Month: July 2021

Cargo Vessel Expelled From US Waters After Discovery Of Chinese Invasive Insects

Cargo Vessel Expelled From US Waters After Discovery Of Chinese Invasive Insects

Not every day does a large cargo vessel get booted from U.S. waters after the discovery of invasive insects from China. 

According to marine news website gCaptain, a Panama-flagged bulk carrier called M/V Pan Jasmine was anchored downriver from New Orleans on July 17 when the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) discovered five different pests, including two species (namely Cerambycidae, a type of beetle, and Myrmicinae, colonizing queen ants) that are known to pose a significant agriculture threats to U.S. farmland. 

The significant presence of pests onboard the vessel forced CBP to expel it from U.S. waters. 

New Orleans Area Port Director Terri Edwards said if the vessel offloaded with dunnage filled with pests, “it would have been put in a Louisiana landfill where the insects could crawl out and invade the local habitat, causing incalculable damage.”

Edwards said, “inspecting wood dunnage of otherwise lawful shipments is one of the many, lesser-known ways Office of Field Operations Agriculture Specialists help keep our country safe. I am proud of our agriculture specialists and the USDA personnel for recognizing these dangerous pests.”

Cerambycids are native to China and the Korean peninsula and were accidentally imported to the U.S. over the decades in shipping material that has led to the destruction of trees and farmland. 

The USDA Forest Service has spent more than a half-billion dollars to eradicate cerambycids between 1996 and 2013. 

There was no word if the insects were deliberately put on the ship as a form of “bug warfare,” as for thousands of years, military leaders have used insects as weapons of war. 

Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/31/2021 – 15:30

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3xgLozR Tyler Durden

Save, Invest, Speculate, Trade, Or Gamble?

Save, Invest, Speculate, Trade, Or Gamble?

Authored by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com,

For some time, I’ve been saying that the economy is in the “eye of the storm” and that when it emerged, the weather would be far rougher than in 2008. The trillions of currency units created since 2007, combined with artificially suppressed interest rates, have papered over the situation. But only temporarily. When the economy goes into the trailing edge of the hurricane, the storm will be much different, much worse, and much longer lasting than what we experienced in 2008 and 2009.

In some ways, the immediate and direct effects of this money creation appear beneficial. For instance, by not only averting a sharp complete collapse of financial markets and the banking system, but by taking the stock market to unprecedented highs. It’s allowed individuals and governments to borrow more, and live even further above their means. It may even create what’s known as a “crack-up boom”.

However, a competent economist (as distinguished from a political apologist, many of whom masquerade as economists) will correctly assess the current prosperity as an illusion. They’ll recognize it as, at best, a natural cyclical upturn – a “dead cat bounce.”

What we’re really interested in, however, are not the immediate and direct effects of QE— “Quantitative Easing”, and ZIRP—Zero Interest Rate Policy. As much as I love the way they fabricate these acronyms and euphemisms, what we’re really interested in is their indirect and delayed effects. In particular, how do we profit from them? What is likely to happen next in the economy? Which markets are likely to go up, and which are likely to go down?

What Now?

I’ve been looking for bargains, all over the world and in every type of market. And, yes, you can definitely find a stock here or a piece of real estate there that qualifies. But when it comes to any particular asset class, absolutely nothing – with the sole exception of commodities – is cheap at the moment.

You may ask, how that can possibly be? It’s almost metaphysically impossible for “everything” to be expensive, if for no other reason than that it raises the question: “Relative to what?” Nonetheless, we’re in a genuine economic and financial twilight zone, where nothing is cheap and everything is high risk. This is most unusual because there’s usually something on the other end of the seesaw.

The reason for this anomaly is worldwide “QE” on a completely unprecedented scale, by practically every government. So much money has been created in the recent years that it’s flowed into almost every sector of every market – stocks, bonds, and property. Even money itself is actually overpriced – the conundrum is that it’s maintaining as much value as it is, despite many trillions having been recently created around the world and much more to come.

Many people, and most corporations, are staying in cash simply because it allows you to move quickly (which is important when you’re sitting on a financial volcano), and it seems better to suffer a sure loss of perhaps 5% per year than an unexpected loss of 50% in some volatile market. Neither is a good alternative, of course. But I’ve thought about it and feel I can offer some guidance.

Again, an economist tries to see the indirect and delayed effects of actions. But this isn’t an academic exercise. So although we want to think like economists, we want to act like speculators.

A speculator sometimes profits from the immediate and direct effects of actions, but that’s not his real forte; almost everyone can predict those, so it tends to be a crowded playing field. Running with the crowd limits your profit potential – the whole crowd is unlikely to get rich. And it’s dangerous, because crowds can change direction quickly and trample the less fleet of foot.

Rather, the thoughtful speculator prefers to look for the indirect and delayed effects of politically caused distortions in the markets. Because the effects are delayed, we have more time to get positioned. And because far fewer people pay attention to what’s likely to occur over the horizon, versus what’s tucked up under their noses, the potential tends to be much bigger.

The speculator is a natural contrarian because few tend to share his viewpoint, and he rarely runs with the crowd. He’s always looking for something similar to silver in 1965, when the U.S. was controlling it at $1.29, or gold in 1971, when it was controlled at $35. Although politically guaranteed distortions are best, any kind will do – especially those caused by manias, when things rise way too high, or panics, when things fall way too low.

Rothschild’s famous dictum “Buy when blood is running in the streets” is the speculator’s motto.

This concept is especially critical at the moment. You have to decide – basically right now – how you’re going to play your cards over the next few years. If you don’t, you’re going to find yourself acting in an ad hoc way in what will likely be a chaotic situation. If that’s the case, you’re likely to wind up as financial road kill.

There are basically three realistic actions available to you: saving, investing, and speculating. I urge you to burn the distinctions into your consciousness. When people don’t fully understand the words they use, they can’t understand the concepts they convey; the result is confusion.

Saving

Saving means taking the excess of what you produce over what you consume and setting it aside. It’s basic and essential, because it creates capital. It is capital, in turn, that allows you to advance to the next level. An individual or a society that doesn’t save will soon find itself in trouble.

A major problem is looming, however, that transcends the fact that many, or even most, people don’t save. It’s that those who do almost always save in the form of some currency – dollars, euros, yen, etc. If those currencies disappear, so do the savings, devastating exactly the most productive and prudent people. That is exactly what I believe is going to happen all over the world in the years to come. With predictably catastrophic consequences.

Investing

Investing is the process of allocating capital to a productive business, in the anticipation of creating more wealth. You can’t invest, however, unless you have capital, which usually only comes from saving.

Investing necessarily becomes harder, more unpredictable, and less likely to succeed as government interventions – in the forms of currency inflation, taxation, and regulation – increase. And all three are going to increase vastly in the years to come.

In addition, as society reorders itself to different and lower patterns of consumption, most businesses will suffer serious declines in earnings, and many will go bust. Investing, which thrives in a stable, business-friendly atmosphere, is going to be a tough row to hoe.

Speculating

This is the process of capitalizing on government-caused distortions in the markets. In a free-market society, speculators would have few opportunities. But that’s not the kind of world we live in, so speculators will have many opportunities to choose from.

Sadly, speculators have an unsavory reputation among the unwashed. That’s true for several reasons. Their returns are often outsized, inciting envy. Their returns are often realized in times of crisis, which prompts the thoughtless to presume they caused the crisis. And since speculators usually act counter to the wishes of governments and counter to their propaganda, they’re made to appear anti-social.

In point of fact, I wish we lived in a world where speculation was redundant and unnecessary – but that would be a world where the state had no involvement in the economy.

As it now stands, however, the speculator is actually a hero, and something of an unloved good Samaritan. When everyone wants to buy, he stands ready to provide what others want. And when everyone wants to sell, he stands ready with cash in their hour of need. He’s a bit like a fire fighter – his services aren’t usually needed, but when they are, it’s typically a time of danger.

One mistake that novices make is to confuse a speculator with a trader, or worse, with a gambler. Again, let’s define our terms.

A trader is generally one who’s in the market for a living, a short-term player who tries to buy low and sell high, often scalping for fractions, typically relying on technical analysis or a read of the market’s mood at the moment. There are some extremely successful traders, but it’s a real specialty.

I’m disinclined to trade for two reasons. First, it’s necessarily very time and attention intensive, and therefore psychologically draining. Second, you’re always swimming upstream against lots of commissions and bid/ask spreads. A trader and a speculator are two very different things.

A gambler relies on the odds, or sometimes just luck, in an attempt to turn a buck. While luck and statistical probabilities are elements in most parts of life, they shouldn’t play a big part in your financial activities. People who think so are either ignorant or losers who want to attribute their lack of success to the will of the gods.

The years to come are going to be tough on everybody, but the speculator has by far the best chance of coming out ahead.

*  *  *

Excessive money printing and misguided economic ideas have created all kinds of distortions in the market. All signs point to this trend continuing until it reaches a crisis… one unlike anything we’ve seen before. That’s exactly why Doug Casey and his team just released an urgent report that explains how and why this is happening… and what you can do to protect yourself and even profit from the situation. Click here to download the PDF now.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/31/2021 – 15:00

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3j5xhbO Tyler Durden

Does the Second Amendment Protect Non-Citizens?

The Second Amendment provides “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The Framers used the word “people,” and not the word “citizen.” Does this right apply only to U.S. citizens, or does it apply to all people in the United States? Since Heller, the circuit courts have split on this question. In 2015, I wrote about Judge Wood’s Seventh Circuit opinion, which found that aliens were protected by the Second Amendment.

On Thursday, a Second Circuit panel declined to resolve this issue in United States v. Perez. However, Judge Menashi concurred, and found that only citizens are protected by the Second Amendment. This conclusion follows from Heller, which repeatedly used the word “citizen.”

In Heller, the Supreme Court spoke of “the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home.” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 635 (2008). As the court recognizes, illegal aliens are “[e]xcluded from participation in our democratic political institutions.” Ante at 8. This is not simply a matter of whether illegal aliens fail to be “law-abiding” and “responsible.” It means they are not “citizens”—”members of the political community” to whom “‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms'” belongs. Heller, 554 U.S. at 576, 580 (quoting U.S. Const.amend. II). The court strains to avoid this key point from Heller. I would instead join those circuits that have straightforwardly concluded that illegal aliens cannot invoke the right of the people to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment. I concur only in the judgment.

Judge Menashi explains that at the time of the framing, the right to keep and bear arms extended to “members of the political community.”

That the Second Amendment codifies a right belonging to members of the political community is further confirmed by examining its historical antecedents and the practice of “founding-era legislatures.” Kanter, 919 F.3d at 454 (Barrett, J., dissenting). In colonial America, the right to keep and bear arms “did not extend to all New World residents.” Joyce Lee Malcolm, To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right 140 (1996). While “[a]lien men … could speak, print, worship, enter into contracts, hold personal property in their own name, sue and be sued, and exercise sundry other civil rights,” they “typically could not vote, hold public office, or serve on juries” and did not have “the right to bear arms” because these “were rights of members of the polity.” Akhil Reed Amar, The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction 48 (1998).

Judge Menashi also explains that illegal aliens cannot be considered “law-abiding” and are not part of the political community:

The connection between the right to keep and bear arms and membership in the political community forecloses Perez’s argument that he is “among ‘the people’ protected by the Second Amendment.” Appellant’s Br. 8. “Illegal aliens are not ‘law-abiding, responsible citizens’ or ‘members of the political community.'” Portillo-Munoz, 643 F.3d at 440. That illegal aliens remain outside the political community is reflected throughout the Constitution and federal law. Illegal aliens may not hold federal elective office, U.S. Const. art. I, § 2, cl. 2; id. art. I § 3, cl. 3; id. art. II, § 1, cl. 5, are barred from voting in federal elections, 18 U.S.C. § 611(a), may not serve on federal juries, 28 U.S.C. § 1865(b)(1), and are subject to removal from the United States at any time, 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a). Accordingly, illegal aliens are not “members of the political community”—that is, “the people”— who may invoke the Second Amendment. Heller, 554 U.S. at 580.7 

Footnote 1 of Judge Menashi’s opinion faults the majority for expurgating the word “citizen” from Heller:

The court repeatedly truncates quotations or paraphrases Heller to replace the word “citizens” with “persons.” See ante at 7 (noting that the right “of law-abiding persons to protect themselves and family members in the home” is “‘the central component‘ guaranteed by the Second Amendment”); id. at 9 (“Heller identified the right of ‘law-abiding, responsible’ persons to keep arms to be at the heart of the Second Amendment.”); id. at 10 (identifying “the core guarantee of a law-abiding person’s right to keep firearms for self-defense”); id. at 13 (considering whether “alternatives remain for persons who are law-abiding to acquire a firearm for self-defense”); id. at 13 (comparing “Perez’s interest in possessing guns” with “that of a ‘law-abiding, responsible’ person pursuing self-defense”); id. at 16 (discussing “those who are not, as Heller put it, ‘law-abiding'”). Because the court makes so much of the words “law-abiding” and “responsible” in the Heller opinion, it is striking how much work it does to ignore the word that immediately follows.

In NYS Rifle & Pistol, the Court rewrote the question presented. Among other revisions, the Court stripped the phrase “ordinary law-abiding citizen.” At the time, I speculated that “Did Justice Sotomayor object a right that would be limited to citizens?”

When the Court decides NYS Rifle & Pistol, the Court will have to think carefully about its use of the word “citizen.” And we know Justice Kavanaugh does not like the word “alien.” But here, an errant usage of the word “person,” instead of “citizen,” could extend Second Amendment rights to many aliens incarcerated on gun charges.

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Does the Second Amendment Protect Non-Citizens?

The Second Amendment provides “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The Framers used the word “people,” and not the word “citizen.” Does this right apply only to U.S. citizens, or does it apply to all people in the United States? Since Heller, the circuit courts have split on this question. In 2015, I wrote about Judge Wood’s Seventh Circuit opinion, which found that aliens were protected by the Second Amendment.

On Thursday, a Second Circuit panel declined to resolve this issue in United States v. Perez. However, Judge Menashi concurred, and found that only citizens are protected by the Second Amendment. This conclusion follows from Heller, which repeatedly used the word “citizen.”

In Heller, the Supreme Court spoke of “the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home.” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 635 (2008). As the court recognizes, illegal aliens are “[e]xcluded from participation in our democratic political institutions.” Ante at 8. This is not simply a matter of whether illegal aliens fail to be “law-abiding” and “responsible.” It means they are not “citizens”—”members of the political community” to whom “‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms'” belongs. Heller, 554 U.S. at 576, 580 (quoting U.S. Const.amend. II). The court strains to avoid this key point from Heller. I would instead join those circuits that have straightforwardly concluded that illegal aliens cannot invoke the right of the people to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment. I concur only in the judgment.

Judge Menashi explains that at the time of the framing, the right to keep and bear arms extended to “members of the political community.”

That the Second Amendment codifies a right belonging to members of the political community is further confirmed by examining its historical antecedents and the practice of “founding-era legislatures.” Kanter, 919 F.3d at 454 (Barrett, J., dissenting). In colonial America, the right to keep and bear arms “did not extend to all New World residents.” Joyce Lee Malcolm, To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right 140 (1996). While “[a]lien men … could speak, print, worship, enter into contracts, hold personal property in their own name, sue and be sued, and exercise sundry other civil rights,” they “typically could not vote, hold public office, or serve on juries” and did not have “the right to bear arms” because these “were rights of members of the polity.” Akhil Reed Amar, The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction 48 (1998).

Judge Menashi also explains that illegal aliens cannot be considered “law-abiding” and are not part of the political community:

The connection between the right to keep and bear arms and membership in the political community forecloses Perez’s argument that he is “among ‘the people’ protected by the Second Amendment.” Appellant’s Br. 8. “Illegal aliens are not ‘law-abiding, responsible citizens’ or ‘members of the political community.'” Portillo-Munoz, 643 F.3d at 440. That illegal aliens remain outside the political community is reflected throughout the Constitution and federal law. Illegal aliens may not hold federal elective office, U.S. Const. art. I, § 2, cl. 2; id. art. I § 3, cl. 3; id. art. II, § 1, cl. 5, are barred from voting in federal elections, 18 U.S.C. § 611(a), may not serve on federal juries, 28 U.S.C. § 1865(b)(1), and are subject to removal from the United States at any time, 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a). Accordingly, illegal aliens are not “members of the political community”—that is, “the people”— who may invoke the Second Amendment. Heller, 554 U.S. at 580.7 

Footnote 1 of Judge Menashi’s opinion faults the majority for expurgating the word “citizen” from Heller:

The court repeatedly truncates quotations or paraphrases Heller to replace the word “citizens” with “persons.” See ante at 7 (noting that the right “of law-abiding persons to protect themselves and family members in the home” is “‘the central component‘ guaranteed by the Second Amendment”); id. at 9 (“Heller identified the right of ‘law-abiding, responsible’ persons to keep arms to be at the heart of the Second Amendment.”); id. at 10 (identifying “the core guarantee of a law-abiding person’s right to keep firearms for self-defense”); id. at 13 (considering whether “alternatives remain for persons who are law-abiding to acquire a firearm for self-defense”); id. at 13 (comparing “Perez’s interest in possessing guns” with “that of a ‘law-abiding, responsible’ person pursuing self-defense”); id. at 16 (discussing “those who are not, as Heller put it, ‘law-abiding'”). Because the court makes so much of the words “law-abiding” and “responsible” in the Heller opinion, it is striking how much work it does to ignore the word that immediately follows.

In NYS Rifle & Pistol, the Court rewrote the question presented. Among other revisions, the Court stripped the phrase “ordinary law-abiding citizen.” At the time, I speculated that “Did Justice Sotomayor object a right that would be limited to citizens?”

When the Court decides NYS Rifle & Pistol, the Court will have to think carefully about its use of the word “citizen.” And we know Justice Kavanaugh does not like the word “alien.” But here, an errant usage of the word “person,” instead of “citizen,” could extend Second Amendment rights to many aliens incarcerated on gun charges.

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American Couple Fined $50,000 For Traveling To Canada With Fake Vaccination Documents

American Couple Fined $50,000 For Traveling To Canada With Fake Vaccination Documents

Canada has for more than the past year become known as having arguably the most stringent and far-reaching travel screening and lockdown/quarantine polices of any country. For example the US-Canada border is still closed, but is set to open August 9th – only for the fully vaccinated. 

Throughout what’s essentially been more or less a ‘permanent’ state of lockdown since the start of the pandemic, even Canadians re-entering the country from outside have had to quarantine for at least two weeks if they can’t show proof of vaccination. This policy has been in effect in other countries as well, especially in Europe, which has perhaps made it inevitable that foreign travelers have sought to find ways around the restrictions. Authorities have worried about fake vaccination certificates popping up globally as the concept of ‘COVID passports’ has remained under discussion and is already fast becoming a reality at least in practice.

Via CTV News

One particular recent instance being reported this week included a pair of American travelers busted by the Canadian government for what were described as fake COVID-19 vaccination documents, apparently in their bid to avoid quarantine measures and successfully enter the country.

They were reportedly fined 20,000 Canadian dollars each – or about $25,000 USD – after getting caught with the fakes. In total the pair will pay a whopping $50,000 fine.

“The unnamed travelers arrived from the U.S. in Canada the week of July 18. Officials from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) fined each traveler four times for a total of 19,720 CAD per traveler” Fox details.

Official protocol required that they also show a negative COVID test before boarding the inbound plane, after which travelers are required to be confined in a government-approved hotel for three days at the end of which they have to test negative again. All of this is at the traveler’s expense of course.

In this latest falsified documents case, the American pair even had fake negative tests:

The fake documents consisted of proof of vaccinations and pre-departure tests; officials also cited the pair for “non-compliance” with government requirements for accommodation and on-arrival testing, according to a PHAC press release. 

Via City News/The Canadian Press

The press release further laid out the maximum possible penalty for traveling with fake COVID documents or lying to enforcement officers as follows:

Violating any quarantine or isolation instructions provided to travellers by a screening officer or quarantine officer when entering Canada is also an offence under the Quarantine Act and could lead to a $5,000 fine for each day of non-compliance or for each offence committed, or more serious penalties, including six months in prison and/or $750,000 in fines. 

But likely this is only the beginning – as what are tantamount to ‘vaccine passports’ becomes the de facto new normal across various parts of the globe, there’s little doubt that an entire sophisticated counterfeit documents industry will arise – if it hasn’t already.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/31/2021 – 14:30

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3jbN1tw Tyler Durden

A Tale Of Two OLCs

In 2019, the House Ways and Means Committee requested six years of President Trump’s tax returns. At the time, OLC issued an opinion finding that the Treasury Department could refuse to provide the information. Here, Treasury determined that the Committee’s stated purpose–lawmaking–was pretextual. The real reason, Treasury concluded, was to expose Trump’s tax returns to the public. OLC found this conclusion was reasonable:

In view of these marked discrepancies in the public record, Treasury, quite reasonably, concluded that Chairman Neal had not articulated the real reason for his request. The Chairman’s request that Treasury turn over the President’s tax returns, for the apparent purpose of making them public, amounted to an unprecedented use of the Committee’s authority and raised a serious risk of abuse.

Moreover, OLC advised that Treasury could determine whether the stated purpose was legitimate:

While the Executive Branch should accord due deference and respect to congressional requests, the Executive need not treat the Committee’s assertion of the legitimacy of its purpose as unquestionable. Id. The President stands at the head of a co-equal branch of government, and he is separately accountable to the people for the faithful performance of his responsibilities. Treasury thus had the responsibility to confirm for itself that the Chairman’s request serves a legitimate legislative end. Id.

Under the circumstances, we agreed that it was reasonable to conclude that the Committee’s asserted interest in the IRS’s audit of presidential returns was pretextual, and that the true aim was to make the President’s tax returns public.

One year later, the Supreme Court decided Mazars v. Trump. The decision advanced a complicated balancing test to determine whether the returns must be provided. To date, the House still has not received Trump’s records.

In June 2021, the Ways and Means Committee requested the records of former President Trump. And on July 30, OLC advised that Treasury must release the returns. In the process, the Biden OLC criticized the Trump OLC–though the departure in doctrine is actually somewhat modest.

The primary difference between the two OLCs concerns the so-called “presumption of regularity.” Under this presumption, courts will generally presume government officials are acting in good faith. The Biden OLC says the Trump OLC erred by failing to grant the Committee the presumption of regularity:

The 2019 Opinion went astray, however, in suggesting that the Executive Branch should closely scrutinize the Committee’s stated justifications for its requests in a manner that failed to accord the respect and deference due a coordinate branch of government. Id. at *24–26. The 2019 Opinion also failed to give due weight to the fact that the Committee was acting pursuant to a carefully crafted statute that reflects a judgment by the political branches, going back nearly a century, that the congressional tax committees should have special access to tax information given their roles in overseeing the national tax system. Particularly in light of this special statutory authority, Treasury should conclude that a facially valid tax committee request lacks a legitimate legislative purpose only in exceptional circumstances.

The “presumption of regularity” was widely discussed over the past four years. Routinely, the Trump Administration asked the federal courts to afford its actions the presumption of regularity. And consistently, the lower courts failed to follow that presumption, finding that the government’s justifications were pretextual. This dynamic arose in the context of the travel ban, the census litigation, and many other cases. Now, the Biden OLC faults the Trump OLC for denying the House Committee the presumption of regularity.

The presumption of good faith and regularity does not mean that the Executive Branch must “blindly accept a pretextual justification” offered by a committee to justify an informational request. Id. at *17. But especially where, as here, a tax committee requests tax information pursuant to section 6103(f )(1) and has invoked facially valid reasons for its request (despite the statute’s not requiring any), the Executive Branch should conclude that the request lacks a legitimate legislative objective only in exceptional circumstances.

Generally, the presumption of regularity arises when a court reviews some governmental action. But OLC explains that the Executive Branch must afford that same presumption to the Legislative Branch.

The Executive Branch should likewise presume that congressional agents are acting pursuant to their constitutional authority and in good faith when evaluating the constitutionality of committee requests for information. Such a presumption reflects a general principle of inter-branch comity that is applicable to interactions among all three branches. Consistent with the respect due Congress as a coordinate branch, it has 

The Trump OLC vigorously rejected this form of “interbranch comity.” Assistant Attorney General Engel explained that the Executive Branch is accountable to the people, and must assert for itself whether the request is legitimate:

While the Executive Branch should accord due deference and respect to congressional requests, the Executive need not treat the Committee’s assertion of the legitimacy of its purpose as unquestionable. Id. The President stands at the head of a co-equal branch of government, and he is separately accountable to the people for the faithful performance of his responsibilities. Treasury thus had the responsibility to confirm for itself that the Chairman’s request serves a legitimate legislative end.

And, Engel explained, this independence is rooted in the separation of powers. The Executive Branch must resist intrusions by the Legislative Branch:

In doing so, Treasury acts as part of a politically accountable branch with a constitutional duty to resist legislative intrusions upon executive power and therefore does not act under the same institutional constraints as the Judiciary. . . . The head of the Executive Branch, who is elected separately from Congress, ultimately must answer to the people for the manner in which he exercises his authority. The separation of powers would be dramatically impaired were the Executive required to implement the laws by accepting the legitimacy of any reason proffered by Congress, even in the face of clear evidence to the contrary. In order to prevent the “special danger . . . of congressional usurpation of Executive Branch functions,” Mistretta, 488 U.S. at 411 n.35, we believe that Treasury must determine, for itself, whether the Committee’s stated reason reflects its true one or is merely a pretext. 

Acting Assistant Attorney General Johnsen said Engel was “mistaken.”

We believe that this argument in the 2019 Opinion was mistaken. Of course, “‘a legislative choice is not subject to courtroom factfinding,'” id. at *25 (quoting FCC v. Beach Commc’ns, Inc., 508 U.S. 307, 315 (1993))—but neither is it subject to factfinding in the halls of the Treasury and Justice Departments. The 2019 Opinion emphasized that the Executive Branch—unlike the courts—”operates as a politically accountable check on the Legislative Branch.” Id. It is true that the Constitution divides sovereign authority between the political branches, and that division of authority ensures that “those who administer each department” possess “the necessary constitutional means, and personal motives, to resist encroachments of the others.” The Federalist No. 51, at 349 (James Madi-son) (Jacob E. Cooke ed., 1961). That rivalrous relationship, however, also can lead each branch to inappropriately discount the legitimate interests of the other. See Mazars, 140 S. Ct. at 2032–35 (faulting both the President and the House for failing to give adequate weight to the interests of the other). And the Judiciary is designed to be neutral and disinterested. The relative competencies and capabilities of the Judiciary and the Executive, in other words, hardly offer a reason for the latter to deviate from the presumptions and norms of deference that the courts rightly apply when assessing the justifications of the political branches.

This paragraph, in a nutshell, illustrates the divide between the two OLCs. The Trump OLC viewed the Democratic-controlled House Committee as a rivalrous opponent that was trying to weaken the political President. And the Biden OLC views the Democratic-controlled House Committee as a coordinate branch of government that is entitled to the presumption of regularity.

Indeed, the Biden OLC discounts the role that politics plays. Here, AAG Johnsen adopts something of a “mixed motives” approach–even if some of the motivations behind the request were partisan, there was still alternative, legitimate reasons.

Moreover, the fact that a congressional request for information might serve partisan or other political interests is generally irrelevant to assessing its constitutionality, provided the request is, in fact, in the furtherance of a legitimate legislative task—just as presidential policy decisions are not suspect simply because the President may calculate that certain decisions will redound to his or her political benefit. “[T]he motives of committee members . . . alone would not vitiate an investigation which had been instituted by a House of Congress if that assembly’s legislative purpose is being served.” Watkins, 354 U.S. at 200; see also Eastland, 421 U.S. at 508 (“[I]n determining the legitimacy of a congressional act we do not look to the motives alleged to have prompted it.”). Such mixed congressional motivations are commonplace. Congress is composed of elected members who stand for re-election. It is therefore neither unusual nor illegitimate for partisan or other political considerations to factor into Congress’s work. If the mere presence of a political motivation were enough to disqualify a congressional request, the effect would be to deny Congress its authority to seek information—a result that is incompatible with the Constitution. 

When I read this paragraph, I chuckled out loud. OLC explains, with precision, how I’ve viewed mixed motives for years. I made this point in a New York Times op-ed:

Politicians pursue public policy, as they see it, coupled with a concern about their own political future. Otherwise legal conduct, even when plainly politically motivated — but without moving beyond a threshold of personal political gain — does not amount to an impeachable “abuse of power.”  . . . Politicians routinely promote their understanding of the general welfare, while, in the back of their minds, considering how those actions will affect their popularity. Often, the two concepts overlap: What’s good for the country is good for the official’s re-election. All politicians understand this dynamic, even — or perhaps especially — Mr. Trump. And there is nothing corrupt about acting based on such competing and overlapping concerns. Politicians can, and do, check the polls before casting a difficult vote. Yet the impeachment trial threatens to transform this well-understood aspect of politics into an impeachable offense.

Consistently, President Trump acted with mixed motives: he was motivated by a desire to promote the public interest, as he saw it, and in the process advance his political prospects. Much of the so-called legal resistance was designed to take way the President’s power to govern. But it is neither “unusual nor illegitimate for partisan or other political considerations to factor” into the President’s work. This discussion of mixed motivates is perhaps the most important section of the entire OLC opinion. In an effort to dunk on the Trump OLC, the Biden OLC has greenlighted future expansions of executive power based on presidential mixed motives.

Ultimately, the Biden OLC found that the dynamics are different now that Trump is out of office.

We question whether these objections were well-taken at the time. In any event, we now conclude that none offers a basis for calling into question the auditing rationale de-scribed in the Chairman’s new June 2021 Request. 

Sitting Presidents are protected from certain types of burdens. Former Presidents are not.

More to the point, the June 2021 Request seeks the tax information, not of a sitting President, but of a former President. This distinction greatly mitigates the Court’s concerns about Congress using its investigatory power to exert control over the President—to “render him complaisan[t] to the humors of the Legislature.” Id. at 2034 (internal quotation marks omitted). Similarly, the June 2021 Request does not threaten an “‘unnecessary intrusion into the operation of the Office of the President'” or to impose “burdens on the President’s time and attention.” Id. at 2036 (quoting Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Ct., 542 U.S. 367, 387 (2004)).Even if separation of powers considerations continue to inform analysis of the June 2021 Request, such considerations would be much less pronounced after a President leaves office and returns to life as a private citizen. Cf. A Sitting President’s Amenability to Indictment and Criminal Prosecution, 24 Op. O.L.C. 222, 246–57 (2000).

True enough. But the purpose of these requests is now to weaken Trump as a 2024 candidate. The idea that the requests are really about promoting the lawmaking process was never plausible. The Biden OLC goes out of its way to “blink reality” and ignore what is really motivating the request. Johnsen effectively says the statements of individual members of the committee are irrelevant, because the Committee’s request, as a whole, was facially neutral.

Second, although it is possible that some members of Congress might hope that former President Trump’s tax returns are published solely in order to embarrass him or to “expose for the sake of exposure,” such individuals’ motives would not serve to invalidate the Committee’s re-quest. The Committee’s June 2021 Request plainly serves legitimate legislative objectives, even if some individual legislators might have other reasons for wanting access to the information. 

This sentence should be quoted in the litigation against voting laws in Texas, Georgia, and elsewhere. Indeed, in a footnote, OLC writes they would not look at a politician’s public statements that are in conflict with the formal request!

The 2019 Opinion also noted that Chairman Neal’s accompanying “press release” referred only to the President’s tax returns, and not to the IRS’s administrative files. Id. at *27–28. But the contents of an elected official’s press release describing a formal request are not grounds for disregarding the contents of that request itself for purposes of assessing its constitutional sufficiency.  

I lost count of how many judges cited Trump’s tweets, and disregarded the actual text of a policy.

In the end, Trump’s tax returns will see the light of day. And the content of those returns will not change anyone’s minds. But the separation of powers will be weaker for it.

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A Tale Of Two OLCs

In 2019, the House Ways and Means Committee requested six years of President Trump’s tax returns. At the time, OLC issued an opinion finding that the Treasury Department could refuse to provide the information. Here, Treasury determined that the Committee’s stated purpose–lawmaking–was pretextual. The real reason, Treasury concluded, was to expose Trump’s tax returns to the public. OLC found this conclusion was reasonable:

In view of these marked discrepancies in the public record, Treasury, quite reasonably, concluded that Chairman Neal had not articulated the real reason for his request. The Chairman’s request that Treasury turn over the President’s tax returns, for the apparent purpose of making them public, amounted to an unprecedented use of the Committee’s authority and raised a serious risk of abuse.

Moreover, OLC advised that Treasury could determine whether the stated purpose was legitimate:

While the Executive Branch should accord due deference and respect to congressional requests, the Executive need not treat the Committee’s assertion of the legitimacy of its purpose as unquestionable. Id. The President stands at the head of a co-equal branch of government, and he is separately accountable to the people for the faithful performance of his responsibilities. Treasury thus had the responsibility to confirm for itself that the Chairman’s request serves a legitimate legislative end. Id.

Under the circumstances, we agreed that it was reasonable to conclude that the Committee’s asserted interest in the IRS’s audit of presidential returns was pretextual, and that the true aim was to make the President’s tax returns public.

One year later, the Supreme Court decided Mazars v. Trump. The decision advanced a complicated balancing test to determine whether the returns must be provided. To date, the House still has not received Trump’s records.

In June 2021, the Ways and Means Committee requested the records of former President Trump. And on July 30, OLC advised that Treasury must release the returns. In the process, the Biden OLC criticized the Trump OLC–though the departure in doctrine is actually somewhat modest.

The primary difference between the two OLCs concerns the so-called “presumption of regularity.” Under this presumption, courts will generally presume government officials are acting in good faith. The Biden OLC says the Trump OLC erred by failing to grant the Committee the presumption of regularity:

The 2019 Opinion went astray, however, in suggesting that the Executive Branch should closely scrutinize the Committee’s stated justifications for its requests in a manner that failed to accord the respect and deference due a coordinate branch of government. Id. at *24–26. The 2019 Opinion also failed to give due weight to the fact that the Committee was acting pursuant to a carefully crafted statute that reflects a judgment by the political branches, going back nearly a century, that the congressional tax committees should have special access to tax information given their roles in overseeing the national tax system. Particularly in light of this special statutory authority, Treasury should conclude that a facially valid tax committee request lacks a legitimate legislative purpose only in exceptional circumstances.

The “presumption of regularity” was widely discussed over the past four years. Routinely, the Trump Administration asked the federal courts to afford its actions the presumption of regularity. And consistently, the lower courts failed to follow that presumption, finding that the government’s justifications were pretextual. This dynamic arose in the context of the travel ban, the census litigation, and many other cases. Now, the Biden OLC faults the Trump OLC for denying the House Committee the presumption of regularity.

The presumption of good faith and regularity does not mean that the Executive Branch must “blindly accept a pretextual justification” offered by a committee to justify an informational request. Id. at *17. But especially where, as here, a tax committee requests tax information pursuant to section 6103(f )(1) and has invoked facially valid reasons for its request (despite the statute’s not requiring any), the Executive Branch should conclude that the request lacks a legitimate legislative objective only in exceptional circumstances.

Generally, the presumption of regularity arises when a court reviews some governmental action. But OLC explains that the Executive Branch must afford that same presumption to the Legislative Branch.

The Executive Branch should likewise presume that congressional agents are acting pursuant to their constitutional authority and in good faith when evaluating the constitutionality of committee requests for information. Such a presumption reflects a general principle of inter-branch comity that is applicable to interactions among all three branches. Consistent with the respect due Congress as a coordinate branch, it has 

The Trump OLC vigorously rejected this form of “interbranch comity.” Assistant Attorney General Engel explained that the Executive Branch is accountable to the people, and must assert for itself whether the request is legitimate:

While the Executive Branch should accord due deference and respect to congressional requests, the Executive need not treat the Committee’s assertion of the legitimacy of its purpose as unquestionable. Id. The President stands at the head of a co-equal branch of government, and he is separately accountable to the people for the faithful performance of his responsibilities. Treasury thus had the responsibility to confirm for itself that the Chairman’s request serves a legitimate legislative end.

And, Engel explained, this independence is rooted in the separation of powers. The Executive Branch must resist intrusions by the Legislative Branch:

In doing so, Treasury acts as part of a politically accountable branch with a constitutional duty to resist legislative intrusions upon executive power and therefore does not act under the same institutional constraints as the Judiciary. . . . The head of the Executive Branch, who is elected separately from Congress, ultimately must answer to the people for the manner in which he exercises his authority. The separation of powers would be dramatically impaired were the Executive required to implement the laws by accepting the legitimacy of any reason proffered by Congress, even in the face of clear evidence to the contrary. In order to prevent the “special danger . . . of congressional usurpation of Executive Branch functions,” Mistretta, 488 U.S. at 411 n.35, we believe that Treasury must determine, for itself, whether the Committee’s stated reason reflects its true one or is merely a pretext. 

Acting Assistant Attorney General Johnsen said Engel was “mistaken.”

We believe that this argument in the 2019 Opinion was mistaken. Of course, “‘a legislative choice is not subject to courtroom factfinding,'” id. at *25 (quoting FCC v. Beach Commc’ns, Inc., 508 U.S. 307, 315 (1993))—but neither is it subject to factfinding in the halls of the Treasury and Justice Departments. The 2019 Opinion emphasized that the Executive Branch—unlike the courts—”operates as a politically accountable check on the Legislative Branch.” Id. It is true that the Constitution divides sovereign authority between the political branches, and that division of authority ensures that “those who administer each department” possess “the necessary constitutional means, and personal motives, to resist encroachments of the others.” The Federalist No. 51, at 349 (James Madi-son) (Jacob E. Cooke ed., 1961). That rivalrous relationship, however, also can lead each branch to inappropriately discount the legitimate interests of the other. See Mazars, 140 S. Ct. at 2032–35 (faulting both the President and the House for failing to give adequate weight to the interests of the other). And the Judiciary is designed to be neutral and disinterested. The relative competencies and capabilities of the Judiciary and the Executive, in other words, hardly offer a reason for the latter to deviate from the presumptions and norms of deference that the courts rightly apply when assessing the justifications of the political branches.

This paragraph, in a nutshell, illustrates the divide between the two OLCs. The Trump OLC viewed the Democratic-controlled House Committee as a rivalrous opponent that was trying to weaken the political President. And the Biden OLC views the Democratic-controlled House Committee as a coordinate branch of government that is entitled to the presumption of regularity.

Indeed, the Biden OLC discounts the role that politics plays. Here, AAG Johnsen adopts something of a “mixed motives” approach–even if some of the motivations behind the request were partisan, there was still alternative, legitimate reasons.

Moreover, the fact that a congressional request for information might serve partisan or other political interests is generally irrelevant to assessing its constitutionality, provided the request is, in fact, in the furtherance of a legitimate legislative task—just as presidential policy decisions are not suspect simply because the President may calculate that certain decisions will redound to his or her political benefit. “[T]he motives of committee members . . . alone would not vitiate an investigation which had been instituted by a House of Congress if that assembly’s legislative purpose is being served.” Watkins, 354 U.S. at 200; see also Eastland, 421 U.S. at 508 (“[I]n determining the legitimacy of a congressional act we do not look to the motives alleged to have prompted it.”). Such mixed congressional motivations are commonplace. Congress is composed of elected members who stand for re-election. It is therefore neither unusual nor illegitimate for partisan or other political considerations to factor into Congress’s work. If the mere presence of a political motivation were enough to disqualify a congressional request, the effect would be to deny Congress its authority to seek information—a result that is incompatible with the Constitution. 

When I read this paragraph, I chuckled out loud. OLC explains, with precision, how I’ve viewed mixed motives for years. I made this point in a New York Times op-ed:

Politicians pursue public policy, as they see it, coupled with a concern about their own political future. Otherwise legal conduct, even when plainly politically motivated — but without moving beyond a threshold of personal political gain — does not amount to an impeachable “abuse of power.”  . . . Politicians routinely promote their understanding of the general welfare, while, in the back of their minds, considering how those actions will affect their popularity. Often, the two concepts overlap: What’s good for the country is good for the official’s re-election. All politicians understand this dynamic, even — or perhaps especially — Mr. Trump. And there is nothing corrupt about acting based on such competing and overlapping concerns. Politicians can, and do, check the polls before casting a difficult vote. Yet the impeachment trial threatens to transform this well-understood aspect of politics into an impeachable offense.

Consistently, President Trump acted with mixed motives: he was motivated by a desire to promote the public interest, as he saw it, and in the process advance his political prospects. Much of the so-called legal resistance was designed to take way the President’s power to govern. But it is neither “unusual nor illegitimate for partisan or other political considerations to factor” into the President’s work. This discussion of mixed motivates is perhaps the most important section of the entire OLC opinion. In an effort to dunk on the Trump OLC, the Biden OLC has greenlighted future expansions of executive power based on presidential mixed motives.

Ultimately, the Biden OLC found that the dynamics are different now that Trump is out of office.

We question whether these objections were well-taken at the time. In any event, we now conclude that none offers a basis for calling into question the auditing rationale de-scribed in the Chairman’s new June 2021 Request. 

Sitting Presidents are protected from certain types of burdens. Former Presidents are not.

More to the point, the June 2021 Request seeks the tax information, not of a sitting President, but of a former President. This distinction greatly mitigates the Court’s concerns about Congress using its investigatory power to exert control over the President—to “render him complaisan[t] to the humors of the Legislature.” Id. at 2034 (internal quotation marks omitted). Similarly, the June 2021 Request does not threaten an “‘unnecessary intrusion into the operation of the Office of the President'” or to impose “burdens on the President’s time and attention.” Id. at 2036 (quoting Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Ct., 542 U.S. 367, 387 (2004)).Even if separation of powers considerations continue to inform analysis of the June 2021 Request, such considerations would be much less pronounced after a President leaves office and returns to life as a private citizen. Cf. A Sitting President’s Amenability to Indictment and Criminal Prosecution, 24 Op. O.L.C. 222, 246–57 (2000).

True enough. But the purpose of these requests is now to weaken Trump as a 2024 candidate. The idea that the requests are really about promoting the lawmaking process was never plausible. The Biden OLC goes out of its way to “blink reality” and ignore what is really motivating the request. Johnsen effectively says the statements of individual members of the committee are irrelevant, because the Committee’s request, as a whole, was facially neutral.

Second, although it is possible that some members of Congress might hope that former President Trump’s tax returns are published solely in order to embarrass him or to “expose for the sake of exposure,” such individuals’ motives would not serve to invalidate the Committee’s re-quest. The Committee’s June 2021 Request plainly serves legitimate legislative objectives, even if some individual legislators might have other reasons for wanting access to the information. 

This sentence should be quoted in the litigation against voting laws in Texas, Georgia, and elsewhere. Indeed, in a footnote, OLC writes they would not look at a politician’s public statements that are in conflict with the formal request!

The 2019 Opinion also noted that Chairman Neal’s accompanying “press release” referred only to the President’s tax returns, and not to the IRS’s administrative files. Id. at *27–28. But the contents of an elected official’s press release describing a formal request are not grounds for disregarding the contents of that request itself for purposes of assessing its constitutional sufficiency.  

I lost count of how many judges cited Trump’s tweets, and disregarded the actual text of a policy.

In the end, Trump’s tax returns will see the light of day. And the content of those returns will not change anyone’s minds. But the separation of powers will be weaker for it.

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US-Russia Nuclear Talks Began With Moscow Insisting UK, France Must Be Involved

US-Russia Nuclear Talks Began With Moscow Insisting UK, France Must Be Involved

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

As senior US and Russian officials met in Geneva on Wednesday to discuss arms control, Moscow said the UK and France should be involved in broader nuclear talks since Washington wants China to participate.

US officials frequently call for China to be involved in arms control treaties, but Beijing’s nuclear arsenal is a fraction of what Washington and Moscow possess. Current estimates put China’s arsenal between 300 and 350 warheads, while the US and Russia each have around 6,000.

Prior US-Russia talks in 2018, via Arms Control Association/US Mission

Russia’s response to US calls for China to participate in arms control is that the UK and France should also be involved since they boast similar arsenals. Estimates put France’s arsenal at 290 warheads and the UK’s at 215. Earlier this year, the British announced that they are increasing their stockpile and setting the cap of nuclear warheads to 260, up from the current limit of 180.

“This question has taken on particular relevance in light of London’s recent decision to increase the maximum level of nuclear warheads by 40% — to 260 units,” Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said while discussing the idea of wider arms control talks.

And Reuters noted further that “In separate comments, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that the United States wanted China to be included in wider talks on nuclear arms control, the Interfax news agency reported.”

You will find more infographics at Statista

The US State Department described Wednesday’s talks as “professional and substantive.” No breakthroughs were made, but the two sides agreed to continue a dialogue on arms control.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/31/2021 – 14:00

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Mexican President Rejects Jabs For Kids, “Won’t Be Held Hostage By [Profiteering] Pharma Companies”

Mexican President Rejects Jabs For Kids, “Won’t Be Held Hostage By [Profiteering] Pharma Companies”

While we often mock US President Biden for accidentally “saying the quiet part out loud,” it appears Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) decided to intentionally turn up the “saying what everyone is thinking” amplifier of truth to ’11’ after refusing to COVID vaccines for children, vowing that Mexico wouldn’t bow to pressure from big pharma.

In remarks made earlier this week, the Mexican leader said his government was still waiting for the scientific community to demonstrate the benefits of vaccinating minors.

Until conclusive evidence was provided, AMLO told the audience (in what has now become a viral, if not very under-reported) speech, that Mexico would refuse to purchase jabs for children; adding that pharmaceutical firms seemed to be focused more on making profits than on ensuring medical necessity as they rake in record sales from Covid-19 vaccines.

“We need to be careful, because, as it is obvious pharmaceutical companies wish to make a profit… and would like to keep selling vaccines for everyone.

But we need to prioritize; we need to know if they’re needed or not.

We need to not be subordinated to Big Pharma dictating to us… ‘we need a 3rd dose’, ‘we need a 4th dose’, ‘we need to vaccinate children’…”

Speaking on the same topic, Undersecretary for Health Hugo López-Gatell claimed there was “no scientific evidence” showing the jab was “essential” for minors.

Watch the brief moment of honesty from an elite breaking ranks below…

This did prompt some rather interesting social media responses, including

Will AMLO be banned from Twitter? We wonder how long before the ‘establishment’ ramps up the narrative that AMLO is a child-killer? Seriously, what has this world come to?

Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/31/2021 – 13:30

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How Science Becomes Religion

How Science Becomes Religion

Authored by Sheldon Richman via The Libertarian Insititute, 

The popular slogan today is “Believe in science.” It’s often used as a weapon against people who reject not science in principle but rather one or another prominent scientific proposition, whether it be about the COVID-19 vaccine, climate change, nutrition (low-fat versus low-carb eating), to mention a few. My purpose here is not to defend or deny any particular scientific position but to question the model of science that the loudest self-declared believers in science seem to work from. Their model makes science seem almost identical to what they mean by, and attack as, religion. If that’s the case, we ought not to listen to them when they lecture the rest of us about heeding science.

The clearest problem with the admonition to “believe in science” is that it is of no help whatsoever when well-credentialed scientists–that is, bona fide experts–are found on both (or all) sides of a given empirical question. Dominant parts of the intelligentsia may prefer we not know this, but dissenting experts exist on many scientific questions that some blithely pronounce as “settled” by a “consensus,” that is, beyond debate. This is true regarding the precise nature and likely consequences of climate change and aspects of the coronavirus and its vaccine. Without real evidence, credentialed mavericks are often maligned as having been corrupted by industry, with the tacit faith that scientists who voice the established position are pure and incorruptible. It’s as though the quest for government money could not in themselves bias scientific research. Moreover, no one, not even scientists, are immune from group-think and confirmation bias.

So the “believe the science” chorus gives the credentialed mavericks no notice unless it’s to defame them. Apparently, under the believers’ model of science, truth comes down from a secular Mount Sinai (Mount Science?) thanks to a set of anointed scientists, and those declarations are not to be questioned. The dissenters can be ignored because they are outside the elect. How did the elect achieve its exalted station? Often, but not always, it was through the political process: for example, appointment to a government agency or the awarding of prestigious grants. It may be that a scientist simply has won the adoration of the progressive intelligentsia because his or her views align easily with a particular policy agenda.

But that’s not science; it’s religion, or at least it’s the stereotype of religion that the “science believers” oppose in the name of enlightenment. What it yields is dogma and, in effect, accusations of heresy.

In real science no elect and no Mount Science exists. Real science is a rough-and-tumble process of hypothesizing, public testing, attempted replication, theory formation, dissent and rebuttal, refutation (perhaps), revision (perhaps), and confirmation (perhaps). It’s an unending process, as it obviously must be. Who knows what’s around the next corner? No empirical question can be declared settled by consensus once and for all, even if with time a theory has withstood enough competent challenges to warrant a high degree of confidence. (In a world of scarce resources, including time, not all questions can be pursued, so choices must be made.) The institutional power to declare matters settled by consensus opens the door to all kinds of mischief that violate the spirit of science and potentially harm the public financially and otherwise.

The weird thing is that “believers in science” sometimes show that they understand science correctly. Some celebrity atheists, for example, use a correct model of science when they insist to religious people that we can never achieve “absolute truth,” by which they mean infallibility is beyond reach. But they soon forget this principle when it comes to their pet scientific propositions. Then suddenly they sound like the people they were attacking in the previous hour.

Another problem with the dogmatic “believers in science” is that they assume that proper government policy, which is a normative matter, flows seamlessly from “the science,” which is a positive matter. If one knows the science, then one knows what everyone ought to do–or so the scientific dogmatists think. It’s as though scientists were uniquely qualified by virtue of their expertise to prescribe the best public-policy response.

But that is utterly false. Public policy is about moral judgment, trade-offs, and the justifiable use of coercion. Natural scientists are neither uniquely knowledgeable about those matters nor uniquely capable of making the right decisions for everyone. When medical scientists advised a lockdown of economic activity because of the pandemic, they were not speaking as scientists but as moralists (in scientists’ clothing). What are their special qualifications for that role? How could those scientists possibly have taken into account all of the serious consequences of a lockdown–psychological, domestic, social, economic, etc.–for the diverse individual human beings who would be subject to the policy? What qualifies natural scientists to decide that people who need screening for cancer or heart disease must wait indefinitely while people with an officially designated disease need not? (Politicians issue the formal prohibitions, but their scientific advisers provide apparent credibility.)

Here’s the relevant distinction: while we ought to favor science, we ought to reject scientism, the mistaken belief that the only questions worth asking are those amenable to the methods of the natural sciences and therefore all questions must either be recast appropriately or dismissed as gibberish. F. A. Hayek, in The Counter-Revolution of Science, defined scientism as the “slavish imitation of the method and language of Science.”

I like how the philosopher Gilbert Ryle put it in The Concept of Mind: “Physicists may one day have found the answers to all physical questions, but not all questions are physical questions. The laws they have found and will find may, in one sense of the metaphorical verb, govern everything that happens, but they do not ordain everything that happens. Indeed they do not ordain anything that happens. Laws of nature are not fiats.”

“How should we live?” is not one of those questions which natural scientists are specially qualified to answer, but it is certainly worth asking. Likewise, “What risks should you or I take or avoid?” There is a world of difference between a medical expert’s saying, “Vaccine X is generally safe and effective” and “Vaccination should be mandatory.” (One of the great critics of scientism was Thomas Szasz, M.D., who devoted his life to battling the medical profession’s, and especially psychiatry’s, crusade to recast moral issues as medical issues and thereby control people in the name of disinterested science.)

Most people are unqualified to judge most scientific conclusions, but they are qualified to live their lives reasonably. I’m highly confident the earth is a sphere and that a water molecule is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. But I do not know how to confirm those propositions. So we all need to rely on scientific and medical authorities–not in the sense of power but in the sense of expertise and reputation. (Even authorities in one area rely on authorities in others.)

But we must also remember that those authorities’ empirical claims are defeasible; that is, they are in principle open to rebuttal and perhaps refutation, that is, the scientific process. Aside from the indispensable and self-validating axioms of logic, all claims are open in this sense. That process is what gets us to the truth. As John Stuart Mill pointed out in On Liberty, even a dissenter who holds a demonstrably wrong view on a question might know something important on that very question that has been overlooked. To our peril do we shut people up or shout them down as heretics. That’s dogma, not science.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/31/2021 – 13:00

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