Democracy

The Progressive-Democratic Party and the Left in general no longer believe in democracy, whether republican or popular.  Here’s Robert Reich, Labor Secretary in the Clinton administration:

The title of his piece is the gist of the position: Don’t Impeach Trump, Annul His Presidency.  Read past the irrational hysteria in his first several paragraphs, hysteria like this:

Even if he loses in 2020, we’ll be fortunate if he concedes without being literally carried out of the Oval Office amid the stirrings of civil insurgency.
Oh, and let me remind you that even if he’s impeached, we’d still have his loathsome administration—Pence on down.

and you get to the meat of his—and their—demand.

Suppose, just suppose, Robert Mueller finds overwhelming and indisputable evidence that Trump conspired with Putin to rig the 2016 election, and the rigging determined the election’s outcome.
In other words, Trump’s presidency is not authorized under the United States Constitution.

What then? Impeachment isn’t enough.

He went on:

Impeachment would remedy Trump’s “high crimes and misdemeanors.” But impeachment would not remedy Trump’s unconstitutional presidency because it would leave in place his vice president, White House staff and Cabinet, as well as all the executive orders he issued and all the legislation he signed, and the official record of his presidency.
The only response to an unconstitutional presidency is to annul it. Annulment would repeal all of an unconstitutional president’s appointments and executive actions, and would eliminate the official record of the presidency.
Annulment would recognize that all such appointments, actions, and records were made without constitutional authority.
The Constitution does not specifically provide for annulment of an unconstitutional presidency. But read as a whole, the Constitution leads to the logical conclusion that annulment is the appropriate remedy for one.
After all, the Supreme Court declares legislation that doesn’t comport with the Constitution null and void, as if it had never been passed.
It would logically follow that the Court could declare all legislation and executive actions of a presidency unauthorized by the Constitution to be null and void, as if Trump had never been elected.
The Constitution also gives Congress and the states the power to amend the Constitution, thereby annulling or altering whatever provisions came before. Here, too, it would logically follow that Congress and the states could, through amendment, annul a presidency they determine to be unconstitutional.

[The Trump Presidency] should be annulled.

Here are the Party and the Left—anyone from either of the two heavily overlapping groups—decrying their man’s demands.  By their studied silence are they known to agree.  That Reich’s piece is so irrational does not bother them in the least.  Nor does his desire to completely rewrite history to a depth and breadth that would shame the leadership of the erstwhile Soviet Union and the ongoing People’s Republic of China.

That irrationality, however, is a threat to our great republican democracy.  Remember this in the fall.

Security and Hacking

The USAF and software company Merlin Cryption have developed a “cybersecurity technology”—and encryption technique—that has yet to be hacked, having been tried by the likes of Louisiana-based Cyber Innovation Center and the University of Louisiana in extensive testing.

The problem I have, based on published reporting and my status as a non-expert in the security field, is this from Brandon Brown, Merlin Cyrption’s CEO.

It uses a random data generator that never repeats a pattern. This puts it in a good position to overcome AI and Quantum computing….

Once you have a computer doing “random,” you’ve generated a pattern. Randomness requires access to infinitely large numbers with infinitely numbers of digits in them. Computers are bit-limited in how big a number they can represent—if nothing else, by the number of bits their storage media can hold and the number of bits their memory media can hold, much less the number of bits their CPU chips can process.  There is only so many unique draws from the population that a computer can do, even if that number approaches ginormosity.

Experts are optimistic.

One industry cybersecurity expert called the new technology “what the government has been looking for…a single solution to protect digital assets….”

No, this is just the convenience—and enormous risk—of putting all the eggs in one basket.  That’s not cool.

Understand: this is a valuable advance in security; it’s just not hack-proof.  Advances in computing power and in the horsiness of CPUs and storage will allow the hackers to catch up—and get back in the lead.  This is why even Merlin Cyrption won’t make any claim of hack-proof.

Surprised

Writing on the topic of our applying economic pressure on Turkey as a means of getting an American hostage (among others) freed, Greg Ip expressed surprise and worry about the weaponization of trade in his Wednesday Wall Street Journal article.

Trade wars may be morphing into something more dangerous: financial wars.

This, though, merely exposes his misunderstanding of international trade.  Such trade is far more about national policy applied internationally than it is about economics, and international finance is just a tool of that trade venue.  Trade has always been “weaponized;” it has always been about achieving national political goals, of which economics is merely one.

Ip’s discourse also misuses the term “war;” although, he is not alone in this error.  Trade “wars,” even with finance tools being used extensively, are not shooting conflicts, and even with the global financial dislocations of events like the Great Depression or the Panic of 2008, nations’ existences were never at risk.  While trade, freely wielded as a tool of policy, can be effective at pushing the targeted nation to alter its behavior, it never threatens that nation’s independence.  It’s never war.

Turkey and Natural Gas Pipelines

War on the Rocks has an interesting piece on Turkey’s desire to become a natural gas transshipment hub feeding Europe and perhaps Russia.  I think, though, that WOTR underplays the purpose of Turkey’s transshipment goal.

Recall the existing conflict between Turkey and Europe over immigration, economics, rule of law EU-style rather than as Recep Erdoğan does it, and a host of other excuses for Turkey to claim to be put upon.

Next, keep in mind that Turkey went to school on Russia’s use of its dominance in supplying natural gas to Ukraine and to central Europe and the fact that that dominating supply flowed almost exclusively through a pipeline running through Ukraine to Europe.  Turkey also is observing with care the increase in Russian control of Europe’s natural gas supply that construction of Nord Stream 2 would produce and which would allow Russia to take Ukraine out of the equation altogether, thereby to directly…influence…Europe.

Awash in natural gas deliveries from highly diversified pool of suppliers, Turkey hopes to dominate the market by becoming a natural gas hub for Europe, particularly Southeast Europe, which is less connected to EU natural gas infrastructure and remains heavily dependent on Russia[.]

Now here is Turkey deliberately building an oversupply of natural gas transport so as to feed southern Europe.  And…influence…it?  WOTR put it too mildly, I think.

If Turkey becomes a hub through which a diverse set of suppliers sends its natural gas to Southeast and Southern Europe, the country stands not only to amass economic benefits…. It can also use the status of an energy hub to heighten its geopolitical weight in the region, vis-à-vis Russia and the European Union.

I submit that Russia is less a target than is the EU.  After all, after the Turkish shootdown of a Russian fighter aircraft, there has been an enthusiastic rapprochement between those two nations.

There’s Help, and There’s Help

Recall that Alphabet Inc, through its Google arm, has refused to help the US defend itself by refusing to work with DoD on the application of artificial intelligence to military projects.  After the resignations described at the link, Alphabet pulled its Google arm out of the project altogether, with effect in 2019 when its current contract expires.

On the other hand, Alphabet is enthusiastic about its Google working within the People’s Republic of China.  Mobvoi Inc, headquartered outside Beijing, makes smart watches and smart speakers for sale within—and outside—the surveillance state.

Its engineers build apps using TensorFlow, Google’s free set of development tools for artificial intelligence.

And

Now those allies [like Mobvoi] will likely be crucial as Google embarks on a broader China expansion strategy.

Indeed,

In his three years as Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai has been a frequent visitor to the region, meeting with top Chinese officials and encouraging businesses to use Google’s free open-source tools like TensorFlow….

Alphabet won’t work on AI projects with DoD, but they’re perfectly happy to make much of their AI capability freely available to the PRC.

Hmm….