Independent U.S. Regulatory Agencies: Undermining the Chief Executive

On June 29, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal president has the authority to terminate the employment of heads of independent federal agencies at will, rather than only for cause. The latter requirement (i.e., due cause) would still hold for the Federal Reserve, which raises the question of whether a central bank should be distinguished from regulatory agencies. The value in buffering monetary policy from political pressure is why the Federal Reserve is not part of the executive, legislative, or judicial branches of the U.S. government, but is instead an independent central bank within that government. As a consequence, monetary policy does not require approval from either the U.S. president or the Congress. Hence, the “for cause” requirement for removing someone from the Fed’s board of governors cannot be disagreement with the person’s preferences or decisions regarding monetary policy. As for independent regulatory agencies in the executive branch, their independence undermines the unitary executive as well as the president’s role in implementing existing law.

As with virtually any institutional arrangement in government, drawbacks are paired with benefits. In the case of the Federal Reserve, the main drawback lies in the difficulty in coordinating fiscal and monetary policy because Congress and the White House decide fiscal policy while monetary policy is decided by the Federal Reserve, which is buffered from pressure from all three branches of the federal government. So a fiscal policy could be in place to stimulate the economy even though high interest rates slow down economic growth. In the 1970s, for example, the term “stagflation” was coined because high inflation existed along with economic stagnation. During that decade, fighting inflation by monetary policy would have run counter in its economic effects to stimulating the economy by fiscal policy. Typically, inflation and stagnation alternate rather than occur at the same time. Paul Volker, as chairman of the Federal Reserve in the early 1980s, used monetary policy to reduce inflation even though the high interest rates exacerbated economic stagflation and, without sufficient fiscal stimulation to counter the higher interest rates, quickly produced a recession in President Reagan’s first years in office. So there is value economically in coordinating monetary and fiscal policy, and buffering the Federal Reserve from pressure from Congress and the White House (as well as not allowing a Federal Reserve chairperson to dominate those two branches) comes with a price. An iconic line from a European in the film, The Godfather, Part III, is relevant: “All our ships must sail in the same direction.” Separating monetary and fiscal policy institutionally comes with a cost in that ships could be going in opposite directions, producing chaos.

The Federal Reserve is a central bank, and therefore it is not an independent regulatory agency in the executive branch. The very notion of an independent regulatory agency is problematic constitutionally because if such an agency is free of a president’s control and yet still within the executive branch, then separation of powers prohibits direct control by Congress or the judiciary. The Court “held that presidents have free rein to fire agency heads at will, despite federal laws that require a cause for such dismissals” and a 1935 Supreme Court case known as Humphrey’s Executor that held that presidents could not fire heads of federal agencies without cause.[1] That precedent, which the Court overruled, is problematic because assuming a regulatory head does nothing for cause, the person would be free to make regulatory policy at will even if the chief executive officer of the government, the president, disagrees. Because the federal presidency is an office elected by electors of the member-state held to the popular votes in the respective states whereas the head of a regulatory agency is appointed, regulatory agencies being independent of the president incurs a democracy deficit. In other words, the head of an independent agency has too much power given the amount of accountability that is available if termination of employment for cause is not an option due to good behavior.

Furthermore, carving out independent turfs within the executive branch denies the unitary nature of that branch that is implied by the president’s title as chief executive officer. Because the presidency is an elected office, heads of independent regulatory agencies within the executive branch who resist presidential pressure obstruct the “will of the people” from being implemented. Ideally, besides presiding as a neutral figure-head representing the United States of America, the presidency is tasked with implementing law, including defense. Hence it is Congress that has the constitutional power to declare war, for example, and the president is obliged to implement that declaration as the commander in chief. The role of implementing is hardly glamorous, and it has tended to be given insufficient time and energy by presidents who have been more interested in influencing the enactment of law, which is the task of the legislative branch, even though the veto is a negative power and thus designed to be a check on Congressional abuses of power rather than a mandate to legislate in a positive sense.

Ironically, the very existence of independent regulatory agencies with directors free from presidential pressure has freed up presidents from their implementing role, and thus enabled them to spend more time and energy on legislating new law rather than implementing existing law.  Unlike formulating new law, implementing existing law, including declarations of war, is consistent with the neutrality that a figurehead needs to be credible and thus to represent the United States as a whole. That such neutrality politically has been disregarded is evinced when American citizens state that a sitting president “is not my president.” The baleful warnings of expansive presidential power made by Arthur Schlesinger in his seminal 1973 book, The Imperial Presidency, would be less of a concern were presidents willing to constrain themselves to focus on being a figure-head uniquely credible enough to represent the United States as a whole rather than just one political party, and implement existing law by running the executive branch (including the defense department), rather than usurp Congress’s legislative prerogative as per the separation of powers. The Court’s 2026 decision allowing presidents to fire heads of previously independent regulatory agencies in the executive branch is a step in the direction of presidents attending more to functioning as the chief executive of the U.S. federal government when not called upon to preside.  

---

1. Mark Sherman, “Supreme Court Says Fed’s Cook Can Keep Her Job for Now, But It Upholds Other Trump Firings,” APnews.com, June 29, 2026.

Is Europe in Civilizational Decline?

Does the E.U. itself instantiate a decline in European civilization? So says a National Security Strategy for the United States released by the Trump administration in December, 2025. That report also claims that migration to Europe was in the process of causing European nations to face “civilizational erasure.” That is to say, the European nation-state was by the end of 2025 facing existential threats due to the E.U. and migration. The report also highlights the loss of democracy in Europe, due both to the E.U. usurping the governmental sovereignty of the states and the clamping down on voices on the right in Europe. I contend that the report contains a sufficient number of fallacies that it can reasonably be dismissed as bias ideology under the subterfuge of national security.

The report “proposes to ‘cultivate resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations.’”[1] This can be interpreted as an intent to aid Orbán’s anti-E.U. strategy in Hungary and to encourage other governors of E.U. states to resist the E.U.’s exercise of even its existing exclusive competencies, or enumerated powers (i.e., as per the dual-sovereignty feature of that federal system). To hamstring President Von der Leyen’s efforts to aid Ukraine, for example, “kills two birds with one stone,” as the saying goes, because in keeping the E.U. from strengthening, Ukraine’s strength against Russia is also held back.

The report finds “subversion of democratic processes” in Europe, and claims that the E.U. undermines “political liberty and sovereignty.”[2] This would be news to the European Parliament, whose representatives, like those in the U.S. House of Representatives, are elected directly by citizens and thus represent them, rather than even their respective states (the European Council and the Council of Ministers do the latter, as the U.S. Senate does in the U.S.). So, the E.U.’s bicameralism, if anti-democratic, means that the U.S. Congress also suffers a democracy deficit such that most Congressional powers should be returned to the American member states.

Whereas in confederal systems of public governance, democracy is only at the state level, which by the way is fine because the states retain all governmental sovereignty, federal systems characterized by dual sovereignty (i.e., governmental sovereignty being split or divided between the federal and state levels, or subsystems) should have democracy at both levels, rather than just at the state level. This is true of the E.U. grace á the European Parliament, even though its powers could stand to be augmented and those of the European Council lessened so as to enhance the democratic legitimacy of the E.U. even more.

Aside from the erroneous perspective that the E.U. is itself a reduction in European democracy, Trump’s claim that European migration policies had been “transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence” also warrants critique.[3] Does the administration mean to claim that migration policies have been causing birthrates to drop? The application of reason alone can easily dispel such a claim. The same goes for self-confidence, though there may be more to the claim that mass migration dilutes national identities if enough of the new arrivals refuse to integrate culturally. Furthermore, such a dilution is qualitatively different than any from a new-found sense of identifying as Europeans, which, although coming along slowly, is facilitated by the very existence of the European Union. That is to say, even if cultural diversity within a member state is not desirable, identifying increasingly as European rather than merely by member state has the advantage of making war within at least Western Europe less likely in the future. Additionally, identifying culturally as a European can aid indirectly in efforts to enhance the E.U.’s foreign policy and defense competencies, given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Surely Europeans in some of the E.U.’s eastern states would not lament feeling more European and less exclusively of their respective states if that meant that the united action of the E.U. would be more likely to be augmented to include defense without state veto-power standing in the way at the federal level. In short, criticism of migration and the E.U. should not be conflated.

As for free speech, in 2025 it came under threat arguably more as anti-genocide protesters were being arrested as if they were promoting violence rather than protesting against Israel ironically for having been so violent, and with impunity internationally. That the Trump administration had been enabling Israel’s genocide and perhaps holocaust explains why the report ignores the arrests, especially in Germany and Britain, of human-rights protestors while complaining as if Orban has been made into a scapegoat in the European Union even though he has serially violated E.U. law. His support of Russia and criticism of Ukraine, no doubt related to Hungary’s reliance on Russian energy, may have something to do with the report’s “finding” that free speech in Europe has been compromised by forces on the political left rather than the pro-Zionist right. Recently, I encountered such denialism in a coffee shop from a native South African man, whose daughter attends Columbia University. The man insisted that all of the images of destruction in Gaza have been created by AI, and that in actuality, the residents there have been eating well. Regardless of our political disagreement regarding enabling a genocide, I was stunned that his perspective was so divorced from even credible media reports. A European reading Trump’s National Security report might have the same reaction, especially concerning migration causing a drop in birthrates. Such denialism, from ideology, with even credible, mainstream journalism being relegated as illusionary, may be the real sign of a civilizational decline.

Given the impotence of the United Nations to combat the militaristic aggressiveness of Israel and Russia, the collective action that is possible by means of the E.U. can be regarded as a good thing, even though the member-states, or “nations,” would need to give over more governmental sovereignty. Due to the existence of the European Parliament, a democratic legislative chamber, a transfer of additional governmental sovereignty from the states to the Union would not mean that Europe is less democratic. In fact, adding the Parliament to state legislatures means more democracy, with democracy being able to exercise more of a check on itself (i.e., the Parliament on the state legislatures).  Of course, no political union is perfect, or ever can be, and the Parliament could stand to be given more authority in the making of law, so to strengthen the democratic institution at the federal level. Were the Trump administration really for democracy in Europe, the report would include this proposal rather than go with the erroneous claim that democracy only exists, or should only exist, at the state level. Moreover, were the Trump administration to avoid making political category mistakes, the report would compare the E.U. with the U.S., and thus be able to make helpful proposals to strengthen both unions of states. Even though Europeans may bristle at this axis of comparison, my motive in writing is to make such proposals for the good both of Europeans and Americans, for we are more alike in what we value than we sometimes realize.

---

1. Andrew Naughtie, “Trump Administration Warns Europe of ‘Civilisational Decline’ in New National Security Strategy,” Euronews.com, 5 December 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

On the 2025 Political Convention of the European People’s Party

Competition within a pollical party and recognition that a political party is indeed a political party are essential or at least advantageous to any political party in a democratic system. Moreover, a republic, even if it contains smaller republics but is not just them in aggregate, deserves to be recognized as such rather than implicitly relegated by erroneous nomenclature that is designed to appease skeptics so they won’t rise up to resist the federal republic itself. “Let the chips fall where they may” is, I believe, an expression from gambling. Another expression comes from playing cards: Call a spade a spade. These two expressions evince truth and power, whereas hiding behind false notions is sheer weakness. Much of my writing on the European Union is oriented to strengthening it, as well as to gleam lessons for both the E.U. and U.S. by comparing and contrasting them as federal empire-scale unions of states.

Rubber-stamping closed-room decisions is hardly uncommon at conventions of political parties. The E.U.’s European People’s Party is no exception. At the annual convention in 2025, the party’s leadership appeared “quite monarchic” in spite of the fact that the E.U. was “the world’s second largest democracy,” and that President Von der Leyen had been touting the value being placed on democracy.[1] At the convention, Manfred Weber was re-elected by 502 of 563 votes “while his loyal ally Dolors Montserrat was elected unopposed to the position of secretary general with 91% of the votes cast.”[2] The lack of intra-party competition could be expected to have an impact politically on the E.U. itelf, as the “ascendant” EPP included E.U. Commission President Von der Leyen, 13 commissioners, and 188 representatives in the Parliament.[3]

With the E.U. being a few years over 30 years old, the EPP in the E.U. could be likened to the Congress Party in India during the twentieth century. To be sure, the latter party eventually lost its dominance, and the EPP could be expected to lose its early foothold too. Beforehand, however, a democracy deficit can exist not only when one party dominates at the federal level of an empire-scale polity of polities, but also when such a party is monocratic at the party level.

In other words, a multiplier effect can be in the mix when dominance is salient within a party that in turn is dominate in a government, and an executive branch, a legislative chamber elected by citizens, and a supreme court do indeed constitute a government even if denial has a firm foothold in the public square. In fact, for the media to mislabel a political party’s convention as a congress, which is actually an international meeting of sovereign countries, and a union such as the E.U. as a bloc undermines the credibility of a party and union. Both a democracy-deficit and enervating ideological (i.e., Euroskeptic) misnomers imperil a federal system, especially if the states hold most (but not all!) of the governmental sovereignty. 

For the Commission to be able to enforce even its exclusive competencies (i.e., enumerated powers), it is important that that executive branch be representative rather than oligarchic and known to be something more than of a bloc, which is a temporary grouping for one purpose. The E.U. was not intended to be temporary or of just one pillar. Indeed, the third pillar belies any claim that the E.U. is merely an economic international organization. International organizations such as NATO and the UN have no governmental sovereignty of their own, and do not have legislative chambers whose representatives are directly elected by citizens. International organizations do not even have citizens! A little intellectual honesty can go a long way.

---

1. Jeremy Fleming-Jones, “The EU’s Biggest Political Party Met in Valencia—What We Learned,” Euronews.com, 30 April 2025.

2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Police Brutality: A Symptom of a Brain Sickness Stimulated by Large Doses of Power

Behind the ornate rooms and regalia of a head of state, the stately appearance of legislative chambers, and even revered democratic constitutions, the basis of a government is its power—even if beyond authorized limits—to use lethal force against even its electorate peacefully protesting. As the results of the Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971 show, human beings who have police power—even beyond the authorized—have at the very least a proclivity to abuse people without countervailing power. The students who were assigned as prison guards in the experiment because so abusive toward the students assigned as prisoners that the experiment had to be terminated after only 6 days in a two-week period. Even the experimenter, who took on the role of prison superintendent during the experiment, “had become indifferent to the suffering” of the students who were in the role of prisoners.[1] Lest it be concluded that college students are simply too immature to assume even what seems to be absolute power over other students, such behavior is arguably common among actual police employees. Lest it be further concluded that such behavior is part of an autocratic regime, even the known instances in republics suggest that human nature itself cannot handle such discretion as police departments and their employees have. Incredibly, even with the result of the Stanford study, no one seems to go to this conclusion; rather, primitive human nature may be poised to jump from incident to incident as if doing so enough would end the abuse of such power.

The presumptuousness that police departments and individual employees have in abusing their powers to harm even nonviolent protesters was on display to the world on June 4, 2020 as police in Buffalo, New York, pushed down a 75 year-old man who ironically had stood for peace and justice for decades. The violent act itself by two police employees was telling. Video shows Martin Gugino approaching an oncoming police employee in a nonviolent manner to talk—perhaps to ask a question. Another police employee immediately speeds up his pace—the first indication of possible aggression. Then he and another employee pushed Martin backwards. Incredibly, one of the employees who pushed Martin then shock his head back and forth as if the incident had been Martin’s fault, when the fault lied with the employee. Such shirking of responsibility is a convenient mental tactic by which the abusive mind seeks to justify/protect itself—the delusion being hidden to such a mind by the mind itself.

That the other police employees kept walking past Martin as he lied on the cement with blood coming from his right ear suggests the presence of a group-think dehumanizing even a victim of police aggression. A man off-camera then scolds the police employees for walking past Martin and not even bothering to call an ambulance. Instead of respecting the man for his compassion for Martin and justified reproach of the tax-payer salaried employees, they push the man forward and handcuff him. Perhaps that man and other people in the vicinity should have acted on an instinct to remain silent and offer a NAZI salute. I’m sure the police employees would have felt especially emboldened to exploit the personal conflict of interest out of anger. Were he alive, Gandhi might have recommended that the people in the vicinity stay silently in place and take the blows to show the employees’ moral sickness to the employees themselves and the world.  

At the very least, the moral sickness could include exploiting a personal conflict of interest out of anger, and taking non-threats as threats—that is, being over-sensitive and over-reactive. Out of arrogance, the employees may even have presumed, how dare the old man come to us to ask a question! As for the man—the anonymous Christian—who attempted to shame the Roman police into at least stopping to tend for Martin, how dare anyone talk to us that way.

In short, the mentality of the police employees on the scene may have been too used to abusing their power even and especially when its exercise goes beyond their delegated authority. This implies that accountability from and on police departments in general—and not just in New York—had been practically non-existent. In other words, police employees are routinely given too much discretion (i.e., power) relative to what the human brain can handle, and a system has been set up that protects this dysfunctional sickness such that it is no longer viewed by the aggressors as a sickness.

The implications for public policy are not merely to fix the system of broken accountability; a reduction of discretion is also called for both in terms of what authority governments give their respective police departments and what authority they in turn give to their managers and non-supervisory employees. Incident-specific responses to police brutality do not do justice even to the first task.

How police departments, police unions, and the police employees themselves react to accusations of can say a lot about the dysfunctional sickness that protects abuse manifests in a “clean up” capacity. The sickness itself may convince the infected brains, but the denial makes it possible that people without the vested interest get to glimpse the disease through its symptoms. That is to say, the sickness may cause the infected brains to unwittingly reveal too much.

In trying to defend the two abusive police employees, John Evans, president of the local police union, said, “Our position is these officers were simply following orders from Deputy Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia to clear the square. It doesn’t specify clear the square of men, 50 and under or 15 to 40. They were simply doing their job. I don’t know how much conflict was made. He did slip in my estimation. He fell backwards.”[2] Evans’ statement is revealing in ways that he did not likely intend. Firstly, general orders, such as to clear an area because of a curfew, have plenty of room for discretion, which the head of the labor union ignores. For example, the police could simply have stood at one end of the public square and fired on anyone in it. Alternatively, the police could have walked through the square, arresting people who refuse to leave. Both approaches are consistent with the general order to clear the square. Secondly, in asserting that Martin fell backwards from slipping, which is clearly not the case in the video, the police union’s position was that lying to protect abusive police employees is acceptable—perhaps even laudable.

Moreover, that 57 police employees in that riot squad quit because the two abusive employees were suspended allows us access into the sordid mentality of entitlement even to push over an old man and walk past him with apparent indifference. A squad’s solidarity can thus effectively enable the presumption to over-react to non-threats by committing violent acts. Such a squad, and police department, moreover, would have no moral objection to covering up episodic eruptions of the sickness within. In short, the law doesn’t apply to the departments and employees tasked ironically with enforcing the law. In conveniently excluding themselves, such departments and employees therein reveal their criminal mentality under the ripped cloak of public decency.

In spite of living in democratic republics, Americans were at the time especially vulnerable. “In recent decades, police [there] have amassed power through laws that grant them a high level of immunity, a lack of oversight, big budgets and a focus on reforms that [have brought] little change.”[3] Even though police departments are responsible to democratically-elected officers of cities in a given republic, such as New York, the International Association of Chiefs of Police has been involved in modifying anti-crime legislation and “trying to make elected officials accountable to police, rather than the other way around.”[4] An institutional conflict of interest has been exploited here at the expense of legitimate democratic governance.[5]

To be sure, electorates in some of the American republics have willing ceded to the police a lot of power. In Phoenix, Arizona, for instance, the dominant political ideology assumes that a visibly-heavy police presence is justified and even necessary as a deterrent against crime. That ideology falsely assumes that innocent citizens would not be uncomfortable seeing so many police cars and helicopters on a regular basis—in what can be called the emergencization of the status quo. That fly-through helicopters fly regularly in one area outside of the FAA-mandated corridor with impunity points to how much power the police department has and what its mentality is. That even the campus police department at a local university, Arizona State University, presumes (over academic culture) to park regularly on campus sidewalks and in the middle of academic courtyards suggests that perspective can be warped by the brain sickness of power and little accountability on that sickness would be very unlikely from a pro-police “academic” administration (and student government!), which in turn is not democratically elected. The explicitness by inconsiderate shows of the dominance by force impedes the free exchange of ideas and an atmosphere conducive to thinking. Rather than enhancing the feeling of security, especially during school days, the culture of dominance puts everyone there, especially students from more balanced States on edge. That is not an academic culture, and in fact eclipses it on its own turf. 

Given the weaknesses of the human mind, the decisions or captures of governments and especially non-governments such that they succumb to their own police departments are dangerous, and in fact can easily enable police over-reaches, whether aggressive or passive-aggressive (e.g., pensive presences) with the presumption of impunity. In 2020 with protests taking place in the U.S., E.U., Australia, and Brazil (and other countries), the world may have been awakening to just how lapse-prone the brain can be with de facto absolute physical power. 
To be sure, that those protests were blind to a likely-increasing sordid, deeply selfish disrespect for the law and inconsiderateness of strangers and even neighbors does nothing to reduce that problem (if indeed such respect and considerateness can be treated, much less forced). Although that mentality can easily spark anger, police employees who act on the basis of personal emotion are themselves disrespecting law. In other words, even if incidents of police brutality had been increasing to meet another mentality that refuses to respect the law and thus its enforcers (even apart from their abuses of power), one primitive mentality need not match another, that is naturally anger-provoking. Perhaps the flash point is disrespect being naturally met with disrespect. In the end, anti-social criminals can expect to be dealt with, but within measures that are compatible with the human brain.

---

1. Stanford Prison Experiment.

2. “Buffalo Police Riot Squad Quit to Back Officers Who Shoved Man,” BBC.com, June 5, 2020 (accessed June 6, 2020).

3. Julia Mahncke, “Why Police in the US Are So Powerful,” DW.com, June 6, 2020 (accessed same day).

4. Ibid.

5. For more on institutional conflicts of interest, see Skip Worden, Institutional Conflicts of Interest.

Is the U.S. Congress Too Beholden to the Financial Industry?

That financial deregulation had any traction at all following the financial crisis of 2008 in the U.S. is stunning, for the implication is that Wall Street money has tremendous influence in the U.S. Governent even after Wall Street banks have screwed up (even in triggering a financial crisis!). 

According to Gary Gensler, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2012, Congress stood with the big banks in the struggle to shield Americans from the risks and excesses of Wall Street even after the financial crisis of 2008. He pointed in particular to a proposal from the U.S. House’s Appropriations Committee to cut his agency’s funding by 12 percent.[1] The CFTC had been given expanded powers by the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010. Doubtless the proposed budget-cut had something to do with that. It is astonishing that such a proposal would come in the wake of a financial crisis caused in large part by Wall Street bankers taking too many risks. That the agency was then tasked with regulating the problematic $700 trillion market on derivatives—a task that dwarfed the agency’s regulatory power over futures—suggests that the decision to cut the agency's budget after the financial crisis was especially agrevious, being based, I submit, in Wall Street's denial over its harmful role in triggering the financial crisis in which subprime-mortgage-based bond derivatives collapsed in value even as banks including Goldman Sachs were trying to unload the "crap" as good values. 

CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler staring down the big banks

That an industry with a vested interest in rolling back financial regulations could have any influence at all over elected representatives reflects the general ignorance or naivity concerning conflicts of interest. In a COI, a private interest predominates even if the good of the whole is being estolled. A bank-rolled member of Congress can used the espoused public-interest rationale advanced by the banking industry as cover to hide the cosy relationship. For example, a bank's public affairs department could put out the word that increased financial regulation, even after a financial crisis, is really socialism. The bank-rolled members of Congress could then use the socialism scare-tactic on their respective constituents while quietly accepting the large campaign-contributions from the banks. Meanwhile, the American people feel secure that such representatives are protecting them from a threat rather than enabling one.

1. Alexader Eichler, “CFTC Head Gary Gensler: Congress ‘Sides With Wall Street’,” The Huffington Post, June 8, 2012. 

For more on the conflicts of interest in the financial sector (and others), see: Skip Worden, Institutional Conflicts of Interest, available at Amazon.

Elected Representatives in a Republic: Is Any Sense of Duty Remaining?

I suspect the notion of duty had by 2018 taken a rear seat, pushed out by self-centered ambition, in many if not most democracies in the world. In the ancient world, office-holding by lot stemmed the impact of people desiring office. Of the latter, the desire for personal gain would, I submit, be more likely. In contrast, finding oneself holding an office by lot was more likely to be accompanied by a sense of duty rather than personal ambition. Of course, ordinary citizens could find themselves voting in councils or legislatures—but would that necessarily be so bad?

In the American experiment, office-holding was originally thought of as a civic duty of the wealthy class. Landless citizens were cut off from even voting. George Washington did his duty as the first U.S. president, then went home to Virginia; he had done his duty (and then some). Once he decided not to run again, he did not, while still president, call it quits even if he was personally done with the office. I submit that that sense of duty had been lost by the twenty-first century.

After the 2018 midterm Congressional election, many U.S. House representatives who would retired or were not re-elected conveniently decided that their term would end early. “Call it the revenge of the lame ducks. Many lawmakers, relegated to cubicles as incoming members take their offices, have been skipping votes in the weeks since House Republicans were swept from power in the midterm elections, and Republican leaders are unsure whether they will ever return.”[1] The skipping of votes connotes an absence of a sense of duty; being in Congress in such cases is really about the office-holder, rather than his or her constituents or patriotism. Duty to oneself is not even a pale reflection of duty to the other two.

In the midst of the hegemony of duty to self, corruption can be expected to become a norm in the halls of a government. We could expect self-enriching schemes rather than a duty to fulfill the office. In the case of 2018, the U.S. Government was poised to shutdown, as the two major parties were in a stalemate over funding a southern-border wall. Duty to return to Washington in case one’s vote may facilitate the government remaining in operation would seem to be a relatively clear duty to which a legislator would be bound. Yet a major problem with duty, as with other moral principles, is it’s voluntary nature; legislators in eyesight of the end of their term know they can get away with staying away, whether out of being tired of politics or having a new lucrative opportunity in lobbying or business.

What is a republic, really? Surely some presence of a common good that needs to be looked after in its own right is involved. Who is tasked with this looking after? The government of a republic, no doubt. So office-holders should (i.e., in principle) be foremost oriented to putting the public good first, for no one else in a society is tasked by nature or occupation with putting the interests of the whole before those of the parts. In deciding to end a term of office early, for whatever extrinsic reason, the representatives in the U.S. House in late 2018 demonstrated that the voters had erred by electing people who were not in fact willing (or able) to look after the whole, to keep an eye primarily on the steering of the ship so it would not crash. tasked with steering and looking outward Knowing that the only sector of society tasked with looking after the entire ship and thus for any obstacles ahead is the government, those representatives acted selfishly in spite of the fact that they knew a government showdown would soon come up ahead and the government—that part of society specifically tasked with protecting the ship—could shut down. Such a mentality goes beyond selfishness to include a reckless disregard for the ship, which those representatives had doubtlessly lauded many times when doing so had been in their own interests.

---

[1] Julie Hirshfeld and Emily Cochrane, “A Shutdown Looms. Can the G.O.P. Get Lawmakers to Show Up to Vote?” The New York Times, December 16, 2018.

Kant on the NSA Lying to Congress

James Clapper, Director of U.S. National Intelligence, told the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee in March 2013 that the National Security Agency was not gathering any type of data at all on millions, and even hundreds of millions, of Americans. After leaked documents showed that Clapper had misled the committee in stating, “There are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps collect, but not wittingly,” he issued an apology to the committee for having made the comment that was “clearly erroneous.”[1] U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein, chair of the committee, praised Clapper as an honest and direct man.[2] The discerning reader realizes the full implications of the difference between being in error and lying. To err is human, but to deliberately fabricate for the benefit of oneself or one’s group is a matter on which particular humans can and do differ morally.
Kant is especially well-known for having claimed that it is never ethical to lie. This makes Kant's ethics difficult to accept in terms of "white lies," which are told for another person's benefit rather than for selfish reasons. In terms of universalizing lying as a practice, were everyone to decide to lie on a regular basis, the truth would lose its value because no one would trust it. Lying would no longer have its intended value either, as it would be expected and therefore ignored. In other words, universalizing the maxim of lying would be self-contradictory concerning lying itself; lying universalized would involve a logical contradiction. Put another way, lying as a practice universalized would insult reason itself, and thus be unethical to any rational nature. As human beings, we have such a nature.
It is admittedly strange to think of "unethical" as being in terms of a logical contradiction being contrary to reason. It is easier to think that a logical contradiction is not possible for a being having a rational nature. Kant is saying that as we are rational beings, it is unethical for us to do something if universalizing the practice to it being done by everyone would involve a logical contradiction. Is this criterion simply an expedient method for determining whether a given practice is ethical or unethical, or was Kant really thinking of ethics differently than we think of ought? If the latter, even saying that a logical contradiction is unethical because it insults reason would introduce emotion where there is none; Kant's notion of what it means for some action to be unethical would be that reason is being used against its own rational nature.
Put in Kant's easier formulation that is much easier to understand, lying involves treating other people as one’s means only, rather than also as ends in themselves. You can still treat someone as your means, as long as you also treat him or her as an end in himself or herself too. This formulation has been likened to the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have done to you. However, I wouldn't like to be anyone's means and yet Kant permits this as long as I'm also treated as an end in myself (as a rational being). So I don't think Kant's ethic is as idealistic as is the Golden Rule.
Applying Kant to the case at hand, James Clapper either testified in ignorance or to deceive the senators. If the former, the NSA should not have sent him to testify. Either the agency was at fault for sending the wrong guy or Clapper should have known of the program but did not. If during a NSA meeting covering the program he had been daydreaming of spying on the woman living next door, he is culpable. He would have been using his boss as a means rather than also as an end in himself.
Alternatively and more likely, if Clapper knowingly deceived the committee, either on orders from the NSA or from his own will, he used the senators as means rather than also as ends in themselves. Put another way, I doubt that Clapper likes to be lied to; neither does Diane Feinstein or any of the other senators. Nor do the people of the states that those senators represent, or the general public for that matter. An agent knowingly misleading his or her principal is a particularly sordid instance of lying; not only is it selfish and inconsiderate, it is also insubordinate.
Clapper either testified in ignorance or to deceive the senators. If the former, the NSA should not have sent him to testify; the fault is not necessarily his own. However, if he knowingly deceived the committee, either on orders from the NSA or from his own will, he used the senators as means only, rather than also as ends in themselves. Therefore, whether out of ignorance or deceit, Clapper’s error or lie points to insufficient democratic accountability of the NSA to Congress. If NSA chief Gen. Keith Alexander lied to Congress in saying that the NSA could not determine how many U.S. communications were being gathered at the time when in fact the NSA was using its auditing tool Boundless Informant precisely to determine the number of such communications, a disturbing pattern rather than a single incident of faulty testimony would characterize the NSA.[3] In particular, the agency could have developed an organizational culture in which the elected representatives in Congress and even truth-telling itself are insufficiently respected and valued. Such anti-democratic values may be the underlying culprit behind what could be a cavernous hole in democratic accountability—the breach of which would of course maintain the illusion of ongoing accountability.

---

1. Kimberly Dozier, “James Clapper: Answer on NSA Surveillance to Congress Was ‘Clearly Erroneous’,” The Huffington Post, July 2, 2013.2. Jeremy Peters, “Feinstein’s Support for N.S.A. Defies Liberal Critics and Repute,” The New York Times, July 1, 2013.
3. Kimberly Dozier, “Edward Snowden: NSA Lying, Collecting All Communications Into and Out of U.S.,” The Huffington Post, July 8, 2013.

On Democratic Accountability in a Republic: The Pentagon Papers

The publication of portions of the Pentagon Papers despite President Nixon’s threats of treason highlighted the fact that four presidents successively lied to the American People on build-up of U.S. involvement in Indochina (most notably, Vietnam) and the Nixon administration lied on the prospects for victory in the Vietnam War—a war that had not even been declared by Congress. Clearly, democratic accountable extends to foreign policy at least in broad outline, such as in whether or not to continue an active engagement militarily in another region of the world. Even in U.S. presidents being able to get away with effectively declaring war even as one of their roles is that of commander-in-chief—a huge conflict of interest!—democratic accountability by the popular sovereign, the People—is important, even vital should the legislative and judicial branches fail as checks in the separation-of-powers feature of the U.S. Constitution.

The first article in the New York Times reported that the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations “built up the American political, military and psychological stakes in Indochina, often more deeply than they realized at the time, with large‐scale military equipment to the French in 1950; with acts of sabotage and terror warfare against North Vietnam beginning in 1954; with moves that encouraged and abetted the overthrow of President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam in 1963; with plans, pledges and threats of further action that sprang to life in the Tonkin Gulf clashes in August, 1964; with the careful preparation of public opinion for the years of open warfare that were to follow; and with the calculation in 1965, as the planes and troops were openly committed to sustained combat, that neither accommodation inside South Vietnam nor early negotiations with North Vietnam would achieve the desired result.”[1]

Meanwhile, the American electorate was being kept in the dark—lied to—in spite of the fact that the People in a republic are tasked with holding the elected representatives and their respective appointees accountable.

“The Pentagon study also ranges beyond such historical judgments. It suggests that the predominant American interest was at first containment of Communism and later the defense of the power, influence and prestige of the United States, in both stages irrespective of conditions in Vietnam.”[2] The U.S. Government’s defense of the escalation, however, was limited to the containment of Communism such that it would not take over the world as Marx had foretold and thus threaten even the U.S. itself. During the Johnson and Nixon administrations, American troops were being killed and taken prisoner increasingly for the prestige of the United States and irrespective of the intractable conditions on the ground in Vietnam. Crucially, these administrations kept the American people in the dark on these points, such that no electoral correction could be effected. Ironically, the administrations were claiming to protect democracy even as they were undermining it by using power to subvert democratic accountability by the popular sovereign (i.e., the electorate).

---

1. Neil Sheehan, “Vietnam Archive: Pentagon Study Traces 3 Decades of Growing U.S. Involvement,” The New York Times, June 13, 1971.

2. Ibid.

Deaf-Signing at Mandela's Memorial and Kavanaugh's Confirmation FBI Probe: Cover-Ups?

Watching U.S. President Barak Obama speak of his hero, Nelson Mandela, on December 10, 2013, something was distracting me; the rather large man signing for the deaf used such exaggerated gestures I had trouble concentrating on what Obama was saying. Little did I know that the interpreter was a “fake,” according to the Deaf Federation of South Africa. “It was horrible; an absolute circus, really, really bad, Nicole Du Toit, an official sign language interpreter, told the AP. “Only he can understand those gestures,” she added.[1]  I suspect that labeling the fiasco a “circus” skates over the underlying mentality in over-reaching and lying to cover it up. Years later, I wondered the same thing concerning Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Are we, the public, out of the loop concerning what really goes on inside governments? 
As soon as I read that the interpreter is a fake, I suspected that the South African government fronted the man so to appear sophisticated to the world. I recalled how just hours after Nelson Mandela died, “spontaneous” dancers in formal black dresses preformed outside Mandela’s house. I had the sense of self-aggrandizing people behind the scenes taking advantage of the obvious publicity for South Africa.
To be sure, the interpreter would explain that he had been in a schizophrenic episode while he was signing and that he could not even remember having signed afterward. Hearing this “explanation,” I suspected that with so much on the line, powerful players behind the scene may have pressured the man to lie. One American news network showed footage of the signer using strange signs at yet another occasion. Perhaps with so many schizophrenic episodes while signing, the man might have picked another profession. I suspect the mental health explanation is a fake on top of a fraud, both indicative of a broader attempt by government officials or other power brokers in South Africa to “cash in” at the nearest opportunity, regardless of any sense of solemnity at such a momentous occasion.
In 2018, the quick FBI investigation of Brett Kavanaugh's past sexual behavior was closed to the public even as U.S. senators relied on the findings, at least in part, before voting on whether to confirm him as a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. The private nature of the report opened up the possibility that a cover-up between the Republican Party and the FBI was in the works. According to an opinion-piece at CNN, numerous sources who could have confirmed Kavanaugh's sordid behavior at a party at Yale were excluded from the interview list by the White House.[2] A lot was on the line; the high court stood to be conservative-leaning for decades. That such an outcome should pivot on a politicized nomination "circus" ought to raise enough concern; that the court's leaning could be due to a private report being a charade ought to make frustrated blood boil.
Both of these cases raise the unhappy possibility that what happens inside governments is effectively shielded from the public eye such that democratic accountability cannot function. The cases also raise the specter of outwardly nice public officials being in government anything but. Are we, the public, too gullible, or is it simply the case that people in positions of great power are not wielding it responsibly and able to get away with it? 

---

Sources:

1. Kim Hjelmgaard and Marisol Bello, “Interpreter For Deaf Branded a Fake,” USA Today, December 12, 2013.
2. Frida Ghitis, "Kavanaugh Probe Was a Cover Up," CNN.com. (accessed October 5, 2018)

Picking a President by Polls

It is one thing to say that something is broken; it is quite another thing to fix it. In such a case, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it doesn’t cut it. Any pathological fear of change must give way or the brokenness must be endured. During the last half of 2011, over a year before the U.S. presidential election, the election season was already in full swing. Without any primaries or caucuses, the media and “debate” (i.e., talking points) organizers divided the Republican candidates into two tiers. Besides being an artificial dichotomy given the spectrum of support revealed in polls, that they were being used to prioritize among the candidates in the “debates” and more generally in terms of electability is problematic.
Most importantly, a poll is not an election. To relegate some candidates while privileging others (even crowning a “front runner”) ahead of any primary or caucus is without democratic legitimacy because polls have no decision-making authority. In other words, for the media (and “debate” organizers) to rely on polls to discriminate between candidates both in terms of electability and in allotting attention deprives the electorate at the polls or caucuses to break up the pack. Indeed, even aside from the fact that a poll does not constitute an election, relying on polls is problematic.
For one thing, relying on a poll can give the false impression of permanent preferences. Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster who directed the WSJ/NBC poll with Peter Hart in October 2011, remarked, “How quickly candidates have risen and then, like a soufflé, how quickly they’ve fallen back down.” A poll is at best a snapshot, and is thus obsolete even on the next day. Furthermore, the proliferation of cell phones in lieu of LAN lines and of do-not-call lists makes the “science” of polling less exact than even it portends. Indeed, to rely on the telephone in conducting surveys introduces a certain bias. For example, how many homeless people have phones?  Less obviously, how many survey callers get through to corporate executives who have gate-keepers poised to divert such calls?
Even if polling were capable of giving an accurate snapshot, the polls would have to be interpreted correctly. That obvious error can be perpetuated even by a media heavy-weight like The Wall Street Journal should give us all pause in whether we should rely on the reporting of polls. For example, the October 13, 2011 headline reads, “Can Vaults to Lead in Poll.” The WSJ/NBC News telephone poll of Republican primary voters that month put Herman Cain at 27% and Mitt Romney at 23 percent. Unfortunately for the poll and for the headline, the margin of error of the poll is 5.35 percentage points. Now, math is not my strong suit by any means, but the last I checked, 4 (27-23) is less than 5.35. The poll itself does not justify the headline.

Given the margin of error, Romney could claim to be in the lead!  This conclusion too is within the poll’s result. In fact, Romney in the lead is just as valid a conclusion from the poll. So it is indeterminate as to which of the two candidates is in the lead. This why the newspaper's headline is dogmatic. Within a margin of error, no particular result is privileged over any other. To pick out one “result” within the margin of error is dogmatic in the sense of being arbitrary, and yet it is done all the time. Given the graphic above, readers who do not understand statistics and surveying as a  social-scientific method are apt to fixate on the 27% and the 23% as if these figures were engraved in stone.

Moreover, typically people apply a false sense of exactitude when numbers are reported. It is like driving from Pittsburgh to Indianapolis and remarking while passing Youngstown, we will arrive in Indy at 5:45pm. Airline pilots in particular enjoy exercising the error of exaggerated exactitude by announcing the arrival time for the destination even from the departure airport before takeoff. At New York’s Kennedy, a pilot might announce, “we will touchdown in Paris at 6:47a.m. tomorrow morning.” Not 6:48a.m. Not 6:46a.m. Rather, 6:47a.m. on the dot. On your next flight, you might point this error of excessive exactitude out to your pilot (after you have landed—you wouldn’t want to provoke a nervous breakdown before you are back safely on the ground at the appointed time).

Besides the problems in interpreting and reporting particular polls, relying on them before the first primary or caucus is problematic from the standpoint of democracy itself. To the extent that Cain’s 27% “front-runner’s status,” anointed by the October poll more than a year before the presidential election, impacts or detracts from the electoral choices of the primary or caucus voters, the democratic process itself suffers. In other words, introducing error into an electoral process does not bode well for a democratic system or a specific electoral outcome. Moreover, willowing down a field of candidates by polls circumvents a democratic system wherein elections are the means by which decisions are made with respect to candidates for public office. In effect, pollsters, commentators and news editors (and executives) have supplanted, or at least jumped the gun on, the primaries and caucuses. The elongated electoral “season” (measured in years) even relative to the primaries and caucuses has provided the vacuum in which the “early decisions” can be made by (unelected) pollsters, commentators, and journalists. The U.S. presidential election process is broken. Whether anything will be done to fix the process remains to be seen. I’m not holding my breath, given the magnitude of the problem and the headlines. Indeed, saying that the process in the fall of 2011 is democratically illegitimate would be like saying that the emperor is wearing no clothes. Resisting the urge to make a joke at Gov. Christie’s expense (he has said the jokes have to be funny at least—he is indeed a class act), I will rest my case here—hoping that I have adequately reserved my readers’ respect.

 

Source:

Neil King, Jr. and Jonathan Weisman, “Cain Vaults to Lead in Poll,” The Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2011. 

Constructing a Constitution: Egypt in the Arab Spring

Concerning a new constitution, which is more important: the process or the content? In Egypt in 2012, that most secularists and the Coptic Christian representatives walked out of the assembly working on a constitutional document suggests that the final product would not have legitimacy for all of Egypt. To be sure, it is possible for a partisan group to design a system of basic law that is not overtly self-serving at others’ expense. The document that emerged from the assembly weakens the presidency and strengthens the parliament. This shift was in line with the popular protest in “the Arab Spring.” However, the assembly left in place a “longstanding article” grounding Egyptian law in the principles of one religion. Furthermore, a provision on women’s equality was left out, and the military generals would keep their existing power. Moreover, anticipating dissolution from Mubarak-appointed judges, the assembly began its work from the last Egyptian constitution.

Do the members of the constitutional assembly look liberal or conservative?  Reuters

Basing deliberations on the status quo works against the process needed to arrive at a new constitution, especially if the last constitution had been constructed in a very different time. The Wall Street Journal reported at the time that legal experts indicated that the assembly’s final document was “almost identical to the 1971 constitution written by former President Anwar Sadat”—hardly a democratic document.

The construction of a new constitution from scratch would have had particular value in allowing the old political system to “catch up” to the contemporary context. The default, in short, in a constitutional assembly’s deliberations should not be based in the status quo. This point is easily missed, particularly when the other weakness of a partisan group dominating the assembly is also the case.

In the best of all possible worlds (Leibniz’s expression), delegates from all of the principal segments of society should be included in a constitutional assembly, with no group having a majority. Where such a majority is the case, a certain percentage of the minority should be required for an article to be adopted. Second, rather than being based on the last constitution, the starting point could be based on a new blue-print formulated in very basic terms by a committee (composed of delegates from the major segments of society). In the case of Egypt, delegates favoring particular major religions as well as secular society should have been on such a committee, and, moreover, active in the deliberations of the committee of the whole—the assembly itself.

A constitutional assembly should be a microcosm of the macro society, and thus inclusive of the powers and the non-so-powerful. Ideally, Rawls’ “veil of ignorance” should apply, wherein no delegate knows which segment he or she is in. Hence, no segment is apt to be left out or expunged. The veil would apply as well to the existing or prior constitution, so ever its assumptions would not serve as the default for deliberation. In short, a constitutional assembly should “reinvent the wheel” in the context of where a society is, rather than was. This does not mean that the resulting document would necessarily be progressive, particularly if a given society is traditionally-oriented.

In the case of Egypt, the “new” constitution drafted by the assembly, unlike the constitution that had been written by Anwar Sadat, includes a reference to the laws of a particular religion. In fact, both the state and “society” are given the authority to “ensure public morality.” Lest it be supposed that Egyptian society had become more traditionalist and religious in terms of a particular religion since 1971, the changes from the status quo document could simply have been a reflection of the partisan make-up of the assembly. 

In conclusion, all major segments of society must ratify a proposed document of basic law for it to have legitimacy and a real chance at a sustained run. Absent such approval of a super-majority or of all of the major elements of society, a proposal should be read as partial or incomplete. Rather than returning to it, a new assembly of delegates should “start from scratch” so a document can be crafted with presuppositions freed from the tyranny of the status quo and any major faction.

Sources:

David Kirkpatrick, “Islamists Rush Through Egyptian Constitution and Prepare to Vote on It,” The New York Times, November 30, 2012.

Sam Dagher and Matt Bradley, “Egypt Adds Islamic Influence to Constitution,” The Wall Street Journal, November 30, 2012.

On the Presumptuousness of Power: Does Wall Street Own Congress?

At the end of April, 2009, U.S. Senator Richard Durbin blamed the powerful banking lobby for the defeat of legislation that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to modify some troubled mortgages.  Even as mortgage servers were claiming to be overwhelmed with requests from distressed borrowers for readjustments to the adjustable-rate mortgages (ARM), the banks and mortgage companies felt the need to stop the US Senate from enabling judges to relieve the backlog. Durban later said in an interview, “And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place,” he said on WJJG 1530 AM radio's  “Mornings with Ray Hanania.” On October 30, 2009,  James K. Galbraith spoke on the Bill Moyers Journal on the bank lobby changing the financial system regulation reforms now being discussed in Congress.  That that lobby feels itself to be in a position to advise the Congress on a matter in which the banks were part of the problem is something that blows Galbraith away.   They should realize among themselves, or at the very least BE TOLD that their involvement is not helpful or appropriate.   Galbraith pointed out that we have a pretty good idea of what needs to be done governmentally to stave off another financial crisis—such as separating the commerical banking and investment trading (on the bank’s equity even!) functions and reducing the scale of the banks too big to fail.  However, there are a hundred reasons why the governing class will not follow through. 

For one, we can look back to Durbin’s comment that the banking lobby owns Congress.   The conflict of interest in the owner of Congress keeping Congress from legislating on the industry is a suffiicent basis for worry; that the lobby presumes itself to be in a position to advise or pressure on banking regulatory reform and that the lobby still has the muscle to see that it is still invited to the table strikes me as emetic.  It shows the arrogance of the corporate world and the corruption of the governing class.   The housing bubble and sub-prime mortgages were in the interest of both, and yet reform strangely is not.   I would add that any voter who goes on, business as usual, in voting for an incombant is contributing to the perpetuation of the  squalid system that we are now enjoying.

Imagine, just for a moment, that a friend or neighbor insults you.  You invite some other friends over to figure out how to deal with that friend or neighbor.  You are shocked when he or she walks in your front doorway (no need to hide) and sits down in your living room with the others.  Not only that, he or she presumes to advise the group, adding pressure or outright threats that the group had better come up with something that is good for him or her. Here’s what I’m getting at: focus for a moment on the attitude of the friend or neighbor.  In our normal interpersonal relations, we would rationally conclude that the person is delusional and excessively self-absorbed.  We tend to let positions or organizations keep us from viewing their people as other (flawed) human beings.   Arrogance built on presumption concerning a matter on which the person has screwed up and others are hurt  is or ought to be a huge red flag for the rest of us (and our representatives!).   I find this attitude to be far more difficult to understand and accept than the fact that industry lobbies have an inordinate amount of power in Washington. 

I find myself thinking about the nature of presumption that can manifest as an illness where it is beyond the pale. That the person involved probably doesn’t even see this suggests to me that a rather dysfunctional lot has congregated in the upper rafters of American banking.   What kind of a person pushes for his or her advantage in the efforts by others to clean up one’s mess?   That they are allowed in the room is alone a sad testament; that our representatives are actually succumbing to them is sordid indeed.   Of course, it is in the interest of big business that the political power be concentrated among the governing class in Washington.   We are mere bystanders as the dance unfolds. 

See related: Essays on the Financial Crisis

Sources:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21962.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/29/dick-durbin-banks-frankly_n_193010.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/29/dick-durbin-banks-frankly_n_193010.html  (“own the place” quote)
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10302009/profile.html