Linky Friday: Among, But Not Of Edition

As always, all the pieces shared in Linky Friday are for discussion purposes only and are solely the opinions of the individual authors.

[LF1] Has the Maricopa County Audit Yielded Hundreds of Thousands of Votes? No. by Khaya Himmelman in The Dispatch

On April 23, Arizona Republicans began an election audit of 2020 election ballots from Maricopa County. Despite the fact that election results were certified in favor of President Joe Biden months ago, Arizona Republicans, peddling familiar election conspiracy theories, are insisting that Donald Trump won the state. Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs has called the audit, which is currently in process, a “farce,” according to CNN.

Despite multiple audits by Maricopa officials that found no evidence of fraud, the ongoing audit is looking at 2.1 million ballots and 400 voting machines for evidence of voter fraud.

In light of the Arizona audit, several Facebook posts have been widely circulating that claim several thousands of fraudulent have been found in the audit thus far. One such post says that: “Over 200 Thousand Votes Found So Far Today!”

This is a false claim.

At this time no evidence of voter fraud has been reported in Maricopa County from this audit. The official Arizona audit website has not released any information regarding the results

Senate Republicans have hired Cyber Ninjas, a Florida-based cybersecurity firm that has previously promoted baseless election conspiracy claims, to conduct the Arizona audit.

It’s worth noting that the Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan was involved in a lawsuit in Antrim County, Michigan in December 2020, in which Trump supporters falsely claimed there were instances of voter fraud. Logan was listed as an expert witness in the case of alleged fraud in Antrim County after unofficial reports in the county were mistakenly reported due to a data-entry error. The Dispatch’s Alec Dent has previously explained the incident: “Antrim County revealed it had inadvertently misreported a number of votes in unofficial results, with state GOP Chairwoman Laura Cox claiming that the error was due to ‘tabulating software glitched and caused a miscalculation of the votes.’ However, Michigan’s secretary of state announced that it was not a software issue, but ‘user human error’ that led to the misreporting, and clarified that ‘the correct results always were and continue to be reflected on the tabulator totals tape and on the ballots themselves. Even if the error in the reported unofficial results had not been quickly noticed, it would have been identified during the county canvass.’”

[LF2] Why reforming qualified immunity will never resolve police violence by Cedric L. Alexander in The Washington Post

As lawmakers in Congress negotiate their long-awaited police reform bill, Democrats are sticking firm to their conviction that the legislation must include some type of reform of qualified immunity — the legal protections that make suing individual police officers for misconduct nearly impossible. For many on the left, that raises an important question: To what extent should they be willing to compromise on reforming the law?

It’s the wrong question to ask. As a 40-year veteran of law enforcement, from sheriff’s deputy to chief and director of public safety, I firmly believe that nothing federal, state or local governments do about qualified immunity will significantly reduce or increase the incidence of unjustified deadly force by police. Real reform requires us to go much deeper than tweaking tort rules.

I do not wish to dismiss the debate about qualified immunity. Indeed, the arguments against it are compelling. Some say it puts the officer above the law, at least civil law, by denying the families of those unjustly killed by the police their constitutional right to seek redress of grievance.

This is a legitimate point, but so, too, are arguments that immunity should be available when officers are called to account for split-second life-or-death decisions. Concern over financial liability should not be permitted to cloud an officer’s judgment at a critical moment.

And financial liability is a real concern. I am certain that the most committed supporters of the doctrine remain the majority of cities and other local governments that see the qualified immunity defense as an urgent budgetary matter. A report published early this year revealed that, over 10 years, New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles spent a combined total of $2.5 billion to settle lawsuits against police.

Put it this way: Taxpayers cannot afford the mounting direct monetary costs of the abuse of policing authority. Realizing this, city and other local governments have embraced qualified immunity not only as a means of defeating liability lawsuits, but also to manage liability itself.

[LF3] All of This Shit is High School by Freddie deBoer

People don’t dislike each other because of abstract politics or morals. That’s not how humans function. People dislike each other because of pure lizard brain shit, the kind of brute emotional entanglements that determined who you were friends with in elementary school. I’m something of an asshole so I’m never particularly aggrieved when people don’t like me. I can be a real dick. I make people feel insecure. I 100% get not liking me. What bothers me is when people dress this shit up with high-minded moral or political principle, pretending that they’re so elevated that they’re only motivated by abstract notions of the right and the good. Bullshit. You don’t like my style. You don’t like my attitude. You think I’m pretentious and corny and mean. Fair game, fair game, fair game. But don’t tell me our disagreements are political when they’re personal. I’m not saying you don’t disagree with some of the things I say. I’m saying that even if you didn’t you’d find a way to justify not liking me.

Oh you hate Glenn Greenwald’s politics? What is it specifically, you have a cousin who works for the Bolsonaro administration, or a deep respect for the operational integrity of the NSA? Hmmm? Or, perhaps – and hear me out here – you just think Greenwald is an asshole but you have a vague sense that that isn’t an adult reason to criticize someone so you’re coming up with a bullshit political pretext. Doesn’t that seem like a simpler, more honest explanation? Glenn is abrasive. Glenn is imperious. Glenn is unsparing towards the media that he (correctly) feels has failed in its basic civic duties. That’s why you don’t like him. And that’s OK. If you think he’s an asshole, call him an asshole. But this song and dance where you talk like he has Andrew Breitbart’s politics is a farce and you know it. Media people have always hated Glenn because he’s been very successful in journalism despite rejecting journalism’s professional and social culture. He is very much Not One of Us to them. They can’t imagine getting beers with him so he must be a reactionary. That’s all it is. And fine, fine. But let’s be honest about this fact, OK?

Is Bruenig Derangement Syndrome a product of Liz Bruenig’s unorthodox-but-not-really-that-controversial politics? Or the weird high school mean girl shit that rules politics and media? I suspect it’s because she’s openly religious – not out of rejection of her religious beliefs but out of breaking 21st century liberal social norms about hiding those religious beliefs. Someone will no doubt pipe up and say “But she said Bad Thing!” OK. But look deep within. Think about the order of events. Did you see her as a complete blank slate prior to Bad Thing, and after your opinion on her became negative? Or did you already have an inchoate dislike that you conveniently now define through Bad Thing? Is Briahna Joy Gray’s reputation more determined by her socialist and identity-skeptical politics, or by the fact that people feel she’s refreshingly hopeful/annoyingly chipper? Is Jeet Heer a lovable old liberal uncle, or a 400-tweet response to a question nobody asked? Not a political question! Is Aimee Terese strident or crazy? Not a political question! Is Rob Delaney everybody’s cool dad cause of his lukewarm politics or because he’s just cool? Do you want to hang out with someone who has great politics or someone who has great blow? LET’S GET REAL.

[LF4] Sohrab Ahmari and the Price of “Liberalism” by Robert Tracinski in The Bulwark

What is remarkable is not that Sohrab Ahmari tries to evade the entire history of classical liberalism, including the founding of America. That’s kind of his shtick. What is remarkable is that he thinks the average conservative reader will simply accept the omission. And judging from the fact that he is being published in a venerable old publication like the Spectator—and judging from what I’ve seen of the response—it looks like he’s getting away with it.

This is partly a sign of the intellectual decay of conservatism, a mass forgetting of its own intellectual foundations. But it is also a sign of the weakness of those foundations, a weakness centered on the old and seemingly irrelevant argument about the meaning of the word “liberal.”

This is the price conservatives are paying for long ago giving up on the term “liberal” and agreeing to use it to describe anything on the left, no matter how illiberal it might be. It is the price they are paying for giving up on defining their own philosophy as “liberal”—as a defense of freedom—rather than as a mere clinging to tradition.

That decision turns out not to have been merely semantic or terminological, but to have real, substantive consequences.

You may say, as the best conservatives do, that what you are trying to conserve is the American founding and its classical liberal ideas. But the act of couching your outlook as “conservative” has the effect of shifting your focus toward the preservation of the past as such and draws you into an ideological and political alliance with those for whom the value of liberal principles is secondary at best. It creates a political category that attempts to encompass the souls of both Thomas Jefferson and Archie Bunker—and ultimately cannot contain both.

That’s the crackup that is happening right now on the right. Archie Bunker conservatism—the kind that longs nostalgically for a past in which “guys like us, we had it made”—is trying to assert itself and views the classical liberals as an obstacle to be cleared out of the way. The easiest way to accomplish that is by defining us out of existence.

[LF5] Abandoning Afghanistan: Bad history and bad strategy in Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal by Paul D. Miller in Arc Digital

There are no grounds for Biden’s claim that we have exhausted whatever gains our military can make against the Taliban. Unfortunately, Biden’s bad history makes for bad strategy. For example, he argued that “while we will not stay involved in Afghanistan militarily, our diplomatic and humanitarian work will continue,” specifically promising “to support the rights of Afghan women and girls” with civilian aid. But removing military support undermines the conditions necessary to make such promises meaningful.

To be clear, Biden’s rhetoric is welcome, considering the United States’s strategic partnership agreements with Afghanistan in 2005 and 2012 and its broad commitment to support human rights and democracy abroad. Bush and Obama both understood that functional governance and basic stability in Afghanistan were crucial to the U.S.’s overall war aims.

But Biden’s promise to support governance and development in a war zone without the military is magical thinking. Civilian aid programs do not simply happen when Congress writes a check or the president gives a speech. They require officials to administer contracts and grants, oversee programs, ensure transparency and accountability, and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse. These officials cannot do their jobs in a war zone without protection. Without security, aid programs are pointless.

Biden anticipated a related criticism about the interplay between hard and soft power in his speech. “I know there are many who will loudly insist that diplomacy cannot succeed without a robust U.S. military presence to stand as leverage,” he said. “We gave that argument a decade. It’s never proved effective.”

We did not “give that argument a decade.” The United States cut civilian aid every year since 2010, continuously shrinking the programs that were supposed to invest in Afghan partner capacity and hasten the day when the United States could responsibly exit. Earlier, Obama came close to combining a robust military engagement and well-funded civilian effort—and he undermined both with his public withdrawal timetables. Overall, both the civilians and the soldiers were given too little to work with, and then blamed for failing to achieve the impossible.

[LF6] The deregulation of beer and the rise of actually good beer, finally by Erik Kain

Trendsetters set trends. Beer-drinkers, desperate for beer that didn’t taste like a cross between water and piss, discovered craft brews or knew people who brewed their own beer and gradually craft brew spread from Portland and other hubs of the early craft industry to college towns across the country and now pretty much everywhere. Partly this was due to connoisseurs and beer evangelists spreading the good word1.

But it also has to do with states and the federal government deregulating the beer industry beginning in the 1970s and continuing throughout the 1980s.

Putting the kibosh on outdated beer production laws led directly to the rise of craft brewing and slowly gave way to the market landscape we have today. Remember those “bitter beer face” commercials? Those were a direct response from corporate beer companies to the rise of IPAs and the like. When that didn’t work, InBev and other massive corporate beer and drink companies started buying smaller brewers.

Carter made it legal for homebrewers to brew their own beer in the late 1970s (it’s still illegal to distill your own liquor, largely because liquor is taxed so high and the government wants that sweet, sweet tax money, but also for health reasons) and then in the early 80s’ states started legalizing micro-breweries and brewpubs. There’s still a web of distribution laws that favor huge beer corporations, but the climate for beer production has become much more friendly to small brewers and consumers.

All of which is to say that yes, there was a market for beer that wasn’t Budweiser and yes connoisseurs certainly helped spread craft beer to the masses and yes sometimes these types can be snobby and annoying, but really this is the direct result of the government backing off and allowing small businesses to compete with state-subsidized corporations at least a little bit. Not all deregulation is good for the world—environmental deregulation springs to mind—but it certainly can be, especially when it favors the little guy.

[LF7] The Cold, Hard Facts about the Liz Cheney Saga By Jim Geraghty at National Review

The fact that Trump told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo that he was considering Florida governor Ron DeSantis to be his running mate is an intriguing indicator that Trump realizes other, younger Republican figures who are still in office are exciting the GOP grassroots. (By the way, under the Constitution, the president and vice president cannot represent the same state, but it would be a simple matter for Trump to move his legal residence to one of his other homes in another state.)

Trump is extremely unlikely to be vanquished and driven from the Republican Party in a grand conflict. Conflict is the oxygen that keeps Trump going — that and media attention, and the mainstream media loves to cover Republican infighting. It is in Trump’s instinct and interest to maximize the intensity of every fight with every rival in the party, real and perceived: Cheney, Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell.

As we saw in the Georgia Senate runoffs, Trump doesn’t hesitate in the slightest in prioritizing his hurt feelings and nutty conspiracy theories over what the Republican Party at any given moment. He will happily enable more Democratic wins out of spite.

You know who doesn’t win when the intensity of every fight is maximized? The Republican Party and conservative objectives as a whole.

While it is inconceivable that Trump would lose a fight over control of the party now, it is conceivable that the air may slowly leak out of the Trump balloon, month by month, year by year. The news cycle, the political environment, and the national discussion moves on to other things. Tucker Carlson is filling the media’s giant need for a “You won’t believe what he just said” figure. You notice no one is asking what the former president thinks about the proposed infrastructure plans, Biden’s stance on any foreign-policy issue, how to persuade the vaccine-reluctant, or the potential for a bipartisan police-reform bill. Trump is, at best, intermittently interested in policy and usually not interested in the details at all. Donald Trump is primarily interested in Donald Trump. He wants the national discussion and the news environment to be all about him.

The Republicans can win a majority in the House of Representatives in 2022 with just the slightest wind at their back. The single best chance for Nancy Pelosi to remain speaker of the House is for the Republican Party to be consumed with infighting.

[LF8] The inside story of how we reached the Facebook-Trump verdict by Alan Rusbridger in The Guardian

The Trump decision was reached through the processes we’ve devised ourselves. A panel of five – with a good spread of regional backgrounds – did the initial heavy lifting, including sifting through more than 9,000 responses from the public.

The wider board fed in its own views. We looked at Facebook’s own values – what they call voice, safety and dignity – as well as its content policies and community standards. But we also apply an international human rights lens in trying to balance freedom of expression with possible harms.

In the Trump case we looked at the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), which establish a voluntary framework for the human rights responsibilities of private businesses. We also considered the right to freedom of expression set out in articles 19 and 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) – as well as the qualifying articles to do with the rights to life, security of person, non-discrimination, participation in public affairs and so on.

We also considered the 2013 Rabat Plan of Action, which attempts to identify and control hate speech online. We took into account a submission sent on behalf of Trump himself and sent Facebook 46 questions. They answered 37 fully, and two partially.

And then we debated, and argued – virtually/verbally and in writing. A number of drafts were circulated, with most board members pitching in with tweaks, challenges, corrections and disagreements. Gradually, a consensus developed – resulting in a closely argued 38-page decision which openly reflects the majority and minority opinions.

In addition to our ruling about the original and “indefinite” bans, we’ve sent Facebook a number of policy advisory statements. One of these concentrates on the question of how social media platforms should deal with “influential users” (a more useful conceit than “political leaders”).

Speed is clearly of the essence where potentially harmful speech is involved. While it’s important to protect the rights of people to hear political speech, “if the head of state or high government official has repeatedly posted messages that pose a risk of harm under international human rights norms, Facebook should suspend the account for a determinate period sufficient to protect against imminent harm”.

As in previous judgments, we are critical of a lack of clarity in some of Facebook’s own rules, together with insufficient transparency about how they’re enforced. We would like to see Facebook carry out a comprehensive review of its potential contribution to the narrative around electoral fraud and in the exacerbated tensions that culminated in the violence on 6 January.

And then this: “This should be an open reflection on the design and policy choices that Facebook has made that may enable its platform to be abused.” Which many people will read as not-so-coded reference to what is shorthanded as The Algorithm.

This Week At Ordinary Times:

Darth Vader Visits HR by Kyle Cupp
Darth Vader: Your powers are growing weak, old man.
HR [aggravated]: Age is a protected class as well, Lord Vader. I understand that you are under a lot of stress…

Mini-Throughput: Tumbling Chinese Rocket Edition by Michael Siegel
If you allow enough 20-ton Chinese rocket stages fall to Earth in an uncontrolled fashion, it is inevitable that something bad will happen.

Judge Strikes Down CDC’s Eviction Moratorium: Read It For Yourself
The CDC’s eviction moratortium has been been struck down by a federal judge as overreaching and beyond that department’s legal authority.

Letter to a Young Conservative by Avi Woolf
“You recently asked me what it is conservatives conserve and more importantly – what it is conservatives have to offer people like you.”

Wednesday Writs: Consent to Search in Georgia v. Randolph by Em Carpenter
SCOTUS, the 4th Amendment, and a case of “he said, she said” sets precedent for consent to search in our Case of the Week, Georgia v. Randolph

FDA Expected to Approve Pfizer Vaccine for 12-15 Year Olds
The FDA considers granting authorization for the Pfizer vaccine that is already in use for those 16 and up for children as young as 12.

President Biden Raises Refugee Limits: Read It For Yourself
After getting pushback over his earlier decision to drastically reduce entrants, President Biden raises refugee limits. Read it for yourself

With COVID-19, the Global South Again Bears the Crisis Burden by Saana Ali
We have asked the Global South to bear the brunt of nearly every crisis, from climate change to public health, but this is a chance to make some right calls.

The New Sumptuary Laws: Covid and the Return of Absolutism by Bradford Smith
The parallels between the sumptuary laws of old and the Covid restrictions of late are both revealing and instructive.

COVID, PCR and The Wrongness of Alex Berenson by Michael Siegel
A perfect illustration of what Berenson and others have been doing: making wild COVID claims contradicted by the very documents they cite.

Sunday Morning! Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock by Rufus
In Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece the sense of vertigo is inspired by the infinite space between Self and Other.

Saturday Morning Gaming: Horror Games and Little Nightmares by Jaybird
I thought about some of the best horror games I’ve played. How horror video games get under your skin and Little Nightmares.

What’s Left Behind by Em Carpenter
Grandma’s house was my happy place as a child, as is the case for many people; grandparent magic is a known phenomenon.