Quick Loop #10
TFG, Ukraine, and more Dobbs . . . followed by Zombies and Beatles
Good afternoon after a fairly quick GOP primary night. Let’s start there. The sections herein, for those who don’t want to read every word (and after I slaved over them . . .) are as follows:
Tuesday’s primaries
Possible stalemate in the Russo-Ukrainian War
Dr. Fauci’s commencement address
More commentary on the Dobbs leak
Selective outrage over an irrelevant footnote in Dobbs
7-track recording, as practiced in 1967 by The Beatles and The Zombies
TFG bats .500
The Nebraska and West Virginia primaries produced mixed results for The Former Guy (by the way, we’re open to other nicknames for TFG, so long as they aren’t “He Who Must Not Be Named”). In the Nebraska governor’s race, a majority of voters refused to overlook the background and character of TFG-endorsed Charles Herbster, who had been accused of multiple transgressions of the same taboos as TFG, including sexual harassment and property tax delinquencies. Herbster was defeated by Jim Pillen, who was the preferred choice of the current governor.
However, in West Virginia, in a race between two incumbents, TFG’s choice Alex Mooney hammered David McKinley, winning by almost 20%. TFG chose to turn McKinley’s vote in favor of the bipartisan infrastructure bill into a main campaign issue. Although McKinley, a civil engineer by training, cited surveys that ranked West Virginia’s infrastructure as among the worst in the country, drawing a grade of “D”, the partisan argument by Mooney and TFG that McKinley had handed Biden a win with his vote in favor of the legislation prevailed among GOP voters, as discussed in the story.
Heaven help us if the bipartisan passing of necessary legislation becomes toxic in partisan primaries because it hands the other side a win. Of course, that is also why we need to move beyond partisan primaries.
The next big battles in the 2022 party primaries are in Georgia, where TFG’s endorsed candidate David Perdue is still running far behind TFG’s “Public Enemy #1”, incumbent governor Brian Kemp, and in Pennsylvania, where TFG’s endorsed “Celebrity Apprentice: The Post-Presidential Years” candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz is locked in a tight three-way battle for the GOP nomination to the U.S. Senate. Right now, it looks like TFG’s endorsement provides a leg up for its recipient but is not a “kingmaker”-type guarantee. But we’ll soon have more data.
Is the Russo-Ukrainian War approaching stalemate?
In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday, Lt. General Scott Berrier, the director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, was quoted by Newsweek as noting that the current situation in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had ground to a stalemate and had turned into “attrition warfare”. As for the outcome, Berrier said:
It depends [on] how well Ukrainians can maintain what they have going on with weapons and ammunition, and how the Russians decide to deal with that either through a mobilization or not and decide to go with what they have in the theater right now.
Berrier also believed that to break the stalemate, Russia would need to declare war and mobilize to full war footing. An Associated Press analysis reaches similar conclusions:
“It’s very difficult to see how you could get a negotiated solution at this point,” said Ian Kelly, a retired veteran diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Georgia, another former Soviet republic on which Russia has territorial designs. He added, “Neither side is willing to stop fighting and probably the likeliest outcome is a war that lasts a couple of years. Ukraine would be a festering sore in the middle of Europe.”
“There’s no way that Ukraine is going to step back,” Kelly said. “They think they’re gonna win.”
At the same time, Kelly said that no matter how many miscalculations Putin has made about the strength and will of Ukraine to resist or the unity and resolve of the NATO allies, Putin cannot accept defeat or anything short of a scenario that he can claim has achieved success.
“It would be political suicide for Putin to withdraw,” Kelly said.
But even if Putin declares war, which Gen. Berrier thinks is necessary, it’s hard to imagine Russian troops prevailing when they are getting hammered by Ukrainian forces in this fashion, losing nearly an entire battalion while trying to cross the Donets River in the territories that Russia supposedly wants to annex. So what comes next? It would be nice to have a senior American leader who had a vision of that future. Considering the ages of TFG, Biden, and other top American officials, there is no doubt that they qualify as senior officials in terms of age, but there seems to be little strategic vision there.
As we have discussed before, this has digressed into a proxy war between Russia and NATO, with Ukraine as NATO’s proxy. Because the adversary is Russia directly, not a Russian proxy, the proxy war is one that the West cannot afford to lose and still retain the misnamed Pax Americana, since the entire world knows who the proxy combatants are (even though neither side can officially admit to it, because that’s when a proxy war turns into a declared war).
With that in mind, the U.S. Congress yesterday passed the package that TFG’s son was tweeting about yesterday: $40 billion in aid to Ukraine for the war. In addition, Americans are providing training for Ukrainians on Western military equipment. The vote in favor of the package was 368-57, with all of the 57 “no” votes being lackeys followers of TFG, who generally used this vote to highlight their differences with the Biden administration. Perhaps they are heeding the lesson of David McKinley before their own upcoming partisan primaries.
One of the issues produced by the use of all of these weapons from NATO stockpiles is that they will have to be replaced, because there is a very well known predator stalking the independent nation of Taiwan (aka the Republic of China) at the current time. And yet the cost of these weapons has to be included as a necessary cost in defending the current world order from the express Sino-Soviet challenge.
In a science-fiction novel entitled Footfall, authors Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle included a character who was very intelligent but was a rabid environmentalist opposed to defense spending, who ultimately has to admit the error of his ways shortly before being killed by alien invaders. Unfortunately, as we have long recognized, freedom isn’t free, because the natural state of man seems to be enslavement by powerful and ambitious enemies. Let’s hope that TFG and his followers don’t reduce us to that state.
COVID wave, part infinity
If there is any figure in modern American culture more divisive that TFG or Joe Biden (aka “Brandon”), it would have to be Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has become the public face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, reports emerged that Dr. Fauci was unhappy about the “optics” of holding the White House Corrspondents’ Dinner maskless — despite the fact that he had attended the pre-dinner party maskless himself. Needless to say, this did not help him rebuild the damage to his reputation caused by the two-year pandemic and the failure of vaccines to stop the pandemic, even if they did minimize deaths from the virus.
For some reason, Dr. Fauci was chosen to give the spring commencement speech at the University of Michigan last Saturday. In an atmosphere where he was able to give prepared remarks instead of being questioned, he focused on the harm of misinformation — and this is advice of his that most of us probably should accept:
If you remember nothing else from what I say today, I truly appeal to you, please remember this: It is our collective responsibility not to sink to a tacit acceptance of the normalization of untruths, because if we do, we bring danger to ourselves, our families and our communities.
Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths. Because if you do, lies become dominant and reality is distorted and then truth means nothing. Integrity means nothing, facts mean nothing. Our country will not thrive if we allow or do not push back vigorously against moral ambiguity.
Perhaps the critics who accused Dr. Fauci of trying to turn public health into a religion had a point. Nevertheless, in my opinion this is an effective moral message. Dr. Fauci may be on his way to a post-pandemic career as a minister. However, after the end of the pandemic (if he ever acknowledges one), he doesn’t seem to have much future as a public health scientist. . . .
SCOTUS leaks, part four
Part of the reason that I’ve focused so heavily on the issues surrounding the leaks from the Supreme Court, not just the Dobbs leak, is that, prior to the Roberts court, the Supreme Court operated on the basis of total secrecy about its internal deliberations. This article about traditional SCOTUS secrecy, by Jessica Gresko of the Associated Press, opens with the following anecdote:
Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black was hospitalized, his health failing, [in 1971] when he gave his son Hugo Jr. an order: Burn the papers. Worried that the publication of certain of his private notes could harm the court or his colleagues, he insisted on their destruction.
“Operation Frustrate-the-Historians,” his wife called it. As for the reporters asking the hospital about his condition: “Tell them nothing,” Black told his son.
Until the Roberts court, that anecdote would serve as an accurate summary of relations between reporters and the Court. As noted in the article, justices who chose not to burn their personal papers generally leave them to historical archives, sometimes with immediate access (such as Justice Thurgood Marshall’s papers), but sometimes not to be opened until some number of years after the former justice’s death (for example, former Justice David Souter chose 50 years, and he is still living, so his papers will not be open to review until sometime in the 2070s, at the earliest.)
Perhaps because Chief Justice John Roberts spend over a decade in the Department of Justice and the White House counsel’s office, he was more comfortable with and less concerned about Washington D.C.’s leak-driven culture, but it is difficult to really know. However, despite all of the controversy, the leaks about the Dobbs case still continue, leading to the rumor that some of the leaks are coming from the Chief Justice’s office, or at least are occurring with his approval.
As an example, after the leak discussed in Quick Loop #9 to the Washington Post, a new leak was given to Politico. The most important leaked information is contained near the start, which is that the reason that a February draft was leaked is that it is the only draft that has been circulated to all the justices:
Justice Samuel Alito’s sweeping and blunt draft majority opinion from February overturning Roe remains the court’s only circulated draft in the pending Mississippi abortion case, POLITICO has learned, and none of the conservative justices who initially sided with Alito have to date switched their votes. No dissenting draft opinions have circulated from any justice, including the three liberals.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that some subset of the justices haven’t been making revisions or drafting their own opinions, just that none of them have been sent to the full court. Perhaps this is a result of Chief Justice Roberts’ tacit acceptance of leaking. But law professor Josh Blackman in The Volokh Conspiracy wonders if it may go deeper than that, referencing the previous Washington Post leak (discussed in Quick Loop #9) that the Chief Justice had told the justices’ conference that he was going to draft a concurrence that upheld the Mississippi 15-week law without overturning Roe and Casey.
Roberts has not broadly circulated his draft concurrence, which would find a way to uphold the Mississippi law without overruling Roe and Casey. The delay in releasing that concurrence could explain the absence of any dissents. Why circulate a dissent if the majority may not hold[?] Kagan can keep her powder dry for now. But what is Roberts waiting for? Dobbs was argued in December. We are now in the second week in May. How long could it take to whip up a Chief blue plate special? Sophistry is not hard.
My cynical take is that circulating the draft opinion at the latest possible juncture creates chaos, and makes it more likely that things can move around without sufficient deliberation. This strategy resembles that of the death penalty abolitionists, who deliberately file last-minute appeals, hoping the rush causes a temporary stay.
Blackman also wonders about the identity of the current leakers:
I wonder if the same person was authorized by the Justices--or even the Chief--to talk to the Post and Politico.
Rumors continue to run amok about the leak, but another analyst has now published a theory consistent with Blackmun’s about the leaker being neither a justice nor a law clerk. Eriq Gardner in Puck has a view based on Politico’s statement that it conducted an “extensive verification process” before printing the leaked document (emphasis added):
Upon publication of the story, Politico executive editor Dafna Linzer stated: “After an extensive review process, we are confident of the authenticity of the draft.” Here’s a quick thought exercise: If Alito had leaked the draft himself, would Politico have needed to investigate the authenticity at all? No, of course not. How about an Alito clerk? Maybe, but probably not an extensive review. In other words, the reliability of the source is inversely related to the lengths one goes to vouch that these are the real goods. Politico’s statement suggests suspect origins.
Thus, the current speculation that the leaker of the draft was a justice or a law clerk to a justice seems increasingly likely to be off-base. However, virtually any one of the other leaks could be from a justice, in the fashion of Justice Ginsburg. It seems unlikely that the commentary on this will die down until both this leak and the current culture of leaks around the Court are addressed.
Selective outrage about the draft opinion
After last week, I decided not to respond to any Facebook threads discussing the draft opinion, because it is just a draft. But I have to make an exception to discuss the selective outrage among the pro-abortion side triggered by a footnote (footnote 46 on page 34) in Justice Alito’s draft opinion, which quotes a 2008 report from the Centers for Disease Control discussing the “domestic supply of infants”. I happen to love this as an example of how easy it is to create outrage online by taking things out of context. At that point in the draft opinion, Justice Alito is discussing the amici briefs received by the Court making policy arguments both for and against Roe and Casey; this particular footnote is connected with one of the policy arguments against abortion. But immediately after that footnote, Justice Alito starts the next paragraph with this sentence:
Both sides make important policy arguments, but supporters of Roe and Casey must show that this Court has the authority to weigh those arguments and decide how abortion may be regulated in the States. They have failed to make that showing, and we thus return the power to weigh these arguments to the people and their elected representatives.
Thus, the statement from the CDC report that has triggered all of that online outrage plays absolutely no role in the Dobbs draft opinion, because Justice Alito says that the policy arguments are not properly before the Supreme Court. However, the CDC statement has proved just how easy it is to generate outrage using an out-of-context quote. I guess Dr. Fauci’s warnings about misinformation cannot be directed only at one side or the other.
Four tracks? Eight tracks? Maybe just seven. . .
No link here, just a story. At the end of April, I attended a concert in suburban Boston by the 1960s band (and 2019 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees) The Zombies (“She’s Not There”, “Tell Her No”, “Time of the Season”), who have resumed touring with their two most important original members, lead singer Colin Blunstone and organist/songwriter Rod Argent, still performing. (The other key original member, bassist/songwriter Chris White, is retired but apparently still makes cameo appearances with the band in the U.K.)
During the concert, somewhat out of the blue (but part of the set), Argent offered a long explanation of the band recording its classic 1967 album Odessey and Oracle, which included “Time of the Season”, and then breaking up. It was a great story that I’d never heard before, and I’ve wanted to re-tell it so that some of the rest of you could hear it. For those of you who don’t remember The Zombies or are bored by discussions of the 1960s, this may be a good exit point for this edition . . . .
The first point Argent made was that, when going in to record the album, half the band were broke, including Blunstone. The band’s management was typically corrupt for the time period — according to Argent, most British managers believed that rock music was a fad rapidly approaching the end of its limited lifespan, and so the managers needed to cash in while they could. [Remember, Decca (UK) Records had told Brian Epstein in 1962 that groups with guitars were on their way out, which is why they were passing on signing The Beatles — and that was five years earlier!] Thus, despite lots of record sales and almost constant touring, The Zombies had never made any money from either.
But the same desperation did not apply to Argent and White. The band’s two songwriters had managed to connect with an honest music publisher, and so they were getting a regular income from their songwriting royalties. The financial differential within the band was the source of most of its problems, and the band hoped to fix it with their first “real” album (not just a collection of singles) Odessey and Oracle. Interestingly, the band had managed to get booked into Abbey Road Studios as the next artist following The Beatles, who had just finished recording Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (albeit on a very tight recording schedule).
But the best part of following The Beatles at Abbey Road was that The Beatles got special treatment there. During the Sgt. Pepper’s recording sessions, John Lennon had become extremely upset that Brian Wilson had been able to record The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds on an 8-track tape recorder, and The Beatles were still stuck working on a 4-track. He demanded that EMI get them an 8-track. EMI replied (truthfully) that there was not an 8-track recorder in the entire United Kingdom, but Lennon still insisted that EMI come up with something better than 4-track.
They did. Technicians jury-rigged a second 4-track recorder to the master, and, by using one of the tracks on the master to sync the second recorder, they were able to record Sgt. Pepper on seven tracks. Because The Zombies were the next band in, the set-up was still in place (in case The Beatles needed to return for overdubs) — and so The Zombies were also able to utilize the 7-track setup for Odessey and Oracle.
This thrilled Argent and White. And the entire band was impressed by the ability to record various distinct overdub tracks, including for vocals, despite their tight working schedule. They got to use the equipment that The Beatles had left behind, including a Mellotron. They got to work with the same engineers that The Beatles had used, including Geoff Emerick and Alan Parsons (in fact, Blunstone and Parsons became friends, leading to Blunstone being one of the primary lead singers in the Alan Parsons Project during the 1970s). And the very last song the band recorded was “Time of the Season” . . . and right at the end of the booked session time, Argent had some other ideas to add to the track, which the engineers and the band were just able to execute and finish before their booked time ran out.
And then . . . the first single from the album (“Care of Cell 44”) flopped, their U.K. record label gave up on the record, their U.S. label passed on it, and the band broke up. Argent and White got possession of the multi-tracked masters, which were unique to the studio setup.
Fast forward a year. Clive Davis of CBS Records had signed New York City musician Al Kooper, still more famous as the organist on Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone”, as a producer for the label and sent him to England to see what was up over there. Kooper had gone to the clubs and also picked up about 50 records to hear the trends. When he came back, he told Davis that there was one record that CBS had to get the rights to and release: Odessey and Oracle. But it turned out that CBS already had those rights; it was the U.S. label that had passed on issuing it. Davis said that CBS’s artists & repertoire (A&R) personnel had assured the label that there were no hits on it. Except Kooper was sure that he’d heard one: “Time of the Season”, which no one else had been considering as a possible single. After some internal battles, CBS issued the record in the U.S. on its “Date Records” subsidiary, which had no permanent promotional staff associated with it, just to see if the record would become a hit even without promotion. And it did — in March 1969.
Except by that time, The Zombies had been defunct for well over a year, and Argent and White had formed a band with Argent’s cousin on bass and another songwriter on guitar and vocals, which they had just called “Argent”. Because CBS had finally chosen to pick up the option on Odessey and Oracle, the members of The Zombies still owed one more record to CBS, but CBS chose to pick up the band Argent and Blunstone’s first solo album to fulfill the contract — which worked out very well for CBS and the band Argent (but not so well for Blunstone, although The Zombies’ support team was selling remastered and autographed copies of that Blunstone CD, produced by Argent and White, at the concert).
Anyway, for years I’ve heard about the magic that The Beatles were able to produce on Sgt. Pepper using only four tracks. Part of their legend is that the first song that they recorded on 8-track was “Hey Jude”, during the sessions for the White Album, followed by “Dear Prudence” (with Paul on drums) and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” (the first 8-track session at Abbey Road, with Eric Clapton on lead guitar). But I had no idea about the actual 7-track setup for Sgt. Pepper . . . or Odessey and Oracle. Perhaps it’s in a book. But now it’s also here.
It’s worth noting (just to put it on the record somewhere) that, at the exact same time that a jury-rigged 7-track system was the state of the art in the U.K., Mirasound Studios in New York City was installing the first 16-track recorder, an Ampex MM-1000. When the recorder was installed, the director of the studio wanted to bring in a group that he knew to test the new system (by promising them free recording time). According to an interview he did years ago, the group he brought in was Vanilla Fudge, who had recorded their first album, Vanilla Fudge, (including “You Keep Me Hanging On”) at Mirasound. The group was currently recording its troubled second album, The Beat Goes On, on Long Island under the strict guidance of Shadow Morton and leapt at the chance to do something on their own, without their producer/manager hovering over them — and they were willing to come in during the dead of night to get the chance. It appears the song that they recorded with this free time was “All In Your Mind”, which was never included in any Fudge album before it showed up on Psychedelic Sundae: The Best of Vanilla Fudge. And that’s the music oddity for today; if anyone else tries to tell you that something else was the first 16-track recording, you may scream about “fake news”!
Be seeing you.
