Georgia on my mind.

February 14, 2023

          A judge in Fulton County, Georgia, ruled on Monday that portions of the grand jury's report regarding Trump's election interference in the Georgia 2020 presidential election can be released on Thursday of this week. The order is here: Order re: Special Purpose Grand Jury's Final Report [2022-EX-000024]. If you have time, I recommend that you read the substance of the order (pages 4 through 8). Except for the legal citations, it is written in plain English and is readily accessible, even to non-lawyers.

          Judge Robert McBurney ruled that the report's introduction and conclusion could be released, but that the body of the report—which contains recommendations on whether to indict specific individuals—remain confidential at this time. The Judge explained his recommendation as follows:

[M]uch of the final report should not be disclosed until such time as the District Attorney completes her investigation, although two parts may now be published, consistent with protecting the due process rights of all involved.

Put differently, there was very limited due process in this process for those who might now be named as indictment worthy in the final report. That does not mean that the District Attorney's investigative process was flawed or improper or in any way unconstitutional. By all appearances, the special purpose grand jury did its work by the book. The problem here, in discussing public disclosure, is that that book's rules do not allow for the objects of the District Attorney's attention to be heard in the manner we require in a court of law.

The consequence of these due process deficiencies is not that the special purpose grand jury's final report is forever suppressed or that its recommendations for or against indictment are in any way flawed or suspect. Rather, the consequence is that those recommendations are for the District Attorney's eyes only — for now. Fundamental fairness requires this, as a report that may recommend that criminal charges be sought against specific individuals but which was drafted after a secret investigation and based on an uncertain standard of proof, may be remembered long after ... denials or objections from its targets are forgotten. . . .

          It is difficult (and foolhardy) to predict whether the special grand jury recommended indictments against anyone. Nonetheless, I will provide my assessment of the order. Judge McBurney's rationale for maintaining the confidentiality of the body of the report suggests that the grand jury recommended indictments against one or more defendants. See e.g., Newsweek, 'Writing on the Wall' for Trump as Fulton County Readies Release of Records. Such confidentiality is consistent with protecting the rights of "future defendants" who have not yet been afforded the due process that attaches after an indictment is issued:

There were no lawyers advocating for any targets of the investigation. Potential future defendants were not able to present evidence outside the scope of what the District Attorney asked them. They could not call their own witnesses who might rebut what other State's witnesses had said and they had no ability to present mitigating evidence. Put differently, there was very limited due process in this process for those who might now be named as indictment worthy in the final report.

          Another hint that the special grand jury has recommended indictments is that the grand jurors believed that some witnesses lied during their appearances before the grand jury. As explained by Judge McBurney, a third portion of the report can be released

in which the 'special purpose grand jury discusses its concern that some witnesses may have lied under oath during their testimony to the grand jury. Because the grand jury does not identify those witnesses, that conclusion may be publicly disclosed at this time.

           The most reasonable inference is that the questionable testimony contradicts conclusions reached by the grand jury based on testimony from credible witnesses. The most likely scenario is that the grand jury heard credible testimony from witnesses that supports the indictment of Trump and heard untruthful testimony from witnesses seeking to protect Trump in the face of damning facts.

          All of the above is speculation on my part and could be completely wrong. We will not know the definitive outcome until District Attorney Willis seeks indictments or announces that she will not do so. It is entirely possible that the portions of the report released on Thursday will provide no definitive information regarding recommendations for indictments. That would be, to say the least, frustrating.

          It has been more than two years since Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger released an audio recording of Trump attempting to corruptly overturn the election in Georgia. We are now closer in time to the next presidential election than we are to the last presidential election. While we should be grateful that D.A. Willis has been tenacious in her pursuit of Trump, two-plus years to indict a crime recorded in full, start-to-finish on audio tape seems excessive—for Georgia and the DOJ.

          Let us hope that D.A. Willis makes the correct prosecutorial judgment for the people of Georgia, the people of America, the rule of law, and future generations. In the meantime, the silence and apparent inaction by the DOJ regarding Georgia are incomprehensible. The clock is ticking, and time is relative; it will speed up as we get closer to the first GOP caucus on February 5, 2024—less than a year from today.

Biden keeps the pressure on Republicans over Social Security and Medicare.

          Despite indignant howls of denial from Republicans, President Biden continues to claim that they are intent on reducing or eliminating Social Security and Medicare. Good for Biden—because he is right! When Republicans attempt to defend themselves against Biden's claims, they prove his point. Take GOP House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who whined,

The president, for a few weeks now, has been falsely saying that there are people that want to get rid of Social Security and Medicare. I just hope he stops going around the country telling that falsehood because there's no truth to it.

          Unfortunately for Scalise (and the GOP), he went on to say,

We want to strengthen Social Security by ending a lot of those government checks to people staying at home rather than going to work.

          Uh, okay. The point of a retirement benefit is that you receive it when you are no longer working! By proposing a "work requirement" for receiving retirement benefits under Social Security, Republicans would effectively end Social Security as we know it. That conclusion doesn't change if the retirement benefits are converted into survivor benefits for widows and minor children of eligible retirees who die—just as any other retirement program would handle the benefits of a deceased recipient.

          Here's the point: Republicans are hell-bent on finding alternative ways to reduce or end Social Security without saying that is what they are doing. So don't believe a word they say. See Josh Marshall's excellent analyses in Talking Points Memo, The Epic List of GOP Social Security Cutters, and DeBamboozling the Social Security Scare Talk.

American corporations that (allegedly) support Black History Month while supporting Ron DeSantis's effort to suppress teaching of Black history in Florida.

          Many major American corporations claim to support the teaching and celebration of Black history while simultaneously supporting Ron DeSantis (or organizations that support him). See The Guardian, DeSantis's corporate donors under fire for 'hypocrisy' over Black History Month. Per The Guardian,

Amazon, AT&T, Comcast, Disney and Walmart are among the companies that publicly proclaim their commitment to anti-racist values, especially after the 2020 police murder of George Floyd, an African American man in Minneapolis.

But research by the Center for Political Accountability, a non-profit organisation that tracks corporate political spending, shows that these same businesses donated directly and indirectly to the 2022 re-election campaign of DeSantis, who has imposed limits on how race and racism can be taught in Florida schools.

          Political scrutiny and negative publicity are two ways to bring pressure to bear on corporations that are underwriting Ron DeSantis's effort to re-institutionalize systemic racism in Florida. The Guardian article is based on a report from the Center for Political Accountability (CPA), which tracks and reports on corporate support for politicians and political causes. The CPA releases periodic reports and has a monthly newsletter. The organization and its work seem worthwhile. [If any reader is involved or familiar with the CPA's work, please post in the Comments or send me an email so I can share your observations.]

          Ron DeSantis is attacking Blacks, immigrants, and LGBTQ people because he believes he can get away with it. If his corporate overlords stop funding his misadventures, he will stop. Let the corporations in your lives know how you feel about their support for hate.

More on the effectiveness of masks.

          Two weeks ago, I wrote about a "metadata" analysis by the Cochrane Library that asserted that masks are ineffective in preventing the spread of respiratory viruses at the population level. As I noted, the authors of the study acknowledged that the underlying studies they reviewed were biased, poorly designed, and poorly controlled. Aggregating those studies in a metadata analysis is referred to as "garbage in, garbage out." But the poor quality of the underlying studies and (hence) of the metadata analysis has not stopped the major media from reporting on the alleged finding of the study that "masks are ineffective." See The Atlantic, A New Turn in the Fight Over Masks and Slate, Masks Cochrane review: There's still not strong evidence for masks' effectiveness.

          Although The Atlantic and Slate eventually get around to reporting the weaknesses in the metadata analysis, they do so after they give undeserved airtime to its dubious and unsupported conclusions. I won't take the time here to explain the many weaknesses of the Cochrane study, but will instead refer you to Real Clear Science, Masks Reduce the Risk of Spreading of COVID, Despite a Cochrane Review Saying They Don't.

          Per Real Clear Science,

A comprehensive review of the evidence would also include other types of study besides RCTs. For example, a large systematic review of 172 various study designs, which included 25,697 patients with SARS-CoV-2, SARS, or MERS, concluded masks were effective in preventing transmission of respiratory viruses.

Well-designed real-world studies during the pandemic showed any mask reduces the risk of COVID transmission by 50–80%, with the highest protection offered by N95 respirators.

          Here's the point: The Cochrane study examined a bunch of poorly controlled studies and got a null result. Other scientists who examined studies that included case-controls to ensure people actually used masks found that masks were effective in reducing the spread of Covid. Tell a friend!

          PS: Please urge science communicators to write about the Cochrane metadata analysis. I shouldn't be one of the few voices criticizing the Cochrane study; I am not a medical or scientific expert. Real experts need to weigh in.

Concluding Thoughts.

          The self-evident idiocy of the GOP agenda is beginning to get the attention it deserves in the media. Republicans were able to skulk in the weeds when they were not in power, sniping and hissing at constructive ideas put forward by Democrats. But now that they control the House, they are appearing outside of the Fox News echo-chamber and are saying things that are manifestly stupid—like Steve Scalise proposing a work requirement for a retirement program. Or like GOP Rep. James Comer saying that the Weaponization Committee must get to the bottom of Hunter Biden's laptop while avoiding any commitment to investigate Jared Kushner's $2 billion loan from Saudi Arabia after Kushner led the Saudi Arabian policy of the Trump administration.  

          The idiocy of Ron DeSantis's "anti-woke" policies is coming home to roost as well. Schools are pulling books about barrier-breaking athletes like Roberto Clemente and Hank Aaron and inspirational stories about internees organizing baseball leagues in Japanese internment camps during WWII. See Axios, Florida school district pulls children's book on Roberto Clemente. DeSantis will be grilled about every one of these books on the campaign trail, so he better start brushing up now on why they are objectionable—he has a mountain of books to read!

          Here's the point: It is easy to report that Republicans want to "fix" Social Security or that Florida wants to suppress "divisive" topics, but when the press starts to focus on the details—as it is now beginning to do—the details are ugly, stupid, and offensive. Democrats can finally highlight the underlying lunacy of the GOP agenda as hapless Republicans attempt to defend their agenda of division, hate, and greed. Democrats are on the offensive and need to drive their advantage home—just like Joe Biden!

          Talk to you tomorrow!