Inspector Morse Never Too Far Off Course

Chasing a wild goose
The tree shakes something loose
Could it possibly be a clue?
Need more leather for the shoe.
#AnotherDepictionOfDetectiveFiction

Rambling About Gambling

If the bracket
Is a racket
How does one crack it?

We should be regretting
College sports betting
It is upsetting.
#TheWaySomeTeamsPlayedCouldTheFixBeIn

When Your Digestive System Internalizes Extremist Politics

The neurotic
Probiotic
Became psychotic

For a while it was exotic
But then chaotic
And ultimately despotic.
#ICannotStomachThisMuchLonger

The Endeavor to Be Clever Needs a Lever

One whit of wit
Times two it's a twit
Causing others discomfit
Which might bother you just a bit.
#WeReallyNeedDorothyParkerNow

Nostalgia for Childhood

Simple Simon and Simon Says
Nursery rhymes and kid games to ward off the malaise.

Finding innocent truths in reflection while sitting on a chaise
And eating candy, perhaps a Sugar Daddy or some Pez.
#ASlidingPondForTheMind

Belly Whoppers

Brief prose
About adipose
Is merely chewing the fat.

Noting a small decline
In the waistline
Is now where it's at.
#WhenADietIsImposedForDigestiveHealthReasons

The Spelling Bee Blues

Only two words to go
But then totally stymied
So feeling rather low
As aspirations go by me.
#ThereAreWordsInTheDictionaryThatAreNotAccepted

Geezer Self-Maintenance

What you oughta
Drinking watta
Though you might be keen
On having more caffeine.
#FrustrationViaDehydration

Irritable Lanny Syndrome

Yesterday, I went to the Digestive Health Institute at Carle for a breath test to see if I have SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. The test is administered over time. I would blow into a tube connected to a collection device. The tech who administered the test would take the collection of my breath and feed it into some machine. The first time this was done, it was to establish a baseline. Then I was given a bit of sweet fluid to drink (Lactulose). There were subsequent readings every twenty minutes, for two hours in total. 

 

I was told they were very busy when I was there. Indeed, after the first reading and drinking the fluid, which happened in an examination room, I was then ushered back to the waiting room. All subsequent collections of my breath happened there in the waiting room. The technician came out to get it. I remained seated as she did this. 

 

There were several other people in the waiting room who were also having breath tests. The technician told me this was a scheduling issue. But it also must be that many people have similar symptoms to mine and the breath test is a first step at diagnosis, since it is comparatively inexpensive to administer and benign for the patient, except for the time commitment. 

 

At the conclusion of the test, I was told by the technician that it could be up to 2 weeks before I would get the results. In fact, It was only a few hours later when I got a message from the APRN who ordered the test. I had tested positive, not really a surprise given my symptoms. She recommended that I get a prescription of Xifaxan and she said she'd work with my insurance to get it approved. Apparently there is no generic version and only a couple of reasonable alternatives, one of which is currently in short supply. I wrote back to her saying it would be ironical if my insurance didn't give its approval, as I pay an IRMAA for Medicare Part D. 

 

The pharmacy called earlier this afternoon saying the prescription was ready. I went to the drive-through to pick it up. My bill was $713.63 for two weeks worth of pills (taken 3 times a day). I would have exploded at this, except that the night before I did a little research online about the cost of Xifaxan and thus knew it was well over $2,000. The invoice from the pharmacy confirmed this. The full price was $2,442.89. So I agreed to pay my share. And as of now, I've taken the first of the 42 pills.

I can afford this and after today probably won't lose any sleep about it. But what about the others who tested positive? I can only guess at the income of others who were sitting in the waiting room yesterday. Given that, I can imagine that some, in a similar situation, would say that $700 is too much to pay for the pills and therefore go without. How can that make sense, especially for retirees on Medicare?

 

Prescription drugs for more esoteric illness coupled with how health insurance now works has become a royal pain in the ass. 

 

We've known that for some time, but this is the first time in my own experience where that stared at me straight in the face, as I've only once before received medical attention in the waiting room and that time my situation was unique. This time, it applied to several other patients as well.

 

*****

 

Most readers can stop after reading the above. Below I want to discuss the underlying economics a little, and suggest a possibly better way for conducting government policy about drug pricing.

Fundamentally new drugs that offer the promise of improved health for many receive a patent, or possibly several different patents. The patent protection means the drug company faces no competition in the market for this drug during the patent term. The patent term is the greater of these two: (1) 20 years after the patent application has been filed, or (2) 17 years after the patent has been awarded. There will be competition from generic alternatives after the patent term has expired. That competition should bring down the price. 

 

During the patent term, there will be monopoly pricing. Of course, this price depends on the demand for the drug. Pharmaceutical companies try to increase demand by marketing their drugs to doctors. Doctors have incentive to recommend the best drug for treatment, regardless of cost. So the aforementioned marketing focuses on drug effectiveness. Of course, the doctors and other health professionals do understand the affordability issue for their patients. 

 

Patients who have their drug costs insured 100% don't care about the price at all. It's the insurance company that cares. Even when the patient has a co-pay or a deductible, the concern about drug price may be minimal as the insurance company bears the lion's share of the cost. Thus the system has evolved so the insurance company has to approve the prescription beforehand. If the insurance company doesn't approve, the patient can't get the drug unless the patient is willing to pay full price for it. This is the same mechanism at work with expensive diagnostic procedures. (A quick aside here, my experience recently, meaning over the past 5 years or so, is that doctors and other health professionals are intimidated by this approval process. They resent that their judgments are challenged by the insurance companies.)

 

With this as background as to what determines demand for a new drug, there will be monopoly pricing . The price of the drug will be set to maximize the profit of the pharmaceutical company. As any student of microeconomics should be able to tell you, the monopoly price is socially inefficient. There is a deadweight loss. (This is sometimes referred to as a Harberger triangle, after the U Chicago economist Arnold Harberger.) 

 

Social efficiency is obtained with marginal cost pricing. For this discussion the price of a generic alternative gives a reasonable approximation of marginal cost pricing. The proposal I will offer here is that this be the pricing that is used even near to when the drug is introduced in the market. The pharmaceutical company will be rewarded another way, by government paying it an amount equal to the monopoly profits in that market. 

 

That would produce the efficient solution and still reward the pharmaceutical company for its innovation with the new drug. If the demand for the new drug was known up front, this would be the sensible solution. 

 

Of course, it's not that simple. The demand for the new drug isn't known so readily. Have doctors been convinced by the marketing they've received or not? Even with that, there will be inertia as to whatever was prescribed before the new drug hit the market. The demand is apt to grow over time for this reason. And perhaps other uses for the drug are found after its release. That too would increase demand. This will be learned over time and won't be fully evident at the outset.

 

So let's imagine bargaining between the government and the pharmaceutical company happening on an annual basis. They are to bargain over drug price and the lump sum the government will pay the company. They will use the past experience of price, volume of drug use, and the company report on profits of the drug to help determine this year's bargain. The government will understand that the drug company has incentive to overstate profits from last year, to inflate the lump sum payment this year. Likewise, the government has incentive to lessen the lump sum payment somewhat, in anticipation of the drug company's behavior. But to the extent that transaction prices and volume of transactions can be accurately measured, the profit assertions will have be brought in line with that. 

 

Over time the hope would be that the drug price falls to near marginal cost. (What a name brand would charge as a premium in the presence of competition from a generic alternative means it won't fall all the way to marginal cost.) And the drug companies are happy with the lump sum payments they receive from the government while the drug is under patent. 

 

Could this actually happen? If only wishing would make it so.

Confrontation with My Own Cheating

My wife and I do the Spelling Bee, one of the games in the NY Times. She goes first and gets as many words as she can. Then it is my turn. I see if I can get the rest. We usually make it to Genius level, their highest ranking. Sometimes we get to Queen Bee, which means we got all the words.

We use the hints that they publish. To us, that is not cheating. The hints give how many words start with the same first two letters, also the length of the words starting with the same first letter (the minimum length is 4 letters).

The fun in doing this is in guessing the words themselves, given the seven letters they give you, where the letter in the center must be in the word, and there are 6 other letters that can be used in the word. Letters can be used more than once.

Sometimes, you look for additional help. With four letter words you can brute force an answer, especially when the center letter is not one of the first two letters. This is a kind of cheating. But, on the flip side, if you've never heard of the word before you certainly won't guess it. The vast majority of words are familiar. But these puzzles do include obscure entries. IMHO, cheating on those is acceptable.

A second type of cheating that I've discovered is by using an online dictionary. I use Dictionary.com. If you type in the first few letters, it will suggest full words that begin that way. Once in a while, such a word can be made with the letters provided in the puzzle. I've actually found many words this way that the puzzle does not accept. Usually they are technical terms, or the English version of words from a foreign country. Also, if a word has two different spellings, the puzzle might only accept one of those. So it is a bit arbitrary. In any event, this type of cheating can produce words that I should have guessed in advance. Then I have some regret from doing it. On the other hand, even though I'm retired I don't want to spend the full day doing this puzzle.

The most egregious form of cheating is following the Community link. There someone has posted answers - though in hint form, not the words explicitly. Going there is the last resort, for when you're ready to give up on the puzzle. It's good for words you've never heard of before. Last Sunday, one of the words was Haboob. It's been a very long time since I studied vocabulary for the SAT, but I don't think that haboob was on the list. (And typing now, the browser is giving a red squiggle under it, so maybe it's not really a word.)

At present I have 54 words out of 55 in total for today's puzzle. I know the first two letters of that last word and how many letters it has. I'm procrastinating on deciding whether to keep guessing at this last word or cheating on it.

Procrastination is its own form of cheating. I do it a lot. Some role model for our students, huh?

When There Is No N R G

Is this guy slacking
With effort apparently lacking
Because he has no oomph?

Here it bears repeating
The person isn't cheating
He simply is a schlump.
#LackingJazzWithNoPizazz

The Last Draw

Instead of relying on a pencil
The geezer made use of a utensil
For sketching in the mashed potatoes
Highlighted nicely with cherry tomatoes.
#ReleasingYourInnerKid

Opinion or Fact May Be Hard to Extract

The objective
And the subjective
A retrospective.

This review
Of the point of view
Is long overdue.
#FromWhereYouLookCanBeMistook

Second Guessing

A tough decision
Pains like an incision
So feeling morose
Though not comatose.

Even when you're right
So want to put up a fight
Lost sleep in the night
Can cause quite a fright.
#TheSeedsOfDoubtFromEmotionNotFromReason

AI or EIEIO

Let's begin with this mock quiz.

1.  Complete the line:
You can lead a whore to culture _________________________.

2. What question was asked that provoked this line as response?

3. Who is the author of this line?

4. What other line was this a parody of?

My guess is that my cohort from high school (we graduated in 1972) could answer these questions in their sleep.  But if you posed it to college kids today, most wouldn't have a clue.   Let's assume that's true now, just for the sake of argument.  Is that quite okay, because knowledge of the content in the mock quiz really should be generational?  Or is it indicative of a larger problem, because every educated person should know the content in the mock quiz?

(Answers to the mock quiz: 1. ________ but you can't make her think.   2.  Can you use the word horticulture in a sentence?  3.  Dorothy Parker.  4.  You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.)

Over the years as I became familiar with the various issues in how people learn, I picked up this knowledge nugget.  If an example is presented that people already know and understand, they begin on terra firma.  From there they then can branch off to the more general issue, which people may be less comfortable with at first - take what you know and use it to learn what you don't know.  In this case the issue is about literacy, particularly among students.  Are we doing a good job of teaching literacy?  The Magic 8 ball would say - very doubtful. 

Actually, the example gets at something else that is related.  What do we already know and do we we know enough to be literate, making good meaning of what we read when the piece is intended for a general audience? As an example, do we already know the answers to the mock quiz?  From there one can generalize - what other things do we need to already know to be literate?

This question has captured the attention of many and been a matter of public debate and policy.  During the Reagan Presidency, the issue was part and parcel of the culture wars, as they occurred then.  In my own experience teaching undergraduates, particularly in intermediate microeconomics, but in other courses as well, I found many of the students lacking this way and I had no good methods for the students to overcome their deficiency, good in the sense both of effectiveness and that the students would willingly do the work. What is evident to me is that the students need to read a lot more than they were reading, and what they read must be interesting and challenging material.  There is learning by doing.  That much I believe.  How to get the students to read a lot on their own is another matter.  It's a challenge that remains unmet.

Over the years I've written about literacy and about learning to read.  This post, Are We Ketman?, was written just before I retired.  Much of it was fueled by Diane Ravitch's book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, which I was in the midst of reading at the time.  There is also mention in my post about Cultural Literacy and E.D. Hirsch.   I was somewhat sympathetic to him there.  I've refined my thinking some since.  It is definitely true that when I was a kid there was an ideal that was encouraged - to be a Renaissance man - know at least a little bit about everything.  As an adult there are things I simply don't care about at all and am quite okay with my own ignorance.  A couple of examples are pop music and interior decorating.  Perhaps the first of these made it harder to relate to my undergraduate students when I was teaching (pre-Covid).  I really don't know.  I will briefly consider other ways to relate to students that to me matter more for the issue of cultivating their literacy.    

There is also in the Hirsch conception that it all has to be prior knowledge.  I think that is wrong.  If one has a deficient background to consider an important subject of interest, then one needs to be able and willing to self-teach and acquire that background then and there.  This means that sometimes when we read something, we must read other things as well to appreciate what is being said in the original piece.  A graduate student learns this by seeing a literature review whenever they read a published paper.  But surely the need exists well before the student pursues graduate education.  And nowadays, with so much content readily available online, this is much easier to do.  Back when I was a student, you needed to go to the library to track down the related readings.  

The following paragraph from my post is worth reading, as the history on the literacy issue during the Reagan years is still very interesting to consider, in particular the importance of the document A Nation At Risk. 

I found her history of the events immediately preceding and succeeding A Nation At Risk fascinating. I was an Assistant Professor at the time and pretty locked into my econ research, so this gave me a different perspective of what was happening in the Department of Education then. I should add that the ANAR document itself is well worth the read. It seems to hold equally well today as it did when it was written, though now the risks are even greater having gone through No Child Left Behind, and the emphasis on accountability that continues under President Obama.

So, I think it fair to say that the issue has been with us for some time.  Indeed, the book Why Johnny Can't Read came out in 1955, the year I was born.  Evidently there was some controversy about how to teach reading to first and second graders back then - either the Dick, Jane, and Spot way or the sounding out words phonetically way.  I can't remember how my classmates and I did this back then.  (I'm thinking it was some of both but I'm really not sure.)  What I do remember is far more recent, this little snip from the movie Eddie which pokes fun at the entire endeavor.

• Ivan Radovadovitch : [Ivan is doing a commercial]  Ivan learn important English words like "renegotiate," "eliminate salary cap," and "union lockout."

  [the respective words appear on screen] 

  Ivan Radovadovitch : That is why I am Hooked on Phonics.

  [Ivan turns to the camera holds up a box saying "Hooked on Phonics" as the phone number appears on screen] 

Now I'm quite unsure of how younger students are taught to read.  I do recall that when I was a kid there was a related fear that watching TV would hamper literacy - Gilligan's Island might be cited as a pure time waster.  Maybe it was.  But I watched quite a bit of TV and yet was also able to read a lot on my own.  The thing is, there was ample time for both.  Nowadays kids tend to be over programmed.  Reading time gets crowded out by other things.  

Let me return to the literacy of college students.  This post, The Purpose of General Education, argues that it should be one of the fundamental goals, though in that piece I referred to it as reading comprehension.  We in Higher Ed don't seem to be doing a very good job of it, especially for those who enter college with mediocre to poor reading habits.  Further, if my teaching during retirement is any indication, there was an inflection point in 2015 where things got worse than they were in 2012-2014.  (In any one class that I taught, this could be explained by a cohort effect, but it persisted thereafter, which makes me suspect that the inflection point really did happen.)  During my 2016 class, I expressed my frustration in this post, When Students Don't Get It.  The post gives several different examples where non-learning is happening.  The post might make it seem to be entirely the student's fault.  But that is wrong.

The university has a responsibility here as well.  Consider the following.  Gen Ed classes are often taught as large lectures.  Why is that?  One reason, at least at Illinois, is the budgeting model.  Revenues per student credit hour generated are much higher in the major classes than they are in Gen Ed classes.  So departments that offer the Gen Ed classes have incentive to teach them in a less expensive way.   Offering large lectures is one way to do this. (The introductory rhetoric classes and introductory foreign language classes are the exceptions.  Class size there is modest.  But the instructors are almost always graduate students.)  Further, these courses tend to be textbook based, with few if any outside readings.  Most of the instructors teaching these classes nowadays are not on the tenure track.  The instruction tends to be teaching to the textbook.  Students prepare for exams by memorizing the textbook and/or the lecture notes.  None of this promotes growth in student literacy.  

We seem not to talk about about the university's responsibility but instead will talk ad infinitum about student cheating in writing assignments by using AI.  (Before AI, it was cheating by purchasing already written essays online or essays written to order.)  Let us understand that students whose literacy skills are poor to mediocre will have incentive to cheat, simply to conceal their deficiency. Students are fearful of the judgment of others - peers as well as instructors - if that judgment concludes that the student is stupid.  This is a form of fear of failure.  Students must learn that they need to fail, again and again, until they do things well.  The idea that they'll get everything right the first time out is a delusion.  Big writing assignments, especially those that don't have a rough draft first, encourage this delusion.  

Will the handful of students who are literate also resort to AI in writing assignments?  Here, I think, a different issue comes to bear.  Does the student perceive the assignment to be truly instructive or is it thought to be busy work?   I wish this was the only concern such a student would have, but I want to report that in fall 2019 I had a student who was taking 24 credit hours of coursework (done by taking 8 3-credit courses).  Such behavior, to the extent it exists suggests that getting through is the sole priority and enrichment to learning that might occur in any one course is not of importance.  I fear that such a student would also use AI for the essay writing.

Let me quickly consider what might help on the student literacy front, by considering this post from my fall 2019 Economics of Organization class.  As it may seem frivolous and is evidently not about economics, I need to give some explanation first.  This is a class that frustrated me and I felt I had lost a great majority of the students.  I did not require attendance.  Eventually many students took the class as if it were taught online, even though I didn't teach it that way.  (My face-to-face classes probably had more online stuff than most Econ classes back then.)  To counter the evident lack of student engagement, near the end of the semester I began to give "Quizzes" which were jokes or riddles.  Students were supposed to figure out the punchline.  The thought was that if they found this entertaining, they might engage more on the economics as well.   This post was not a quiz.  Instead it presented a few different "curiosities" that might entertain the students.

Note that there is one comment from a student in the class, who is posting under an alias that I assigned.  There was no course credit given for such comments.  He liked the play on words and that he commented on it is a simple demonstration of intrinsic motivation, something we instructors should strive for more with students.   Let me make a few other observations here.  There was only one such comment.  The analytics on the post now shows 19 hits, some of which surely are me, and the class had enrollment in the low to mid 30s.  So many students never saw it and among those who did nobody else chose to comment.  This experience is akin to what I've seen with my instructional videos on YouTube done under my ProfArvan ID.  The comments are few and most express gratitude.  The average viewing time, however, is typically around 30% of the video length.  Intrinsically interesting content might be helpful for literacy, particularly of the wordplay variety, but it surely isn't the full solution, as many students will never access it.

I also want to note that I learned both the Palindrome and the Theorem in that post during 11th grade math.  That math has wordplay shouldn't be surprising, yet nowadays we seem to consign literacy teaching in Gen Ed to English and Comparative Literature classes.  Also, my Econ of Organizations class is intended for juniors and seniors.  So I was exposed to this wordplay much earlier in my own learning trajectory than the student who made this comment.  I'd like to expand on this further.  

What I say here may be unfair to students who are the first in their families to attend college, because the opportunities for this may be less, but it is my view that (a) students should not be over programmed with out-of-school activities or with excessive homework, (b) it is the students themselves who need to pursue their own interests rather than to be directed by adults, and (c) students should find an "intellectual social life" as part of what they do in their free time. I wrote about this in a post called PLAs Please, one of my favorites among my blog posts.  The following snippet shows the interplay of school and intellectual social life for me while in elementary school.

Reading was different. Pretty early on, perhaps fourth grade, we had SRA. This history by Don Parker is a fascinating read, if a little melodramatic. We also had individualized reading. (Those who preach a learner centric approach likely will be intrigued at how early this piece is and yet that its critique is not about “teacher centric” so much as it is about “grouping,” where all students read the same book.) And now I must confess that my memory fails, or that I’m not able in looking backward to attribute cause to school or elsewhere or in some combination.

Elsewhere in this case was the public library, but also books that were at home. I recall a series that I believe Random House produced. The books were numbered, each around 150 pages, dealing with a character or event in American History – Kit Carson, The Transcontinental Railroad, Fulton’s Folly, Appomattox, etc. I’d read at least one of these a week, sometimes one in an evening. And there were biographies by Clara Ingram Judson from the school Library. This was an enormous education. I soaked it in. Once the momentum started it self-sustained. I’m really not sure of the spark. What does it matter?

Now I'm wondering whether many of the non-reading activities we did in school or at home also contributed to our literacy.  I don't know whether my kids ever learned Old McDonald Had a Farm (the one I remember for them is The Wheels on the Bus), but surely every one of my high school friends would recognize the source of EIEIO.  And I'm sure we learned to sing Home on the Range as well, even though we were city kids.  We also learned Three Blind Mice and Frère Jacques, which I think happened at school.  My dad taught us London's Burning.  We did some singing in the family.  Is that usual now? And there were games that promoted literacy, notably Charades, but also Simon Says, which encouraged you to pay careful attention, and even jumping rope required spelling out words at the same time.  

I don't know if anyone conceived of the play environment we had as kids as complementary to literacy education, but now it seems that way to me.  I'm far less sure that kids nowadays have that same type of play environment.  And I've yet to mention the parents reading to the kids at bedtime, which is crucial in my view.  My dad did that for my brother and me (we shared a bedroom). The stories themselves were important.  That my dad implicitly messaged us that reading them aloud was equally important, showed that parenting has to have with it an eye toward the kid's education.   Dad, we got the message.

First to the Moon but then the Swoon

No team seems to want to be number one
The rankings have become a game of musical chairs
For more of the fans this adds to the fun
Both opportunities and threats contribute to their cares.

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/35497617/no-14-tcu-hands-no-2-kansas-worst-home-loss-2-years

Which Way Did He Go George?

The "b" in subtle
Is not meant to be heard
Though it's not a rebuttal
Says Mortimer Snerd.

Who is the dummy
And who throws his voice
Since we're all kind of chummy
It seems a matter of choice.
#WhenWhatYouHearAndWhatYouSeeToACertainExtentDisagree

Patience for Patients

Does coughing addle the brain?
For me it's a familiar refrain
Thar she blows!
So now it's the nose
Gunk in the chest is hard to restrain.
#OnesMorningRoutinesBlownToSmithereens

 

Antecedents

I have been fixated on the expression - an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure - but in this case applied to our national politics, particularly the Big Lie and the events in and around 1/6.  The rhetoric from the House Committee recently mentioned that their purpose was in large part to prevent a situation like this from happening again.  I have no quibbles with that.  But they seemed to contain their investigation to the time interval between the November election and the events in question.  What about earlier? Wouldn’t that be where to look for that ounce of prevention?

The House Committee itself was likely constrained from doing so. They already had quite a bit on their plate with getting detailed information about more contemporaneous events that were clearly within the scope of their investigation.  Looking at earlier events would open them up to accusations of overreach and thereby lessen the impact of their findings.  But that shouldn’t prevent others from doing so, if only in a speculative manner.  I’m going to do some of that in the rest of this post.

There are questions that immediately pop up in doing this.  How far back should one go?  What sort of events should one look for to find some prevention?   I don’t have great answers to these questions.  What I feel comfortable saying here is that as a rule we are not very prescient.  Thus, taking the prevention soon before it is needed is desirable, if possible.  But if the event doesn’t provide much in the way of prevention then one must look elsewhere; quite possibly one must look earlier.

The event I will focus on is the first Impeachment and Senate Trial of Donald Trump.  In doing this analysis, I will rely on this explanatory piece from Vox, which I found helpful to understand things, although on one key point I will take issue with what they say.

https://www.vox.com/c/2020/2/6/20914280/impeachment-trump-explained

I will assume that the House Impeached Trump, as actually happened.  But then we’ll consider the counter factual, where the Senate finds Trump guilty.  The questions we’ll consider are these:

1)  Would a guilty verdict serve as an effective preventive, in the sense discussed above?

2) Assuming that Pence would become President after a guilty verdict in the Senate, what would be the likely consequences of that?

3) Given the answers to both #1 and #2, would enough Republican Senators rationally vote for a guilty verdict that such a verdict is obtained?

In considering each of these questions there is a lot of uncertainty to reckon with.  So answers certainly shouldn’t be considered as definitive and probably are closer to pure speculation.  Nonetheless, I think that working through to those answers is useful, which is why I’m writing this post.  

In my recollection, there was little blowback from Trump about the first Impeachment, though perhaps that was because he had assurances that the Senate would find him innocent.  Surely there would be substantially more blowback if he thought a guilty verdict were possible and even more blowback if he thought such a verdict was likely.

Given the nature of the crime he was charged with, there would be no Big Lie. Instead, the blowback would likely focus on the Deep State.  While this might do damage to the “national fabric” l think there would be far less damage than has happened under the Big Lie.

What about collateral damage from MAGA types who are coordinated by Trump?  We should expect some of that, but how much of it will be harder to determine.  Here is what can be readily determined.

During the actual Senate trial, no witnesses were called. The duration of the trial was less than the two months between the November election and 1/6.  If a guilty verdict had been a serious possibility, witnesses would have been called.  This would lengthen the trial, giving Trump and the MAGA types more time to , coordinate and a larger time window in which to identify a date for disruptive action.

As to whether other dates might offer similar opportunities for disruption as to what happened on 1/6, I really can’t say.  I’m out of my element here. But my guess is that when in the calendar the disruption happens should matter. During regular work weeks when most students are in school, the opportunities for disruption lessen.  

If that’s right, then a guilty verdict would offer some prevention but not full prevention.  And then we surely would quibble about how much prevention it would offer.  Let me leave it there and move onto the next question.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was still alive during that first Impeachment trial.  If Pence became President at the trial’s conclusion, there is then the question of what he would do regarding filling her seat on the Supreme Court after she passed.  Would he not nominate anyone and leave that choice to the next President?  Or would he do as Trump had done and nominate a very Conservative candidate?  

Then there is the matter of the 2020 election. Presumably, Pence would be the Republican candidate for President.  I suspect he would be regarded as a weak candidate.  The perceived impact on downstream races would be negative. Of course, the voter perception of Trump’s guilt matters.  

Let’s keep that voter perception as separate from his actual guilt or innocence. (The Vox piece argues that he actually was guilty.)  Republican voters and Democratic voters will differ in their perceptions.  And among the Republican voters there might be substantial variation in perception. 

As I write this I’m trying to recall my attitude to Gerald Ford when he became President. Everyone I knew hated Nixon.  But I’m convinced that if Ford hadn’t pardoned Nixon he would have won the election in 1976. Likewise, might a Pence Presidency experience goodwill across the board?  That seems possible, though how likely that would be I really don’t know.

The upshot is that on purely political grounds, keeping Trump as President looks like a safer play to a Republican Senator. The Vox article is useful in reminding us that the Democrats in the House were also political in not having an Impeachment based on the Mueller Report because it didn’t say explicitly that crimes were committed. This in spite of the fact that the public was much more aware of Mueller’s investigation than they were of Trump’s manipulations with Zelenskyy. (Vox blamed this on Mueller being a Republican.  I think the real blame lies in the charge Rod Rosenstein gave to Mueller not to look at Trump’s financial dealings with Russia. Plus Barr may have indicated to Mueller to tone down the language in the Report if the findings were suggestive rather than definitive.)

I suppose that the best we can expect is for Members of Congress to have dual motives in the Impeachment process. One would be to seek truth.  The other would be to follow political inclinations.  And one might also hope that the severity of the crime determines which motive wins out.

But that is just a hope

If we return to what actually happened, it appears that Senate Republicans whitewashed the Impeachment trial.  That makes it seem there was a conspiracy between them and Trump.  If that is correct, the amount of preventative in the Impeachment itself is essentially nil.

* * * * *

I think there is a logical problem in considering Trump as the source of the problem but then ignoring the role played by Republicans in Congress in enabling Trump.  An effective preventative needs to deter such enablement.

In the novelette that I have recently written, I try to work through this idea.  But it is fiction rather than an essay, or a series of essays, because some of the ideas seem so improbable that they will strain credulity, especially at first.  The reader needs to get past that to give the full set of ideas a fair hearing.

https://uofi.box.com/s/c9ufajuqt8to9k0paqvbdpwc8k52920r

So Much For Sunlight As A Disinfectant

The fix is in
He said with a grin
So let the doctors spin
While the rest sigh with chagrin.

Manipulation
Now a sensation
Has been killing the nation
Since well before its creation.
#TheHouseOfCardsAndOtherCanards