than what I did in adding the word “note.”

It is a surprising transcript showing Trump’s boldness.

The President: Congratulations on a great victory. We all watched from the United States and you did a terrific job. The way you came from behind, somebody who wasn’t given much of a chance, and you ended up winning easily. It’s a fantastic achievement. Congratulations.

President Zelenskyy: You are absolutely right Mr. President. We did win big and we worked hard for this. We worked a lot but I would like to confess to you that I had an opportunity to learn from you. We used quite a few of your skills and knowledge and were able to use it as an example for our elections and yes it is true that these were unique elections. We were in a unique situation that we were able to achieve a unique success. I’m able to tell you the following; the first time, you called me to congratulate me when I won my presidential election, and the second time you are now calling me when my party won the parliamentary election. I think I should run more often so you can call me more often and we can talk over the phone more often.

The President: [laughter] That’s a very good idea. I think your country is very happy about that.

President Zelenskyy: Well yes, to tell you the truth, we are trying to work hard because we wanted to drain the swamp here in our country. We brought in many many new people. Not the old politicians, not the typical politicians, because we want to have a new format and a new type of government. You are a great teacher for us and in that.

More of the transcript after the leap plus the notes concerning intent and meaning.

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This post will be especially confused. I am thinking about cash bail and how it is unacceptable that richer people have more liberty than poorer people. For some reason my thoughts turned to Jeffrey Epstein currently held without bail, because of course. Now he hasn’t been convicted yet, and I do support the 5th and 6th amendments, so I have a problem. I will try to solve the problem.

I’m going to start with Hobbes, Locke, Mill and Nozick (which one here is not like the others ?). I don’t believe that the moral law contains an article about private property — I think private property is a very useful even necessary social institution, but not a transcription of objective moral truth (this is following Michael Walzer sometimes colleague of Robert Nozick). But for this post, I will assume there are natural rights to private property (following Locke). And, like the listed guys, I will pretend that there is an actual social contract and that people are bound only by contracts they accept. I will go for 3 out of 4 and say they can’t be accepted under the threat of force. The guy who’s not like the other is Hobbes who was an absolutist and claimed that signatures extracted by force counted (his example not mine was armed robbery).

I conclude two things. One is that the maximum morally acceptable tax rate is roughly 100%. The other is that I can set bail for Epstein. Granting Locke, Mill, Nozick and von Hayek all they can imagine demanding, I end up concluding that they have (almost) nothing. I will discuss this after the jump.

But here I will try to focus on financial bail. The problem isn’t that people can buy temporary liberty with private property. The problem is the cash part, which favors the non liquidity constrained, and also the incorrect application of equality under the law. People must be treated equally. Dollars must not be treated equally. It’s one or the other. Bail should be set as a fraction of the defendant’s wealth (including human wealth that is future labor earnings). Currently, the idea is that bail is a number of dollars possibly adjusted for wealth. There is no way to get to justice starting with the idea that all dollars are, more or less to first approximation, equal.

Also high bail. With no liquidity constraint problem, there is no reason to have bail proportional to anything. I think the rule is simple, show up or any correct spelling of your name is a legally valid signature. You don’t play by our rules (showing up for your trial) and there will no longer be any concept of forging your signature. Everyone has the right to sign for you (especially including the Bailiff who will write checks to the state worth the balance of every known account in your name). Any future claim that you have exclusive ownership of anything will not be enforced. And by exclusive that means your claim that you own something any more than I do.

Epstein might still run away, but he would be running barefoot (someone would have taken his private jets, automobiles, and shoes). Natural rights do not include a natural right to have the state prosecute someone for forging your signature.

Now the dollar value of everything you own bail would be greater the richer the defendant. This is fair and equal. It implies discrimination against some dollars, which is no problem.

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I have met this man on several occasions. He is one of the most unimposing and quiet people I have ever run across. You would never know he is one of the most knowledgeable and capable constitutional attorneys in the nation having testified to Congress on SCOTUS appointments.

Erwin Chemerinsky: In Marbury vs. Madison, in 1803, the Supreme Court declared that it is “the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.”Quoting Chief Justice John Marshall from Marbury vs. Madison (1803) footnote 742, the Court declared:

“It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each.”

Justice Elena Kagan in minority dissent:

Justice Elena Kagan wrote: “For the first time ever, this Court refuses to remedy a constitutional violation because it thinks the task beyond judicial capabilities. And not just any constitutional violation. The partisan gerrymanders in these cases deprived citizens of the most fundamental of their constitutional rights: the rights to participate equally in the political process, to join with others to advance political beliefs, and to choose their political representatives. In so doing, the partisan gerrymanders here debased and dishonored our democracy, turning upside-down the core American idea that all governmental power derives from the people.”

The Supreme Court just abdicated its most important role: enforcing the Constitution

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https://twitter.com/pbump/status/1154042744702029824?s=20

Also the MSM noticed. Bump is a Washington Post reporter.

The point is that this implies that Mueller thinks Trump was guilty and that he would have a reasonable chance of convincing a jury that there is proof beyond reasonable doubt of Trump’s guilt.

The other answer was “that was a sufficient reason to not indict Trump which doesn’t imply that it was a necessary condition. As written in the report I don’t think it is fair to discuss the question of

update: in the afternoon, Mueller took it back

When he appeared before the Intelligence Committee in the afternoon, Mueller clarified this exchange, noting that it was not solely because of the Office of Legal Counsel opinion that he did not charge Trump with a crime. Instead, he said, “we did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime.”

This is inconsistent with his exchange with Liu. The key word is “the” in “the reason”. Liu asserted that there was only one reason and Mueller agreed. But in any case, the bottom line is that he took it back.

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How today’s Democratic ‘Squad’ is a direct ideological descendant of the original 1850s Republicans

Nothing is ever really “new.” Today’s ‘Squad’ of young Democrats is the direct ideological descendant of the original 1850s Congressional Republicans. That is one of the important lessons of Joanne Freeman’s “The Fields of Blood,” about the increasing threats of, and actual incidents of, violence in the US Congress between the 1830s and the Civil War.

Just as today, there were differing economic and social divides in America. Economically there was a struggle for power between the merchant class and farmers. Socially the increasingly contentious issue was that of slavery. At least beginning with Andrew Jackson’s 1828 Presidential election victory, the Democratic Party was the voice of farmers. The ex-Federalists and the nascent Whig party became that of commerce.

But there were northern and southern branches of each party, defined in how they stood on slavery. The story of the 1830s through 1850s is how that moral issue moved to the forefront, splitting both parties, and ultimately giving rise to the Republicans. This is very much the same paradigm as the “great sort” that took place between the Democratic Party and the GOP between 1980 and 2016 (if not 2008).

Not only is that, but reminiscent of polls over the past 10 years, in the 1830s and 1840s  northerners, especially northern Whigs, wanted to settle disputes civilly, while especially southern Democrats were willing to threaten, and even use, physical force to get their way.

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(Dan here… Via Real News Network, Bill Black discusses the what-ifs of President Trump’s policies in a spectacular contrast to current expectations…providing. a jumping off point from what we expect from the way it is framed now. I assume the complex interalationships of the wealthy elites (let us see how the Epstein case unwinds for another aspect) plays an important but not so well known role in this drama.  I find his thought his conclusions dismaying if even somewhat accurate.)

BILL BLACK: Sure. The question I ask in the article is why did Trump choose to be so spectacularly unpopular? Because had he done what he promised and had a true middle class tax cut that gave, for example, $5,000 a year to the typical middle class household, he would be spectacularly popular. And almost certainly they would have–the Republicans would have retained control of the House, and quite possibly they would have gained seats in the House. And of course they would have gained seats in the Senate. And Trump would be well positioned for re-election. He would have greatly expanded his base, and he would have paid off to his base, as well. And you know, convinced them that backing him was exactly the right thing.

And that’s the biggest thing. But also, if Trump had done what he promised and had a true infrastructure bill, where he spent $2 trillion on infrastructure, he would have divided the Democratic Party.

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On Gerrymandering: “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government”

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It is possible to cause a huge (short term possibly reversed) increase in carbon capture by algae by dumping iron sulfate in the ocean. On the other hand, uh, well, maybe it won’t work and you will just get a few tons of fish (not many tons of carbon containing detritus on the bottom of the ocean.

Now the general principal seems to be that, so long as there isn’t proof beyond reasonable doubt that a proposal will work, to stick to the tried and true and first do no harm but rather wait until the tundra melts, methane is released, and the climate is irreversibly altered.

This makes no sense. Conservatism may make sense if the choice is between the current state (which is not ideal) and gambling on something new. It makes no sense if one is careening towards a precipice, as we are.

There is an, as usual, interesting post at Vox.com.   Kelsey Piper discusses the unfortunate fact that rogues might attempt to fight climate change without scientific proof that ocean fertilization works and without international regulation of ocean fertilization. Personally, I think the near certainty of climate catastrophe if we stick to the current approach is a more serious problem.

The current approach is international negotiations to reach non binding agreements which from which Donald Trump withdraws the second largest carbon emitter.

In contrast, the dangerous rogue approach is something allowed by current non law, conducted by Native Canadians which had the side effect of a record salmon harvest.

I want to address two questions. First should we dump Iron Sulfate in the open ocean. I think the answer to this question is obviously yes. I have read no argument with any trace of possible validity against it. I might add that it works better if mixed with silicate and seeded with marine diatoms. But in any case, I have seen no argument anywhere that there is a non negligible risk of undesirable side effects.

Yet the official response, such as it is, is to condemn the efforts and seize everything that can be seized.

I attempt to understand what the hell is going on after the jump.

But before that I note:

What happens when some individual or country wants to go big in the battle against climate change without buy-in from their neighbors? Could a country unilaterally pursue climate solutions that, unlike ocean iron dumping, pose substantial risks?

Note the insanity. In a post on ocean dumping of iron sulfate, Piper says the real issue isn’t any possible bad effects of ocean dumping, but the fact that someone might do something else which is bad some time. But note also that even a tiny country which has authority over a lot of ocean could unilaterally dump iron sulfate. The country doesn’t need a lot of land area. The country doesn’t need high altitude. The country’s average elevation might be two meters above sea level.

Why doesn’t Kiribati dump all the iron sulfate they can buy in the huge expanse of ocean around their tiny soon to be drowned atolls ? What do they have to lose ? Who is going to stop them ? The side effect would be more fish around Kirbati. The policy would make sense even if oceans weren’t rising.

OK so what’s the problem ?

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Trump Claims Obstruction of Justice is an Official Duty of the White House

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Justice Stevens Shoots At Gun Decision

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