Just One Thing: Seditious Conspiracy
Yesterday, Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the far-right group, the Oath Keepers, along with the guy who was his key deputy during the January 6th riots were found guilty of seditious conspiracy.
Here's the definition of seditious conspiracy:
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
It’s a rarely used charge for which nobody has been convicted since 1995. Three other people Oath Keepers defendants were found not guilty of that charge but guilty of other charges revolving around interfering with the operation of government. (Rhodes and his deputy were also found guilty of other charges.)
Ignoring for a moment the inevitable appeal, these results represent a moment of justice for that terrible day. Mr Rhodes is not an idiot (he has a law degree from Yale), but he clearly became paranoid. I suspect and hope that this is the end of the Oath Keepers as an organization, and hopefully the Proud Boys will soon follow them on to the ash heap of history.
If I were in the DOJ's prosecutorial crosshairs right now for actions related to the 1/6 riots, I'd be looking to make a plea (if I were guilty, at least.)
Oath Keepers founder guilty of sedition in U.S. Capitol attack plot | Reuters
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes' path: From Yale to jail | AP News
p.s. I do expect some folks to think this verdict is unjust. They are wrong. I would note that the jury clearly made distinctions among charges and among defendants based on how each defendant was convicted of at least one thing but also acquitted of at least one thing, and many of the combinations were different. And there was one charge, destruction of government property, that no defendant was convicted of. Again, this jury took it's job seriously after the 7 weeks of trial testimony.
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Today's Guest
Andrew Keith Walker is a technology and sci-fi columnist and writer. His website is here: Andrew Keith Walker
I saw this piece over at the rather hyperbolic web site Vox.com: A guide to why advanced AI could destroy the world - Vox
The subject matter is of great interest and much debate among experts, and of course among non-experts like me.
I asked that author to join the show but she did not respond. Simultaneously I contacted Andrew to give the other side of the argument, and he agreed to join us from England by Zoom. I'll mostly play devil's advocate for this one.
Here's Andrew's piece from a few years back; you can see why I thought he'd be the right guy for this conversation: 5 really obvious reasons why we shouldn’t fear AI. No really. | by Andrew Keith Walker | Becoming Human: Artificial Intelligence Magazine
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Other Stuff
Not the most important story, but the funniest: Kanye Incinerated By Jewish Space Laser | Babylon Bee
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Senate Passes "Respect for Marriage Act" (RMA): Landmark same-sex marriage bill wins Senate passage | AP News
Here's the text of the amended bill as entered in the Congressional Record: Congressional Record | Congress.gov | Library of Congress
The bill does not actually create a federal right to same-sex marriage. It says that if two people of the same sex get married in a state where that is legal, other states where the couple then reside (or are otherwise present) must recognize the contract and treat the two people as married under the law.
Per USA Today, "(I)ndividuals or groups would not be legally required to provide services for a wedding ceremony or celebration if it's against their religious beliefs. It also would not recognize polygamous unions."
The amendment that passed provides some measure of protection for religious organizations but Senator Mike Lee, among others, doesn't believe those protections are broad or strong enough: Respect for Marriage Act: Why religious liberty deserves protection and my amend... (senate.gov)
See section 6 of the bill in the Congressional Record link above to read the religious exemptions.
The bill now goes to the House where they have to pass this amended version and will likely do so quickly with the support of several dozen Republicans.
I will note that it's unclear what the functional result of this law will be given the overhanging presence of the Supreme Court's Obergefell decision in which a 5-4 Court created a constitutional right to gay marriage. After the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v Wade, Justice Clarence Thomas made some noises about how other rulings which were based on a similar legal foundation as Roe, among which is Obergefell, should be re-examined. Other justices including the other conservatives seemed to have no interest in that conversation. In any case, a main purpose of the RMA seems to be to offer a layer of protection for gay marriage should SCOTUS someday overturn Obergefell.
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Some major media outlets are picking up on the data that I saw on Twitter a couple of weeks ago about how people's use of time changes over our lifetimes. It's worth talking about more, particularly in the context of the increasing number of people who live alone and what that means for Americans' happiness:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/27/us/living-alone-aging.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/23/americans-alone-thanksgiving-friends
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This whole "free speech" thing on Twitter is going to be absolutely fascinating in the sense of whether it helps or hurts the overall user experience which is really what long-term financial viability of the product is all about. I favor free speech but if you own a multi-billion-dollar business you have to protect that asset first and foremost. So the question is whether allowing whatever sort of "misinformation" (and there's a whole other conversation about who gets to decide what that is, which is part of the reason that just allowing everything is so much easier and safer) is something the user base will return to accepting. I mean, that's how it used to be, prior to Twitter's (and other social media's) censorious turn. I think the best outcome would be user-based warnings that could be noted at the bottom of a tweet while still allowing the tweet to be displayed, but even that would have to be monitored for signs of organized opposition to a tweet based not on fact but on political differences or other motivations. It is remarkable how thoroughly and how quickly the journalistic elite and Twitter liberals came fully to accept Twitter being censored, and we all know why they did: because it was being censored by people who think exactly the way they do. Now that it's not, will other platforms make serious inroads into taking those users off Twitter (which, whether you like those users or not, is bad for Twitter), and will advertisers stick with or return to Twitter? These are existential questions for Elon Musk's new toy.
https://www.axios.com/2022/11/29/twitter-covid-misinformation-policy-enforcement
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China could have a massive COVID problem
Keep an eye on China. High initial vax rate but very low booster rate, and the didn’t take western vaccines, only Chinese vaccines, which seem quite ineffective. If the gov’t feels political pressure, which isn’t an easy thing to feel in China but can happen on the margins, especially if the pressure is coming from within the political system rather than from the people, to loosen COVID restrictions and then the virus starts to spread rapidly, that country could have a LOT of trouble. The next question will be how it impacts the rest of the world, such as with supply chain, etc.
COVID-19 in China and global concern - by Katelyn Jetelina (substack.com)
Part of the problem is that the nation's dictator is deservedly understood as THE guy behind China's "Zero Covid" policy so he (President Xi Jinping) cannot and will not do anything that looks like backing down. He MIGHT looks for modifications that don't cause him to "lose face" but at this point it's hard to know what they are. Meanwhile, as Ambrose Evans-Pritchard notes and as we've discussed before on the show including with Peter Zeihan, China is facing a disastrous demographic cliff and, as I've been saying on the radio for years, remain "likely to get old before they get rich."
Xi’s Covid-Leninism has destroyed China’s bid for economic supremacy (telegraph.co.uk)
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Hope for Alzheimer's patients?
I suspect or hope that this drug’s mechanism of operation will give clues for future development but right now it’s hard to argue that this one is ready for primetime.
New Alzheimer’s Drug Shows Positive Results but Side Effects - WSJ
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These are things that happen when your heart is bigger than your brain: Colorado Democrats are flush with power but face a fiscal cliff
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Home Prices Slid in September for Third Straight Month - WSJ It's important to note that the Case-Schiller is based on older data which is why this report is for September. You'd have to think it's worse now.
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WSJ: Being a Cheap Date Is Suddenly a Major Plus
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Still better than bleu cheese: Doctors discover 187 coins in man's stomach after he complained he was 'bloated' - World News - Mirror Online
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