Trump Associate John Eastman's Phone Seizure

Heard podcast with a documentary director (Michael Pack) in which he talks about the effectiveness of lies:  “What happens is that if you’re not thinking about it you just absorb the narrative. If you don’t have a counter-narrative to set against it, you can’t just disbelieve everything you’re told, some of it just comes in.“ 

So the January 6th committee may well be successful towards it's goal, that of narrative-setting.  To the extent it goes unchallenged by enough outlets, it trickles down eventually. You can't disbelieve everything. 

I’m trying to square Trump’s supposed involvement with how Kash Patel testified under oath that Trump asked for 20,000 troops if need be a couple days before the 6th. Did Trump suddenly become thirsty for violence on the 6th while he wasn’t on the 4th? 

Patel testified that the president, on his own, told Patel and Gen'l Milley: “if you guys need 20,000 National Guard in the coming days you have my authorization”.  

We know if Milley had said anything to the committee contradicting Patel’s statement there's a 100% certainty it would’ve been leaked. 

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Trump associate & constitutional lawyer John Eastman had his iPhone seized and was only shown the warrant after it was seized.  (The 4th and 5th amendments apparently now regarded as optional.)

Additionally, the FBI held the phone up to Eastman's face so that they could access the phone. Civil libertarian Kurt Opshal tweeted: "The Eastman phone seizure warrant illustrates how a password can provide more legal protection than fingerprint or facial unlock."

Hell hath no fury like a Deep State scorned.  Smart phones are pretty dangerous instruments these days. I recall what a lawyer said on "60 Minutes" years ago, how lawyers have the real power in this country and they can single out winners and losers at will. But then so do corporations.  

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Fwiw, this quote seems reasonably true enough of our own leaders with respect to the border problems and their attitude towards blue collar Trump voters: 

"All empires fail because of arrogance, ignorance, and because they treat the very people who made their empire with utter disdain.” 

Let's Play...What's on a Bishop's Shelves?

Is it nosy to examine a bishop’s bookshelves when he’s videotaping from, presumably, his office? 

I did take a gander at our new bishop's YouTube message and here’s some of what’s on the shelves (besides a Bible): 

“Left to tell” by Immaculée Ilibagiza

“Catholic Mission and Culture in Colleges and Universities: Defining Documents: 1965-2014”

Historical fiction novels of Ellis Peters involving suspense in Middle Ages

A book by or about Pope Benedict XVI

“Stewards of the Mysteries of God Immaculate Conception Seminary, 1860-2010”

“In God We Trust: Morally Responsible Investing”

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Whilst I'm here and as we wind down the best month of the year (Sacred Heart month), a good message from Amy Welborn:

“In a time and culture in which hardly any of us understand what love actually is, in which we seem to be surrounded by dehumanizing hate and horrifying violence as well as public discourse characterized by contempt and judgment, a daily prayer (you can find some here) focused simply on love might just have surprising power.

‘O Heart of love, I put all my trust in Thee; for I fear all things from my own weakness, but I hope for all things from Thy goodness.’

In a time and culture in which human beings hear, from the moment that they can understand words, that they will be valued for their abilities, their achievements and their appearance, to hear the Good News that no, this is not so, that a Heart pours out love for us just because we *are* – can mean the difference between life and death.”

Sweet June Weather

As a connoisseur of fine weather I've of late been savoring. And remiss in appreciating. 

Last week there was the sweet savor of breeze overlooking a shining sea beneath our seven foot tall open-air tent. Listened to Gordon Lighrfoot’s, “If You Could Read My Mind”.  An hour before and an hour after 12pm is my favorite time of day for watching the shellacked waves, shiny as if varnished. The green and yellow croquet balls rolling in the middle distance from gamers. A firm sand floor, neatly swept by the wind. The “stable-unstable” tent, poles dancing to the wind’s whims but never collapsing. The ever-approaching sea, with tide as hourglass. 

And no less, back in Ohio. Pure June weather undistilled and unadulterated.  The rich, alluvial soil against the healthy garden plants, now over a foot tall and well on their way to tomato glory, well over transplant shock. 

Breeze and sun, instant welcoming warmth from morning till long into the evening. The candle is lit at both ends, from 6am to 9pm.  Laying in the sun and half-dozing, with half-ish memories of long ago bubbling up courtesy of reading some T.S. Eliot poetry...

For most of us, there is only the unattended 

Moment, the moment in and out of time, 

The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight, 

The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning 

Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply 

That it is not heard at all, but you are the music 

While the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses...

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Took the dogs to new joint, a local park, thinking we could walk those idyllic and elegiac old grass trails since it was 15 degrees cooler than the last couple of days . But too hot for Max or so he told me by putting on his brakes and laying in mid-path. He’s always aware of the direction of the car and after about ten minutes was only satisfied if we were going towards the car rather than further away.  Our other hound was obsessed with the rabbits and groundhogs that lived in the two to three foot high bramble beside the trail. 

**

The sun burns memories on my skin

Revealed when the sun seals again

Embossed tales of pre-adolescent summers

Laying on towels at the municipal pool

Effecting the asperges of chlorine. 

Yoram Hazony on Conservatism & Mattias Desmet on Totalitarianism

I’ve been learning more about political theory (my own education being underserved). Yoram Hazony’s history of conservatism is pretty rich and I’m struck by some of the synchronicity between that and the James Kunstler podcast (who interviewed Mattias Desmet). 

Hazony makes the point that the discovery of the proper laws in Anglo-American history was somewhat irrational in that it leaned to some extent on the empirical history of laws for good or bad but also on the humbleness of admitting our limits, not changing laws radically even if we don’t necessarily know the rational basis for them. 

This was polar opposite of John Locke, who figured that it was all a rational exercise involving objectivity that is available to all rational men. A universal view of rights that transcended nation and peoples instead of laws that needed to be customized to a given population.  One gets the sense that Locke assumes men are machines, interchangeable widgets. 

Desmet, from the podcast, is the author of “The Psychology of Totalitarianism” and has this to say: 

Western societies usually live in a very mechanized environment which leads them to be more vulnerable to “mechanistic thinking” - a view of men in the world that believes that the entire universe is a kind of machine, a material machine, a set of molecules and atoms that all interact with each other according to the laws of mechanics and in which we believe this entire machine can be perfectly understood in a rational way.  

That view became more prominent and this style of thinking makes people stop “resonating” with the world around them. Until I was 25 years old I really believed that all the nature and facts around me behaved in a strictly logical and rational way. I couldn’t imagine that facts could be irrational. Once I dived deep into the mathematical backgrounds of systems theory I suddenly was capable of seeing that nature and the things around me are just not rational. That’s paradoxical! Systems theory showed in a strictly rational way that all complex dynamical systems and most phenomena in nature behave strictly irrational, an irrational number in mathematics. From then on I understood most of reality we can only understand by emphatically resonating with it.... Max Planck, the famous physicist said, “When it comes to atoms, language can only be used as poetry.” 

Reminds me of Walker Percy’s assertion that understanding humans as machines is a core problem of our time. 

Desmet goes on to shed light on how "science" is now a joke (hint: majoritarian religions don't fare well):  

"Every virtue that gets institutionalized in the end lapses into its opposite I think. Universities should produce truth but in the end produce appearances and lies. The police department should protect us and yet become a danger in itself. Hospitals should help us stay healthy but in the end they make us sick. The church should represent model virtue but in the end it becomes the center of perversion, if we don’t watch out. Every virtue that gets institutionalized has a tendency - not always - to lapse into its opposite. 

"I think that is what happened to Western science. Science started as a discourse of a minority through which a minority went against dogmas and prejudices that existed in society and at that moment science was represented as an openness of mind and it was very fruitful. The early scientists had the courage not to know for a moment and they received new knowledge. 

"As a result of all the wonderful achievements of science, science became the dominant discourse in Western society. And then something strange happened - every discourse that changes from a discourse of a minority into the dominant discourse loses its qualities of truth-speech. That’s so strange!   I think I understand why now: if a discourse becomes a dominant discourse, if a majority of people believes in a certain set of ideas, this set of ideas just becomes the privileged instrument to manipulate society. And that’s what happened with science, that’s how it became perverted.  In 2005 we had the replication crisis which showed that up to 85% of all academic publications are radically wrong - full of mistakes, sloppy views and methods and the result of fraud. Up to 85% the conclusions of medical studies cannot be reproduced. That is huge! 

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"In my understanding, the root cause of our anxiety [in society] is situated at the level of our obsession with the rational and logical understanding itself. If you think logically, you really connect one logical idea to another and build a closed wall of logical argumentations around you and without knowing it you isolate yourself from the world. I became aware that rational understanding can never bring you in touch with the essence of life and nature around you." 

Panic on the Establishment Express

MAGA is in the driver’s seat of the '24 nomination and Rich Lowry and Peggy Noonan know it. They foresee the fracturing of a potential ’24 field and how Trump could win it. Thus they have dueling editorials out making the argument for someone other than Trump. 

Noonan went for the jugular: Trump's completely apathetic response to the plight of the 1/6rs.  For all Trump’s famed erraticisms, he is pretty predictable when it comes to putting himself first. With Trump you’re buying balls, not compassion. 

Her take is let’s elect competence, not balls. The question I would ask Noonan: “GWB had a ‘dream team’ cabinet in terms of competence. How did that work? Decades of wars, weaponization of airlines via TSA/no fly lists, and surveillance of American citizens?” 

I’ll take Trump’s incompetence for $100 Alex. 

Lowry went for the hoary ol’ tried and true: “but...but...but the Democrats will hammer us for 1/6!....why would Republicans want to risk it or even deal with the complication?”

Answer: Because MAGA couldn't care less about party labels. Electability only matters when the parties are different, and only Trump and DeSantis are different.  Nothing quite says “uniparty” like shipping off $40b to Ukraine for a proxy war with Russia.  Or ignoring the incarceration of folks involved in misdemeanor activities on 1/6. 

Lowry also missed the memo that the days of GOP voters huddled in a defensive crouch trembling at how the Dems/media will frame them are long gone. It's especially annoying to be held at gunpoint by an event (1/6) sponsored by our own FBI. Electability is overrated if the choices are two wings of same party. 

In Praise of QAnon

Sometimes the paranoids are right and sometimes they're wrong but necessary! Listened to a bit of interview with Lee Harris, author of a number of books on American history, by Lee Smith.  Excerpt: 

Harris:  “...My book addressed the question was why some societies value liberty and are notable for their history of freedom.  In pursuing that theme I researched the English Civil War, the Peasants Revolt of 1381, etc....What I began noticing is that the citizens for liberty were often not exactly law-abiding citizens. They were often violently rebellious, often times paranoid. They sometimes had paranoid fantasies about the threats upon them.  In the American Revolution, the opening of the Declaration of Independence is well-known but few people get to the passages in which George III is referred to as a ‘tyrant trying to enslave Americans’. Which is pretty extreme. It occurred to me that maybe the price of having a free society is having a bunch of people who are ornery, who are unwilling to take authority, unwilling to abide by the words of their betters, perhaps this is a necessary agreement in free societies -- as opposed to people who believe you write this document the Constitution and append a Bill of Rights and then everything takes care of itself.  I’ve come to the conclusion this was false. But Stalin wrote a fine constitution with much more rights given than we have.

I differ emphatically from the school of Straussians who put a lot of importance on documents, to sacred political documents. And I tend to find the bedrock of freedom is the interior, gut feelings of ordinary people.”