A Temporary Alignment of Politics and Religion: The U.S. Senate Sanctions Russia after a Funeral

It is easy to point to instances in which elected government-officials stage political theater for effect, for in the domain of politics, perception has a political currency that can leave a real imprint almost as if the staged were actual rather than pretense. When the leader of one group takes over as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from a person of another partisan group, for example, it is customary for them for the mallet literally to be handed over. In the U.S. Senate, its president, who is also the Vice President of the U.S., may sit in the presider’s chair during a vote if a tie is expected; the Senate President can vote only to break a tie. A certain depth of political meaning can go along with the actual presider presiding. Sometimes, however, an arrangement can have a depth of meaning as well as carry actual political weight. The Senate’s vote on additional economic sanctions on Russia on July 28, 2026 is a case in point, for the synchronicity itself could have caused goose-bumps on exposed skin. Even so, even profound political meaning (and fulfilment) is a far shot from religious belief and experience. Distinguishing these is important in this case, for the day of the vote included a very relevant funeral at the National Cathedral that many senators no doubt attended, and could be expected to ponder their own mortality and what may lie beyond.

The full essay is at "A Temporary Alignment of Politics and Religion."

On the Politics of Non-Politics at the University of Wisconsin

Avoiding “university politics” is under normal circumstances a wise move by non-tenured professors because of how vicious such politics can be. Perhaps if more scholars who take on administrative positions with considerable power were more passionate about learning more in their respective fields of knowledge, the power itself would not be used so much to settle scores (i.e., retaliate). As Jesus says in the Gospels concerning God and money, a person cannot serve two masters. When the president of a university system is a lawyer rather than a scholar holding a doctorate, a passion for acquiring academic knowledge cannot be relied upon to keep the occupant of the high office focused on the essentials rather than on “extracurricular activities.” When the Board of Regents fired Jay Rothman, a lawyer who had been the presiding officer of the University of Wisconsin system (i.e., the main and branch campuses) on March 7, 2026, the fact that he was not oriented as a scholar—he had earned two undergraduate degrees—was arguably part of the reason for the firing, given the salience of politics both in his conduct while in office and his firing.  

The full essay is at "On the Politics of Non-Politics at the University of Wisconsin."

On the Pros and Cons of AI in Science

Will there eventually be an automated lab run by artificial intelligence? Could AI someday order equipment, conduct reviews of prior empirical studies, run experiments, and author the findings? What does this mean for scientific knowledge? Is it possible that foibles innate to how we learn could be avoided by AI? Can we provide a check on the weaknesses in AI with respect to knowledge-acquisition and analysis, or will AI soon be beyond our grasp? It is natural for us to fear AI, but this feeling can prompt computer scientists obviate the dangers so our species can benefit from AI in terms of scientific knowledge.

The full essay is at "On the Pros and Cons of AI in Science."

E.U. President Von der Leyen Survives A No-Confidence Vote

Falling short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass on July 10, 2025, the no-confidence vote on President Von der Leyen of the Commission in the E.U.’s parliament mustered only 175 representatives in favor while 360 voted against the motion and 18 abstained. Although commentators discussed whether the president was weakened anyway, a more important matter relates to the politics of the vote as distinct from the Parliament’s institutional interests as they relate to the Commission and the European Council. I contend that the Parliament, which represents E.U. citizens, has a vital interest that is vital to the E.U. itself in maintaining a balance between the collective power of the representatives of the citizenry and the power the state governments at the federal level. Parties making deals with Von der Leyen on policy positions undercut the vote as a means of holding the Commission to maintaining that balance.

The full essay is at "E.U. President Von der Leyen Survives A No-Confidence Vote."

Don't Look Up

The film, Don’t Look Up, is a most interesting film not only for how it relates science to political economy, but also in that images of wildlife—Nature, as it were—are interspersed throughout the movie, and it is Nature, rather than our circumscribed, petty, and yet economically successful species, that continues on after a large comet hits Earth and our species is wiped out. In fact, that impact-event in the movie cancels out the one that really happened 66 million years ago by returning dinosaurs to dominance. The last scene in the movie shows some of the political and economic elite waking up in their spaceship and landing on Earth more than 200,000 years in the future only to be eaten by dinosaurs that look "cute." two of those stupid people had been in charge both in the White House and in business before the comet hits, whereas the two principal astronomer-scientists who warn of the coming comet are repeatedly relegated and dismissed by the political and economic elite until the president realizes how she can use them politically—albeit just until the political winds turn again and comet-denial is more useful politically to the president. Does this sound familiar?  

The full essay is at "Don't Look Up."

Insulting Police in Georgia: Totalitarianism Criminalizing Politics

Whereas the Georgia in North America has been a member-state of the U.S. from that union’s beginning, the Georgia in Europe was still not annexed by the E.U. slightly more than 30 years after that Union’s beginning. Whether to join an empire-scale union of states is a political decision, as a union of states is a political animal. When a prospective state government criminalizes political protest and public discourse on that decision, such a government violates the federal requirement that the state governments adhere to democratic principles, which exclude criminalizing the political opposition. The government of Georgia in Europe crossed this line when a politician of the opposition was arrested for insulting the state police.

The full essay is at "Insulting Police in Georgia."

Harvard vs. Trump: Yale Doesn’t Matter

Less than a week before Harvard’s graduation ceremony in May, 2025, and about a month after Trump had frozen $2.2 billion in federal funding that would have gone to Harvard and then threatened to remove the university’s tax-exempt status, an Obama-appointed U.S. district judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration’s order that foreign students at Harvard must either transfer to other universities or leave the United States, effective immediately. In its complaint filed with the district court, Harvard argues that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem violated the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law. It requires that a rational basis be given by the federal government, which must take administrative-law steps before such an order can be definitively executed against a university. Even then, a university can appeal the last administrative-law decision to federal district court. At the very least, a university must be provided with the alleged violation of visa law and given the chance to make corrections or defend itself rather than be caught off-guard by a fait accompli by fiat. Less noticeable in the midst of the brawl, it is no small matter that a director of the federal security agency so brazenly and obviously violated administrative-procedure law. At the very least, it is duplicitous and hypocritical for a government official tasked with enforcing law against criminals to knowingly violate law to which she herself is subject in her official capacity. At the very least, Noem’s conduct should raise concerns regarding the need for greater oversight over DHS by Congress and whether it should be easier for Congress to remove a Cabinet-level political appointee. Perhaps it should be within the purview of a federal judge to suspend and even dismiss a Cabinet secretary judged to have violated federal law in an official capacity. In the context of an increasingly imperial presidency, more checks are arguably necessary. This is not, however, the topic at hand; instead, my thesis here is that even though Harvard should indeed pursue its case in federal court against the Trump Administration, and the university’s values are superior to the way in which Yale has capitulated to that government, Harvard’s administration could improve the university by exercising the sort of maturity that recognizes the kernels of truth in the otherwise spurious claims. Such maturity would be two degrees of separation from the mentality of Yale’s administration with respect to spying on student with the help of the FBI.

The full essay is at "Harvard vs. Trump."

When Hollywood Gets Political: Partisan Profits

Entertainment celebrities and businesses alike risk losing customers and thus revenue by taking positions publicly on political issues. Fearing a surge from political parties on the far-right, some large businesses in the E.U. took the unusual step of coming out against those parties, labeling them as “extremist,” prior to the E.U. election in June, 2024. Typically, businesses there limit their political stances to particular issues that bear on core functions. This is a prudent policy, for human beings, being of bounded rationality, can easily translate ideological disagreement into switching brands. Even universities can get bruised by becoming embroiled in a domestic or international matter that is controversial. Hence after the contentious spring semester of pro-Palestine protests at Harvard (and other many other universities), the university’s administration enacted a policy not to take positions on issues in which the core functions of the university are only indirectly touched or are not affected at all. In creating a “marketplace” for academic freedom, universities themselves are best positioned by staying neutral. Although it is tempting for anyone (for oneself or one’s institution) who has access to media to sway public opinion on a political issue, I contend that the immediate self-gratification is usually outweighed by lost revenue and the reputation of being partisan. Applying strict scrutiny to one’s foray into controversial issues is harder to do if some vocal customers are demanding that a position be publicly taken. The silence of other customers, who would “vote with their purse or wallet” were an opposing position to be taken, should not be overlooked.  The singer Taylor Swift and the actor Robert De Niro provide us with two illustrations. Stepping out of their respective domains comes at a cost in those domains, and thus should, I submit, be done prudently and seldom.

The full essay is at "When Hollywood Gets Political."

The Humanities on Climate Change

William Paley claimed that the “university exists to form the minds and the moral sensibilities of the next generation of clergymen, magistrates, and legislators.”[1] The assumption at Cambridge in 1785 was that both “individual conduct and a social order pleasing to God can be known and taught.”[2] To know outside of divine revelation what is pleasing to God was typically considered to be presumptuous back then because human finite knowledge cannot claim to encompass all possible knowledge. This could not even be claimed of AI a couple decades into the twenty-first century. Although infinity itself is not necessarily a divine concept—think of infinite space possibly being in the universe—it cannot be said that humans have, or even are capable of having, infinite knowledge. Theists and humanists can agree on this point. So, when a professor decides that a political issue is so important that using a faculty position to advocate for one’s own ideology in the classroom, presumptuousness can be said to reek to high heaven. I assume that any ideology is partial, and thus partisan, rather than wholistic. Both the inherently limited nature of the human brain, and thus human knowledge, and the presumption of an instructor to use the liberal arts, or the humanities more specifically, to advocate for one’s own ideology were strikingly on display on a panel on what the humanities should contribute on climate change. The panel, which consisted mostly of scholars from other universities, took place at Yale University on Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day, 2024. Perhaps on that day in which the two holidays aliened, both fear of our species going extinct—literally turning to dust—and love of our species and Earth could be felt.  That we can scarcely imagine our planet without our species living on it does not mean that such a scenario could not happen; and yet I contend that the humanities should not sell its soul or be romanticized ideologically to be transacted away into vocational knowledge, as if the humanities would more fittingly ask how to do something rather than why something is so. Going deeper, rather than departing from the intellectual raison d’être in order to tread water at the surface, metastasizing into training and skills, is not only the basis of the humanities’ sustainable competitive advantage in a university, but also the best basis from which the humanities can make a contribution to solving the problem of climate change by getting at its underlying source. Neither a political ideology or skills in “knowledge-use” can get at that; rather, they are oriented to relieving symptoms, which although very harmful, could be more expeditiously redressed by discovering and understanding their root cause. So I’m not claiming that universities should do away with applied science and research on technology, such as to absorb carbon from the seas and atmosphere; rather, I contend that the liberal arts and sciences, especially the humanities, should not be turned into engines of application.   

The full essay is at "Humanities on Climate Change."

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1. A. M. C. Waterman, Political Economy and Christian Theology Since the Enlightenment: Essays in Intellectual History (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), p. 211. 

2. Ibid.

On Israel’s Public Relations Campaign against the Charge of Genocide

In theory, state media is more vulnerable to doing the bidding of its sponsoring government than are privately owned media companies. In practice, governments are able to pressure even private news outlets to sway public opinion for political purposes. Even allied governments can pressure the government of a country in which a private news company resides in terms of what stories to air and when to air them, in order to sway that country’s public opinion, and even global public opinion. The sudden appearances in print, online, and on television news networks of former Israeli hostages being interviewed just after the International Court of Justice had announced on December 29, 2023 that Israel would be tried on charges of genocide in Gaza. Not coincidentally, I submit, emotionally-charged hyperbole was used to pull emotional “heart-strings” in order to convince the world, including the justices at international court, that the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 had been so bad that even Israel’s extremely disproportionate military attacks in Gaza were justified and thus should not be considered to be genocidal. Besides the logic being flawed, for the infliction of such disproportional harm was not justified, and even a justified genocide would violate the Convention on Genocide, which Israel had agreed to be bound. In short, I suspect that much was happening behind the scenes not only in Israel, but also in the U.S. Government and even private media companies in the U.S. immediately following the Court’s announcement.

The full essay is at "Israel's Public Relations Offensive."

Harvard and Penn Alumni Revolt: A Matter of Free Speech on Israel's War

In the context of the embroiled hatred violently spewing out between Israelis and Palestinians in October 2023, some rich, very vocal alumni at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania threated to stop donating money in order to pressure the respective university administrations (and boards of trustees) to clamp down on pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel speech on the campuses. Over at Yale, 25,000 signatures were quickly obtained from students in favor of firing a faculty employee for having written against Israel’s violence against residents of Gaza. Yale’s administration backed up the faculty member’s right of free speech, especially as it was on social media rather than in a classroom or even on campus. Tenure itself, it should be noted, exists in part to protect professors from being fired for airing unpopular opinions. Nietzsche wrote that no philosopher is a person of one’s own time, so it is only natural that thinkers may have unusual and even controversial opinions. I contend that as respites for contemplation and learning, universities should not be pressured into taking sides on controversial political issues that do not directly affect higher education, and, furthermore, that even rich alumni have an obligation to safeguard their respective alma maters rather than seek to turn them into hotbeds of ideological unrest. Of course, money talks, even if it is not in itself free speech, which, even if unpopular, universities should protect. Hence, the question arises: To what degree are Ivy League universities like Harvard and Penn vulnerable to the threats of even a few rich alumni? Does it make a difference whether the demands of such ideologues gain traction among the rank-and-file alumni? Whereas a university’s administration can usually ignore student protests, those of wealthy donors may be another story.

The full essay is at "Harvard and Penn Alumni Revolt."

The European Commission as Political

The European Commission, the E.U.’s executive branch, has been known for being a technocratic institution. Yet in drafting regulations, imposing fines, and negotiating trade deals, the Commission is much like the U.S.’s executive branch. In fact, high-level appointments must secure the approval of the legislature through confirmation hearings. Yet the top of the U.S. executive branch, the White House, has been known for being ideological and definitely political. That that executive branch also promulgates and enforces regulations can be easily missed. That the E.U.’s executive branch is also political has definitely been missed or dismissed in the ideological illusion that the E.U. is merely a technocratic international organization rather than a federal system of governments. This illusion could finally be seen as such after the election of Ursula van der Leyen as President of the European Commission in 2019.

The full essay is at "The European Commission as Political."

The U.S. Justice Department and Facebook: Secretly Mining Personal Information

Collusion between business and government has hardly been a rarity; the extent of secrecy regarding it , however, may be a surprise. Whereas business-government economic partnerships (as well as university-government partnerships) have typically been made public, the extent to which government uses businesses to get information on citizens has hardly been transparent. In spite of a U.S. federal law enacted in 2015, documents released in September of 2019 “show how far beyond Silicon Valley the practice extends—encompassing scores of banks, credit agencies, cellphone carriers and even universities.”[1] The documents, which cover 750 of the half-million subpoenas issued since 2001, reveal that more than 120 companies and other entities received subpoenas for information on customers, users, or students. F.B.I. could lawfully “scoop up a variety of information, including usernames, locations, IP addresses and records of purchases” without a judge’s approval.[2] A gag order keeps the businesses from divulging even the receipt of a subpoena. So much secrecy accompanying so much power is, I submit, dangerous to a republic. In fact, the subtle effects on citizens in the public square can easily be overlooked even if the negative impact on freedom is serious.

The full essay is at "U.S. Government Using Companies to Mine Personal Information."

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1. Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, “Secret F.B.I. Subpoenas Scoop Up Personal Data From Scores of Companies,” The New York Times, September 20, 2019.

2. Ibid.

Should Health Care Be a Right?

In the Spring of 2019, President Trump promised that a Republican alternative to "Obamacare" would soon be unveiled; the majority leader of the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell, quickly informed the president that the prospects of such legislation passing the Democratic-controlled U.S. House were zilch. This virtually guaranteed that health care would be play a salient role in the upcoming 2020 presidential race. The underlying question, I submit, has been whether health care ought to be a right, which the government would be obligated to ensure. Such a right would obviously not be one of those that hold government back (e.g., the right to liberty). Whether a right ensured by government or holding government back, the nature of a right is such that it is to be respected by others, whether individuals, organizations, or the state. Such respect, being an obligation, constrains those others. Hence, health care as a right has been controversial in the U.S. 

The full essay is at "Survival of the Fittest."

U.S. Attorney General Barr's Decision on the Mueller Investigation of President Trump: On the Invisible Personal and Institutional Conflicts of Interest

On March 24, 2019, U.S. Attorney General William Barr sent to Congress his summary of Robert Mueller's report on whether President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign had colluded with the Russian government and whether the president had obstructed justice. According to Barr, Mueller had found no evidence of collusion. As for obstruction, Barr wrote that Mueller "did not draw a conclusion one way or the other as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction."[1] On this point, Mueller himself had written that 'while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, [the report] also does not exonerate him."[2] Mueller had laid out evidence and arguments on both sides of the question of obstruction, and Barr determined that the "evidence fell short of proving [that the president] illegally obstructed the Russia inquiry."[3] The New York Times went on to call this "an extra-ordinary outcome."[4] Barr did not detail his reasoning in deciding the matter of obstruction. According to the New York Times, he "appeared to be focusing on the question of whether investigators could prove that [President Trump] had 'corrupt intent' in instances where the available evidence about his motivations was ambiguous."[5] But in focusing on a lack of evidence that the Trump campaign reached any agreement with the Russian government on sabotaging the election, legal experts said," Barr "left out other reasons the president may have had for wanting to stymie a wide ranging investigation: It could uncover other crimes and embarrassing facts."[6] In other words, Barr's parameters may have been too narrow. The way Barr framed the contours for his decision might not have been an accident, given his personal conflict of interest. More important than this, I submit, is the continuing institutional conflict of interest facing the Justice Department in investigating its boss, the chief executive.

The full essay is at "Investigating Personal and Institutional Conflicts of Interest."

1. Eli Watkins, "Barr Authored Memo Last Year Ruling Out Obstruction of Justice," CNN.com, March 24, 22019.

2.Mark Mazzetti and Carol Benner, "Mueller Finds No Trump-Russia Conspiracy but Stops Short of Exonerating President on Obstruction," The New York Times, March 24, 2019.

3. Charlie Savage, Mark Mazzetti, and Katie Benner, "Barr's Move Ignites a Debate: Is He Impartial?" The New York Times, March 26, 2019.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

Karl Lagerfeld: An Artistic (and Marketing) Genius

Weeks after Karl Lagerfeld’s death at 85 in February, 2019, I poured over interviews that the eternally-modern yet classic Renaissance man had given. “I only answer questions,” he had said an interview in at a WWD conference in 2013. His answers provide as inside as possible a look at l’homme extradinaire.  He considered himself a fashion designer, a book publisher (regular and picture books), and a photographer, though he did much more. I’m not sure whether his books, interior designs, architecture, and photography can be considered marks of genius, but that he extended his method of fashion-design and did so well is a testament to the man’s inner-workings. His answers remind me of Frank Lloyd Wright, the famous architect from Wisconsin whose work so revolutionized homes from the Victorian era. Essentially, he ushered in open homes from the closed roomed Victorian houses. Lagerfeld was also innovative, taking the classic Chanel look and adding bits of modernity, such as in combining a black dress with sneakers. Both men produced homes/dresses that were inexpensive and expensive. Neither was beyond reach, yet as visionaries so far above most other people. Lagerfeld, like Wright, saw things differently than most of their respective contemporaries did. This is perhaps their shared mark of genius: not be so tied to yesterday, combined with being inspired to use creative freedom then expanding its application. This is all based in the inner constitution of the two men, which I suspect was similar. As Lagerfeld said, “I am down to earth—just not this Earth.” This is actually quite telling of genius, for such minds typically think "outside the box" and so can easily see through even societal sacred cows and thus proffer very different perspectives. The thinking, intuition and/or artistic perspective, in other words, innately go beyond the societal and individual assumptions that most people do not even realize they live by or hold. I contend that Karl Lagerfeld's artistic, or visual genius went far beyond fashion-designing. 

The full essay is at "Karl Lagerfeld."

On the Futility of Divided Government at the Empire Level: The Case of the U.S.A.

Rick Perry, when he was the Republican governor of Texas running for re-election, said his primary opponent, Senator Kay Hutchison, was spending tax dollars too freely in Washington. He meant that she was too Washington. He claimed that she didn't get what he called, “Texas values.” Then, he added something really telling—something that went beyond his electoral contest: “Washington’s one-size-fits-all approaches simply don’t work. They want more control of your dollars and your life, and they want it now. We surrender that to them with peril.” His statement is worthy of our reflection even long after Perry's re-election campaign.

The full essay is at "On Divided Government at the Empire Level."

On European and American federalism compared, see Essays on Two Federal Empires, available at Amazon. See also, "American and European Federalism, a short critique of Perry's book on federalism, Fed Up!

Handouts in Averting the Fiscal Cliff: The Price of Politics?

What is that nebulous thing called politics? Might it be that the practice is essentially exploiting or creating what are known as principal-agent costs? That is, might politics boil down to a skill in the agent (elected representative) in putting his political or economic interests ahead of doing the bidding of his principal(s) (i.e., his constituent body).  
In the U.S. Senate bill in early 2013 to obviate the “fiscal cliff,” for example, the Democrats may have agreed to benefits for the Republican lawmakers’ campaign backers in exchange for going along with a more progressive federal income tax system. Among the added provisions were special expensing rules for certain film and television productions—no doubt those made by particular campaign contributors. The provision for tax-exempt financing for the New York Liberty Zone around the former World Trade Center may also have been a favor to a particular someone. Lest it is wondered what an extension of the American Samoa economic development credit was doing in an expedited measure to obviate the “fiscal cliff,” the answer may have had to do with a particular Republican lawmaker’s relationship with someone having an interest in American Samoa. I can only speculate here, as I was not privy to the actual relationships and negotiations. However, the sheer strangeness of such provisions in such a bill suggests that the particular political or economic interests of particular Republican lawmakers may have been the culprit.

 Is money the language of politics?    citizen.org

The full essay is at "Handouts in Averting the Fiscal Cliff."

Picking a President by Polls

It is one thing to say that something is broken; it is quite another thing to fix it. In such a case, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it doesn’t cut it. Any pathological fear of change must give way or the brokenness must be endured. During the last half of 2011, over a year before the U.S. presidential election, the election season was already in full swing. Without any primaries or caucuses, the media and “debate” (i.e., talking points) organizers divided the Republican candidates into two tiers. Besides being an artificial dichotomy given the spectrum of support revealed in polls, that they were being used to prioritize among the candidates in the “debates” and more generally in terms of electability is problematic. 

The full essay is at "Picking a U.S. President." 

 

John Kerry: An American Politician

Just after President Barak Obama announced that he would nominate Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts to be the U.S. Secretary of State, the E.U. Secretary of State (Minister of Foreign Affairs), Catherine Ashton, welcomed the prospect of working with Kerry. Whether she knew it at the time or not, she would be working with an American politician. After all, Kerry had already run for the American presidency. To be sure, he was not taking up the foreign affairs post to build his resume. I believe he genuinely wanted the job. The problem is, is trying to please all the people all the time, a politician's patina (or deeper?), best in foreign affairs? In this essay, I focus not on this question, but, rather, on the patina itself in the case of John Kerry so the underlying problem behind the question of fit with foreign affairs can be more transparent to the wider public.

U.S. President Obama nominates U.S. Sen. John Kerry to be U.S. Secretary of State.    Reuter

The full essay is at: "An American Politician."