2020 Presidential Candidates Update

Oct 31st, 2018
...................
My first post in this series appeared on the 4th of July.
...................
What I'm describing is an outside-the-box campaign for president that would include multiple candidates committing to serving together in a Democratic administration (a similar case could also be made for Republicans, if Trump is gone by 2020).

Why not a single candidate?
1) The modern presidency is arguably too big a job for one person.
2) Multiple candidates could build up the party brand during primary season, rather than come out the other end of a bitter nomination fight.
3) Usually, a single candidate has a difficult time appealing to, for example, small town Whites and urban Blacks; with multiple candidates on a team, each can speak to their own comfort zone.

In this update, I make the case for a limited, 3-candidate pact, with an additional four non-competing members assigned to overseeing the Economy, Justice, Defense, and Diplomacy.  Plus, one moderator/spokesperson to handle the media and keep everyone united.

The 8-member line-up, beginning with the five non-candidates:

Oprah Winfrey: Moderator/Spokesperson
Hillary Clinton: Diplomacy
Joe Biden: Defense
Elizabeth Warren: Economy
Kamala Harris: Justice

Amy Klobuchar: candidate
Cory Booker: candidate
Julian Castro: candidate

The pact that Klobuchar, Booker and Castro agree to is:
1. The winner becomes the Democratic nominee for president
2. The runner-up becomes the nominee for vice-president
3. The second runner-up is appointed to a cabinet post

But why have I picked Klobuchar, Booker and Castro?  The field would of course be open to any number of candidates, but being part of a pact might provide our three with an edge.  And,

* they're each eloquent speakers
* they each have 'comfort zones': Midwest/Women, Urban/Black, and Youth/Hispanic, respectively
* they each seem 'nice' and upbeat

Freed from the daily news cycle (Oprah would handle that), and the need to run themselves ragged (they'd need only a third the campaign time, minimum) our candidates would instead feel energized and prepared ahead of appearances and press interviews, and able to talk at some depth with voters at town hall meetings and other public venues.

Even more importantly, there'd be no stature gap that comes when voters say: "Is that it?" after a field of candidates is whittled down to one.  Plus, our candidates would have five older, respected, hands-on -deck to make their general election Republican opponents look like landlubbers who hadn't found their sea legs yet.

Which is how the current Republican administration comes across.  And to appear as the adults in the room, it would surely be best to present voters with good ideas, rather than point out ineptitude; having experts on one's team would likely be enough of a reminder.
.....................
Response to Alex Voltaire:
Yesterday, Oct. 31st, my friend Alex tweeted this in reaction to the above:
"oh no...we've got to stop putting incumbent senators in cabinet spots...it only puts Senate seats in play that wouldn't otherwise be competitive, yes?"

In the past, he's suggested incumbent senators be named to cabinet posts, and I've bugged him about it (see his blog: The Northumbrian Countdown), so I have to admit that he may be right.  But, with a very minor tweak, I think my suggested 3-candidate pact will withstand critical scrutiny.

And that's because Klobuchar and Booker, who are both senators, would be hard to replace as presidential candidates.  Their personalities and their connection to community make them more valuable than other possibilities.
  * Klobuchar has a calm but firm manner that plays well in rural areas (where, in Minnesota's hinterlands, she did surprisingly well in her 2012 re-election bid).  This is what Democrats need to nail down mid-western states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, possibly even Iowa and Ohio, not to mention Minnesota.
  * Booker has an effervescent manner that projects action.  Getting the Black vote to turn out at 2012 levels is crucial in states like North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. And inspiring younger voters with a sportsman's hustle is a rare plus.

Actually, in my Fourth of July article, linked to above, I specifically say that the only senators I considered were from likely-D Blue states.  The odds are that not only Booker, but Klobuchar as well, would be replaced by a Democrat (governorships in both states are Blue)

What about Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris?   This is where my one tweak comes in.  Let's say that both these non-candidate 'adults-in-the-room' could be switched out after the election.  Their role would be to provide guidance in their respective area of expertise.  After the election, Harris could be switched out for Eric Holder, for example; Warren, for Bloomberg, say.  Or, more likely, they could simply 'oversee' their turf, while retaining their Senatorial responsibilities.

So, essentially, we'd be taking a single risk, with Cory Booker's seat (if he were Veep), or Klobuchar's (if she were).  (Julian Castro is of course not a senator).  A single risk, because if a Senator Klobuchar wins the presidency under normal circumstances, that's one senate seat in peril; so, making it two is adding only one, which seems doable if we're talking about New Jersey.  Unless, of course, one has a policy of voting against all sitting senators in a primary election.

Now let's look at which 2020 candidates are getting all the attention.  A Politico article from two days ago gives us this breakdown:

Bernie -17
Biden -12
Avenatti -11
Warren - 11
Harris - 8
Booker - 8
O’Roark - 5
Klobuchar - 5
Kerry - 4
Gillibrand - 4
Bloomberg - 3
Holder - 3
Garcetti - 2

These are just percentages of all media mentions, but it could be viewed as a proxy for likelihood as a candidate.

Interestingly, only Bernie remains as a potential challenger to our pact, assuming Biden, Warren and Harris take on the adults-in-the-room roles we've assigned them (Avenatti is assumed to be unelectable, and O'Roark could be a purple state senator).  It's tempting to fit Bernie in somehow, but Warren could conceivably convince him to stay out--he may have deferred his bid in 2016 until he knew she wasn't running.  That would leave only lower tier candidates, which would make our pact not all that unlikely.

Is a 3-candidate pact (with adults-in-the-room backing from an additional 5 non-candidates) in any way possible?  It would probably take someone like former President Obama to get everyone on board, but a 'team' approach may make sense.  If I were Obama, I might look into it.

Planning For A Distant Future

One Hundred Years?  One Thousand?
.................

Dylan Matthews, at Vox, has a new free newsletter called Future Perfect (sign up here).  Last Friday's issue features highlights from a paper written by Nick Beckstead about how we might "shape the far future", beginning with highly targeted ideas, then broadening out.  Here are a few reactions I have (in dark green, small type):

•  Do technical research which will help build a Friendly AI
Can't argue with this.

•  Advocate for nuclear disarmament to prevent a nuclear war
Again, good point.

•  Reduce carbon emissions so that climate change is a smaller problem
What's not to like.

Now some more moderately targeted proposals:

•  Tell people about the importance of shaping the far future....
Let's do that.

•  Tell people about the importance of helping animals....
This sounds rather arbitrary until one realizes that 'animals' are easier to identify with than "the environment"

•  Do research on risks and opportunities from future technologies....
I'd be surprised if this isn't built-in to most tech research.


Now some very broad proposals:

•  Help make computers faster so that people everywhere can work more efficiently
Though there's a need (high speed internet where it doesn't exist), speed is seldom a limitation

•  Change intellectual property law so that technological innovation can happen more quickly
There is a good argument for this; the flip side is that patents, for example, encourage inventors and investors to get involved in the first place.  Avoiding frivolous lawsuits and patents that rip-off the public are worthwhile goals of course.

•  Advocate for open borders so that people from poorly governed countries can move to better governed countries and be more productive
Objectively, this makes sense: allow people everywhere to live productive lives.  There are, however, several objections: some valid, some not.  
Illegitimate objections involve racism and nativism, which have been resurgent in many more economically advanced countries, due to an acceleration in immigration.  
Legitimate objections include the abandonment of countries gripped by undesirable leaders (removing a despot's critics), along with the crowding and environmental degradation that large increases in immigration necessarily involve.
Then there is the political question of whether 'open borders' is the issue to fight for when so many other concerns require our limited resources and political capital.

•  Go work for Wikipedia to help improve the site’s overall functionality
Nothing to argue with here, though this seems like it belongs in a different category.

There are even broader items, but they are rather vague.

Any time one advocates for policy, future-oriented or not, one is making a political choice.  Do the limited prospects for success outweigh the drag on resources and political capital?  Most items in Mr. Beckstead's list are likely, some even very likely, but there is at least one that will doom any politician who adopts it.  Frankly, there isn't much new here hanging on the concept of "the far future".

20th Century Books That Made America

...That I've Read

.................
First off, no, we're not counting comic books (Tarzan), movies (Gone With The Wind, The Color Purple) or just leafing through, reading a bit here and there (The Tin Drum).

Second, I remember reading these books to varying degrees (was it For Whom The Bell Tolls or another Hemingway book?)  I'll note this, occasionally, and when I read the book after each entry.

Third, the entire list for each decade can be found here (00s), here (10's), (20s), (30s) (40s), (50s) (60s), (70s),  (80s), and (90s).

Also, after the titles in bold (the top ten for each decade...that I've read), are the also rans that I've read.

1900s
L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)
childhood

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1902)

circa 1990 (part of a book club--I gave a presentation on this)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)

childhood, again in 80s

Jack London, The Call of the Wild (1903)

high school

Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

college

Baroness Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905)

jr. high

Beatrix Potter, The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1901)

childhood

1910s

Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio (1919)

college

Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden (1911)

childhood

James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

college

1920s

James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)

college

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)

college

Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain (1924)

high school

E. M. Forster, A Passage to India (1924)

high school -- did I really read it?

Herman Melville, Billy Budd, Sailor (1924)

high school

A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh (1926)

childhood

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (1929)

All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)

high school

1930s

Pearl S. Buck, The Good Earth (1931)

high school

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932)

college (did I read it all?)

P. L. Travers, Mary Poppins (1934)

childhood

William Faulkner, Absalom! Absalom!(1936)

college

Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa (1937)

80's

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit (1937)

high school

Thornton Wilder, Our Town (1938)

high school

T. H. White, The Sword in the Stone (1939)

high school (not sure about this one)

James Joyce, Finnegans Wake(1939)

70s - remember buying this; did I make it very far?

1940s

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince (1943)

childhood

Margaret Wise Brown, Goodnight Moon (1947)

childhood

George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)

high school 

Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls(1940)

college (not sure which Hemingway)

George Orwell, Animal Farm (1945)

jr. high?

E. B. White, Stuart Little (1945)

childhood

Albert Camus, The Stranger (1946, first English translation)

high school (French class, with some French, untranslated)

Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman (1949)

high school

1950s

J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951)

high school

Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)

college

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

high school

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)

college--summer

Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)

college

Leon Uris, Exodus (1958)

high school

C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe(1950)

childhood (may have been only partial)

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha (first English translation, 1951)

high school

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)

college

Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea (1952)

high school

E. B. White, Charlotte’s Web (1952)

childhood

Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (1953)

high school

William Golding, Lord of the Flies (1954)

jr. high

Wallace Stevens, Collected Poems (1954)

college

Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat (1957)

childhood

Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums (1958)

80s (did I read it all?)

John Knowles, A Separate Peace (1959)

high school

Strunk & White, The Elements of Style (1959)

80s

D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (unexpurgated U.S. version released 1959)

high school

1960s

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)

jr. high

Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)

high school

Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (1961)

high school

Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962)

high school

Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time (1962)

jr. high

Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are (1963)

childhood 

Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle (1963)

high school

Ken Kesey, Sometimes a Great Notion (1964)

high school

Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 1 (expurgated version) (1966)

70s

Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49(1966)

high school

S. E. Hinton, The Outsiders (1967)

jr. high

Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968)

college

Mario Puzo, The Godfather (1969)

high school

1970s

- none

Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, Our Bodies, Ourselves (1971)

college

Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1973)

high school

Studs Terkel, Working(1974)

70s

1980s

- none

- none

1990s

- none

Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father (1995)

2007

Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997)

90s

I have a high school English teacher, Mr. Dobbins, to thank for so much high school reading.  He gave extra credit points for book reports--what a deal, though each did involve an oral presentation.

Also:
 * I seem to be a product of the '50s and 60s.
 * Shocking that I've yet to read any of the 68 books listed for the 1980s: ten finalists, plus also-rans.                         * Ok, maybe I read selections from Elizabeth Bishop, The Complete Poems, 1927-1979 (1983) in the 90s, making it 15 female-authored books, out of 72.
 * Lonely books read within a year or so of being published:
     - The Cat In The Hat
     - Slaughterhouse Five
     - Where The Wild Things Are
     - The Outsiders
     - The Godfather
     - Jonathan Livingston Seagull
     - Guns, Germs and Steel
    otherwise, my reading hasn't been particularly 'in the moment'.

The Websites That Made History

Countdown Highlights
...............

Gizmodo had a countdown of the 100 Websites That Shaped The Internet As We Know It.

Here are highlights I found interesting, like, or hadn't heard about before:

99. I Can Has Cheezburger (2007)

Will we ever get enough of pet pranks?

95. WhoSampled (2008)

I’m afraid I don’t have time for sampling, though I’ll make exceptions for allusions contained in lyrics.

92. The Toast (2013)

A satire site that lasted for three years.  Feminist laughter.

90. Stack Overflow (2008)

All you need to know about building a website.  

88. Electronic Frontier Foundation (1990)

Privacy, and hands-off our internet.

87. Bandcamp (2008)

Musicians and music fans come together to buy and sell music, and more.

85. DuckDuckGo (2008)

"Privacy-centric search engine.” 

83. HaveIBeenPwned (2013)

Check to see if any of your accounts have been hacked.

81. wikiHow (2005)

Step-by-step guides to doing just about anything.

79. Genius (2009)

Annotation for lyrics, blogs and more.

75. Project Gutenberg (1994)

Volunteer-run, meticulous archive offering free e-books.

58. Pitchfork (1995)

Music reviews.

48. Vimeo (2004)

“All your video needs”.  Ok.

47. Giphy (2013)

When “words fail you”….

43. WebMD (1996)

Looking up medical conditions.

41. Chatroulette (2009)

Be matched with a random stranger; chat.  What could go wrong?

39. Etsy

A home for your "creative wares”.  Bought and sold.

32. Urban Dictionary (1999)

A dictionary for “contemporary words and idioms”.

29. Kickstarter (2009)

Connecting inventive ideas and investors.  Can you tell what’s worth it and what’s not?

11. Snopes (1994)

"Fact-checking, debuking…"

5. Internet Archive (1996)

Archive of our internet, including  Wayback Machine, for returning to removed content.

Note: Most of the lower items in the countdown were commonplace platforms like FB and Twitter.

What I'm Doing To Fight Climate Change

The Checklist
...................

A recent article in Lifehacker, titled How To Demand Action on Climate Change, by Leigh Anderson, presented something of a checklist.  I run through it, below, with notes in dark green, on ways I'm addressing each item:

* You have power
I'd accentuate 'hope' as well as power; I've thought through a solution (see previous blog post) and written to three experts with a link.  
* Know where your elected officials stand
Generally, it's a Democratic (yes, we'll fight Climate Change) vs. Republican (no, we'll pretend)
* Focus on State and Local Gov.
I wrote to my state government official about a proposed hog confinement (boo) next to a local organic farm (yay)
* Take Action Yourself
Transport
I drive an 11-year-old hybrid that averages 35-40 mpg.  I drive it sparingly, trying to talk myself out of going places.
Diet
I eat mainly unprocessed, organic food.  I grow my own veggies.  We do eat dairy, fish and chicken; and occasional bison, however.
Waste less/compost
We eat just about everything we buy/grow; and we compost.  We recycle things like cardboard, as well as paper, and the usual.
Less disposables
I reuse plastic bags; I have totes for the supermarket; I do generate things that can't be recycled in the trash, but less.
Buy less stuff
We have a 20-year-old TV.  We generally don't give Christmas presents.
Energy efficient home
We have wind power (through the Sierra Club, which swaps local power for wind); we keep heating and cooling to a minimum, and wear sweaters, hats in the winter and few clothes in the summer.
Electric Car / cycling / carpool
My next car will be electric
Don’t support bad banks
I use Working Assets for $$ and Credo for my phone service
Lightbulbs etc., with link
Yes, we have efficient lighting, and a super efficient heating/cooling unit.
* More links at the article, above

Many people do much more than I do.

European Union To The Rescue

We Can Do This

...................
"Freak Out", "Panic", "Climate Change will destroy our world"!  Headlines like these remind me of a Tin Tin comic book from my childhood (see book cover photo here).  A meteor is hurtling towards earth.  Doom!  But it lands in the Arctic, melting icebergs.  European nations mount a joint expedition.  There's a struggle with a shadowy group trying to thwart our heroes.

That's right, the most likely path forward in the fight against Climate Change, as with the Tin Tin book, is for the European Union to act, followed by other nations (see my previous post, #160); and, for the focus to be on redirecting military spending to fight climate change.

Here are a few reactions to the IPCC report, each followed by my comments--in dark green; then, making our plan an easier sell:

 * New York magazine has a piece by David Wallace-Wells that makes the things-are-even-worse case.

Right, things are devilishly disturbing; and the sooner action is taken, the easier our efforts.  

  * Vox has a piece by Mary Annaise Heglar that suggests Climate Change isn't so much our fault, as it is the fault of multi-national corporations trying to disrupt our efforts.

Like the dastardly Bohlwinkel Bank that disrupts Tin Tin's comic book expedition, monied interests are behind attempts to prolong our Age of Fossil Fuels, the primary force driving Climate Change.  Once our plan is in place, however, we may find that opposition was all about the plan's financing.  Taxing or capping carbon has always been hard; and a relatively easy fight for the no-goodnik opposition: who wants to pay taxes, anyway?  Our plan, a global military spending cutback is, by way of comparison, relatively painless once a given country sees that its adversaries are on board, too.

  * In Pacific Standard, Sophie Yeo addresses whether the IPCC report was a waste of time or a valuable 'heads up'.  One source for her piece suggests the resources behind the report would have been better spent determining "...how to reach more realistic goals in light of political realities."

Odd, that sounds like a brainstorming session, which is free and open to the public, and will generate emergent ideas...like this blog post.

  * A workhorse of the online environmental movement, David Roberts, dishes the good news at Vox: the technological solutions are almost all in place to make our plan work.

Science and technology!  Roberts has identified our most promising innovations over the years.  We really can do what needs to be done.

  * I've also read comments left by dejected readers to the effect that all effort is hopeless: the gigantic increases in consumption needed by poorer countries to reach rich country status are not only inevitable, but impossible to ignore.

Perhaps there's something to this pessimism.   But, installing a renewable energy power plant simply costs money, it doesn't produce carbon.  Sure, there's some carbon involved in construction, but not much, relatively speaking.  The real problem is: How do we generate all the money to pay for what we want done?  And our plan solves that problem.

  * And finally, in Vox again, Eliza Barclay and Umair Irfan, with 10 ways to reduce Carbon.

..........................

So, where does that leave us and our plan?
  * We can make the 2030 deadline.  There may not be many coral reefs left, and hurricanes, wildfires, etc., will likely get more intense, and so on, but once we get to 2030 we can then work to reverse the effects of our fossil fuel fever.
  * The technology exists to get us to our goal.  Simply put, it's the financing that's lacking.  No voter will be eager to agree to a 10% tax.  Meaning that taxing our way out of this problem will be a heavy lift, which is usually why anyone who thinks long enough about the path ahead is so glum.
  * Financing our plan is maybe half as difficult as a global carbon tax.  See below, for how we can reduce the difficulty level even more.
  * Um, no; fighting Climate Change does not cost $$, net, it saves $$.
  * Somebody will need to get our plan noticed.  The piece by Sophie Yeo has several contacts that might be interested.  I will send them a link.

And finally, how might we make our plan more likely?  A redirection of resources, such as we propose, is bound to meet with resistance: not only from those who'll suffer financially (arms manufacturers, for example), but defense ministers, who'll be pressed to find enough spare change in the seat cushions, so to speak.  A 10% cut to military spending is going to be a difficult sell, even for Scandinavian countries, for example, who have few foes to defend against.

Instead of trying for 10%, which is our eventual goal of course, we could start with a mere 1.5% (1.5 being our  target, in degrees Centigrade).  This might jeopardize our eventual need to redirect 2.5% of global GDP a year, every year, for a decade, but starting at a lower level is much more doable.  Then, once a peace dividend emerges (governments find they don't need as many armaments if their neighbors are buying fewer), and nations realize they're participating in a giant disarmament exercise, the momentum to further the process will mean we can end up with a higher level of redirection than 10% in the final years prior to 2030.

Maybe a sequential target like this:
1st year: 1.5%
2nd year: 6%
3rd year, and thereafter: 12%
Which, over a ten-year period totals: 1.5 + 6 + (12 x 8) = 103.5
As opposed to 10 x 10 = 100

Which means we have about two years to work on that 1.5%.  Ideally, the E.U. would start the ball rolling with a symbolic redirect in 2019; perhaps 0.35%.  Pressure would then be on all countries to commit to our 1.5% goal for 2020.

And, it goes without saying, our heroes--our winners--at least in that first year, would be the EU.

And if the E.U. can't come through?  Being a hero could be any country's role, even the U.S.  A new U.S. president in 2021 could hold a summit with the Chinese, who spend the 2nd-most on their military.  It is hard to imagine how that would fail to bring aboard most other countries as well.

Sure, Take A Peek Ahead

What's Next?

............
I'm working on a post--maybe several--that'll take a closer look at my #160th piece on this blog: "Let's Gamify The Fight Against Climate Change".

And here's a photo hinting at where I'll find inspiration:

A comic/graphic novel from my childhood!

Life After Trump -- Getting Back To Square One

Making The 'Take It Easy' Case

.....................

With the release of Kathleen Hall Jamieson's new book, "Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect A President -- What We Don't, Can't, And Do Know" (see this review in the New Yorker), the puzzle of Russian influence in our 2016 presidential election is now beginning to make sense.

As a non-partisan observer (someone I've seen dozens of times over the years on various TV shows), Jamieson is probably the closest we'll ever come to having a truly objective judge mediate political disputes.  So, does she shed light on the Russia 2016 affair?  Yes, and here is the gist:

   * As expected, it wasn't that Russian hackers changed votes after the fact; rather, in the run-up to the election, using fake accounts on social media that spewed false information, they encouraged voters to choose different candidates, or to stay home***.
   * Likewise, as expected, it wasn't that Russia necessarily colluded with the Trump campaign, though this may have occurred--we shall see; rather, it was that hackers stole the information (e-mails, campaign strategy documents) that allowed their operatives (WikiLeaks, Russian intelligence) to target negative news cycles (the October 7th Access Hollywood Tape) and identify vulnerable states (Democrats-leaning-toward-3rd-Party voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin).
   * Some Russian 'fake news' talking points made their way into 2016's candidate debates, dramatically increasing the likelihood that debate viewers thought Clinton duplicitous, according to polls.
   * Perhaps Jamieson's biggest revelation is that even the infamous James Comey letter, that many feel decided the election, was based on Russian disinformation (as was Comey's original July press conference clearing Clinton while labeling her "extremely careless") .

My point in writing about Jamieson's book is that the legitimacy of the Trump presidency may soon be at stake.  This won't happen before the November '18 elections, and it may require that the Mueller Investigation be concluded.  But at some point it seems quite likely that we'll be confronted with the question: How Do We Get Back To Square One.

For example, what do we do about the two Supreme Court justices nominated by a president who is, or soon may be seen as illegitimate?  What about all the other judges named by Trump over the past two years?  What about all the policy decisions that have changed the course of history?  Never before in our nation's politics have we had to deal with major and obvious illegitimacy.

There would seem to be two paths we could take:
1. Attempt to convince the public that some kind of remedy is warranted.
2. Seem accepting of the past, and don't rock the boat.

Almost certainly, a combination of these two options will actually occur.  I'd advocate a 'take it easy' approach that doesn't shy away from advocacy, but that waits for events to transpire.  For example, pause most calls for impeaching the president until after the '18 election, when opposition to Trump will most likely have been made manifest.  Likewise, wait for the Mueller Investigation.  Doing otherwise can lay the groundwork for action, but can also make such arguments seem uncouth and even laughable.

In any event, we're entering uncharted waters.

*** For example, Facebook could place ads that emphasized celebrity dissatisfaction with Hillary, and that seemed to be locally sourced (rather than Russian) on a few thousand screens of black men in Milwaukee.  Besides being sleazy, and usually employing outright lies, this kind of foreign interference in our elections is illegal.

Let's Gamify The Fight Against Climate Change

...And Snap, The Job's A Game

...................
The IPCC's report on what it would take to limit a rise in average global temperatures to under 1.5 degrees C is sobering, to say the least, since our present trajectory has us heading for more than double that, followed by a likely escalation from then on, as permafrost melts, releasing unimaginable amounts of methane.

But there's hope.  If we commit 2.5% of annual global GDP to the problem, we'll avoid most of the horrifying consequences, and have stimulated ourselves, economically, in the process.  Otherwise, we'll hit that 1.5C rise in a mere dozen years.  And, yes, we can do it; this is all possible, using existing technology, if we act fast.

And where's all that money going to come from?  I vote for a worldwide cut in military spending, since there may simply be no other source of $$ that's big enough.  Taxes, the other possibility, are difficult to enact, and often require a lead-in time before implementation.

Realistically, what's required is something like a 10% cut from present military spending levels.  Since poorer nations will need a greater technological boost, we'd likely need a partial redirection of some of those resources to the neediest nations.  So, let's aim for a target 9%, with an additional 1% redirected, and the country redirecting the most, percentage-wise, being the winner.  All hail our heroes!

Since almost all countries would theoretically be participating, the thinking is that all sides to a given conflict would feel the same redirection of military spending, so no country would need worry about another gaining an advantage.  Thus the beauty of using military spending to defend against a common enemy.

There are several potential roadblocks to this idea that should be addressed:
 * How is military spending counted?  As a raw total for each country?  As a per capita figure?  As a percentage of GDP?  Perhaps: allow a winner to claim leadership in each such category.
 * Would a country be required to redirect some revenues to other, needier nations?  This would likely make the plan harder to implement.  Perhaps: allow a fourth leader (the percentage donated to the needy), but 'suggest' 1%, while not actually 'requiring' such donations.
 * Who determines whether cuts, and spending on our fight, have actually been made?  If this becomes a problem, perhaps: nations could be required to route their cuts through a world body like the UN, which would verify monies received/disbursed.

While the best design for our 'game' would be for experts to identify the most likely uses for collected monies, it is probably more important to get buy-in from participating nations, quickly, which likely points to each government spending its own resources (9%) and diverting a minor amount (1%) for redistribution.  Once underway, a change to a smarter structure would be much easier to implement than would haggling over the perfect design.

In any case, a 10% cut in global spending on militaries would generate approximately $173 billion (10% of $1.739 trillion spent in 2017).  This isn't quite enough to reach the 2.5% of $78 trillion in world GDP, ($195 billion), identified by the IPCC, but there'd likely be a minimum of private-sector investment to make up for the difference (even enough for any back-sliding on the part of nations unwilling to meet their 10% cut).  There'd also likely be a knock-on effect, as resources spent on R&D in one country mean cheaper technologies adopted by the entire world.

A 10% cut for some countries will amount to relatively little: Liberia and Bhutan committing to a mere $1 million each.  Meanwhile, for the US, China, Saudi Arabia and Russia, that 10% will mean $61, $23, $7 and $6 billion, respectively.  A heavy lift, but certainly possible, especially for governments looking for excuses to extricate themselves from foreign wars.  For some countries, especially those like Afghanistan ($11 billion military spending--mostly aid received from the US), that are fighting insurgent terrorists, a 10% commitment is simply impossible--which is another reason why that 1% in redirected funds will be needed.

And the beauty of using military cuts to pay for our fight is that military spending is inherently non-productive: instead of building a tool used to produce wealth, one is building a tool used only reluctantly, and to destroy the wealth and intent of others.  Which is why redirecting such spending is stimulative, economically speaking.

What would it take to get a plan like this up and running?  Probably, a coalition of states like the EU adopting such a blueprint for themselves, and gradually adding other countries; this, rather than the world waiting to get everyone on board all at once.  The US, for example, will almost certainly need a change at the top for reason to prevail.  Once major players are signed up, perhaps by 2021, everyone else'll find it much easier to do their part.