Dear Commons Community,

Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) threat to “woke” CEOs was slammed yesterday as likely the “most openly corrupt” message ever from the Senate, wrote Walter Shaub, former head of the Government Office of Ethics.

In a Wall Street Journal column last week, Cruz warned that CEOs opposing Republican threats to voting rights will be excluded from his party’s pay-to-play legislative operation — because they’re no longer conservative enough for the GOP.

For example, Republicans will stop accepting donations in exchange for “looking the other way” when corporate bigwigs dodge taxes, Cruz wrote in a stunningly honest admission of his party’s current modus operandi.

“This time,” he wrote, “we won’t look the other way on Coca-Cola’s $12 billion in back taxes owed. This time, when Major League Baseball lobbies to preserve its multibillion-dollar antitrust exception, we’ll say no thank you. This time, when Boeing asks for billions in corporate welfare, we’ll simply let the Export-Import Bank expire.”

Shaub, who served under both Barack Obama and Donald Trump, called Cruz’s threat a blatant admission that Republicans are selling corporate donors “access to the government.” In a clear swipe at Cruz’s clueless self-exposure, Shaub noted that most lawmakers have too much “sense” to say it quite so brazenly.

“It’s the part everyone knows: these crooks sell access,” Shaub tweeted. “Others have the sense not to admit it. This is why our republic is broken: Immoral politicians selling power we’ve entrusted to them like it’s theirs to sell.”

Many others agreed, with one Twitter critic informing the Texas senator: “Announcing you will no longer take bribes isn’t the defense you think it is.”

Cruz is the dumbest corrupt politician in the Senate and is not afraid to demonstrate it!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Utah Republicans rejected a motion yesterday to censure Mitt Romney for his votes at Donald Trump’s impeachment trials. The measure narrowly failed, 798 to 711, in a vote by delegates to the state GOP convention, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.

Davis County delegate Don Guymon, who authored the resolution, said Romney’s votes to remove Trump from office “hurt the Constitution and hurt the party.”

“This was a process driven by Democrats who hated Trump,” Guymon said. “Romney’s vote in the first impeachment emboldened Democrats who continued to harass Trump.”

The proposal, among several platform changes debated Saturday, also sought to praise the other members of Utah’s congressional delegation for their support of the former president.

Others warned supporting the censure risked defining the party around Trump instead of the conservative principles most delegates treasure.

“If the point of all this is to let Mitt Romney know we’re displeased with him, trust me, he knows,” said Salt Lake County delegate Emily de Azavedo Brown. “Let’s not turn this into a Trump or no Trump thing. Are we a party of principle or a party of a person?”

The GOP has a long way to go to re-establish that it is a party of principle. The majority of the delegates in Utah took a step in that direction.

Tony

Joe and Jill Biden Meet with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter

Dear Commons Community,

Maureen Dowd in her column this morning reviews the relationship between Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden.  Unlike previous Democratic presidents and candidates who avoided Carter like the plague, Biden went out of his way to pay his respects to someone he considers a long-time friend.  Dowd reserves some of her piece to describing the icy treatment that Carter received from Bill Clinton and Barak Obama.  Here is a snippet from her column:

“Pretty much every Democratic convention from 1984 until 2020, there was some kind of an issue over, ‘How do we deal with Jimmy Carter?’” said Jonathan Alter, the author of “His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life.” “He was still in bad odor not just in the country, but in parts of the Democratic Party.”

Carter has long nursed hurt feelings about how he was slighted by his Democratic successors.

“I had my best relationship, when he was in office, with George H.W. Bush,” he told me when I interviewed him in Plains in 2017, the weekend of his 93rd birthday.”

The entire column is below. 

Interesting read!

Tony

The New York Times

The Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden Show

May 1, 2021

By Maureen Dowd

WASHINGTON — Joe Biden has respect for his elders. And there aren’t that many of them.

Before the president’s rally near Atlanta on Thursday, he and Jill went out of their way to pay respects to the 96-year-old Jimmy Carter.

This made Biden the first president to make a pilgrimage to Plains since Carter left office, unless you count Yasir Arafat.

If there’s a pol who knows what it feels like to be underappreciated by his own party, it’s Biden. And he wasn’t going to continue to let Carter, at the end of his life, be treated like a pariah in peanutville.

“Pretty much every Democratic convention from 1984 until 2020, there was some kind of an issue over, ‘How do we deal with Jimmy Carter?’” said Jonathan Alter, the author of “His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life.” “He was still in bad odor not just in the country, but in parts of the Democratic Party.”

Carter has long nursed hurt feelings about how he was slighted by his Democratic successors.

“I had my best relationship, when he was in office, with George H.W. Bush,” he told me when I interviewed him in Plains in 2017, the weekend of his 93rd birthday.

Being in far-flung Plains, and sitting inside Carter’s modest house on furniture made by Carter himself, drove home how incredible it was that he made it from there to the White House.

“Carter was a little bit needy in his relations with his successors,” Alter said. “But they were wrong not to take more advantage of his immense intelligence and experience in the world.”

When Bill Clinton lost re-election to the Arkansas governor’s mansion in 1980, he cast some blame on President Carter, who had sent thousands of Cuban refugees to be interned at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas. It didn’t exactly help Clinton’s chances when hundreds of Cubans broke out and roamed the streets yelling “Libertad!” When Clinton called the Carter White House to beg officials not to send any more Cubans to his state, they agreed. And then Carter sent lots more.

When Clinton became president, he treated Carter like the plague, not wanting to be tarred with the failures of another Southern Democratic governor.

Carter, the original virtue-signaler, threw some darts at Clinton, saying that he was “very disappointed” that Chelsea was going to a fancy private school instead of public school like Amy. As payback, the Clintons stuck the Carters in bad seats at their 1993 inaugural gala.

It drove President Clinton crazy that Carter was always telling him what he “should” be doing — sometimes in the press. Carter lobbied Clinton for more respect, complaining that he was being frozen out by the State Department. (Not that being frozen out ever stopped Carter from being a pot-stirrer on the world stage.)

When I interviewed Carter, he told me that he and Rosalynn had voted for Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary.

He also said he did not have Barack Obama’s email. Even though both men are highly intelligent, starchy at times, and have the same idea of hell — spending time with congressmen — there was a chill.

It was important to Obama to be seen as cool, and he was unhappy when the press began comparing him to Carter three years into the Obama presidency, echoing the words ineffectual and self-righteous.

Carter told me that Obama did not let him speak at his 2008 convention. Then Carter was asked to make a film. “I thought it was 20 minutes,” he told me, but it got cut down to 90 seconds and was not shown in prime time.

Carter was most hurt that Michelle Obama had a first ladies lunch on the issue of mental health — Rosalynn’s expertise — and did not invite her.

The supremely ethical Carter always could repay snubs by wrapping his pious cloak around himself and sending a little dig their way. He suggested to me that the Clinton Foundation was too much like an A.T.M. and that he would never make $400,000 speeches post-presidency, as Obama did.

Biden, by contrast, was eager to have Carter be part of his convention. For health reasons, the ex-president ended up making an audio recording, joined by Rosalynn. Carter has had two falls that have affected his vision and a bit, his speech, but his mind is clear and he still swims for exercise.

Biden was the first senator to endorse Carter’s presidential bid in 1976 when he was a long shot. A former Biden aide says, “Those guys love each other.”

“Some of my colleagues in the Senate thought it was youthful exuberance,” Biden recalled in a new documentary, “Carterland.” “Well, I was exuberant. But as I said then, ‘Jimmy’s not just a bright smile. He can win, and he can appeal to more segments of the population than any other person.’”

Biden is all about the good vibes right now, so of course he’s not icing out Carter.

“Any president who puts solar panels on the White House — taken down by Reagan — is going to be seen in a better light now,” Alter said. “I’m always gobsmacked by how much more he accomplished than reporters covering him realized. Historians and future generations have to judge presidents on a standard beyond whether they fought off a killer rabbit or collapsed in black socks while jogging.”

Reports of the Plains summit were positive. Biden, naturally, did most of the talking. And Carter did most of the basking. “He gained five years of life,” enthused a Carter friend.

Biden is less interested in the killer rabbit saga than that old fable about how the underappreciated tortoise wins the race in the end.

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times has an article this morning describing advances in artificial intelligence and robotics that are ushering in a new wave of surgery (see video above)that is being developed at research centers at University of California, Berkeley and Johns Hopkins University.  As stated in the article, the aim at the present time is not to remove surgeons from the operating room but to ease their load and perhaps even raise success rates by automating particular phases of surgery.  Below is an excerpt from the article. 

This technology isn’t about whether it will be developed and made available but WHEN!

Tony

————————————————————————-

“Sitting on a stool several feet from a long-armed robot, Dr. Danyal Fer wrapped his fingers around two metal handles near his chest.

As he moved the handles — up and down, left and right — the robot mimicked each small motion with its own two arms. Then, when he pinched his thumb and forefinger together, one of the robot’s tiny claws did much the same. This is how surgeons like Dr. Fer have long used robots when operating on patients. They can remove a prostate from a patient while sitting at a computer console across the room.

But after this brief demonstration, Dr. Fer and his fellow researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, showed how they hope to advance the state of the art. Dr. Fer let go of the handles, and a new kind of computer software took over. As he and the other researchers looked on, the robot started to move entirely on its own.

With one claw, the machine lifted a tiny plastic ring from an equally tiny peg on the table, passed the ring from one claw to the other, moved it across the table and gingerly hooked it onto a new peg. Then the robot did the same with several more rings, completing the task as quickly as it had when guided by Dr. Fer.

The training exercise was originally designed for humans; moving the rings from peg to peg is how surgeons learn to operate robots like the one in Berkeley. Now, an automated robot performing the test can match or even exceed a human in dexterity, precision and speed, according to a new research paper from the Berkeley team.

The project is a part of a much wider effort to bring artificial intelligence into the operating room. Using many of the same technologies that underpin self-driving cars, autonomous drones and warehouse robots, researchers are working to automate surgical robots too. These methods are still a long way from everyday use, but progress is accelerating.

“It is an exciting time,” said Russell Taylor, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and former IBM researcher known in the academic world as the father of robotic surgery. “It is where I hoped we would be 20 years ago.”

The aim is not to remove surgeons from the operating room but to ease their load and perhaps even raise success rates — where there is room for improvement — by automating particular phases of surgery.

Robots can already exceed human accuracy on some surgical tasks, like placing a pin into a bone (a particularly risky task during knee and hip replacements). The hope is that automated robots can bring greater accuracy to other tasks, like incisions or suturing, and reduce the risks that come with overworked surgeons.

During a recent phone call, Greg Hager, a computer scientist at Johns Hopkins, said that surgical automation would progress much like the Autopilot software that was guiding his Tesla down the New Jersey Turnpike as he spoke. The car was driving on its own, he said, but his wife still had her hands on the wheel, should anything go wrong. And she would take over when it was time to exit the highway.

“We can’t automate the whole process, at least not without human oversight,” he said. “But we can start to build automation tools that make the life of a surgeon a little bit easier.”

Dear Commons Community,

The progressive PAC MeidasTouch calls on people to reject the “radicalized” GOP ― and spotlights the harmful influence that personalities on right-wing media such as Fox News can have on Republicans ― with its latest viral ad (see video above).

The narrator in the 90-second spot released online this morning notes how the alienated worldwide “are drawn to extremist leaders promising to take on the enemies of their people.”

“In America, some of our lost souls respond in a similar way to the call of influential voices,” he continues. “But instead of militant preachers or radical clerics, every single night in America they can listen to our own angry advocates of division and conspiracy” on right-wing media.

Fox News’ prime-time host Tucker Carlson, for example, has in recent weeks pushed white supremacist rhetoric, downplayed the deadly U.S. Capitol riot and sowed doubt about COVID-19 vaccines.

“The radicalized Republican party and the twisted people on TV who speak for them use the very same language of intolerance and rage to provoke those alienated people,” he concludes. “And until we all reject these poisonous voices, the result will inevitably be escalating violence and tragedy.”

Tough stuff!

Tony

Click to enlarge.

Dear Commons Community,

The Associated Press has an article in this morning’s edition reviewing the human and financial costs of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan.  It is nothing short of a tragic and misguided use of resources.  Below is the entire article.

Tony

—————————————————————————————————————————————-

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — America’s longest war, the two-decade-long conflict in Afghanistan that started in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, killed tens of thousands of people, dogged four U.S. presidents and ultimately proved unwinnable despite its staggering cost in blood and treasure.

This final chapter, with President Joe Biden’s decision to pull all American troops from Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, has prompted a reckoning over the war’s lost lives and colossal expenditure.

Here’s a look at the spiraling cost of America’s campaign — the bloodshed, wasted funds and future consequences for the war-battered nation teetering on the brink of chaos.

THE COST IN LIVES

Afghans have paid the highest price. Since 2001, at least 47,245 civilians have been killed in the war as of mid-April, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University, which documents the hidden costs of the post-9/11 wars.

Gun and bomb attacks targeting civilians surged to previously unseen heights since the intra-Afghan peace negotiations opened in Qatar last fall, according to the U.N. Watchdogs say the conflict has killed a total of 72 journalists and 444 aid workers.

The Afghan government keeps the toll among its soldiers secret to avoid undermining morale, but Costs of War estimates the war has killed 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan troops.

The war has forced 2.7 million Afghans to flee abroad, mostly to Iran, Pakistan and Europe, the U.N. said. Another 4 million are displaced within the country, which has a total population of 36 million.

Meanwhile, 2,442 U.S. troops have been killed and 20,666 wounded in the war since 2001, according to the Defense Department. It’s estimated that over 3,800 U.S. private security contractors have been killed. The Pentagon does not track their deaths.

The conflict also has killed 1,144 personnel from the 40-nation NATO coalition that trained Afghan forces over the years, according to a tally kept by the website iCasualties. The remaining 7,000 allied troops also will withdraw by Biden’s 9/11 deadline.

THE COST IN DOLLARS

The U.S. has spent a stunning total of $2.26 trillion on a dizzying array of expenses, according to the Costs of War project.

The Defense Department’s latest 2020 report said war-fighting costs totaled $815.7 billion over the years. That covers the operating costs of the U.S. military in Afghanistan, everything from fuel and food to Humvees, weapons and ammunition, from tanks and armored vehicles to aircraft carriers and airstrikes.

Although America first invaded to retaliate against al-Qaida and rout its hosts, the Taliban, the U.S. and NATO soon pivoted to a more open-ended mission: nation-building on a massive scale.

Washington has poured over $143 billion into that goal since 2002, according to the latest figures from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).

Of that, $88 billion went to training, equipping and funding Afghan military and police forces. Another $36 billion was spent on reconstruction projects, education and infrastructure like dams and highways, the SIGAR report said. Another $4.1 billion has gone to humanitarian aid for refugees and disasters. The campaign to deter Afghans from selling heroin around the world cost over $9 billion.

Unlike with other conflicts in American history, the U.S. borrowed heavily to fund the war in Afghanistan and has paid some $530 billion in interest. It has also paid $296 billion in medical and other care for veterans, according to Costs of War. It will continue to pay both those expenses for years to come.

FOLLOWING THE MONEY

Much of the billions lavished on huge infrastructure projects went to waste, the U.S. inspector general discovered. Canals, dams and highways fell into disrepair, as Afghanistan failed to absorb the flood of aid. Newly built hospitals and schools stood empty. Without proper oversight, the U.S. money bred corruption that undermined government legitimacy.

Despite the costly counternarcotics campaign, opium exports reached record heights. Despite the billions in weapons and training to Afghan security forces, the Taliban increased the amount of territory they control. Despite vast spending on job creation and welfare, unemployment hovers around 25%. The poverty rate has fluctuated over the years, reaching 47% through 2020, according to the World Bank, compared to 36% when the fund first began calculating in 2007.

“We invested too much with too little to show for it,” said Michael Wahid Hanna, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Century Foundation.

THE COST OF LEAVING

Although few want to prolong the war interminably, many fear its final end may jeopardize Afghanistan’s modest gains in health, education and women’s rights, made in the early years as the U.S. expanded the economy and toppled the Taliban, which had imposed tough strictures on women.

Since 2001, life expectancy has increased to 64 years from 56, the World Bank says. Maternal mortality has more than halved. Opportunities for education have grown, with the literacy rate rising 8% to roughly 43%. Life in cities has improved, with 89% of residents having access to clean water, compared to 16% before the war.

Child marriage has declined by 17%, according to U.N. data. Girls’ enrollment in primary school has nearly doubled, and more women have entered college and served in Parliament. These figures still pale compared with global standards.

But more broadly, the failure of America’s ambitions to build a stable, democratic Afghanistan has left the country mired in uncertainty as U.S. forces leave. The nation’s history tells of civil war that follows foreign invasions and withdrawals.

“For better or worse, the U.S. has a serious stabilizing presence right now, and once that’s gone there’s going to be a power vacuum,” said Michael Callen, an Afghanistan economy expert at the London School of Economics. “In the 20 years’ war, there’s going to be a whole lot of scores that need to be settled.”