The Lyin' Of The Senate Sleeps Tonight

So, the Elizabeth Warren narrative is that she was barred from reading Coretta Scott King's letter to Strom Thurmond regarding the fitness of then US Attorney Jeff Sessions for an Alabama Fed Circuit judgeship.  The narrative fits right into the meme that Warren was buffeted during Black History Month. That's not actually what happened though. Here is the full C-Span record:


Warren harangued Jeff Sessions for a full 13 minutes before reciting a personal tirade authored by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. During Warren's first twenty minutes, she repeating made use of the active voice to state conjecture as established fact.* Readers of this blog and my shadow blog, El Pollo Real, will realize that a personal pet peeve of mine is our language's loss of the subjunctive mood as a clear way to separate fact and fantasy. This is an egregious example. Back to the lyin' of the Senate.

It was Kennedy's words -- not Coretta Scott King's -- which caused Senator Cardin to issue the first fair warning. Kennedy's use of the phrase "disgrace to the Justice Department" (18 min 30 sec) was what set off the Senator. You can hear him clearly raise this point at the (24 min 22 sec).
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*Quite early on in her recorded harangue, Warren calls one of Trump's executive orders "unlawful, unconstitutional, and deeply immoral."  That is not prescience on Warren's part -- that is outright prejudice -- a prejudgement of a matter which may well be decided against her wishes in a higher court.

It's Not Rocket Science

"You know, I plan on traveling to the Moon at some time."
 ~ Wernher von Braun (1930)

It seems fitting that Trump will announce the endorsement of Sen. Jeff Sessions at a rally in Huntsville, Alabama where Wernher von Braun led a team of rocket scientists (initially all Germans). Von Braun  essentially drove our space program from the end of WW II through the Cold War. He is credited with inventing both the V-2 and Saturn V rockets.

But wasn't von Braun also a nasty foreigner who took STEM jobs away from Americans? Unfortunately for us, Robert Goddard had died. We have always attracted or taken (in von Braun's case) the very best scientific talent and probably always will. Years ago, I worked at a well-known science institute here in SoCal.  One day, an eminent chemistry professor named Sir Derek H. R. Barton, PhD, FRS, paid a visit. Now Sir Derek (RIP) had an interesting history. Schooled in Britain in her post war days, he made unprecedented contributions to the field of organic chemistry (you can read details here). After reaching mandatory retirement age in Britain, Barton left England to continue working, moving first to France and then eventually to Texas, that bastion of free enterprise.

I forget Sir Derek's lecture topic that day and my notes are buried somewhere, currently irretrievable. What stands out in my mind was his effusive praise for his graduate students and postdocs -- especially his Chinese ones. Not for their cleverness nor for their contributions -- for Sir Derek had an ego the size of Donald Trump's. Rather, he praised their willingness to work around the clock and through weekends for him for very little money. I still recall his quaint description of their microwaved noodle breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. And I remember thinking "this is who will rule the world." That was around 1997 or 1998.

Sessions Is Right

Overheard at Lem's:

ndspinelli said... 

Dot heads are taking all the chemistry jobs. 

November 10, 2015 at 11:37 PM

There's no need to single out one ethnic group -- Chinese nationals actually dominate foreign enrollment in chemistry graduate programs.

Here's an interesting factual depiction of wages in the chemical field for the last 10 years:

Link to original

As the chart shows, wages and salaries have steadily decreased over the last ten years. There is a strong downward pressure on salaries driven by the unfettered importation of foreign labor. This is basic economics. I suspect that a similar chart exists for IT workers, and data for careers at the "bottom" of the spectrum.  These data are interesting to add to the mix of the discussion of income inequality.

Now, there are strong patrician arguments for why ever-lower wages are good for business -- and ultimately that's what motivates the likes of Mark Zuckerberg.* But why then is there a strong push for STEM education in this country?  What sane student or parent would encourage their child down this pathway except for -- and this is a big except for -- a love or curiosity for science?
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* I single him out because he is the face of the problem. He is the cheerleader for more of the same.

Update On America's "STEM Crisis"

[This post is a continuation-in-part of a prior post here: 'STEM Crisis' In American Workforce May Not Be Real]

New legislation proposing to raise the number of H-1B visas for science and technology workers has lots of bipartisan support: Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chris Coons (D-DE), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) are on board. Link

Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions is having none of it:

[A] stunning 3 in 4 Americans with a STEM degree do not hold a job in a STEM field—that’s a pool of more than 11 million Americans with STEM qualifications who lack STEM employment.

It is understandable why these corporations push for legislation that will flood the labor market and keep pay low; what is not understandable is why we would ever consider advancing legislation that provides jobs for the citizens of other countries at the expense of our own. Who do we work for?

Democrats and a silent majority of Republicans are squeezing the American middle class from the bottom by holding out essentially limitless importation of unskilled labor; now Republicans and a silent* majority of Democrats are squeezing the American middle class at the top by offering essentially limitless importation of highly-skilled labor.
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*Except for that Sugar Mountain** chap, who is a loudmouth.
**Zuckerberg means "Sugar Mountain" in German