“Unaccountable” Pentagon Officials Have “Weaponized” Vetting Of Trump Appointees: WSJ

Authored by Sean Bigley, op-ed via The Wall Street Journal,

Unaccountable Pentagon officials block a security clearance for a would-be White House aide.

Nothing ends a Washington career like being branded an unacceptable national-security risk. That’s why officials adjudicating personnel-security cases must act in a mature, objective and nonpartisan fashion. But when it comes to vetting Trump appointees, they often aren’t.

Instead, security clearances are being weaponized against the White House by hostile career bureaucrats, thwarting the president’s agenda by holding up or blocking appointees.

Consider the case of Adam Lovinger. Mr. Lovinger is a highly regarded and politically conservative Defense Department official. In January 2017, the Trump administration made a “by name” request for him to serve as a senior director on the White House National Security Council.

Before departing the Pentagon that January, Mr. Lovinger raised documented concerns with his supervisor about the misuse of contractors. One outfit, run by a woman Chelsea Clinton describes as her “best friend,” was being used to perform foreign-relations activities on behalf of the U.S. Mr. Lovinger, an attorney, perceived the arrangement as violating a federal law delineating inherently governmental functions. He also took issue with millions of dollars in public funds being spent on contractor studies of questionable relevance. One taxpayer-funded study sought to determine whether Americans are a “war-like people.”

Months after Mr. Lovinger raised these issues, the Pentagon suspended his security clearance and his White House detail was canceled without warning. The reason? Specious, and constantly evolving, claims of misconduct. One of Mr. Lovinger’s alleged transgressions was that Pentagon officials had improperly marked an academic report he took aboard an airplane for reading.

The father of three, his family’s primary breadwinner, remains on administrative leave. The same official who suspended Mr. Lovinger’s security clearance is now moving to cut off his pay while the allegations are under review. Amplifying due-process concerns, the panel rendering the final decision reports to the official who suspended him. She refuses to recuse herself or her subordinates despite a conflict of interest.

Meanwhile, Pentagon officials ignored a longstanding executive order requiring they provide the accused with the government’s evidence within 30 days. This forced Mr. Lovinger to respond blindly to vague allegations, then contend with bureaucrats claiming he did not adequately rebut documents he has never seen. Pentagon officials underscored their contempt for anyone who challenges them by leaking false, defamatory information about Mr. Lovinger.

Mr. Lovinger’s lifeline is that his case, although symptomatic of a political agenda, is fundamentally one of whistle-blower reprisal. That affords him legal tools and remedies—including an inspector general investigation and potential monetary damages—that other Trump appointees, victims of similarly abusive practices, can’t access.

As an attorney who defends security-clearance holders, including Mr. Lovinger, I have had a front-row seat to behavior that only a year ago I would have dismissed as a conspiracy theory. Across the federal government, what was long an apolitical process with clearly defined standards has devolved to the point that wildly unfounded accusations are now being used to smear reputations and settle petty vendettas. And it all occurs in closed-door proceedings not appealable to the courts. Failure to stop these abuses risks undermining the integrity of the entire personnel-security system.

In Mr. Lovinger’s case, those weaponizing the security-clearance process include a senior official who remains on the job despite publicly disparaging President Trump as “unfit” to lead, a Pentagon attorney who instructed colleagues on the importance of concealing retaliatory motives behind their actions, and the Defense Department’s security adjudications chief, who persists in advancing false allegations.

They and other unelected partisans are quietly usurping presidential prerogatives through a litany of seemingly small but slowly compounding abuses of bureaucratic power. Their efforts evidence a philosophy that laws and rules are not static boundaries of societal norms, but flexible tools of the administrative state.

It is imperative that federal-agency heads and inspectors general step in to stop the power grab, lest those targeting Mr. Lovinger and others like him believe themselves immune to accountability. Failure to act decisively will mean not only the continued destruction of lives and careers, but also a precipitous dwindling of the pool of patriots willing to subject themselves to such abuses.

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Stocks Jump Into Green After “Pretty Positive” First Day Comments From China

Two little words was all it took to ramp stocks back into the green after they bounced off the 200DMA shortly after Europe closed…

First thing this morning we said that “traders are on edge ahead of the US-China trade talks taking place today and tomorrow.” And moments ago, we finally got some tentative indication of how the first day of negotiations concluded:

White House Economist Mark Calabria commented after the first day of trade discussions in China that he was “optimistic” and that US has “discreetly” given China a list of asks and that the day ended “pretty positive.”

And that was enough to ignite the momentum into the green for the day…

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Watch Live: Cohen, Giuliani Loom Large Over White House Press Briefing

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is going to have her work cut out for her during Thursday’s press conference.

Last night, Rudy Giuliani stunned observers by stating during an interview with Sean Hannity last night that President Trump did, in fact, know about Michael Cohen’s payoff to Stormy Daniels, a porn star with whom he allegedly had an an affair (something that President Trump appeared to confirm this morning).

Then, early Thursday afternoon, NBC News reported that the FBI had wiretapped Cohen’s phone and recorded at least one conversation between him and the White House, Sanders will likely be facing a fusillade of questions about the Mueller probe, whether Trump lied about the Daniels payoff and – of course – whether Cohen will turn on his boss.

Watch the press conference live below. It’s expected to start at 2 pm ET:

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After 108 Years, Boy Scouts Drop “Boy” In Name, Become Gender-Neutral

Authored by Alex Christoforou via TheDuran.com,

After 108 years with no issues pertaining to its gender specific name, the Boy Scouts of America has finally fallen to the pressure of liberal left, identity politics and is now set to drop the gender from its name and re-brand as “Scouts BSA”… a name that is more “inclusive”.

The gender neutral BSA will also soon welcome girls into its ranks, which means that the Girl Scouts of America will now be faced with the prospects of losing would be members to the new BSA. 

Isn’t it funny how feminism and identity politics always seems to leave women (and girls) worse off than where they originally started.

Chief Scout Executive Mike Surbaugh, said of the announcement to drop the “Boy” in Boy Scouts…“we’re trying to find the right way to say we’re here for both young men and young women.”

Fox News reports…

Boy Scouts of America, the parent organization of the Boy Scouts program, made the announcement Wednesday. Though the decision to toss “Boy” aside was considered controversial by some, Chief Scout Executive Mike Surbaugh said the new name came about after an “incredibly fun” deliberation.

“We wanted to land on something that evokes the past but also conveys the inclusive nature of the program going forward,” he said. “We’re trying to find the right way to say we’re here for both young men and young women.”

The name change is expected to take effect next February. Boy Scouts of America and Cub Scouts will keep their titles. Cub Scouts – the program for 7- to 10-year-olds – has already started to admit girls.

The 11- to 17-year-olds who join Scouts BSA will likely start referring to themselves as scouts without a gender modifier, Surbaugh said.

The program will have separate units for boys and girls, which Surbaugh said should alleviate concerns that girls joining the new program might be at a disadvantage in seeking leadership roles.

The Girl Scouts said their organization was blindsided by the move and are planning an aggressive campaign to ramp up recruitment numbers

“Girl Scouts is the premier leadership development organization for girls,” Sylvia Acevedo, the Girl Scouts’ CEO, said.

“We are, and will remain, the first choice for girls and parents who want to provide their girls opportunities to build new skills…and grow into happy, successful, civically engaged adults.”

Boy Scout leaders have cited busy and diverse families as a reason to make the change. They said they hoped the switch would give parents more options. The Boy Scouts began offering co-ed programs in 1971. Leaders have said participation has been at 2.3 million – down from 2.6 million in 2013.

Laura Ingraham and Raymond Arroyo weigh in on new gender neutral BSA…

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Start-Ups Make Cheap Alternative to Braces, Dental Trade Groups Cry for Regulation

Who has the right to fix your smile? Trade groups representing the dental industry are fighting tooth and nail to prevent innovative new companies from offering discounted dental services to customers, arguing they’re too dangerous and need regulation.

SmileDirectClub, a startup company with a different approach to orthodontics, says it has developed a cheaper, more convenient alternative to braces that allows customers to skip in-office check-ups. But dental industry trade groups say the company’s services are “illegal,” and that moving teeth is a “complex medical process” that requires direct supervision.

The American Association of Orthodontists (AAO) filed complaints with state dental boards in 36 states last April, in which they claim SmileDirectClub “creates medical risks.” The American Dental Association (ADA) “strongly discourages” their use. In November, SmileDirectClub sued the Michigan division of the ADA for making “false and defamatory statements” about the company. The suit is still ongoing.

“We have long held the position that it is in the best and safest interest of the public to have the treatment under the direct and ongoing supervision of a licensed orthodontist,” Kevin Dillard, general council to the AAO, told Reason.

Critics of medical association monopolies say the American public will be losers in this battle if the ADA and AAO win their crusade against these companies.

Braces are a burden. People have to miss work, arrange for child care, and travel to the orthodontist office over the span of a two to three years. Teens have to cut classes and ditch those after school events to make room for appointments. Then there’s the price. Traditional Braces cost on average $5,000. Invisalign—a clear, plastic alternative to braces that is available only through licensed dental care providers—run around $8,000.

SmileDirectClub’s aligners—clear plastic mouth guards designed to straighten teeth—cost $1,850. CandidCo., another dental startup, charges $1,900. The fitting and monitoring uses a telemedicine model. Customers who can’t or don’t want to get their teeth scanned in store can have impression kits delivered straight to their door. “Alligners” based on those molds are then delivered to customers at home. It’s part of an emerging trend in dental care known as teledentistry, which uses alternative platforms like mobile apps, video chats, and dashboards to give people remote access to dental care.

The stark difference in cost and convenience matters. Many insurance companies do not cover orthodontic work, which is cosmetic for 98 percent of consumers. Private plans typically have a small cap for orthontic coverage, leaving most people on their own to foot the bill. The AAO states that roughly 80 percent of Americans could benefit from orthodontics, yet less than four million people receive orthodontic treatment each year. According to the ADA, high costs are the chief reason why one-third of Americans don’t receive adequate dental care.

Dental startups could help close that gap, but not if the ADA and the AAO succeed in regulating them out of the market.

“If a patient is taking their own model of their teeth, any number of things could go wrong,” AAO’s Dillard said. “They could get the impression wrong, they could get chipped trays, which could cut the gums. Orthodontist is a complex medical and biological process. You’re moving teeth.” SmileDirectClub, Dillard adds, is breaking the law.

“When they are taking the impressions without any oversight—especially in states in which they have stores—by their own admission, I think, they recognize they don’t have any licensed dentists at those locations taking impressions at those locations,” he said.

But Lauren Altmin, the communications director for SmileDirectClub, said the entire process is supervised remotely by licensed dentists or orthodontists.

“Our platform is for the use of technology for doctor-directed at home alligner therapy,” Altmin tells Reason. “We have a digital network of 225 affiliated state licensed dentists and orthodontists overseeing customer treatment plans, from the impressions made from at-home kits and digital scans from one of the 70 smile shops across the U.S.” When patients take impressions of their teeth or get scans at one of the Smile Direct locations, those scans or impressions are sent to a licensed professional, who then continues remotely working with the patient. Every 90 days, patients are alerted to send in new photos of their teeth to be assessed by their care provider, according to Altmin.

The crux of the regulatory and legal issue revolves around who has the right to make impressions of people’s teeth. Most industry groups feel that direct supervision is required in order to fit and take impressions, while advocates of teledentistry feel remote supervision can equally meet the needs of patients.

Dr. Marc Bernard Ackerman, the director of orthodontics at Boston Children’s Hospital and the executive director of the American Teledentistry Association, says teledentistry platforms like SmileDirectClub expand access to care and give patients “greater autonomy and flexibility” over their dental health.

“[THe AAO] is not a public advocacy group, they are an orthodontist advocacy group,” Ackerman tells Reason. “Like all trade organizations, they represent their stakeholders. When these groups talk about the effects—like loose teeth not biting properly—those same results happen every single day in bonafide traditional orthodontist practices.”

Ackerman teaches residents in both pediatric dentistry and orthodontics at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, and is a third generation orthodontist. He doesn’t see a risk to patient safety, because SmileDirectClub only treats mild to moderate teeth alignment problems. Fixing that degree of imperfection, Ackerman says, has been perfected “to the extent that [it is] being automated.” With such small teeth movements, Ackerman says it’s “unbelievable to me that more problems are being caused by such a limited intervention.”

He’s also upset by what appears to be an attempt by his fellow medical care providers to prioritize protecting their monopoly over increasing the number of patients who can afford care.

“What has saddens me over time is that organized orthodontics groups—the AAO in particular—have launched frivolous complaints to state boards specifically directed about one party in the market,” Ackerman says. “There are a number of different vendors in this space but there has been a crusade against SmileDirectClub. There is this encouragement to find customers who are unsatisfied with their treatments and have them file complaints with their state dental board. This borders on collusion.”

This isn’t the first time trade groups have tried to stamp out dental innovation in the name of patient protection. Tooth whitening once caused mass hysteria among licensed dentists, who claimed that whitening services performed by non-dentists threatened patient safety. In 2003, a North Carolina Dental Board began firing off cease-and-desist letters to any non-dentist offering whitening services, causing a mass exodus of manufacturers and distributors who offered over-the-counter teeth-whitening products. The Federal Trade Commission sued the state dental board and claimed the board was engaging in anticompetitive practices by forcing out their competition, and the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of the FTC.

Despite the efforts of trade groups, “no state has taken action against SmileDirectClub,” Altmin told Reason. “Eleven out of the 36 states that filed complaints against SmileDirectClub have closed their cases.”

Meanwhile, teledental companies continue to enter the market and teledentristy seems to be a lucrative investment.

“This is a disruptive innovation, which is why you’re seeing protectionist policies being put into action,” said Ackerman. “Orthodontists see themselves losing money to the teledentistry model, which is why there is this behavior.”

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Maine Legislators Override Governor’s Veto of Marijuana Legalization

For the last year and a half, Maine’s governor, Paul LePage, has been blocking implementation of a 2016 ballot initiative that legalized marijuana for recreational use. Yesterday state legislators showed their patience with LaPage’s objections had been exhausted, overriding his veto of a bill aimed at creating a system to license and regulate commercial production and distribution of cannabis. The vote was 109 to 39 in the House and 28 to 6 in the Senate, well in excess of the two-thirds required.

LePage’s April 27 veto message made it clear that he is implacably opposed to the marijuana policy that voters endorsed when they approved Question 1 in 2016. “Under federal law, marijuana is a Schedule 1 controlled substance,” he wrote. “The federal government has deemed that marijuana has a high potential for abuse and has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States. In Maine, doctors cannot legally prescribe marijuana to patients; they only ‘certify’ its use. Possession of any amount of marijuana under federal law is a misdemeanor crime. In 2011, I took an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and I cannot in good conscience support a law that, on its face, violates federal law.”

While anyone who grows or sells marijuana is committing a federal felony, it is less clear that officials who license and regulate marijuana businesses are thereby violating the Controlled Substances Act. Arguably they are simply certifying that the businesses have met the requirements to escape punishment under state law. Assuming that the CSA does prohibit licensing and regulation of the marijuana industry, it is clearly at odds with the federalist principles embodied in the 10th Amendment, which let each state decide for itself how to deal with production and distribution of cannabis within its borders. Presumably that is one reason why even Maine legislators who opposed legalization are determined to follow the will of the state’s voters.

The bill approved yesterday, LD 1719, does second-guess voters in some respects. While Question 1 allowed home cultivation of up to six flowering plants at a time, LD 1719 draws the line at three. Legislators added an excise tax of $335 per pound (about $21 per ounce), payable by growers, to the 10 percent retail sales tax described in Question 1. They increased restrictions on participation in the industry for the first three years, requiring that licensees be Maine residents and taxpayers for at least four years.

The bill eliminates provisions allowing “marijuana social clubs” where cannabis can be bought and consumed, a significant step backward in light of the problems that other states have encountered after legalizing the sale of marijuana without legalizing places to use it. In the absence of marijuana social clubs, consumption will be permitted only “on private property” that is “not generally accessible by the public” with the owner’s explicit permission.

“We are grateful that regulators can now—after months of undue delay—finally begin moving forward with the process of licensing adult use marijuana sales and regulating this retail market,” said Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. But he added that “it is unfortunate that lawmakers felt it necessary to amend and repeal other important provisions of Question 1…in what ultimately was futile effort to curry favor with the governor.”

While possession, sharing, and home cultivation have been legal in Maine since last year, LePage’s obstructionism has delayed the opening of marijuana farms and stores. The legislature has charged the state Department of Administrative and Financial Services with writing marijuana regulations, which the legislature has to approve next year. State-licensed marijuana merchants are not expected to start serving recreational customers until the spring of 2019.

That schedule puts Maine well behind the three other states that legalized marijuana in 2016. Legal recreational sales began in Nevada last year and in California last January. They are expected to start in Massachusetts this summer.

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FBI Wiretapped Michael Cohen, Intercepted Conversations With White House

Tell us again, James Comey, about how the Deep State doesn’t exist?

In the latest bombshell about the FBI’s investigation into President Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen, NBC News reported Thursday afternoon that the FBI had been wiretapping phone lines used by Cohen during the weeks before the raid on his home, office and hotel room, as well as for an unknown amount of time before.

And what’s more, NBC says prosecutors recorded at least one call between Cohen and somebody at the White House. We think we could venture a guess about whom that might be…

Federal investigators have wiretapped the phone lines of Michael Cohen, the longtime personal lawyer for President Donald Trump who is under investigation for a payment he made to an adult film star who alleged she had an affair with Trump, according to two people with knowledge of the legal proceedings involving Cohen.

It is not clear how long the wiretap has been authorized, but NBC News has learned it was in place in the weeks leading up to the raids on Cohen’s offices, hotel room, and home in early April, according to one person with direct knowledge.

At least one phone call between a phone line associated with Cohen and the White House was intercepted, the person said.

Previously, federal prosecutors in New York have said in court filings that they have conducted covert searches on multiple e-mail accounts maintained by Cohen.

After the raid on Cohen’s office, members of Trump’s legal team reportedly advised him to speak with Cohen. But later, when Rudy Giuliani learned about the call, he advised Trump not to speak with Cohen on the phone again for fear prosecutors might be listening. Giuliani has also reportedly advised Trump that Cohen is likely to flip on him.

It is unclear what incriminating information Cohen could give prosecutors on Trump, if he chose to cooperate. He represented Trump and the Trump Organization in its business dealings for nearly two decades before Trump became president. Special counsel Robert Mueller is interested in any information that federal investigators in New York may pick up that would be relevant to his investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Cohen has previously said publicly that he would invoke his Fifth Amendment rights if subpoenaed to avoid incriminating himself before a grand jury and there is no indication from public filings that Cohen is cooperating in the probe.

Given the volume of Trump legal drama scoops that have dropped this week, we expect to see more reports fleshing out what exactly the Fed’s gleaned from eavesdropping on conversations between Cohen and – presumably – his No. 1 client.

 

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Hegde Funds Liquidating: Goldman HF VIP Basket Gets Crushed

Two months ago, when we last looked at the 50 most popular long hedge fund positions as compiled by Goldman Sachs, which the bank calls its Hedge Fund VIP list, and which we have frequently dubbed the “Hedge fund Hotel California” for various obvious reasons, we offered the following observations:

What is notable about this basket, is that it tends to outperform the S&P in most periods, and did so by 170 bp YTD (3.5% vs. 1.9%) and in 64% of quarters since 2001. But this outperformance comes at a cost: if and when the selling begins, as it did in the spring of 2016 when Valeant imploded and blew up the “pharma trade”…

… the basket tends to get hit especially hard: quote Goldman, “although the basket has been a strong historical performer, it suffered its worst historical underperformance vs. the S&P 500 in late 2015 and 1H 2016 (-17% vs. -3%).” But good news followed, because thanks to another coordinated central bank intervention (the Shanghai Accord) the basket then rallied back to outperform the S&P 500 by 21 percentage points (+52% vs. +31%) between 2H 2016 and early 4Q 2017.”

Well, it appears that the latest cycle of outperformance is now over, because as the following sloping head-and-shoulders chart in the GS HF VIP index shows, the bottom is about to fall out for the 50 most popular hedge fund names, as suddenly instead of frontrunning purchases, hedge funds will scramble to liquidate first before everyone else. And not to make a too fine point of it, Bloomberg also adds that “today feels like a liquidation day from popular hedge fund holdings” – because the HF VIP index is tumbling by 1.8%, its biggest drop in months, and set for the lowest close since December, wiping out all 2018 gains. Needless to say, its correlation with the S&P is almost 100%.

This means that the market’s most important leadership group is now on the verge of collapse, a group which includes in the Top 5 positions names like Amazon, Facebook, Time Warner, Alphabet and Microsoft. The full list of what to short is below.

Finally for those who believe the market is indeed facing a major hedge fund liquidation event, a convenient pair trade would be to go short the entire VIP basket, while at the same time buying the 50 most shorted names as funds, facing an avalanche collateral-driven margin calls, are stopped out on their favorite shorts. The 50 most shorted names are shown below.

 

 

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James Comey Says Deep State Doesn’t Exist, Then Describes The Deep State’s Existence

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Former FBI director James Comey, who was fired, said during a question and answer session that there is no deep state right before describing the existence of the deep state perfectly. He simply called it a “deep culture” instead.

The context, as reported by Twitchy, was a question about what would happen if Trump were to fire special counsel Robert Mueller. Comey was specifically addressing whether those under Trump would adhere to such an order or not. “I don’t know. That’s a really interesting question,” Comey begins. “I think there’s an argument to be made that it would be utterly ineffective in practice.” And why, exactly would it be “ineffective” for Trump to fire Mueller? Because of the deep state, wait…no…the “deep culture.”

“You’d have to fire the entire FBI and the entire justice department for two reasons,” Comey says.  The first reason is that Comey doesn’t think Trump could find an executive willing to carry out the order to fire Mueller. And the second reason firing Mueller would be ineffective is because of the “deep culture.”

There is no deep state, but there’s a deep culture and commitment to the rule of law that runs all the way down through not just the Department of Justice and the FBI but the military services and the intelligence community. It would be interesting to see what would happen next,” Comey said.

So basically, there is no deep state, but there’s a deep culture that would try desperately to stop Donald Trump from firing Robert Mueller.  Thanks for the clarification, Comey.

It is absolutely fascinating that Comey described what he just previously said didn’t exist. But we all remember who Comey really is: the deep state puppet who let Hillary Clinton off the hook.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has discovered that edits made to former FBI Director James Comey’s statement exonerating Hillary Clinton for transmitting classified info over an unsecured, private email server went far beyond what was previously known, as detailed in a Thursday letter from committee chairman Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) to FBI Director Christopher Wray.

The letter reveals specific edits made by senior FBI agents when Deputy Director Andrew McCabe exchanged drafts of Comey’s statement with senior FBI officials, including Peter Strzok, Strzok’s direct supervisor, E.W. “Bill” Priestap, Jonathan Moffa, and an unnamed employee from the Office of General Counsel (identified by Newsweek as DOJ Deputy General Counsel Trisha Anderson) – in what was a coordinated conspiracy among top FBI brass to decriminalize Clinton’s conduct by changing legal terms and phrases, omitting key information, and minimizing the role of the Intelligence Community in the email investigation. Doing so virtually assured that then-candidate Hillary Clinton would not be prosecuted. -Zerohedge

Sleep tight, everyone; because James Comey says there’s no deep state. It’s just a deep culture.

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What Is the ‘Intellectual Dark Web’?

Kmele Foster, Heather Heying, Bret Weinstein, Matt Welch ||| Anthony L. FisherWhat is the “Intellectual Dark Web”? The technical answer might be, “A phrase coined by mathematician and Thiel Capital Managing Director Eric Weinstein to describe a loose confederation of left-right intellectuals who share in common an open, occasionally career-altering defiance of the ‘gated institutional narrative‘ enforced by media/academia/Hollywood, particularly as concerns identity politics.”

Vanity Fair write Tina Nguyen is getting criticized this week by IDW types for a piece connecting ideological traveler Kanye West to the movement, which she characterizes as being “comprised of right-wing pundits, agnostic comedian podcasters, self-help gurus, and disgruntled ex-liberals united by their desire to ‘red pill’ new adherents.” More charitably, L.A. Times columnist Meghan Daum contends that dark-webbers “wish to foster a new discourse that can allow innovative thinkers to wrestle with the world’s problems without having to tiptoe around subjects or questions deemed culturally or politically off-limits.”

Whatever the adjectives, it’s a group of people, many of them familiar to Reason readers, who are interested in free speech and free thought, sensitive to intellectual conformity, and adept at using new media to route around hostile gatekeepers. Their ranks are generally said to include Jonathan Haidt, Dave Rubin, Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Claire Lehmann, and James Damore.

One of the foundational members of the Intellectual Dark Web is Eric Weinstein’s brother Bret, most famous for being at the center of the gobsmacking Evergreen State College controversy last fall. Weinstein, now untethered from Evergreen after a reported $500,000 settlement, is an evolutionary biologist of some repute, as is his wife, the also-untethered-from-Evergreen Heather Heying. Weinstein and Heying recently sat down with Kmele Foster and I for a wide-ranging Fifth Column conversation about the IDW, campus free speech, identity politics, the race/IQ minefield, and Weinstein’s (questionable!) ideas about regulation in academia and media. You can listen to the conversation, which I for one found very illuminating, below:

Below, a transcript from a sliver of our conversation, having mostly to do with free speech, the Intellectual Dark Web, and Jordan Peterson:

Kmele Foster: Is there a free speech crisis on American campuses? This seems like a question the two of you, I’m certain, have been asked before, but have a unique perspective on, having endured some unique circumstances—I’d say probably the archetypal instance of, say, a speech-related panic on campus. So, please.

Bret Weinstein [after long detour through definition of terms]: Then the last issue is whether or not this has anything inherent to do with college campuses or whether college campuses are simply where we are seeing this unfold first. And I would argue that what we’re really watching is a breakdown in society’s capacity to reason with itself. Yes, of course that has manifestations on college campuses, but it won’t be limited to college campuses.

If you look at the one story that doesn’t fit with all of the others so far, it’s the Google memo story, where Google fired an engineer for doing exactly what they asked them to do: responding to a prompt about questions of equity between men and women among the engineering staff at Google. So, James Damore wrote a memo that analyzed that question. He did a very good job in doing so. They fired him. And so that was Google, a private corporation, that decided to fire an engineer. And then the NLRB, which is a governmental organization, said that his firing was valid, not on the basis that what he had said was wrong, but on the basis that the harm done by what he said was so great that it justified his firing.

This is civilization losing its coherence, right? Google has a huge effect on what we think, because it has a huge effect on what we see when we search for things. It understands or at least is capable of evaluating our email for patterns and figuring out what it is that we’re beginning to suspect. Google is a very dangerous entity if it decides to take an active role in controlling what conversations can happen, and Google has told us that at the very top, it is actually interested in seeing some conversations silenced. That should worry us at least as much as what’s going on on college campuses, which is itself not a small matter.

Matt Welch: […] I’m curious about the notion that it’s sort of society-wide. We’ve talked a lot here, because we work in the media and work in New York… [that] there’s a generation gap: The twentysomethings, the woke millennial kids who are working in media have a much different perspective on a whole lot of things having to do with speech, having to do with the Me Too movement and what exactly are the boundaries of acceptable male/female kind of mating rituals and anything else. So the theory that we’ve bandied about here is that, okay, you think it’s sort of just a college campus thing, but they’re graduating and they’re moving out into the world. But that kind of suggests that it’s sort of like the campus is the furnace and they’re spitting out these lumps of coal out there.

This is all terrible metaphors here, I recognize, but the way that you posited this is maybe it’s just a society-wide thing and the campus is a place where obviously people are ready to go and kind of clash and do battle, as it always is.

Heather Heying: I think campuses are concentrating the problem, that we do have a generational problem. And it’s in part—these issues have been discussed widely—but it’s about the rise of iPhones and tech and the decrease in children spending time outside and getting physical experience with their world, and becoming more social creatures. You take a generation that has been raised in that way and you put them into a campus culture where there are some disciplines that have become so enamored of postmodernism that they actually do not necessarily believe that there’s an objective reality out there to be reckoned with….

If those kids who actually haven’t spent much time racing down hills on bikes or climbing trees and falling and experiencing gravity in real time, are told, “Actually, objective reality is a sign of the patriarchy and it’s about power and it’s not actually about reality,” that feels really confirming to certain people. I would say that Bret and I spent 14, 15 years in classrooms with mostly millennials, and it’s really easy to disabuse people of these ideas in real time when you have time, when you can build trust, when you can build community, and then yank the rug out from under people when they say things that are actually batshit crazy.

When you actually take them also into the field and you say, “Okay, now we’re gonna get dirty, we’re gonna get wet, we’re gonna get uncomfortable, and we’re gonna come back and eat good food and share stories around the campfire, and you’re gonna see that we’re all reasonable people who make mistakes and have beliefs that are congruous and incongruous with one another, and that’s okay, and that is what being together in community is about.” But if you have a classroom—and we know for sure that there are lots of classrooms out there in which dissent is considered harm—so there is a conflation of….

Welch: Dissent to who?

Heying: Any kind of dissent. Any kind of disagreement is considered harm, and so emotional harm is conflated with physical harm. I think it’s easier to have that happen if you’ve not actually been exposed to physical harm, if you don’t actually know what it is to experience your own body as a real instantiation and, like, meat space.

Welch: So you’re totally bought in to the Lenore Skenazy/Jon Haidt theorem.

Heying: Yes. […]

Foster: The left eating its own is a phrase that I’ve encountered [from you] in the past, and one of the things that I was talking…about when we were getting ready for this conversation is the fact that the Intellectual Dark Web, I think is the phrase—and you can provide some context and explain what that is, Bret—but that the Intellectual Dark Web seems to be dominated by conservative voices, seemingly.

It at least, perhaps, seems to be particularly concerned with these kinds of phenomena that are occurring on the left. And one wonders…I mean, there are certainly examples of speech prohibitions on campuses on the right. Like, certain groups, a pro-Palestinian group or something that might be facing some sort of obstacles on campus. There are certainly conservative people on campuses who have ostracized folks on the left in different instances; at least I know the folks at FIRE have taken up cases where they are advocating on behalf of a liberal student in a circumstance like that.

So I wonder about the ideological complexion of the Intellectual Dark Web, and I wonder what your thoughts are on what the consequences of having this conversation—this, in my estimation, much needed conversation about the need to be able to have complicated, potentially “dangerous”…conversations in public—how it all works together. I’ll stop there.

Weinstein: So, first, let me just say, “Intellectual Dark Web” is a term coined by my older brother, Eric Weinstein, and it’s a term that makes some people uncomfortable, including me a little bit, because the Dark Web itself is obviously a place where lots of stuff happens, some of which is perfectly horrifying….

What Eric was saying in coining the term Intellectual Dark Web is really that this is an intellectually unpoliced space, that it is a space outside of what he calls the “gated institutional narrative,” which are the stories that we are supposed to believe. It is a very interesting conversation precisely because nobody involved in it believes in those rules. In fact, I think everybody associated with the Intellectual Dark Web is sort of constitutionally resistant to being told what questions they’re allowed to think about or what answers they might be allowed to advance. So, in any case, the idea of the Intellectual Dark Web is a space that is intellectually free, at a moment in which the mainstream intellectual space is increasingly constrained by things like what we were talking about before.

In terms of the association, there is a very clear focus amongst all of the folks who are associated with the Intellectual Dark Web about the free speech crisis or whatever the proper term for that would be if we were to re-figure it, right? There’s a reason for that, which is that we’re all people who would tend to be shut down by the mainstream that wish to maintain control over the narratives that are central to the way we govern ourselves and the way we interact. So it’s not surprising that, A) people in the Intellectual Dark Web would be prone to being de-platformed, and B) that we would be particularly sensitive to the danger of ruling certain opinions beyond the pale.

As for the political complexion of it, it isn’t at all what people think, and this has been something that Heather and I have discovered in a very odd way. What happened to us at Evergreen felt and was almost literally like being kicked out of the political left. We had spent our entire lives [there], right? The left told us “You’re not welcome anymore.” In fact, you’re not even left—you’re right, or, you know, if it’s really pissed at you, you’re alt-right, or you’re a darling of the alt-right. These are the things that were said.

None of this was true, right? I’m still as far left as I was before. I’m skeptical that the left knows what to do, I’m very skeptical of what the left advances in terms of policy proposals, but in terms of my values, they haven’t changed at all. The interesting thing, though, is having been effectively evicted from the left, we ran into all sorts of other people who we thought might be a bit right of center, who it turned out were actually also left of center and had also been similarly evicted and then misportrayed. So there is a way in which everybody should think twice about why you expect the people are on the political spectrum where you think they are, because maybe they aren’t. In each case, you ought to just check whether or not you think that for a good reason or you just think that because you’ve heard that somebody’s over there.

The Intellectual Dark Web involves me, it involves Heather, it involves Eric. We’re all left of center. It involves Jordan Peterson—he’s a little bit right of center, but if you actually listen to him, there are certain topics on which he sounds downright conservative, and then there are other topics where he really doesn’t. He’s a little bit hard to peg.

Welch: I just reviewed his book for Reason and got kind of deep into his business. He’s a classical liberal who’s a little bit obsessed with the postmodern Marxist left, and I think he has developed a—and this is an interesting kind of question for, I think, a lot of people in the Intellectual Dark Web; maybe it is for you, too. There’s a reward system over there. His fan base comes [for] that minority of his interactions when he sort of swells up and says, “Men must be dangerous!” or when he criticizes feminists for being potentially submissive and that’s why they don’t criticize Islam that much. When he rises up and trolls a little bit, that’s exactly when he’s rewarded. And that’s not his best work, as far as I’m concerned. His best work is his kind of clinical practice, is sort of pragmatic, buck up, straighten yourself. I still straighten up my back, my posture, after reading his book.

But if the reward structure is for precisely when you are out there transgressing, you’re dancing on that kind of borderline where you’re supposed to [engage in] the sort of taboo subjects, right?

Weinstein: Yeah.

Welch: So, it’s hard not to become corrupted, I think, in that process.

Foster: Is it the reward structure? Because part of that is there’s a bright red warning light. Those are the flashpoints, where people start to scream at you. It’s not only….

Welch: Bro is pulling 90 Gs on Patreon a month.

Foster: I’m with you, but that’s not …

Welch: That’s a reward structure.

Foster: That’s not the point that I’m making. The question I’m asking here is, is it a situation where what he is saying predominantly to the audience that’s paying for the subscription on Patreon is he’s pressing hot buttons over and over again to keep them paying, or are they perhaps tuning in for the substance, in which case the outrage is what seems to respond most loudest to the things that he says that are, in many cases, I find—or at least often, because I can’t say “many”; I only monitor him so closely—but they’re often misconstrued.

Heying: Yes.

Foster: It’s the conversation that you have about gender roles, for example, where the person who’s sitting across from you keeps insisting that you’re saying something you’re not saying at all, because they don’t care about nuance.

Welch: No, but if you go on YouTube and you have a fan say “Jordan Peterson’s greatest hits,” it’s gonna be seven times him smashing [leftists]….

Foster: That may be the case.

Welch: I mean, that’s what’s going on.

Weinstein: I think we need to be fair to Peterson here….There is a distinction between the broadcasting of some kind of reward that would typically persuade somebody, and whether or not he is altered in what he believes or what he says based on it. And I don’t think anybody can be certain; probably he himself can’t be certain. On the other hand, I think Jordan Peterson is three things that we can see, right? He is a guy who is telling people, primarily young men, to straighten up and get their lives in order and self-author and all of this stuff, right? So, there’s something…I hesitate to use the term “self help”…

Welch: It is.

Weinstein: But I can’t think of a …

Welch: Absolutely is.

Weinstein: … better one.

Foster: Nothing wrong with that.

Weinstein: Nothing wrong with that. And in fact, if he’s taking people, especially people who might fall into the alt-right or something, and he’s getting them to wake up….

Heying: More power to him.

Weinstein: More power to him. He is a messianic figure, which is something that I think he has a very uncomfortable relationship with. He’s aware that people see him this way and…

Welch: Sees himself a little bit in that way, too.

Weinstein: He may, but I know he’s worried that people see him that way, and that that suggests things and has implications.

And then there’s the thing that he has, I believe, so far been least well-recognized for, which is that he’s actually a top-flight intellectual, right? He is somebody who has done very high quality work building what appears to be a model of human psychology that certainly borrows from the best of what takes place over in that field, but is also independent of that field where that field goes insane. So he’s not vulnerable to the replication crisis that is engulfing the rest of psychology, because he’s very careful about which conclusions in psychology he pays attention to. So his psychometric bent basically frees him in large measure from the fads that circulate in psychology.

But in any case, what I would say is there’s enough overlap between what Heather and I think about as evolutionary biologists who think about humans, and what Peterson, as a psychologist who thinks about evolution, think about in tandem, that we can actually evaluate how good he is at this. I don’t think there is any chance that you could say something to Jordan Peterson on the topics in psychology that he holds most dear and broadcast enough love at him to get him to say stuff he doesn’t believe.

Welch: Sure.

Weinstein: I think he is completely deaf and intentionally deaf to what people want him to say in that space that he…

Heying: That is what has helped make him ascendant, and that is the good part. Very much the good part.

Weinstein: Right. So, the intellectual is an honest broker. Which doesn’t mean he’s right about everything, but it does mean that he’s not going to be persuaded by Patreon followers or people applauding to think things about psychology that he doesn’t actually believe. He’s arrived at all that stuff on his own, and for better and worse, I believe he’d be very hard to move emotionally on that front.

The messianic stuff is a little dangerous. I don’t know where that leads. The self-help stuff probably is to the benefit of the world that people who otherwise don’t have a direction are seeing somebody that they can admire and they’re following it.

Welch: It’s authoritarian by definition on some level—I mean, it’s instructive. I’m broadcasting. These are rules for life. But I don’t mean to cast him in a negative light, I was actually trying to say that he’s…I think the messianic stuff is ultimately the most troubling, and it’s actually when he rises up and does his cobra strikes that sometimes it’s funny and witty and good and on point, but for me, it’s ultimately the least interesting.

But I was shocked, because his reputation precedes him. It takes until page 302, literally, before you get to him bitching about postmodernism on college campuses. I really thought he would all just be “feminazis,” and it really is not that. That’s not the majority of his work, which I find pretty interesting. He’s a classical liberal who got caught up in a thing, and it’s a ministry. That’s kind of what it is, and he’s aware of it, and it’s fascinating. To just reduce him as an alt-right caricature or a fascist character, which I think they were trying to do in The New York Review of Books recently, is just a gross misread of the situation.

Heying: That’s right.

Foster: Generally speaking, most of those caricatures aren’t particularly helpful in allowing us to figure out what people are talking about in most contexts.

Welch: And it’s fascinating to figure out why that is resonating, and what that can teach a person about the art of political persuasion or just discussion right now in contemporary life. I don’t have any conclusions about it, but it’s more interesting just than, “Hey look, a bunch of Charlottesville Nazis like this guy.”

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