May13

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Dem 47

   

GOP 53

So... What's REALLY Going On Here?

There have been an usually high number of stories in the past few days that provide fodder for anyone of an even mild conspiratorial bent. Here are three of them:

• Copyright Office: On Saturday, Trump fired yet another long-serving staffer from the Library of Congress. Last week, it was Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. Saturday, Hayden was joined in the unemployment line by Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter. Both of these jobs are normally nonpartisan, and are under the purview of, you know, Congress. There are likely to be lawsuits challenging Trump's right to dismiss the two women.
  
  So... What's REALLY Going On Here? With Hayden, as we wrote last week, it appears that her being Black, and a Barack Obama appointee, was fatal. Right-wingers were clamoring for her head, and after the termination, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said: "There were quite concerning things that she had done at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of DEI and putting inappropriate books in the library for children."
  
  Perlmutter, by contrast, is white, and is not alleged to have approved a bunch of pro-LGBTQ copyrights. However, what she DID do was oversee the preparation and publication of a report on the relationship between copyright and the training of AI engines. The document is a little over 100 pages long, and makes clear that there's a lot of nuance here, and that the question of whether an AI engine has violated copyright depends a lot on context. However, the people who are all-in on AI don't want to hear this; they want to hear that anything and everything their engines do is "fair use" and that they need not be concerned with copyright at all. That would be people like... Elon Musk, who has bet heavily on AI, in the form of his platform Grok.
  
  Anyhow, the report was released late Friday, and Perlmutter was out of a job by Saturday afternoon. Coincidence? Probably not. Indeed, Perlmutter probably guessed that once her (former) boss had been cashiered, it was only a matter of time until she was cashiered, too. So, what she issued was actually a draft version of the report. This is not normally done, but it does guarantee that the document cannot be buried entirely, no matter how loud a temper tantrum Musk might throw.
  
  And, by the way, Trump has already appointed temporary replacements for Hayden and Perlmutter. The President chose from among his (many) former defense lawyers, giving the Librarian of Congress slot to Todd Blanche and the Register of Copyrights gig to Paul Perkins. As you might imagine, neither of these people appears to have any experience relevant to their new postings.
  
  
• Air Qatar One: The story of the "free" airplane that the Qatari royal family is allegedly trying to gift to Donald Trump, for his personal use as Air Force One, isn't going away, at least not yet. In fact, a few GOP senators have now weighed in. There are the unfailing bootlickers like Tommy Tuberville (AL), of course, who approve wholeheartedly of the "deal." However, Josh Hawley (MO), John Kennedy (LA) and Shelley Moore Capito (WV) all expressed reservations, albeit very cautiously.
  
  So... What's REALLY Going On Here? There is little question as to Trump's motivations; he wants a luxury plane, free of charge, that will be at his disposal for the rest of his life. However, exactly what Qatar is going for is an open question. Yesterday, there was news brought to our attention by reader S.K. in Los Angeles, CA that the Qataris just so happen to have entered into a deal with the Trump Organization to construct a $5.5 billion luxury resort, with golf course, about 40 minutes north of Doha. This certainly helps make clear how serious Trump was when he promised that his company would not enter into new business agreements with foreign nations while he was president.
  
  There are a couple of plausible explanations as to the Qataris' motivations here. The first is that the $5.5 billion resort is a version of sanewashing, not unlike the Saudis and LIV golf, and the airplane is going to be the sweetener used to seal the deal. The alternative is that both the plane and the resort project are gifts to Trump and his family, in exchange for some sort of future considerations.
  
  This said, don't assume the Air Force One thing is a done deal. We had a couple of e-mails yesterday from readers that bear mentioning here:

  J.L. in Baltimore, MD: Apart from the issue of violation of the emoluments clause I have another concern. Can we be really sure that there's no spyware or malware hidden in the plane? I'm not very knowledgeable about this stuff but I know that the people who create malware are very skilled at hiding their tracks. Maybe one of your readers is an expert in this area and can answer this.

  E.S. in Maine, NY: You wrote that it would take tens of millions of dollars to modify the Qatari plane to have the proper security and communications measures.
  
  As someone somewhat familiar with these matters you are off at least one and probably two decimal points. Think hundreds of millions, or maybe even a billion or two.
  
  Think every aircraft defense system you have ever heard of. Think every comms system you have ever heard of. And every other gadget you have heard of. All will need to be on this plane. Now think of who knows how many systems, many highly classified, that you have never heard of and they will be on that plane. A plane that was not designed to have that equipment. And remember there is no "volume" discount on these as there are only going to be maybe three planes so maybe a dozen of each of these highly classifieds systems made. Just think of the various kinds of shielding that will undoubtedly be required.

  J.L. and E.S. both touch on a fundamental problem, namely that the plane would require massive modifications to be serviceable. Those modifications would take a lot of time and money, and yet still the plane would not be truly secure. In a piece published by Slate yesterday, a former high-ranking NSA official commented on the spy equipment the Qataris would undoubtedly put on the plane: "The plane cannot be returned to a safe mode. It can only be built to attain one in the first place."
  
  And while the specific issue that the Slate piece was concerned with was spying, there's also another possibility that nobody seems to be saying out loud. Thanks to Trump himself, we now know it's possible to build a kill switch into a plane that can be remotely activated. There is no way that such a thing, buried deep in the plane's software, could ever be detected. And it's not at all impossible that the Iranians could call up their clients, the Qataris, and tell them to down the presidential plane and throw the U.S. government into chaos.
  
  Coupled with the abuse of the emoluments clause, all of this might be a bridge too far. The members of Congress might not be too enthusiastic to pay for modifications that are not going to be fully effective, and that are for a plane that might only get a year or two of presidential use (and then would have to be modified again, to remove the classified stuff).
  
  Further, few people have a more finely honed instinct for self-preservation than Donald J. Trump. So, someone might get to him and impress upon him that every time he flew on the Qatari plane as president, he would potentially be taking his life into his hands. Of course, he's a credulous fellow who is easily manipulated into thinking that autocratic leaders are his best buddies, so maybe he won't be open to considering this risk.
  
  
• Afrikaners: The Trump administration is very hostile to immigrants, even those who are fleeing oppressive regimes and are seeking asylum. And so, it is interesting to learn that the White House approved the admittance of 59 Afrikaners who claim they face discrimination and economic hardship in their home country of South Africa, jumping the group right to the front of the line.
  
  So... What's REALLY Going On Here? OK, this one does not require much in the way of conspiratorial thinking. These are white people from South Africa. Elon Musk is a white person from South Africa. Plus, the refugees' story pretty much matches one of the core elements of MAGAism, namely that white people just can't get a fair shake these days because of DEI/uppity Black people. Trump claimed, with a straight face, that he is saving them from genocide. And White House spokesperson Anna Kelly claimed, with a straight face, that this is part of the administration's deeply held commitment to human rights. We could not help but think of this well-known Internet meme, as an illustration of how Team Trump decides who gets human rights and who does not:
  
  
  
  The political and racial dynamics here are obvious enough that the group that the White House expected to facilitate the assimilation of the Afrikaners into American society has refused to take on the job. That would be Episcopal Migration Ministries, an initiative of the Episcopal Church, which actually has a contract with the federal government to help resettle refugees. Bishop Sean Rowe announced:

  In light of our church's steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step.
  
  Accordingly, we have determined that, by the end of the federal fiscal year, we will conclude our refugee resettlement grant agreements with the U.S. federal government.

  Undoubtedly, Rowe and his colleagues knew their funding would be yanked anyhow, so they decided to beat Trump to the punch.

And that's today's dose of trying to read between the lines. Tomorrow, it will be news-via-stereogram, where you literally have to read between the dots. (Note: Not really. We share the general view expressed by reader A.G. in Scranton, PA, that those things constitute cruel and unusual punishment.) (Z)