Behind Political Culture: U.S. President Clinton’s Lying under Oath

The stature that comes with occupying (and even having occupied) public office, whether elected or appointed and especially if high office, combined with the ability to attract the attention of the media such that the (former) official’s statements have the credibility of pronouncements, and thus of being true rather than false statements, is rarely examined for what the stature and societal “mouth-piece” imply (i.e., veracity). A very high former elected representative who has even admitted lying under oath in a court proceeding back while in office can very easily be assumed decades later to be making a true statement by the public even though that statement is practically identical to the statement known (and admitted) to have been false. Even published photos that are strong evidence that the second statement is false can be dismissed by a public too liable to being beguiled by clever political birds of prey. I have in mind here the twin statements of Bill Clinton, who was the U.S. President for two terms in the 1990s and went on to associate with Jeffrey Epstein, the infamous head of the child-prostitute sex-ring, and at least one of his paid girls.

At least three compromising photos of Clinton with girls in close proximity were released by the FBI to my knowledge in 2026. In one photo, Clinton is situated between Maxwell, who was Epstein’s accomplice, and an under-aged girl in an indoor pool at a resort (not in the U.S.). Maxwell would later be convicted (and imprisoned) for her role in arranging girls for Epstein’s clients. In another photo, Clinton is sitting in a hot-tub with an underaged girl. In a third photo, he is seated with one arm (and hand) low around the waist of a girl in what appears to be Epstein’s private jet. To be sure, even though the positioning of Clinton’s arm (and his hand) low around the girl’s waist connotes sexual rather than paternal interest, and that a girl is with Clinton in the hot-tub photo (and the pool photo) are together highly suggestive, none of those photos is evidence that Clinton raped (i.e., had sex with) one or more of Epstein’s girls. Moreover, anyone accused of a crime is assumed to be innocent in any of the United States unless or until the accused is convicted in a court of law of having broken a law.

Even though the arm being around a girl’s waist and being in a pool with an under-aged girl and an adult whom we can now say definitely arranged Epstein’s girls for sex may bring to mind the old phrase, “where there is smoke, there is fire,” I bring up the matter of the photos merely as context to show just how misguided it was for the American public to assume that Clinton was testifying honestly before a Congressional committee in 2026 on his relationships with Epstein and the child-prostitutes. That Clinton was recognizable (i.e., fame) and had political stature as a former U.S. president are not sufficient for the default-assumption to be that even what he has said under oath is truthful rather than mendacious. This is the idea.

Asked under oath while testifying before a Congressional committee if he had had “sexual relations” with the woman in the hot-tub photo, Clinton answered, “No.”[1] Even if the photos make his answer difficult to believe, that he also “denied knowledge of Epstein’s crimes” may be so incredulous that a person could reasonably toss out all of Clinton’s testimony for being deceitful throughout.[2] It is possible that he rationalized lying because, as he had claimed, he believed that the Congressional subpoena, which he had unlawfully ignored, had been politically motivated.  Because Clinton claimed to have been unaware of Epstein’s business (i.e., prostituting girls to the rich and/or famous) in spite of spending leisure time with the criminal and his accomplice, and because Clinton knowingly violated the law by ignoring a Congressional subpoena, a rational basis can be laid for leaning at the very least toward concluding that Clinton lied under oath about having committed statutory rape.

Clinton being asked whether he had had sexual relations with a child-prostitute ought to ring a bell for anyone who was following U.S. politics toward the end of Clinton’s time in the White House. Back in January, 2001, the media reported that in “an 11-hour deal to avoid criminal charges over his sex-and-lies fling with Monica Lewinsky, President Clinton . . . admitted ‘knowingly’ lying under oath.”[3] Clinton had to surrender his Arkansas law license and pay a $25,000 fine. Stating, “certain of my responses to questions about Ms. Lewinsky were false,” on his last day in office, Clinton was referring to his responses made under oath in a deposition to questions including, “Did you have sexual relations” with Lewinsky? His answer under oath was a perjurious “No.” Sound familiar? Why would anyone lend any credence to Clinton’s answer to the same question decades later in regard to a child-prostitute? Why would his answer be reported as though his earlier answer to the same question in regard to another woman were truthful?

I contend that a person who has admitted to having lied, under oath, in answering a question of having had inappropriate sexual relations (with an intern) and is asked the same exact question (regarding a child-prostitute) should at the very least be viewed as questionable in terms of whether his second answer can be believed to be true. At the very least, the media should have inserted a footnote to remind readers that Clinton had lied, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” in speaking to the American people about Lewinsky’s “oral” contact with Clinton in the Oval Office. To the extent that the American public’s reaction to reports of Clinton’s Congressional testimony in 2026 was muted rather than publicly raising the obvious point that especially on the matter of sexual relations, Clinton was not to be believed, the undue credit that is implied or inherent in holding (or having held) public office and having a mouthpiece in the established, “main-stream” media can be surmised and judged to be problematic in themselves.

Societal credibility enjoys a certain default that, even if dislodged once as in the case of Clinton, can exist without any real foundation based in the character of the office-holder celebrities.  This is not to say that if they are caught “red-handed,” such as U.S. President Nixon was, and members of Congress have been more commonly, societal credibility can be difficult to regain. My point is that the public tends to swallow too easily that which should at the very least be held as suspect in terms of veracity. That Clinton lied under oath and to the American people about having had sexual relations with Lewinsky in the 1990s should have registered on the media’s radar screen and in popular reaction to Clinton’s answer, again under oath, to the same question, to Congress in 2026. An old dog can indeed learn new tricks, but personal ethical development should not be assumed as if the proverbial dog had not done the old, sordid deed once already.

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1. Leo Briceno, “WATCH: Bill Clinton Grilled on Shirtless Hot Tub Photo amid Swirling Questions on Epstein Relationship,” Foxnews.com, March 2, 2026.
2. Ibid (on the quoted material).
3. Marilyn Rauber, “Finally Admits He Lied under Oath: Dodges Criminal Charges with a Last-Minute Deal,” California Post, January 19, 2001.

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.

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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.

A Far-Right "States' Rights" Ideological Depiction of the European Union Critiqued

Roughly a month before the 2019 elections of the representatives in the E.U.’s Parliament, Matteo Salvini, the leader of an anti-immigrant party at the state level in the state of Italy, announced the formation of a far-right party—also anti-immigrant—at the federal level. Because far-right parties at the state level are dubbed “nationalist,” at least by The New York Times, that paper suggested at the time that such nationalist parties federalized can seem “incompatible with a transnational body.”[1] I submit that any such thought of even apparent incompatibility stems at least in part from a lack of understanding of the E.U. itself, as well as federalism and thus the place of states from the perspective of the federal system rather than a state. In short, the paper implicitly took the perspective of the states in writing about the upcoming election. The paradigm chosen by the paper reflects the far-right ideology in the E.U., and is thus not neutral. In fact, the slant is inherently helpful to the Euroskeptic and anti-immigration political agendas.

The paper’s uses of nationalist and transnational, for example, are misleading. Both terms imply that the E.U. is an international organization, or “bloc,” which was not the case even when the E.U. came into existence.  We can translate the term “nationalist” as used by the far-right parties in terms of two senses relevant to the federal level. The term could mean “Euroskeptic,” or, in American terms, “anti-federalist.”[2] Euroskeptic, unlike nationalist, is a term from the perspective of the E.U. because a Euroskeptic is a person who wants less power at the federal level and more at the state level. Nationalism, on the other hand, is a stand-alone term without implicitly or explicitly suggesting the existence of a federal system. In fact, nationalism implies a sovereign rather than a semi-sovereign state. In the cases both of the E.U. and U.S., complete governmental sovereignty encompasses that of both levels, hence both federal unions are nations even if not recognized as such.  In discussing a federal election, terms that make sense in terms of federalism should be used.

No contradiction exists in having an anti-federalist or Euroskeptic party active at the federal level. In the U.S., the anti-federalists became Thomas Jefferson’s Republican Party. Having a weaker central government paired with stronger state governments as the central pillar is consistent with federalism because ending the federal system itself is not being advocated. In contrast, a nationalist party at the federal level does not make sense unless the federation is a confederation of totally sovereign states, which does not apply to either the E.U. or U.S. because of the feature of dual sovereignty (i.e., both levels have some governmental sovereignty). Whether most of the sovereignty is at the state or federal level does not matter; in both cases, neither level has all of the sovereignty. If a nation has full national sovereignty, then the affairs of semi-sovereign states in a federal system cannot be labeled as nationalist. In such a system, and from its perspective, using nationalist to refer to the state level is incorrect. Neither does the national-transnational divide apply because transnational organizations do not themselves hold even some governmental sovereignty. Simply put, the E.U. is not an international or transnational organization, even if “nationalist” ideologies at the state level want to insist otherwise.

Besides meaning Euroskepticism in regard to federalism, nationalist can also refer to an anti-immigration platform. In 2019, the Republican Party at the federal level in the U.S. was strongly anti-immigration, especially in the White House. Both how many immigrants are allowed and the respective involvements of the state and federal governments are matters that involve federalism, rather than only the states. So to equate anti-immigration with nationalism at the state level is flawed. In fact, to use nationalist for either Euroskepticism or anti-immigration is faulty because “national” concerns do not reduce two platform items. In other words, the term is too broad for its use in characterizing the federal involvement of either a state-level or federal party at the federal level. I suspect the term was being used anyway as a way of furthering the far-right ideology. As noted above, even the media was implicitly (or intentionally) helping.

As for the E.U. being “transnational,” this term is a misnomer. To be sure, the European Council represents the state governments just as the U.S. Senate does. Both the Council and the Senate can be said to be transnational in that the member-states are semi-sovereign. Both bodies are based on principles of international law. For example, polities rather than individuals are the members, and thus represented, in the bodies. Qualified majority rule in the Council and the filibuster in the Senate reflect the fact that the respective members retain residual sovereignty. By the way, qualified majority voting is itself one way in which the federal level of the E.U. has some of the sovereignty in the federal system. Enumerated competencies (in the E.U.) and powers (in the U.S.) are another source of federal-level governmental sovereignty. In contrast, transnational bodies such as NAFTA and NATO do not have governmental sovereignty.

Another, glaring (i.e., because the Times was reporting on the Parliament’s upcoming election) reason why the E.U.’s federal level is not transnational centers ironically on the E.U.’s Parliament.  Unlike the Council, the Parliament consists of direct representatives of E.U. citizens rather than of the states. That each state has so many House seats in the U.S. and Parliament seats in the E.U. does not mean that the seats represent the states or that the state governments pick the representatives. Even though Americans vote for a specific candidate whereas Europeans vote for a party, the elected representatives in both cases represent the citizens rather than the states. This corresponds to the notion of direct effect, which means that federal-level governmental institutions can bypass the state governments in affecting the citizens directly. Transnational bodies and even international confederations, such as the ancient Spartan league and the early-modern U.S. Articles of Confederation, do not have legislative bodies that represent and have direct effect on citizens rather than the member polities.[3] 

In fact, whereas the U.S. Senate and the E.U. Council are predicated on modified international law, the U.S. House and the E.U.’s Parliament are national in principle, both in terms of citizens being directly represented and direct effect. The appellation of national to a federal-level institution may seem strange to many Europeans in 2019, but Americans had the same reaction during at least the first fifty years of the United States because, like the United Colonies before, the U.S. was commonly viewed on both sides of the Atlantic as an empire.[4] In fact, the members of the British Empire, whether Ireland or Virginia, had their own legislatures for domestic legislation.

Therefore, transnational is a misnomer in referring to the federal level of the E.U. Reflected in its federal institutions, the E.U., like the U.S., is actually a national/international hybrid at the federal level. Both citizens and polities are represented, and governmental sovereignty is split between the federal and state levels.

Regarding the body in the Times’ term, “transnational body,” to characterize the E.U., again the intent or implication is to diminish the legitimacy of the federal legislative, executive, and judicial (i.e., governmental) institutions in line with the far-right ideology. The E.U. is not itself a “body.” Rather, the federal level has several bodies, or institutions. The European Parliament, the Commission, the European Court of Justice, and the European Council (and the Council of Ministers) are all governmental bodies at the federal level. They all have institutional interests going beyond particular state interests and even the summation of state interests, for in a federal system, both levels have their own distinct interests. Applying logic to counter ideology, the E.U. itself cannot be a body because the federal level contains several governmental bodies. Furthermore, to claim that the E.U.’s federal level reduces to one of its bodies, or even an aggregation of them denies the distinct interest of a federal level, which can be at odds with state interests.

So the “confusion” regarding the E.U. that The New York Times reported as one of the reasons why voter turnout had dropped in federal elections (i.e., of representatives in the E.U.’s Parliament) is in part caused by intentional misnomers. These tend to reflect an anti-federalist ideology that views the federal level as something less than a government whereas all legitimate legislation is promulgated at the state level. Hence the states are nationalist whereas the E.U. is a transnational body rather than national in part. The term nationalist is used problematically instead of Euroskeptic or anti-immigration, and the term transnational body and even bloc are used rather than federal level or even federal government. “Blocs” do not have legislatures, executive branches (the Commission), and a Supreme Court (the E.C.J.) as well as competencies in a variety of domains in addition to trade and even economics. To refer to the E.U. as a “bloc,” like a trading bloc (and where did the k go?), essentially denies the political development that differentiates the EEC from the E.U. Specifically, the federal competencies of the E.U. extend beyond economics and trade and the federal system itself fits under modern federalism wherein sovereignty is split and the federal level has direct effect (and a legislative body based on national rather than international principles), rather than under confederalism wherein the member-countries are sovereign (e.g. the UN).  I submit that the terminological “mistakes” fit and thus implicitly advance an anti-federalist or Euroskeptic ideology that seeks to minimize the onslaught of federal legislation by going after the credibility of the E.U. itself.

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1. Megan Specia, “European Elections 2019: How the System Works and Why It Matters,” The New York Times, May 21, 2019.

2. See Ralph Ketcham, The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention Debate (New York: Penguin, 2003).

3. Althusius’ text on historical federal thought, based in large part on the Holy Roman Empire, clearly demonstrates that each level in a confederation acts only on the next lowest. Only the guilds act directly on the individuals. See Althusius’ Politica (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1604/2010).

4. Skip Worden, British Colonies Forge an American Empire (2017). For more on this topic, see the following books: Essays on Two Federal Empires: Comparing the E.U. & U.S., American and European Federalism: A Critique of Rick Perry’s “Fed Up!” and Essays on the E.U. Political Economy: Federalism and the Debt Crisis. 

The American Media Went “Nuclear” on the U.S. Senate's Filibuster: A Case of Hyperactive Marketing?

Is ending the filibuster on appointments to executive-branch offices as well as judicial appointments below the U.S. Supreme Court really “the nuclear option”? Is this expression simply rhetoric gone horribly over the top? Journalists would undoubtedly demur, at least publically, yet without feeling an ounce of shame.
On November 22, 2013, a leading story on the front page of USA Today immediately snagged my fleeting attention with the headline, “’Nuclear’ volleys across aisle signal a Cold War in Congress.”[1] The 52-48 vote in the U.S. Senate on the previous day was neither a “nuclear volley” nor the beginning of a “cold war.” Rather, the reform was yet another legislative device having to do with reducing the gridlock within the chamber and perhaps for a party to gain more control therein. The political tussles between the two major parties had already been going on, so the latest reform could not have been the start of a war, cold or hot.
To be sure, editors look for headlines to be attention-grabbers, and thus sensationalistic—yet even if the claim is false or even misleading? Signaling a cold war flies in the face of the prior existence of such a “war,” as during the U.S. Government’s partial shutdown when raising the government’s debt-ceiling was in jeopardy. Moreover, the reporter continues the sensationalism within the article.
For example, the reporter invokes “the superpower theory of Mutually Assured Destruction—that is, if you use the most powerful weapon against your enemy, your enemy will use it against you—neither side had ever deployed it.”[2] Does not this “theory” apply more to shutting down the government or refusing to raise the debt-limit? The fact that Americans waked up on November 22^nd with a functional federal government belies the journalist’s application of the theory to whether the U.S. Senate would confirm more appellate and district judges. Nevertheless, the reporter “reports” that “Democrats voted for detonation.”[3]  I didn’t hear any sort of blast, or for that matter, see any damage the next day.
As for any realistic (i.e., still incremental rather than radical) consequences, the reporter provides merely a quote at the end of the article. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said, “The silver lining is that there will come a day when the roles are reversed. When that happens, our side will likely nominate and confirm lower court and Supreme Court nominees with 51 votes.”[4] As if as an afterthought, the reporter tacked on this quote, which says basically that the Senate would continue to delimit the filibuster’s domain. Crucially, incrementalism is not radicalism. Hence, the war rhetoric is misleading at best, and it displaces reportage on the real significance of the vote.

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1. Susan Page, ““’Nuclear’ volleys across aisle signal a Cold War in Congress,” USA Today, November 22, 2013.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid., emphasis added.

Judge Allows ATT Purchase of Time Warner: Vertical Integration Escapes Anti-Trust Objection

Typically horizontal mergers, as when one company merges with another that makes similar products, have trouble when it comes to anti-trust, restraint of trade, objections. The go-ahead of the ATT merger with Time Warner in mid-2018 suggests that vertical combinations, such as when distributor buys a content-creator, survive on anti-trust grounds. Even if trade is not restrained, another problem is present—that of conflicts of interest. Anti-trust law is oriented to preventing restraint of trade rather than such conflicts. Accordingly, just because the ATT merger survived on anti-trust grounds does not mean that a regulatory gap did not exist at the time.

In 2016, a U.S. judge had blocked the merger of Staples and Office Depot because it could have left consumers with “only one dominant retailer” focused on office products.[1] In other words, such a retailer could easily have been a monopolistic price-setter rather competitive price-taker (from the market). The market itself should be dominant, anti-trust theory claims.

The case of ATT, which was known still in 2018 as a cellphone provider, would add the owner of programing content, including HBO, Warner Bros, and CNN by buying Time Warner. ATT was not trying to corner the market, in other words, on cellphones. The problem lies elsewhere. In this case, ATT could privilege its own devices over other means of watching the content. Although such a privileging could restrict trade at the distributor level, the underlying problem is that of an institutional conflict of interest: privileging one’s own distribution over other means of seeing the content.

Yet the obligation to maintain other means of distribution may be illusionary. That is to say, ATT may not have any such obligation. If the company’s strategy is to purchase the content (e.g., HBO and CNN) exclusively to be distributed through ATT products, no price differential would exist between ATT’s means and those of other distributors. The ethical problem exists if ATT allows other distributors of the content, for the temptation would then be to charge those others more in order to privilege ATT’s own means of delivering the content. My point is merely that ATT could ethically restrict its own acquired content to its own devices; the ethical problem bumps up against the human nature of business only if ATT adds its own distribution devices to others in providing the acquired content. Anti-Trust law has another orientation, and is thus ill-fitted to this problem. Put another way, unfair pricing (of distribution) is different than, though possibly related to, undue restraint of trade. Both of these market imperfections warrant regulation, so relying solely on anti-trust law is sub-optimal in terms of public policy.

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[1] Cecilia Kang, “Why the AT&T-Time Warner Case Was So Closely Watched,” The New York Times, June 12, 2018.

How a Chairman of the Federal Reserve Made Strategic Use of the Media

Just as the US Senate was to take up the matter of Ben Bernanke’s re-appointment as Chair of the Federal Reserve in 2010, Time magazine came out with its announcement that he is to be its person of the year.  According to the magazine, “when turbulence in U.S. housing markets metastasized into the worst global financial crisis in more than 75 years, he conjured up trillions of new dollars and blasted them into the economy; engineered massive public rescues of failing private companies; ratcheted down interest rates to zero; lent to mutual funds, hedge funds, foreign banks, investment banks, manufacturers, insurers and other borrowers who had never dreamed of receiving Fed cash; jump-started stalled credit markets in everything from car loans to corporate paper; revolutionized housing finance with a breathtaking shopping spree for mortgage bonds; blew up the Fed’s balance sheet to three times its previous size; and generally transformed the staid arena of central banking into a stage for desperate improvisation. He didn’t just reshape U.S. monetary policy; he led an effort to save the world economy.”  Not to be outdone in service to the Chairman, CNN furnished its own reporters, who gave credit to Bernanke for these measures.  Interestingly, however, even though one reporter admitted that Bernanke had said in 2007 that the subprime market and its derivatives would not threaten the financial market and the banks, she attributed the fault there to the imperfections in the market rather than to Bernanke himself in being wrong.   So, he gets credit for cleaning up the mess (ignoring the foreclosed homeowners) but not the blame for being wrong about the contagion (and not urging regulation of the derivatives).  He could have urged the regulation of derivatives (he is a smart person), and once the crisis occurred, he could have tailored his response to the homeowners facing foreclosures that could have been stopped. For example, the Fed could have created dollars to subsidize the inordinate rates on the variable rate subprime mortgages (i.e. those bank assets would not have been toxic and the banks’ balance sheets would have been fine…two birds with one stone…rather than doing the bidding of one of the parties).  To be sure, if the Fed is inordinately friendly to banks because of the power they have in selecting their regulators (the NY Fed Chair’s appointing committee consists of bankers), then Bernanke might have simply been playing the good politics for staying in office.   “Our ships must all sail in the same direction; otherwise who can tell how long you will…last…with us.” (The Godfather, part III)  Bernanke is a player from the perspective of the real power behind the throne: America’s financial elite.  That elite literally owns the media companies. So what I want to point out here is that the timing of Time’s announcement and the asymetry in CNN’s laudatory coverage of the Chairman just as the Senate was about to consider his re-appointment led me almost instinctually to  be convinced that coincidence was not the driver here.  The Chairman undoubtedly had some powerful friends in the media who were giving him a publicity offensive, or campaign, just in time for the Senate debate on whether to appoint him.

Through all the admiration of this person of 2009, it should be remembered that he did not urge the regulation of sub-prime derivatives issued or held by the banks regulated by the Fed.  He was wrong about the subprime housing bubble being contained.  And he failed to protect homeowners sufficiently.  If the media was being used by the Fed Chair in his re-appointment campaign, it could be that what we are fed by CNN, Fox, MSNBC and the main network newscasts is not really as neutral or beyond their control as we think.   News as a campaign.  News because it is in some powerful actor’s vested interests.  While there is certainly coincidence in life, an alignment such as I have outlined here is far too transparent—or at least it ought to be.

The subtext here is that we, the American people, have become too much the pawns even as we think we are not.  The illusion of popular sovereignty is that we are in control.   I don’t think we have any idea of the extent to which we are manipulated by the powers that transcend our elected representatives and their appointees.  It is no wonder that real change does not get beyond the interests of the real power in America, whose interest is in the status quo or at best in an incremental change.   Essentially, we have allowed the anti-democratic power to concentrate to a degree that is dangerous to a functioning republic (i.e., a representative democracy).  We should not be surprised to find that powerful actors are operating at a subterranean level where transparency is intentionally lacking.    How do we get it back, you ask?  Hah!   We would have to see it first—realize its extent and depth—and I’m not holding my breath that enough people will wake up to see the light.

Too many of us are ensconced in Plato’s cave, taking what the puppets say for reality.  As Jack Nicholson said in A Few Good Men, “You want answers? YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!”    Even if we could stomach the emetic manipulation behind the scenes that is directed to us (and even our representatives—when they aren’t doing it themselves), we would have to be able to see it—and it is so well hidden.  We can only grasp at straws…confluences that seem like more than coincidences.  As a member of the black caucus of the US House (surprisingly) said to a reporter of Frontline on the TARP program passing the House just days after it had been voted down by that same body, “You have no idea how powerful the anti-democratic forces are here.”    You and I get only glimpses.  The puppets seem more real so we believe in them.   Please don’t take my thesis to be that there is one huge orchastrated conspiracy; rather, I’m simply suggesting that our system of representative democracy does not seem to be able to sufficiently constrain the invisible powers that are pulling strings without being accountable to the public power.  It is my ardent hope that the people will look beyond the status quo in voting for candidates—perhaps getting back to citizen representatives who do their duty then return to their preferred occupations—that we would elect people sufficiently principled and not desirous of a life in power to be willing to take on the financial power.   Do I think it will happen?  Sadly, no.  I’m sorry, but I just don’t think we have it in us…or we don’t have enough of what it would take to confront that which is in us that favors comfort and sleep.   In the story of the rise and fall of empires, the United States is not exempt.  The culprit, as with most things, lies within.   It is ultimately about what kind of people too many of us are.  Such a thing is very, very difficult to change, let alone see.  Decadence tends to be invisible to itself.

Note: A day after CNN covered the announcement, the Senate finance committee debated and voted on Bernanke’s re-appointment. See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34463144/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/

 Source: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1946375_1947251,00.html#ixzz0Zs8WgpV1

Real or Incremental Change?

On October 13, 2010, Fox News reported a poll that found that women were turning on Obama.  The reason cited was that they feel there has been too much change—that it has been “jarring.”  I was stunned—wondering if I was listening to a broadcast from another planet. I remembered that when I had been sampling a fattening food item in a grocery store in my antiquated home town in Illinois; the old woman who gave me the sample, said, “We have lots of devils here!” as she was handing me the sample.  She was referring to the array of food samples in the store that day a few weeks before Thanksgiving.  My reaction, which I charitably did not share with her, was, Oh, horrors! I wondered what century she was from (probably Calvin's, I concluded privately as I chewed a “devilish” olive). I wondered, moreover, why some people magnify little things into horrendous sins. Such people, I concluded, cannot seem to let go of what is to the rest of us so utterly antiquated and get with it. That is, why are some people so resistant to change? Why do they perceive small, incremental changes as somehow momentous—even jarring?

In a preface to one of his books, Milton Friedman wrote, "Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When the crisis occurs[,] the action taken depends on the ideas that are lying around.” That is to say, human nature is not exactly designed in favor of substantial change—being more inclined to the incremental variety. When a culture says that real change is to be feared and people don’t bother to come up with a broad array of ideas, even a crisis may not result in real change. Such can be said of modern American society, even as “change” shows up consistently in American political campaigns.

In terms of the jarring change being reported on Fox News, the journalist pointed to the health-insurance reform law as a case in point.  In spite of its purported “socialism,” the law relies on private health-insurance companies, whose lobby pressured Obama into dropping his “public option” requirement and adding a mandate that requires Americans to become customers of those companies.  If relying on extant private companies—giving them a guaranteed and vastly enlarged customer base—is somehow “jarring” change, I have to start wondering about whether some people have a pathological issue with change itself.

One need only point to the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law of 2010, which subjects banks deemed too big to fail to additional capital requirements and requires the banks to develop liquidation contingency plans. This “change” pales in comparison to breaking up the banks having $1 or more trillion in assets so they do not pose a danger while extant. That some people might find increasing capital requirements as jarring boggles the mind. Are such people familiar with real change—even if they voted for it in 2008? I suspect they would not recognize it if it jumped up and bite them on their asses, and yet political campaigns are ostensively all about change—or the illusion thereof—but just enough to tell people what they want to hear.

Not surprisingly, much of the campaigning in the 2010 midterm elections was oriented to incremental change on a variety of issues, rather than to real change, even though the latter would have been more fitting given the systemic negative effects of the financial crisis of 2008. Even in states bordering on bankruptcy, like California, Florida and Illinois, campaigning as usual belied any purported crisis. 

For example, I watched a candidate forum that was being held in Illinois and one of the main questions was why a candidate’s business was so successful.  Meanwhile, the last governor had been impeached and removed from office by a nearly-unanimous vote in the legislature, and the government was borrowing $18 billion in 2010 alone.  The forum struck me as an exercise in “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” as if the ship of state was not on the verge of sinking.  In other words, it was business as usual in a context that demanded substantial change. Clearly, the candidates knew of Illinois’s fiscal (and corrupt) condition. It occurred to me that they were either bereft of ideas or too accustomed to going along on the track of status quo to proffer any real alternatives. Lest one heap all the blame on the candidates at the forum, it is important to note that it was a citizen of Illinois who asked about the candidate’s business. Perhaps the society in Illinois is too entranced by custom and thus insufficiently equipped for real change—ironically even as one of Illinois’ former U.S. senators was serving as the “real change” president of the United States.

Lest the pallid phenomenon be presumed to be limited to the heartland, the California Governor’s race between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman also evinced politics as usual. The two candidates had a chance in their debates to persuade a California-wide audience that they could turn around the economically-troubled republic. Instead, they resorted—at least in their third debate—“to many of the personal attacks that have dominated the last few weeks of the campaign,” according to MSNBC, whose verdict can be said to apply to American politics even in the wake of a crisis: “Neither candidate presented any new ideas.”

Source:

Jeff Madrick, Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present (New York: Alfred A. Knoff, 2011).

On a New Era Dawning in the E.U. State of France

With Emmanuel Macron finishing first on the first-round of voting for the head of state in the E.U. state of France, the media declared a new era in the state politics was already a foregone conclusion. Yet the support of the political elites at both the state and federal level could be read as tempering any such landmark announcement.

With 97 percent of the vote counted, Emmanuel Macron had 23.9 percent, Marine Le Pen followed closely with 21.5 percent, “the mainstream right candidate Francois Fillon had nearly 20 percent, and the far-left candidate Jean-Juc Melenchon had 19.6 percent.”[1] The Socialist Party’s candidate came in with only 6 percent. With just 4.3 percent between Macron and Melenchon, it can hardly be said the traditional parties, except for the disappointingly ruling Socialists, succumbed to “a new era” in the state’s politics.[2] Indeed, even “before the official tallies were announced, the political establishment was rallying behind” Macron, suggesting that the political elite would have considerable pull with the independent. “There is a sigh of relief, said Jan Techau of the Holbrooke forum at the American Academy in Berlin.[3] To be sure, the E.U.’s political elite was pleased that a federalist would be in the running against the anti-federalist, secessionist Le Pen in the state’s runoff for governor on May 7, 2017. Even so, that the state and federal political elites were rallying for the “independent” candidate” could be taken as a powerful indication that news of a “new era” in the state’s was being vastly overblown by the media—whose sensationalist bias needs no explanation.

The similarity to Ross Perot, a politically independent Texan businessman who received 18.9 percent of the popular vote, had he won the U.S. presidency in 1992 is simply bad comparative politics. Besides there being no run-off beyond intra-party primaries and caucuses, no “dangerous” alternative on the far-right had a credible chance. Additionally, an electoral structure taking account of the semi-sovereign republics in the Union does not apply to a state-level system in another such union. Specifically, the Electoral College, whose electors are by state and whose allocation of electors reflects the point that each republic, no matter how small, should have a significant role, as per the fact that each state has enumerated and residual sovereignty, in the selection of the federal executive. None of this applies to a state-office race in the E.U.

Eliminating the implied category mistake in likening a state-race in the E.U. to a federal race in the U.S., Emmanuel Macron is actually closer to Jesse Ventura, who was elected head of state and chief executive of Minnesota in 1998. Although he ran affiliated with the Reform Party that Perot had founded, the independent shed that party shortly into his term. The two traditional parties in Minnesota did not cheer on his campaign, so he was not beholden to them. The case of Macron in France is more nuanced. Hence, from this comparison we may conclude that the preachment of a new era in one of the E.U.’s big states to be hyperbolic rather than substantive.

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[1] Alissa J. Rubin, “Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen Advance in French Election,” The New York Times, April 23, 2017.

[2] NPR news reported on the election night that the traditional parties’ demise in the first-round election signaled a new era in French politics.

[3] Steven Erlanger and Alison Smale, “After French Vote, Mainstream Europe Breathes a Sigh of Relief,” The New York Times, April 24, 2017.

Young Russians Protest Government Corruption

Russia witnessed the largest anti-government protests in more than five years on March 26, 2017. At the urging of Aleksei Navalny, “tens of thousands of Russians—many of them in their teens and 20s—poured into the streets in scores of cities . . . to protest endemic corruption among the governing elite.”[1] The police responded by beating protesters—a barbaric and psychologically pathological response to peaceful protest—and arresting more than a thousand. As the protests were not directed against Putin, but, rather, corruption, the Kremlin should have been a cheerleader rather than antagonist to the protests.

Aleksei A. Navalny at a court in Moscow on the day after the protests. He told reporters that he was “amazed” by the number of cities and by how many people had taken part in demonstrations. (Source: Denis Tyrin/Associated Press)  

Yet personal ties among the elite are by nature enduring. Prompting the protests, Navalny had released a video detailing “a web of dubious charitable organizations that funneled bribes from prominent oligarchs to Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev, allowing him to maintain a series of luxurious estates, vineyards and yachts in Russia and abroad.”[2] The allure of such easy money at the highest level of a government can easily dwarf any desire to reduce systemic corruption inside the system. This can be viewed as private advantage trumping the public good.

Fortunately, young people are sufficiently idealistic to hope for a better, fairer world. “I am glad and happy that a new generation grew up in the country that will not accept such [pro-corruption] atttitudes from the government and wants to feel that they are citizens,” Mavalny told reporters in court after the protests. Middle-aged people can easily slip into the self-fulfilling prophesy that the world cannot be improved much unless the change is in the interest of the political and financial elites. How to hold the most powerful in check is an especially vexing problem for any people, even in a healthy democracy. It is no accident that the elite typically control the media, such as Channel One in Russia. That station ignored the protests—a glaring editorial decision given the station’s duty to report the news.

Had the insiders in the Kremlin been strategizing in an enlightened self-interest, they would have realized that being on the side of the young in opposing corruption would pay off even just in good public relations. Stronger still, rooting out corruption can enhance a government’s stature, and thus the chances of genuine re-electability. Sadly, the old grooves of power tend to lead to clamping down on popular protest regardless of the cause. Rather than aligning, the instinctive reaction is to grasp at the levels of power available to any government: the police power of the state. I submit that a corrupt police state is the downside of politics and even democracy.

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1. Neil MacFarquhar and Ivan Nechepurenko, “Aleksei Navalny, Russian Opposition Leader, Receives 15-Day Sentence,” The New York Times, March 27, 2017.

2. Ibid.

One-Party Rule at the State Level: Federalism at Work

With Congressional Republicans appearing “flummoxed by the complexities of one-party rule, struggling with issues from repealing the Affordable Care Act . . . to paying for President Trump’s promised wall on the Mexican border, rising party leaders in the states seem far more at ease and assertive. Republicans have top-to-bottom control in 25 states now, holding both the governorship and the entire legislature, and Republican lawmakers are acting with lightning speed to enact longstanding conservative priorities.”[1] 


The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.

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[1] Alexander Burns and Mitch Smith, “State G.O.P. Leaders Move Swiftly as Party Bickers in Congress,” The New York Times, February 11, 2017.

A Federal Court Stays President Trump’s Muslim-Ban: Flawed Reportage?

Judge Ann Donnelly of the U.S. Federal District Court in Brooklyn, New York, issued a nationwide injunction on January 28, 2017 concerning President Donald Trump’s executive order barring people from seven countries from entering the United States. On the same day, BBC (America) radio reported that Trump had been stopped in his tracks. I submit that this instance points to the importance of investigative journalism prior to reporting. Alternatively, the case may illustrate a partisan or otherwise ideological penchant among journalists officially tasked with investigating and reporting rather than interpreting the news.

According to The New York Times, the order was “limited in scope, applying only to people on their way to the United States or already here.”[1] People en route to the United States on January 28^th would not be sent back because of the undue hardship involved. Rather than allowed into the U.S., those few hundred people would be detained. So the federal president’s travel ban was essentially untouched. So the notion that the federal judicial branch had stopped Trump is clearly untrue. The hyperbole to the contrary may “make good press,” whether by opposition groups or journalists. Yet political value in sketching a political reality in which the new president was already going too far and thus had to be stopped cannot be ignored. In politics, perception can indeed become reality. So the possibility of a political agenda cannot be ruled out.

With regard to journalists and media companies, sheer ignorance or ideological preference is no excuse for not reporting the obvious: only people on their way to the U.S. would not be turned back, and they would remain detained until or unless they have been cleared on a case-by-case basis, as the executive order permits. To characterize the judge’s ruling as an injunction staying the order is nothing short of misleading.

The order itself was being taken out of perspective societally, as it was intended to be only temporary, giving the U.S. Government enough time to strengthen its vetting process.  The president is on firm ground in that, as the statement itself reads, “No foreign national in a foreign land, without ties to the United States, has any unfettered right to demand entry into the United States or to demand immigration benefits in the United States.”[2] To take a rather blatant example, a person does not have the right to unilaterally cross an international border, not to mention to go on to insist on a right to benefits for those who have lawfully crossed the border.

The order is on much less firm ground to the extent that the intent and outcome discriminates against Muslims.  “The smoking gun they put in the executive order is the idea that they would grant exceptions for minority religions,” said Anthony Romero of the ACLU.[3] The one thing you can’t do under the establishment clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is favor one religion over another, he added. The clause states that the U.S. Government cannot establish (or favor) a religion, or prohibit the free exercise of religion. 

Would declaring or acting in such a way that only Christians are admitted from the seven countries in the Middle East mentioned in the order be to establish a religion? I submit that this question is more difficult than meets the eye. Clearly, favoring one religion over another runs contrary to the American value of toleration (it is certainly distasteful to me--comparative religion being one of my academic fields!) but does favoring people of a given religion establish that religion as the official religion of the United States? My point is merely that an elastic reading of the establishment clause may be necessary to get to establishment from barring Muslims. 

To be sure, the executive order does not bar Muslims; rather, it may discriminate against them. Yet even this may be a function of security rather than religious preference (which in itself falls short of establishing a religion). From a security standpoint, making distinctions among religions does have "a kernel of truth," given the facts on the ground. It makes sense, therefore, that stricter scrutiny would be entailed where a predominately Muslim country has lax security. I suspect that the selection of the seven countries had to do with weaknesses in the U.S.’s vetting process having to do specifically with those countries. Perhaps their security infrastructures pale in comparison with that of the Saudis--Saudi Arabia being omitted from the list in spite of being a conservative Muslim country! 

So, again, to report or characterize the executive order as a “Muslim ban” implies the sordid presence of either ignorance or a political agenda. Either way, it should be noted that a viable republic wherein the People stand as the ultimate sovereign depends on accurate reporting of the affairs of government to the principals. For intermediaries to become lazy or insert their own agendas is to disrespect the very notion of a republic, and the People as well.

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[1] Adam Liptak, “Rulings on Trump’s Immigration Order Are First Step on Long Legal Path,” The New York Times, January 29, 2017.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

Getting an Election So Wrong: The American Media and Pollsters in 2016

“After projecting a relatively easy victory for Hillary Clinton with all the certainty of a calculus solution, news outlets like The New York Times, The Huffington Post and the major networks scrambled to provide candid answers.”[1] The dynamics likely went beyond even candid answers from the media, with major implications for how much reliance Americans should place on their media-establishment for political information.

“You were in a bubble and weren’t paying attention to your fellow Americans,” filmmaker Michael Moore wrote.[2] To be sure, “all the number-crunching of state polls pointed to resounding success” for Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College.[3] The journalists could simply insist that they were reporting those polls. “Virtually all the major vote forecasters, including Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight site, The New York Times Upshot and the Princeton Election Consortium, put [Hillary] Clinton’s chances of winning in the 70 to 99 percent range.”[4] Even so, Chris Wallace, an anchor at Fox News, make the following observation on election day. “A lot of media outlets made a decision sometime after the convention that Donald Trump was beyond the pale and they no longer had to observe the normal rules of journalism and objectivity.”[5] Clearly this was true of The Huffington Post, which declared Hillary Clinton “cleared” by the FBI on the Sunday before election day in spite of the fact that the agency was still investigating the Clinton Foundation, whose fundraising may have involved quid pro quos involving Hillary Clinton’s role as U.S. Secretary of State.

At the very least, groupthink was in the mix, meaning that the mainstream media was “on the same page” concerning assumptions regarding the upcoming election. Besides their being just plain wrong, their narrowness was such that society itself could hardly break free of the force of the narrative. Moreover, the narrowness suggests that the power of the American media was at the time too concentrated, such that alternative views, which can provide a check on groupthink, could not get through. In a representative democracy, a narrow conduit by which information is not only conveyed, but also interpreted and subject to ideology, represents a major flaw. Put another way, that the mainstream media outlets were all singing the same song suggests that societal debate on matters of public policy was also very likely too narrow, and subject to everybody being wrong in a major assumption.

Yet Wallace’s assumption that merely reporting the polls would be objective is vulnerable. Polls can only contribute so much. The “failed election predictions suggest that the rush to exploit data may have outstripped the ability to recognize its limits.”[6] Such limitations include “the potentially flawed assumptions of the people who build predictive models.”[7] Additionally, polling can offer only probabilities that cannot fully capture whether the motivation to vote will actualize at the proverbial ballot-box. For one thing, social desirability may spur poll respondents to say they will vote only because it is a societally recognized duty. Lastly, polls prior to an election cannot account for voters who change their decision at the time of voting.

So even the media’s common assumption that polls can and should receive such overwhelming emphasis was faulty, and the groupthink on this point left the electorate vulnerable to going to vote with a flawed understanding of how Americans had been reacting to the candidates. Just as political campaigns are not objective, journalists (and especially those who serve as commentators) are not merely conduits for facts. Given the subjectivity all around, a certain wideness of narrative (and assumptions) made more likely by a less concentrated mainstream media would enhance the American democracy.

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[1] Jim Rutenberg, “News Outlets Wonder Where the Predictions Went Wrong,” The New York Times, November 9, 2016.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Steve Lohr and Natasha Singer, “How Data Failed Us in Calling an Election,” The New York Times, November 10, 2016.

[5] Jim Rutenberg, “News Outlets Wonder Where the Predictions Went Wrong,” The New York Times, November 9, 2016.

[6] Steve Lohr and Natasha Singer, “How Data Failed Us in Calling an Election,” The New York Times, November 10, 2016.

[7] Ibid.