The Gentry Is Getting Nervous

A piece by Emily Oster from Monday in the Atlantic, home of David Brooks and Francis Fukuyama, Let's Declare A Pandemic Amnesty, has attracted a certain amount of comment. Ms Oster, an economics professor at Brown University, points this out in her piece to establish her credentialed membership in the elite, which is the platform from which she makes her proposal:

In the face of so much uncertainty, getting something right had a hefty element of luck. And, similarly, getting something wrong wasn’t a moral failing. Treating pandemic choices as a scorecard on which some people racked up more points than others is preventing us from moving forward.

We have to put these fights aside and declare a pandemic amnesty. We can leave out the willful purveyors of actual misinformation while forgiving the hard calls that people had no choice but to make with imperfect knowledge. Los Angeles County closed its beaches in summer 2020.

. . . Moving on is crucial now, because the pandemic created many problems that we still need to solve.

The problem with her argument is that she treats it as a zero-sum exercise. Some of us did things that were silly, heh heh. Some of us were smarter, but this is probably just luck, and it's all over now, anyway. This is actually not the case -- toward the end, she sneaks in a brief question among the things we still need to study:

Why have some states recovered faster than others?

The answer here isn't off in the dark matter of the universe; it's not a question like "Why do the wicked prosper?" We pretty much already have the answer. Florida and Texas did quite well. while New York, Michigan, and California did poorly. The states that fared better had common-sense leadership that actively resisted unreasonable mandates from Washington like lockdowns and compulsory masking from the start. The results at the ballot box so far this year have rewarded those leaders and appear to be penalizing the political establishments in many of the blue states that enforced the mandates. Even Gavin Newsom, among the most visible of the COVID authoritarians, now complains,

“We’re getting crushed on narrative,” Newsom told CBS News’ Chief Washington Correspondent Major Garrett. “We’re going to have to do better in terms of getting on the offense and stop being on the damn defense.”

My goodness, how could such a thing be happening? This goes some distance to contradict Oster's assertion that the successful policy choices were a matter of luck in an environment where nobody had good information. Other policy choices were forced by the courts, which ruled restrictions on specific religious observance were unconstitutional. When churches and synagogues reopened, there were no spikes in COVID. Everyone had access to the US First Amendment, this policy choice was not a matter of luck or uncertainty.

Oster, a professor in the Ivy League who writes for the Atlantic, is a member of the gentry, which is effectively the class that actually benefited from COVID as others suffered. Professors, teachers, bureaucrats, administrators, managemeent, journalists, and many professionals kept their jobs as government mandates shut the economy at large -- indeed, many in this group, likely Prof Oster herself, were able to indulge in the "working from home" charade, teaching classes or attending meetings via ZOOM sessions but with other duties heavily reduced.

On the other hand, the restaurant industry, service workers like barbers and beauticians, movie theaters, small-business retail, auto salesmen and mechanics, were closed and out of work for the duration. This has permanently affected the blue-collar workforce; it's still harder to get a haircut. Other members of the working class who actually had to be productive to earn a buck still had to come to work, assuming they weren't laid off due to the collapse in demand.

This leaves out the medical policy disasters, people gravely ill forcibly separated from their families by draconian quarantine, or elderly patients with COVID returned to nursing homes, where they simply spread the disease. For those groups, this isn't water under the bridge, bygones that can be bygones. I think at a certain level, Oster recognizes this, and she's effectively arguing her own case here. I think this is at least partly because COVID is a largely unmentioned subtext of the current election cycle. Look at the Schadenfreude surrounding Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter:

New Twitter CEO Elon Musk will reportedly eliminate half of the company’s workforce at the end of this week as he tries to make the company profitable.

Bloomberg News reported that Musk is cutting 3,700 of the company’s 7,500 employees and that employees will be notified of their dismissal on Friday.

Musk is also reportedly canceling a work-from-anywhere policy and is going to force employees to come into the office to work.

Think of that -- members of the gentry, coddled employees who got free beer on Fridays or "worked from home" if they chose, facing layoffs just like barbers, cooks, and mechanics. These changes are about more than COVID, although COVID had a lot to do with bringing them about. The gentry is nervous.

New Info Leaks Out On Pelosi Security

Yesterday I asked why the Pelosi San Francisco home didn't have even the sort of doorway alarms that come with ordinary suburban home security systems. I got a partial answer in this morning's news. According to the Washington Post:

The U.S. Capitol Police had cameras outside the home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but they were not monitored, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

Capitol Police saw the flash of police lights on the camera, rewound the video and saw the break-in, according to the sources.

It is unclear whether or not the cameras should have been monitored at the time.

Just the News has a slightly different version:

A live security video feed at the home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi caught the suspect in the recent assault on her husband Paul Pelosi, but no one from the U.S. Capitol Police was watching, sources told Just the News.

U.S. Capitol Police did not return numerous requests for comment on Tuesday.

A source revealed to Just the News that the officer who was in charge of monitoring the feed didn't notice the break-in occurred until the flashing strobe lights from responding San Francisco police squads were visible on the feed.

. . . Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said that the department is currently conducting a formal review of the incident but declined to provide further detail in a statement released on Tuesday.

This account suggests there was in fact an officer who was in charge of monitoring the feed. but for whatever reason, it wasn't monitored. At least they haven't claimed the camera was broken, at least not yet. The FBI was on that case like white on rice:

Two cameras that malfunctioned outside the jail cell where financier Jeffrey Epstein died as he awaited trial on sex-trafficking charges have been sent to an FBI crime lab for examination, a law enforcement source told Reuters.

I bet they rounded up the usual suspects, too.

But this doesn't answer the basic question of why your average middle-class suburbanite has the budget to install door alarms that not only make a loud noise, but notify the security company and police -- yet the Pelosi residence didn't have even this level of security.

UPDATE: This story says,

Further, the Washington Post reported that Pelosi’s home security system is supposed to notify both San Francisco police and Capitol Police when tripped. However, Capitol Police “never received an alert from the home security company,” WaPo reported, adding that “it was unclear if the system was armed at the time of the break-in.

There will be more to learn here, especially if for whatever reason, Pelosi didn't have the presence of mind to ensure his own safety.

In fact, at a lower price point, many ordinary people install bars or metal screens on rear windows and doors, exactly where DePape broke in with a hammer. Had there been metal screens on those back doors, as far as I can tell, he wouldn't have been able to break the glass and get in. The Pelosis might not have liked the look of metal screens on those expensive doors, but of course, they had the option of the more expensive but still affordable electronic door alarms. And this was a choice many residents of that exclusive neighborhood likely made even if they weren't in the presidential line of succession.

Capitol Police Chief Manger looks in the photo above like a comfortable, well-fed bureaucrat on the verge of retirement. Hey, do you see the electronic security sensor on his office door past his left hand in the photo? I strongly suspect that with a likely Republican Speaker taking over in January, he'll get that opportunity.

I still think we dodged a bullet in this episode, and congress does in fact need to conduct a bipartisan investigation into why security for those in the line of succession past vice president appears currently to be so lax.

Well, I Was Partly Right

The one inference I made in yesterday's post that was completely correct was that Chief Scott of the San Francisco Police Department was not promoted for his communication skills. His statements following the incident at the Pelosi home were vague and required at least two subsequent clarifications, themselves vague and confusing. The criminal complaint filed yesterday by the FBI, in contrast, provides a consistent narrative that for now seems credible, although it in itself raises other questions, in particular why there was in fact so little security at the Pelosi home in light of the Speaker's position in the line of presidential succession.

The criminal complaint is based in part on interviews with Paul Pelosi himself, one in the ambulance immediately after the attack, as well as police body cam footage. These were available to Chief Scott and his staff before he issued any public statement and could have been used to much better effect than they were. Our institutions pay a high price for corruption. Here are reordered excerpts from the complaint that provide a clearer picture, days after it should have been given:

DEPAPE stated that he broke into the house through a glass door, which was a difficult task that required the use of a hammer. DEPAPE stated that Pelosi was in bed and appeared surprised by DEPAPE. DEPAPE told Pelosi to wake up. DEPAPE told Pelosi that he was looking for Nancy.

. . . Around this time, according to DEPAPE, DEPAPE started taking out twist ties from his pocket so that he could restrain Pelosi. Pelosi moved towards another part of the house, but DEPAPE stopped him and together they went back into the bedroom.

While talking with each other, Pelosi went into a bathroom, where Pelosi grabbed a phone to call 9-1-1. DEPAPE stated he felt like Pelosi’s actions compelled him to respond.

. . . DEPAPE stated that they went downstairs to the front door. The police arrived and knocked on the door, and Pelosi ran over and opened it. Pelosi grabbed onto DEPAPE’s hammer, which was in DEPAPE’s hand.

. . . DEPAPE stated that he pulled the hammer away from Pelosi and swung the hammer towards Pelosi.

At this point, the police entered the home through the open door and tackled DePape. This solves the question I had yesterday of exactly how this tableau emerged without a third party opening the door, and the reason lies entirely with the staff who provided Chief Scott with a vague and poorly worded version of events for him to deliver to the press. A smaller question, in light of DePape's clear intent and erratic behavior, is why, once Pelosi opened the door, he didn't immediately run outside to the police officers, but that's just not how things went down.

A footnote to this version of events is a witness account from outside the home included in the complaint:

SFPD Officer Colby Wilmes was able to interview a witness, Witness 1, who saw an individual in all black, carrying a large black bag on his back, walking near the Pelosi residence where Witness 1 was parked. Witness 1 was working private security at an address nearby. Witness 1 then heard what sounded like banging on either a door or car and then heard the sirens within a minute or two.

It sounds like we can infer that the whole episode took place within the space of a very few minutes, that Pelosi did not know DePape and had not interacted with him at all prior to his entry to the home, and in fact DePape did not attack Pelosi with the hammer until after the police arrived, when Pelosi inexplicably chose to return to DePape in the entryway after opening the door for the police. Accounts from DePape's associates give a fairly convincing impression that he was psychotic and disorganized and not capable of pursuing an effective or rational plan in entering the Pelosi home.

Two factors led to confusion and suspicion about the story over the weekend. One was Paul Pelosi's reputation: six months earlier, he had caused an injury accident while driving under the influence but used his connections as a major donor to police charities to try to influence the responding officer to give him preferential treatment. He was dismissed from that charitable group as a result. Nevertheless, in an atmosphere of continuing political interference, he received a minimal jail sentence for the DUI. Beyond that, in recent months, both he and his wife, the Speaker, have been accused of building massive wealth via insider stock market deals. All of this would lead reasonable observers to conclude political influence could surround the handling of this case.

The second factor is what appears to be the remarkably light security in the Pelosi home, given both their wealth and the Speaker's position in the presidential line of succession. A disorganized psychotic was able to smash an outside door, gain entry to the home, and wake up Pelosi in his bedroom without setting off any alarm. In my own home, with middle class-level security, anyone who forced an outside door open would set off an alarm, loud enough to wake the dead in the house as well as at the security company and the police department. This apparently didn't happen here.

One question I have is whether the same level of security applies when the Speaker is in residence at that location -- given the Speaker's general self-importance and grandiosity, I would think that either security there is enhanced when she's present, or she just isn't there very often -- or maybe both. And the level of security when only Paul is there may well be a reflection of Paul's overall standing in Nancy's universe.

There seems to be a very high probability that the Speaker will be a lame duck after next week's elections. With Republicans returning to power, this case deserves a serious congressional investigation.

Here's One Thing You Learn From Live PD/OP Live

The photo above is an illustration of the type of body cameras worn by officers of the San Francisco Police Department. In current technology, police body cameras activate automatically, often when officers exit their police vehicles. They can't be turned off. I'll get to this below.

One thing you learned as a fan of Live PD, which following its cancellation by A&E has been cloned and resuscitated as OP Live by the REELZ network, is that police departments that allow camera crews to ride along inevitably assign the crews to their best officers. They'd be shooting themselves in the foot if they didn't, since bungled arrests, episodes of brutality, or community relations disasters would all be caught on tape, while conversely, it's to their credit to have a courteous, diverse, effective patrol force on full public display.

My wife and I have watched these shows long enough, since some of the departments have participated in them over many seasons, to see some of the most familiar officers promoted in the course of successful careers, which to me is an indication of the transparent and merit-based systems in these departments. Another feature on display in the best departments is that the supervisory officers who explain things in greater depth to the cameras are clear, effective communicators. In fact, in a merit-based system, clear communications ability is a promotional factor.

Which brings me to the San Francisco Police Department and its Chief William Scott. Yesterday I quoted a Breitbart News story that covered Scott's account of the police response to the Pelosi home:

“So when the officers arrived and knocked on the front door of the residence this morning, the door was opened by someone inside,” Scott said. “And the officers observed through the open door Mr. Pelosi and the suspect, Mr. DePape, inside the entryway of the home.

The officers ordered Pelosi and DePape to drop the hammer and seemingly stood by as DePape attacked Pelosi, waiting until DePape “violently assaulted” Pelosi before disarming the suspect.

If Pelosi and DePape were struggling with a hammer as the police arrived, there would inevitably need to be a third party to open the door, since Pelosi and DePape would have been too busy struggling to open it themselves. Or do I have this wrong? Nevertheless, NBC now claims this is not what Chief Scott said, or meant to say, or something. In a later update to he story, Breitbart reported,

NBC News walked back a report Sunday that there was a third person in Paul Pelosi’s home during the attack.

“The SFPD also says that there were only TWO people inside the Pelosi home (Paul Pelosi and DePape) when they responded, clarifying statements made at Friday’s press conference which seemed to indicate there was a third person inside the home who opened the door,” wrote NBC investigative correspondent Tom Winter on social media on Sunday afternoon.

So Chief Scott misspoke, or that's what they'd have you believe. This still leaves open the question of how the police saw Pelosi and DePape struggling with a hammer through an open door. Did the police knock and Pelosi and DePape temporarily stop the struggle so one could open the door, whereupon both picked up the hammer and resumed the struggle so the police could see it and respond?

I think the best explanation is that SFPD's normal chain of command has been interrupted by Pelosi handlers, who are the ones telling Scott and the department what to say, rather than the normal public information officers who'd be dealing with the media if the incident Friday morning involved anyone other than Paul Pelosi. The result is that, as I began to point out yesterday, almost every detail of the story as it's been put out simply defies logic and common sense. This now includes the newly updated narrative that only two people were inside the house.

My firm served a lawsuit against Paul Pelosi one time in SF after attempting to serve at other residences—Napa, Georgetown. They weren’t home, but staff were, & multiple law enforcement officers were on the perimeter. Break-in is odd given this level of security.

— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) October 28, 2022

As I noted at the start of this post, SFPD officers are equipped with body cams, and the footage would instantly clarify just what happened -- except that my surmise is that what actually happened has nothing to do with the current received narrative. Not only will there be body cam footage showing just who opened the door (if that's even how this whole thing developed), but there will be footage from the security cameras in the entryway as well.

Given the account from Ms Dhillon's experience, plus common sense, there must have been at least one, but likely more, household staff and security personnel in the Pelosi home at the time of the attack. According to Business Insider,

"The Speaker of the House is not a Secret Service protectee," US Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi wrote in an email, adding that all other questions about Pelosi's protection should be directed to the US Capitol Police.

. . . But other lawmakers have offered glimpses into their own security coverage.

In 2017 late [sic] congressional newspaper Roll Call reported that late-GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch, who was then-president pro tempore of the Senate and third-in-line to the presidency, divulged that nearly two dozen armed guards surrounded him and his wife at all times.

"These men and women are like family to me," Hatch said of those assigned to protect him. Hatch aides added that his 23-person security detail "is the second largest on the Hill following Speaker Ryan."

Which, extrapolated out, would mean Pelosi's protective force is likely to be even higher today[.]

The phrase "at all times" relating to coverage of key legislators and their spouses is at least present in this discussion. But if, as the late Sen Hatch said, the dozens in his own security detail were "like family", this would imply that Speaker Pelosi's detail would be much the same, and they would be intimately familiar with the habits and preferences of their protectees. Like, for instance, Paul Pelosi's normal associates and who he'd be likely to bring home late at night. My bet is that DePape was in the house because the security detail had let him in on Paul's implied OK.

At this point, I think the inevitable conclusion is that the whole narrative we've been given about the attack, the roles of Messrs Pelosi and DePape, and the SFPD response is the purest moonshine. Chief Scott's version, never credible in any form, becomes less so with each revision, and it suggests at minimum an astonishing lack of professionalism in that department. Certainly it would appear that Chief Scott was not promoted for his skill at communication. The best analysis I've seen so far is still the one I quoted yesterday:

Okay, so the Paul Pelosi story is not adding up...

My two theories so far are:

1. Jussie Smollett 2.0

2. Paul Pelosi got in a fight with his gay lover

— Samantha Marika (@samanthamarika1) October 28, 2022

Trouble Sure Seems To Follow Paul Pelosi Around, Doesn't It?

As of this morning, the lid looks to be well and truly down on the Paul Pelosi home invasion-hammer attack story. This must surely be the case if the first call he placed after his DUI accident last May was to the family fixer, after which we heard nothing that wasn't thoroughly massaged, cleaned, and spun. But never fear, J Edgar's here. That means we can be pretty sure we've learned all we're ever going to hear, despite the truly hinky narrative that trickled out Friday and Saturday.

Recognizing that we're dealing with something like the fog of war here, with garbled and incomplete reports based on misunderstandings, the story that's initally emerged just doesn't add up, start to finish. Here's what's implied about the start:

Suspect David DePape, 42, had broken into the home in the wee hours of Friday morning, demanding to see the powerful lawmaker, who was out of town, according to police.

I think if we were more careful, though, the most we'd be entitled to say would be Mr DePape was apparently in the home possibly demanding to see the Speaker -- exactly how he got in isn't explained, and this is the first mystery. The Speaker is third in line for the US presidency, as well as quite wealthy. We would expect a state-of-the-art security system, likely with cameras outside if not inside as well. The FBI and SFPD will certainly want to see footage, if only to suppress it. My wife and I have only middle-class security in our home, and a break-in would set off alarms at both the security company and the police department. The Pelosis didn't have even this?

L:et's move to the second level of hinky. From the same link,

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s elderly husband made a desperate 911 call early Friday from a bathroom in their multimillion-dollar San Francisco mansion, likely saving him from the deranged man who beat him with a hammer, authorities said.

Wait a moment. In this version, a deranged maniac has just invaded the Pelosi home, threatening 82-year-old Paul with a hammer -- and quick-thinking Paul, remembering his Boy Scout training, asks to use the bathroom? As I envision a home invasion and the sort of deranged maniac who'd do such a thing, his answer would be along the line of "bleep bleep bleep, motherbleep, bleep bleep, get on the floor!" No bathroom pass would be forthcoming, no matter how urgent the call.

Nevertheless, according to this narrative, the deranged maniac allows Paul his bathroom break, whereupon the plucky guy picks up his cell phone that had been on the charger, and according to the link,

he made the emergency call, speaking in “code” to a quick-thinking dispatcher.

Wait a moment. My life is in danger, but thanks to my Boy Scout training and presence of mind, I've made it to the bathroom, where I've shut and locked the door. Apparently the deranged maniac outside is satisfied for now that I'm taking care of business, but clearly, if my Boy Scout training is of any use, I must know I've got to act urgently, dial 911, and say something like, "My name is Paul Pelosi, husband of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. I'm at our home on 1313 Mockingbird Lane, and there's a deranged maniac threatening me with a hammer. I'm locked in the bathroom, but I don't know how long I can hold out. Send someone right away!"

No, not a bit of it. According to the link I've used so far, he spoke in code to a quick-thinking dispatcher.

“When you have an experienced dispatcher with good instincts, they learn how to read between the lines,” San Francisco Police Chief William Scott told reporters.

Various reports say that Pelosi somehow referred to DePape as a "friend", while the dispatcher also noted that Pelosi "seemed confused".

Pelosi left the call open while he confronted the suspect, Scott said. The dispatcher was able to tell something was amiss without Pelosi alarming the suspect, according to police.

“What’s going on? Why are you here? What are you doing to me?” Pelosi said while the dispatcher listened in.

The UK Daily Mail has more details on the call:

The operator could then be heard contacting police dispatch describing the incident: 'He states there is a male in the home and that he is going to wait for his wife. He stated that he doesn't know who the male is but that his name is David and that he is a friend. He sounded somewhat confused.'

Reports on Pelosi's May DUI in Napa suggest that when law enforcement initially arrived at the accident scene, he was barely able to walk or speak coherently, and I would surmise that he was in equivalent condition here, for what all that's worth. But the circumstances continue not to add up. A later version from SFPD Chief Scott appears to scramble the time line:

“So when the officers arrived and knocked on the front door of the residence this morning, the door was opened by someone inside,” Scott said. “And the officers observed through the open door Mr. Pelosi and the suspect, Mr. DePape, inside the entryway of the home.

The officers ordered Pelosi and DePape to drop the hammer and seemingly stood by as DePape attacked Pelosi, waiting until DePape “violently assaulted” Pelosi before disarming the suspect.

The story then quotes Scott directly:

At this time, the officers remained outside of the threshold of the home. And they observed Mr. Pelosi and Mr. DePape, each with one hand on a single hammer. It was one hammer that the officers observed. Officers, while still outside of the doorway threshold, gave commands to both men to drop the hammer. Mr. DePape immediately pulled the hammer away from Mr. Pelosi and violently attacked him with the hammer. The officers immediately entered, tackled the suspect, disarmed him, then took the hammer away from him and took the suspect, Mr. DePape, into custody.

So apparently there was a third party inside the house who opened the door for the police when they knocked, and at that point they saw a made-for-TV tableau of Pelosi (82 and often not in a position to struggle for anything) and DePape struggling with a hammer. Gee, who was the third party? I betcha the FBI and SFPD talked to him right away and have made very sure he stays quiet, huh? I assume the same goes for what must certainly be plenty of security footage.

But at the same time, this latest version from Chief Scott suggests the story of plucky Boy Scout Paul and the bathroom phone is no longer operative, though I don't think it was ever credible, and that may be why it's changed.

Then there's the separate question of the photo at the top of this post, which apparently shows the back entryway to the Pelosi home following the burglary -- except that the broken glass and debris from the purported burglary are on the outside of the door, suggesting they were broken later from the inside, not during initial entry. This is the sort of amateur criminal coverup that makes it to Forensic Files.

What to make of this?

Okay, so the Paul Pelosi story is not adding up...

My two theories so far are:

1. Jussie Smollett 2.0

2. Paul Pelosi got in a fight with his gay lover

— Samantha Marika (@samanthamarika1) October 28, 2022

I make no endorsement. On the other hand, my Spidey sense suggests to me that this is a fin de siècle sort of event in the same league as the assassination of the empress of Austria-Hungary in 1898, at a time when she'd been long estranged from her husband, Franz Josef. Speaker Pelosi is almost certainly going to be a lame duck after the mid-term elections next week. Even if we hear not one further word about the events in her home with J Edgar on the case, my guess is she will end any controversy and quietly resign as Speaker before her term officially expires.

UPDATE: This story in the Santa Monica Observer carries the most up-to-date speculation, labled clearly as such:

According to SFPD "RP [Reporting Person] stated that there's a male in the home and that he's going to wait for his wife. RP stated that he doesn't know who the male is but he advised that his name is David, and that he is a friend," the dispatch official said. "RP sounded somewhat confused."

It's been a rumor for years in SF that Paul Pelosi is gay. David Depape is said to be a Castro Nudist. "The lunatic who allegedly assaulted Paul Pelosi is a Berkeley resident and a 'Former Castro Nudist Protester' and hemp 'jewelry maker' ...sounds totally MAGA Republican to me.

. . . "Now tell me something. These people are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Nancy is third in line to the Presidency. You don't think they have the most amazing security? And by the way, when Pelosi was in that drunk driving accident, he had a young man with him, and that too was covered up by the police and the press."

Why Is He Hearing This On The Tarmac?

One of yesterday's stories caught my eye, but not for the reason it was reported.

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Thursday was caught on a hot mic saying Democrats are “going downhill” in Georgia.

Schumer was speaking in a huddle with President Biden on the tarmac about the midterm elections ahead of the president’s trip to New York.

“The state where we’re going downhill is Georgia,” Schumer told Biden. “It’s hard to believe that they will go for Herschel Walker.”

Republican commentators found this delicious, since it's an indication of where the November elections are headed. But the whole vignette raises a different question for me. We must assume Sen Schumer is referring to internal Democrat polling, which is generally thought to be more reliable, in part because it's paid for and thus more expensive than the free stuff you get from the media. But information has value. Valuable information is protected the same way we protect valuable merchandise or money itself.

It's just common sense to recognize that if a candidate's internal polling says he's behind, he keeps it quiet. He may use the information to tweak his campaign strategy in ways his opponent may not expect, and he certainly won't just release the information willy-nilly, because his opponent will simply take advantage of it. Thus we would normally expect this information to be kept confidential on a need-to-know basis, discussed only in closed-door meetings and carried around in designated folders.

So of course, the Senate majority leader conveys information at this level of value to the president in an open-air meeting on airport tarmac over an open mic so that media can pick it up. Of course. What else would you expect? I don't know who the other figures in this huddle are; the younger guy looking away in back is likely Secret Service, but there are two ladies in the group as well who must be high level aides of some sort. The postures of both Schumer and President Brandon indicate that this is a transfer of closely-held, up-to-the-minute information, as far as I can read this.

On an airport tarmac over an open mic. Nobody in the tableau seems the least bit uncomfortable that this isn't an appropriate place for the discussion.

• Apparently both Schumer and President Brandon are speaking as though this information is new. Has there been no other way this information could have been transmitted to the president earlier, other than via the Senate majority leader on an airport tarmac?
• The polls favoring Republicans have been in the news for some days. Is this the first President Brandon has learned of them?
• Wouldn't this information, readily available well before now, have normally already been the subject of strategy meetings involving the president and his closest aides?
• What does this say about the level of urgency in the White House over the upcoming elections?

Biden's performance at a Pennsylvania fundraiser last night is an indication of how seriously he's taking things:

Biden spoke at the Pennsylvania Democratic Party’s annual Independence Dinner. He was there with Kamala Harris.

Biden tried to argue that they had made “progress” but then his “progress” was just a big fat lie. He claimed that they’d brought gas prices down since he came into office — just demonstrably false. Gas is much higher than it was since he came into office and everyone knows it.

. . . He can’t seem to stop calling Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA), “Mary Kay.”

. . . He also got Paul Pelosi’s name wrong.

. . . Biden spoke about going to all the “54 states” in 2018.

. . . At the end of his remarks, Biden went to the end of the stage and made a motion as though to jump off the stage. . . . Even after he doesn’t jump, you can still see [Vice President Harris] concerned he might, or that he might fall off the stage, as she reaches out to him. She seems to indicate to him to get away from the edge of the stage.

Yet again, I don't think the issue is dementia. He's aware of who he is, where he is, and generally what he's doing. There's no question he's aware he's a politician at a fundraiser; the issue is that he doesn't feel he should have to work hard enough even to read a few names correctly off a teleprompter. Indeed, I really think the business of pretending to jump off the stage was a little dig at his staff and his wife, who we must assume have scolded him about that sort of thing -- a private joke, funny to him, totally inappropriate for the circumstances.

Yet once more, this is not a medical issue. I think the short form is that he doesn't care, and neither, really, does Schumer at this stage.

Thinking About Harriman, JP Morgan, Alaska, And Siberia

In yesterday's post, I mentioned the puzzle of the 1899 Harriman Alaska Expedition, in which the rail magnate Edward Harriman sponsored a major scientific investigation of Alaska's coast. Nobody has so far been able to explain just why he did this -- the suggestion in yesterday's Wikipedia link was that his doctor said he needed a break. But Alice Roosevelt Longworth is said to have described Harriman as "a little brown man who never seemed to play", so it would be in character for him to turn for what others might seem to be a vacation into just an opportunity for a different sort of work.

Pierpont Morgan, a contemporary of Harriman and an equivalent figure, took an interest in Alaska at roughly the same time. The Kennicott [correct original spelling] copper deposit was discovered in July 1899, and by 1906, in response to the copper discovery as well as coal deposits not far away in south central Alaska,

the "Alaska Syndicate," was formed in 1906 by J. P. Morgan and Simon Guggenheim. The Syndicate purchased the Kennicott-Bonanza copper mine and had majority control of the Alaskan steamship and rail transportation. The syndicate also was in charge of a large part of the salmon industry.

The Alaska Syndicate faced intense scrutiny from Alaskans in favor of increased autonomy over their own affairs. The Syndicate, which divided its shares equally amongst M. Guggenheim & Sons and J.P. Morgan & Co., continued to buy up hundreds of thousands of acres of wilderness, which gave rise to the notion that Alaska was "First a Colony of Russia, then a colony of Guggenmorgan". Forester and conservationist Gifford Pinchot led the charge against the Alaska Syndicate and the so-called "Morganheims" and their supporter in Washington, Secretary of the Interior Richard Ballinger.

However, at the same time, Theodore Roosevelt sided with the Foster-Pinchot faction, and also in 1906, he closed Alaska public land to coal mining, which in light of extensive coal deposits there, was and continues to be a severe limiting factor in the territory and state's economic development. Although the Morgan-Guggenheim Syndicate built a railroad that did extract copper ore from the Kennecott mine, they expected that the route would become a major artery from the coast to the Alaska interior as a result of more extensive development.

When this did not take place, they attempted to sell the railroad to the US government. The failure to accomplish this was a reflection of Morgan's decline in his later years, overshadowed by the loss of the Titanic not long before his death. The Kennecott Alaska copper mine was extremely profitable, especially since its most productive period corresponded with the need for copper during World War I. However, the deposit was exhausted by the time of the Great Depression, and anti-development policies in Alaska have effectively limited equivalent industry in much of the state. The abandoned mine facilities are now a national park, something of a commentary on the overall circumstances.

Even before Roosevelt's closing of the Alaska coal leases in 1906, his Justice Department had opposed both Harriman's and Morgan's rail management via lawsuits in 1904. My own view has come to regard Harriman's 1899 Alaska expedition as a fairly thorough investigation of not just the Alaska geography, but its political climate as well, and what sort of environment they might be for his business ventures. As yesterday's Wikipedia link suggests, some people at the time speculated that not only might he have intended a railroad to Alaska, but beyond that a rail connection to Siberia over the Bering Strait. (So far, there have been continuing proposals for a Bering Strait rail tunnel, but there has never been even an overland rail link to Alaska from the rest of North America).

I can't avoid thinking that if Harriman's Alaska expedition was a testing of the waters for any such scheme, his completely correct conclusion must have been that the time wasn't right, especially from a political point of view. Indeed, if the Morgan-Guggenheim Syndicate made a profit from the copper mine, the money they invested in the railroad they built to reach it would be an indication that their actual expectations for Alaska's economic potential were much greater, but they couldn't be supported in the political environment.

Thus Harriman's call as of the turn of the 20th century was correct; Morgan's wasn't. If Harriman saw the possibility of developing far eastern Siberia via a rail connection to Alaska, though, the idea may well have had merit over the very long run -- but politics would need to change in both the US and Russia. Undersea rail tunnels over distances like the Bering Strait have by now proven technically and economically feasible; the Seikan Tunnel in Japan and the Channel Tunnel are about half the length of a possible Bering Sea tunnel, but such a project is now a proven concept. The issue continues to be the political environment.

This is one reason I don't rule out the hypothetical maps of a future Russia that show eastern Siberia "ceded to US". If Antony Blinken and the inflencers around him see money in the whole prospect, it could happen.