Effective December 10, 2018, I will cease to be posting on tidalsoundings.blogspot.com and will be moving all prior and subsequent posts over to The Soundings at thesoundings.com. Please come on over and join me there.
For those of you who access my writing via Facebook, you will have to directly to the new site for the foreseeable future rather than through Facebook, which has in its algorithmic wisdom, deemed my new site as containing abusive content despite it having the exact same content as this site which you can access through Facebook. And, if any of you know how to challenge this effective deplatforming, please let me know.
Monday, December 31, 2018
Sunday, December 9, 2018
Saturday, December 8, 2018
Competition Inside The Trump Org Explains Russian Contacts
I've been watching series 1 of Berlin Station this week as Mueller rolled out his speaking indictments of Flynn, Cohen, and Mueller and it dawned on me that the Trump Organization probably functions very much like Berlin Station where the principals were all working on their own agenda.
I had largely conceived of the Trump Organization as largely monolithic, and it is certainly that way in its pursuit of money. But, based on all we have learned about the interactions with Russians during the campaign, it makes more sense to view Trump's inner circle as the proverbial "team of rivals", always competing for the next deal that would please Trump the benefactor and line their own pockets. And that makes even more sense when you think of Trump's management style, getting his minions to compete on a project or for his affections and his over-the-top praise or total humiliation for those who work for him depending on the situation or result.
Initially for the Trump team, Trump Tower Moscow was the golden ring. That changed somewhat as Trump started winning GOP primaries and then became the Republican nominee. At that point, every Russian offering help with the Tower combined that with help for the Trump campaign and every member of Trump's inner circle was happy to work both angles. Michael Cohen worked with Felix Sater initially but promptly dumped Sater when he was able to make his own direct connection to the Kremlin. Ivanka made her own connection with some Russian weightlifter and was angry when Cohen shut that down. Don Jr. was working with the Agalarovs. Kushner, less interested in advancing Trump's real estate interests than saving his own from bankruptcy, partnered with Flynn to work with Kislyak and the Saudis.
It can be reasonably assumed that all of them were reporting their progress up to Trump. Trump himself may have been working his own Russian angle entirely separate from those of his family and Cohen, something that would be typical for him. That channel involved Roger Stone who probably then got Trump to bring in Manafort and it turned out to be the most effective force in influencing the election for Trump.
One of the most confusing parts of the collusion case was the number of different approaches that the Russians made to the Trump team, making it seem as though nothing every really got coordinated. But that begins to make sense when you view both sides, the Trump insiders and the Russian oligarchs, each as a team of rivals each trying to impress their own boss. More importantly, virtually all of the connections went through Kushner/Flynn or Stone/Manafort over the last three months of the campaign, suggesting that, eventually the Trump campaign finally coordinated its response.
I had largely conceived of the Trump Organization as largely monolithic, and it is certainly that way in its pursuit of money. But, based on all we have learned about the interactions with Russians during the campaign, it makes more sense to view Trump's inner circle as the proverbial "team of rivals", always competing for the next deal that would please Trump the benefactor and line their own pockets. And that makes even more sense when you think of Trump's management style, getting his minions to compete on a project or for his affections and his over-the-top praise or total humiliation for those who work for him depending on the situation or result.
Initially for the Trump team, Trump Tower Moscow was the golden ring. That changed somewhat as Trump started winning GOP primaries and then became the Republican nominee. At that point, every Russian offering help with the Tower combined that with help for the Trump campaign and every member of Trump's inner circle was happy to work both angles. Michael Cohen worked with Felix Sater initially but promptly dumped Sater when he was able to make his own direct connection to the Kremlin. Ivanka made her own connection with some Russian weightlifter and was angry when Cohen shut that down. Don Jr. was working with the Agalarovs. Kushner, less interested in advancing Trump's real estate interests than saving his own from bankruptcy, partnered with Flynn to work with Kislyak and the Saudis.
It can be reasonably assumed that all of them were reporting their progress up to Trump. Trump himself may have been working his own Russian angle entirely separate from those of his family and Cohen, something that would be typical for him. That channel involved Roger Stone who probably then got Trump to bring in Manafort and it turned out to be the most effective force in influencing the election for Trump.
One of the most confusing parts of the collusion case was the number of different approaches that the Russians made to the Trump team, making it seem as though nothing every really got coordinated. But that begins to make sense when you view both sides, the Trump insiders and the Russian oligarchs, each as a team of rivals each trying to impress their own boss. More importantly, virtually all of the connections went through Kushner/Flynn or Stone/Manafort over the last three months of the campaign, suggesting that, eventually the Trump campaign finally coordinated its response.
Friday, December 7, 2018
Employment Report Won't Stop December Rate Hike
After an almost 800-point drop on Tuesday, the markets were given a reprieve in honor of former President G.H.W. Bush. They resumed their freefall early on Thursday before buyers came off the sidelines to pick up some bargains and drive a late rally. Traders were actually looking for a less-than-stellar employment report this morning in the hopes that it might make the Fed more reticent about raising rates again at the December meeting a week before Christmas.
Sadly for Wall Street, the numbers this morning were just the continuation in the string of good jobs reports we have had for months now. It may not have met the consensus of 190,000 new jobs created, but the actual number of 155,000 is not that big a miss. More concerning for the stock market was the fact that wage growth was showing no sign of easing. Average hourly earnings growth remained steady, rising by 6 cents, and year-over-year wage growth is now up 3.1%. With inflation running around 2.5% over the same period, that means real wage growth for the year is 0.6%. Horrors! Wage earners gaining slightly more buying power!
Of course, inflation adjusted wage growth has actually been declining over the last few years as inflation has slowly increased. However, that 3.1% wage growth number makes it more likely that the Fed will ignore the talk of downturn and recession and go ahead with the expected rate hike. The market is reacting accordingly, down around 600 points at 3pm.
There are two drivers for this stock market collapse. First, rising interest rates are driving the normal process of moving money out of the market and into bonds with guaranteed rates of return. This may be enhanced by the incompetence of the Trump administration and the lack of faith it can take the appropriate steps to manage economic trouble. Rising interest rates also raise companies' cost of doing business, putting a squeeze on those firms running tight profit margins.
Secondly, slowing global growth combined with Trump's trade wars are dampening the prospects for economic growth in the next couple of years. Worse, the growing federal budget deficit created by the Trump tax cuts will restrict the ability to use fiscal stimulus if such a downturn occurs. With interest rates already low, any boost the Fed could provide will be limited, just as it was when we hit the zero bound in the wake of the Great Recession, meaning any recovery will take longer to take hold.
It's pretty clear that the market will soon be in correction territory and perhaps then it will find a new floor and stabilize. Until then, it's just a wild ride down.
Sadly for Wall Street, the numbers this morning were just the continuation in the string of good jobs reports we have had for months now. It may not have met the consensus of 190,000 new jobs created, but the actual number of 155,000 is not that big a miss. More concerning for the stock market was the fact that wage growth was showing no sign of easing. Average hourly earnings growth remained steady, rising by 6 cents, and year-over-year wage growth is now up 3.1%. With inflation running around 2.5% over the same period, that means real wage growth for the year is 0.6%. Horrors! Wage earners gaining slightly more buying power!
Of course, inflation adjusted wage growth has actually been declining over the last few years as inflation has slowly increased. However, that 3.1% wage growth number makes it more likely that the Fed will ignore the talk of downturn and recession and go ahead with the expected rate hike. The market is reacting accordingly, down around 600 points at 3pm.
There are two drivers for this stock market collapse. First, rising interest rates are driving the normal process of moving money out of the market and into bonds with guaranteed rates of return. This may be enhanced by the incompetence of the Trump administration and the lack of faith it can take the appropriate steps to manage economic trouble. Rising interest rates also raise companies' cost of doing business, putting a squeeze on those firms running tight profit margins.
Secondly, slowing global growth combined with Trump's trade wars are dampening the prospects for economic growth in the next couple of years. Worse, the growing federal budget deficit created by the Trump tax cuts will restrict the ability to use fiscal stimulus if such a downturn occurs. With interest rates already low, any boost the Fed could provide will be limited, just as it was when we hit the zero bound in the wake of the Great Recession, meaning any recovery will take longer to take hold.
It's pretty clear that the market will soon be in correction territory and perhaps then it will find a new floor and stabilize. Until then, it's just a wild ride down.
Astronomy Adventure - Valleys Of The Moon
This is the very southern region of the Mare Fecunditatis and the mountainous and cratered region that separates it from Mare Nectaris. The fully lit crater with the central peak on the right is Petavius and below it with the single visible crater on its interior floor is Fernurius. The smaller crater to its left with a central peak is Stevinus, with Snellius just above that. The Vallis Snellius is clearly visible dissecting the two, cutting across the southern edge of Snellius. The darkened crater with the just barely visible central peak to its left is Reichenbach, with Rheita E the elongated gash to its right and Rheita to its south. Below that is the deeper Vallis Rheita.
A closer view of the two valleys:
A closer view of the two valleys:
Technical details:
Scope: Starblast 4.5; tracking on
Magnification: ~200x
Camera: iPhone6 using NightCap Pro; Low ISO
Thursday, December 6, 2018
The "Marshall Plan Of The Mideast" Is Roadmap To Foreign Interference In 2016
It seems that much of the world, including the world's greatest kleptocrats, but with the exception of most of the mainstream media and around 45% of the US public, understood that the entire Trump campaign was simply a great grift machine. At its outset, the Trump campaign was merely a branding exercise that was designed to further raise the Trump profile by making a respectable, but not winning, showing in the Republican primaries. But it increasingly seems that the emergence of Mike Flynn as a major force within the campaign expanded the horizons of potential profit for everyone involved in and associated with the Trump/Kushner project.
Flynn, of course, was merely grifting himself, leveraging his closeness to the candidate in order to drum up business for himself and his family. Like everyone in Trump's orbit, they had no expectation or probably even desire to win the election as that would make reaping their expected profits far more difficult. This was clearly illustrated by both the fact that Trump had no acceptance speech ready for election night and Flynn was publishing an op-ed piece promoting his Turkish benefactors on the day of the election.
But it was most likely Flynn who originally floated the idea of the so-called "Marshall plan for the Mideast" that brought the Russians, Saudis, Emiratis, and Israelis together with the Trump campaign. The crux of the scheme was to lift the Russian sanctions so that the bloc of anti-Iranian states could then avail themselves of the Russian know-how to build nuclear reactors and buy Russian-made weapons, all of which would be brokered by Flynn and his associates. Israel was willing to sign off on this plan in return for Saudi, Emirati, and Egyptian support for abandoning the Palestinians as well as the fact that it further constrained the Iranian regime while adding multiple threats to it.
This opened up new potential grifts for Trump and his team. Rolling back the sanctions increased the likelihood of Trump Tower Moscow. Opening up the channel to the Gulf States allowed Kushner to potentially find another source, if not Russia, to bail him out of his disastrous investment in 666 Fifth Avenue.
More importantly for Trump, the Russians, Saudis, and Israelis leveraged their money and technological know-how to influence the election and support his campaign. In addition to the Russian Internet Research Agency, the campaign may have had help from the Israeli firm Psy-Group. The connection to the Gulf States also brought in George Nader and Elliot Broidy, who were also grifting for themselves in the form of large consulting contracts.
Despite the fact that sanctions haven't been lifted, many of those involved in the Marshall plan deal have gotten what they wanted. The Israelis have had a free hand with the Palestinians. Trump backed the Saudis and Emiratis in their attack on Qatar and still supports the Saudi war in Yemen even after the murder of Khashoggi. All three countries benefited from Trump's withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal and the re-imposition of sanctions. The Russians are becoming players in the Mideast again, selling large amounts of weaponry and signing other business deals, as well as getting a free pass in Crimea.
While Trump hasn't gotten the Trump Tower Moscow, he has gotten lots of business for his hotels from multiple countries, including hundreds of thousands from the Saudis and their associates. Kushner got bailed out of 666 Fifth Avenue by the Qataris, requested by Kushner before the Saudi and Emirati attack and remarkably paid after that attack ended. That payment was also remarkable for being paid shortly after the Qataris acquired a significant stake in the Russian oil giant Rosneft, reportedly at a discount, which leads to speculation that the Qataris were merely a cutout for a Russian payment to Kushner.
There are many strands to the foreign interference in the 2016 election as well as the pay-to-play foreign policy implemented by the Trump transition and subsequent administration. Many of those strands come together when the outline of the "Marshall plan for the Mideast" is illuminated. Mike Flynn is one of the architects of the plan and was intimately involved in its implementation. The fact that he has been fully cooperative with the Mueller investigation for well over a year should concern much of Trump's inner circle, especially Kushner and Don Jr.
Flynn, of course, was merely grifting himself, leveraging his closeness to the candidate in order to drum up business for himself and his family. Like everyone in Trump's orbit, they had no expectation or probably even desire to win the election as that would make reaping their expected profits far more difficult. This was clearly illustrated by both the fact that Trump had no acceptance speech ready for election night and Flynn was publishing an op-ed piece promoting his Turkish benefactors on the day of the election.
But it was most likely Flynn who originally floated the idea of the so-called "Marshall plan for the Mideast" that brought the Russians, Saudis, Emiratis, and Israelis together with the Trump campaign. The crux of the scheme was to lift the Russian sanctions so that the bloc of anti-Iranian states could then avail themselves of the Russian know-how to build nuclear reactors and buy Russian-made weapons, all of which would be brokered by Flynn and his associates. Israel was willing to sign off on this plan in return for Saudi, Emirati, and Egyptian support for abandoning the Palestinians as well as the fact that it further constrained the Iranian regime while adding multiple threats to it.
This opened up new potential grifts for Trump and his team. Rolling back the sanctions increased the likelihood of Trump Tower Moscow. Opening up the channel to the Gulf States allowed Kushner to potentially find another source, if not Russia, to bail him out of his disastrous investment in 666 Fifth Avenue.
More importantly for Trump, the Russians, Saudis, and Israelis leveraged their money and technological know-how to influence the election and support his campaign. In addition to the Russian Internet Research Agency, the campaign may have had help from the Israeli firm Psy-Group. The connection to the Gulf States also brought in George Nader and Elliot Broidy, who were also grifting for themselves in the form of large consulting contracts.
Despite the fact that sanctions haven't been lifted, many of those involved in the Marshall plan deal have gotten what they wanted. The Israelis have had a free hand with the Palestinians. Trump backed the Saudis and Emiratis in their attack on Qatar and still supports the Saudi war in Yemen even after the murder of Khashoggi. All three countries benefited from Trump's withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal and the re-imposition of sanctions. The Russians are becoming players in the Mideast again, selling large amounts of weaponry and signing other business deals, as well as getting a free pass in Crimea.
While Trump hasn't gotten the Trump Tower Moscow, he has gotten lots of business for his hotels from multiple countries, including hundreds of thousands from the Saudis and their associates. Kushner got bailed out of 666 Fifth Avenue by the Qataris, requested by Kushner before the Saudi and Emirati attack and remarkably paid after that attack ended. That payment was also remarkable for being paid shortly after the Qataris acquired a significant stake in the Russian oil giant Rosneft, reportedly at a discount, which leads to speculation that the Qataris were merely a cutout for a Russian payment to Kushner.
There are many strands to the foreign interference in the 2016 election as well as the pay-to-play foreign policy implemented by the Trump transition and subsequent administration. Many of those strands come together when the outline of the "Marshall plan for the Mideast" is illuminated. Mike Flynn is one of the architects of the plan and was intimately involved in its implementation. The fact that he has been fully cooperative with the Mueller investigation for well over a year should concern much of Trump's inner circle, especially Kushner and Don Jr.
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
House Dems Prepare Broad Anti-Corruption Bill
About a month ago, I wrote about the importance of the House Democratic legislative agenda as a tool for setting the groundwork for the 2020 election more so than any real legislative accomplishments that would be unlikely to be crafted with a Republican Senate and Trump and/or Pence in the White House. It appears that Speaker-to-be Pelosi is going to come right out of the gate in January with a bill that hits on three key Democratic policies and puts Senate Republicans on the defensive.
According to Vox, HR-1 will be a broad anti-corruption bill that focuses on campaign finance reform, voting rights, and ethics in government. While this bill clearly won't make it out of the Senate, and probably not even to the Senate floor, it should put Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans in the uncomfortable position of having to defend their actions. The bill ends the Congressional practice of using taxpayer money to pay to resolve sexual harassment suits, further empowers the Office of Government Ethics to do more oversight and enforcement, especially regarding the registration of lobbyists, and creates a new code of ethics for the Supreme Court. But the most difficult part of the bill for Republicans is the requirement that the President disclose his or her, if we have a woman assume the office, taxes. This puts Trump directly in the crosshairs and directly pressures Senate Republicans.
The second part of the package focuses on voting rights. Most importantly, it restores those sections of the Voting Rights Act that were gutted by the Supreme Court in Shelby v. Holder. The bill would end the practice of voter purges as well as partisan gerrymandering in federal elections. It would set up a system of default automatic voter registration that would require a voter to specifically opt out and encourage online voter registration and expanded early voting.
HR-1 increases public funding of federal campaigns that receive small donor contributions, setting up a 6-to-1 match for every small donor dollar. More importantly, it requires the disclosure of the donors to Super PACs and other "dark money" organizations, as well as requiring Facebook and Twitter to disclose the source and amount of money spent on political ads on their platforms.
Some of the details are still being hashed out on this bill but the intention is to bring it to the floor as soon as the new Congress is sworn in in January. What's more important is that the bill illustrates that the Democratic caucus understands what it's role will be over the next two years. Thankfully, there is no talk of leading off with something like an infrastructure package to "show Democrats can govern". Instead, the idea is to focus on passing Democratic priorities and highlighting those issues.
The next two years will probably be dominated by the exposure of the rampant corruption inside the Trump administration and perhaps even impeachment. But, on the legislative front, while there will be little if any progress, there will be a remarkable battle to position their party for 2020 between two legislative leaders who have shown that they excel in their craft. McConnell may be the most destructive force for American democracy in a century and a half, but he has proven to be a formidable adversary in his role as Majority Leader. Pelosi, too, has shown her abilities over the years, preventing Democrats from caving on Social Security privatization and getting Obamacare passed. The ease with which she has seemingly dispatched the anti-Pelosi brigade in her caucus and the emerging details of HR-1 shows that she too can still play hardball.
According to Vox, HR-1 will be a broad anti-corruption bill that focuses on campaign finance reform, voting rights, and ethics in government. While this bill clearly won't make it out of the Senate, and probably not even to the Senate floor, it should put Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans in the uncomfortable position of having to defend their actions. The bill ends the Congressional practice of using taxpayer money to pay to resolve sexual harassment suits, further empowers the Office of Government Ethics to do more oversight and enforcement, especially regarding the registration of lobbyists, and creates a new code of ethics for the Supreme Court. But the most difficult part of the bill for Republicans is the requirement that the President disclose his or her, if we have a woman assume the office, taxes. This puts Trump directly in the crosshairs and directly pressures Senate Republicans.
The second part of the package focuses on voting rights. Most importantly, it restores those sections of the Voting Rights Act that were gutted by the Supreme Court in Shelby v. Holder. The bill would end the practice of voter purges as well as partisan gerrymandering in federal elections. It would set up a system of default automatic voter registration that would require a voter to specifically opt out and encourage online voter registration and expanded early voting.
HR-1 increases public funding of federal campaigns that receive small donor contributions, setting up a 6-to-1 match for every small donor dollar. More importantly, it requires the disclosure of the donors to Super PACs and other "dark money" organizations, as well as requiring Facebook and Twitter to disclose the source and amount of money spent on political ads on their platforms.
Some of the details are still being hashed out on this bill but the intention is to bring it to the floor as soon as the new Congress is sworn in in January. What's more important is that the bill illustrates that the Democratic caucus understands what it's role will be over the next two years. Thankfully, there is no talk of leading off with something like an infrastructure package to "show Democrats can govern". Instead, the idea is to focus on passing Democratic priorities and highlighting those issues.
The next two years will probably be dominated by the exposure of the rampant corruption inside the Trump administration and perhaps even impeachment. But, on the legislative front, while there will be little if any progress, there will be a remarkable battle to position their party for 2020 between two legislative leaders who have shown that they excel in their craft. McConnell may be the most destructive force for American democracy in a century and a half, but he has proven to be a formidable adversary in his role as Majority Leader. Pelosi, too, has shown her abilities over the years, preventing Democrats from caving on Social Security privatization and getting Obamacare passed. The ease with which she has seemingly dispatched the anti-Pelosi brigade in her caucus and the emerging details of HR-1 shows that she too can still play hardball.
Tuesday, December 4, 2018
How Trump's Defenders Set The "Perjury Trap" For Themselves
It is remarkable just how many Trump associates have lied, either to Congress or federal authorities, about their contacts with Russia. Ryan Goodman has put together a list of 18 such people in what he calls the "perjury chart". That list does not include Trump himself, but it would not surprise anyone to find out that he could be added to that list for lying to Mueller in the written responses that he has provided.
If you listen to Rudy Giuliani and Trump, you would surmise that many of this rogue's gallery of 18 were ensnared by the evil Robert Mueller's mythical perjury traps. But, as David Lurie points out, it looks more and more like the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, unwittingly was the one actually creating the perjury trap for many of Trump's protectors and defenders.
Nunes was the point man from the very beginning for Trump's defense within the House. Early on, he infamously got the White House to send him supposed "evidence" that Obama had Trump surveilled during and after the campaign. Nunes then took that evidence, which he claimed he had received anonymously, and made an enormous show of personally delivering that evidence to Trump himself at the White House. In fact, all he was doing was laundering disinformation for the White House.
That incident, which included Nunes actually releasing classified information, forced Nunes to publicly recuse himself from the Russian investigation in the Intelligence Committee while he was investigated for the intelligence breach. Privately, though, Nunes was still involving himself in efforts to use the committee's resources in order to defend Trump.
Nunes, along with his fellow co-conspirators Jim Jordan and Trey Gowdy, used the Intelligence Committee as a clearing house for Trump's defense. Those efforts included leaking out-of-context information, either damaging to Trump's accusers or beneficial to Trump's defense, and refusing to pursue important leads. And all this was done with the tacit approval of Paul Ryan.
Now, however, it appears that Nunes' use of the Intelligence Committee in Trump's defense will come back to bite many of the witnesses who testified there. As Lurie writes, "This is because, as the House Intelligence Committee majority’s publicly released report indicates, the GOP appears to have all but openly encouraged its witnesses to deny any and all potential wrongdoing, regardless of the plausibility of their denials...As a result, some witnesses affiliated with Trump and his campaign may have been lulled into thinking they could lie with particular impunity. It is therefore possible, if not likely, that a fairly substantial number of witnesses, including possibly the president’s eldest son, will soon find themselves facing the unusual prospect of being criminally charged for lying before a House panel that all but welcomed their dishonesty."
There is no such thing as a "perjury trap". It is primarily a euphemism for having to admit to a prior lie. But that hasn't stopped Trump's defenders, especially Giuliani, from using that excuse to prevent Trump from actually talking to Mueller. The greatest irony for Trump and his defenders is that this trap that they all feared was actually set by themselves, specifically Devin Nunes and his co-conspirators on the Intelligence Committee. Mueller is merely the beneficiary.
If you listen to Rudy Giuliani and Trump, you would surmise that many of this rogue's gallery of 18 were ensnared by the evil Robert Mueller's mythical perjury traps. But, as David Lurie points out, it looks more and more like the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, unwittingly was the one actually creating the perjury trap for many of Trump's protectors and defenders.
Nunes was the point man from the very beginning for Trump's defense within the House. Early on, he infamously got the White House to send him supposed "evidence" that Obama had Trump surveilled during and after the campaign. Nunes then took that evidence, which he claimed he had received anonymously, and made an enormous show of personally delivering that evidence to Trump himself at the White House. In fact, all he was doing was laundering disinformation for the White House.
That incident, which included Nunes actually releasing classified information, forced Nunes to publicly recuse himself from the Russian investigation in the Intelligence Committee while he was investigated for the intelligence breach. Privately, though, Nunes was still involving himself in efforts to use the committee's resources in order to defend Trump.
Nunes, along with his fellow co-conspirators Jim Jordan and Trey Gowdy, used the Intelligence Committee as a clearing house for Trump's defense. Those efforts included leaking out-of-context information, either damaging to Trump's accusers or beneficial to Trump's defense, and refusing to pursue important leads. And all this was done with the tacit approval of Paul Ryan.
Now, however, it appears that Nunes' use of the Intelligence Committee in Trump's defense will come back to bite many of the witnesses who testified there. As Lurie writes, "This is because, as the House Intelligence Committee majority’s publicly released report indicates, the GOP appears to have all but openly encouraged its witnesses to deny any and all potential wrongdoing, regardless of the plausibility of their denials...As a result, some witnesses affiliated with Trump and his campaign may have been lulled into thinking they could lie with particular impunity. It is therefore possible, if not likely, that a fairly substantial number of witnesses, including possibly the president’s eldest son, will soon find themselves facing the unusual prospect of being criminally charged for lying before a House panel that all but welcomed their dishonesty."
There is no such thing as a "perjury trap". It is primarily a euphemism for having to admit to a prior lie. But that hasn't stopped Trump's defenders, especially Giuliani, from using that excuse to prevent Trump from actually talking to Mueller. The greatest irony for Trump and his defenders is that this trap that they all feared was actually set by themselves, specifically Devin Nunes and his co-conspirators on the Intelligence Committee. Mueller is merely the beneficiary.
Monday, December 3, 2018
This Is NOT What Democracy Looks Like
Almost exactly a year ago in North Carolina, after Democrat Roy Cooper had been elected governor and Democrats won control of the State Supreme Court, the Republican-led legislature took the extraordinary step of stripping the governor of certain powers and transferring other powers of the State Supreme Court to the Court of Appeals which still contained a majority of Republicans. It was an unprecedent power grab that Cooper fought in the courts with some degree, but not total, success.
Now, Republicans in Michigan and Wisconsin, which both saw Democratic governors elected in November, are employing similar tactics, attempting to strip existing powers from the incoming governors and other Democratic officeholders. In Wisconsin, the Republican legislature, dominated by the GOP through extreme partisan gerrymandering, is expected to vote as early as tomorrow on a package that would limit the powers of the incoming Democratic governor, Tony Evers. In addition, one of the bills to be considered would change the date of the Supreme Court election in order to protect a conservative justice over the objections of 80% of the county election supervisors in the state and a unanimous vote against the idea from the bipartisan state elections commission. Yet another bill would attempt to limit early voting to within two weeks of an election, a move that has been ruled unconstitutional as recently as 2016.
In Michigan, Democrats won all three statewide offices, Governor, Attorney General, and Secretary of State, in November. As in Wisconsin, the Republican-held legislature, again a result of extreme partisan gerrymandering, is considering a number of bills that would limit the power of all three incoming officeholders. One bill would let the legislature, not the Attorney General, intervene in legal battles involving the state that the AG may have chosen not to engage. Another bill would strip the Secretary of State's authority over campaign finance and give it to an independent commission made up of three Republicans and three Democrats.
These actions follow the legislature's admitted attempt to sabotage the Michigan ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage and offer paid sick leave. The legislature passed bills that included these protections back in September specifically to invalidate the proposed ballot initiative in November and had every intention of then repealing those bills after the election.
That attempt was certainly a unique method for invalidating a ballot initiative. In the past, legislatures have simply passed laws overriding the results of those initiatives, many of which embody progressive ideas. In 2016, South Dakota's legislature effectively watered down a ballot initiative on government ethics that limited the influence of lobbyists. In Maine, Republican Governor Paul LePage successfully delayed the implementation of Medicaid expansion which had been approved by the voters in a ballot initiative. Oklahoma's legislature sought to overturn the results of a criminal justice reform ballot initiative. In the District of Columbia, the city council overturned a minimum wage ballot initiative.
While Democrats are trying to fight extreme partisan gerrymandering on a national level, the Democratic-controlled New Jersey legislature is trying to entrench their power by using those very same tactics. A new proposed constitutional amendment would give the legislature power over the redistricting commission and institute a mathematical modeling formula that could be tweaked to arrive at the result the commission wants. All this is being done with the assumption that Democrats will still be in control after the 2020 census, allowing them to set the maps for the next decade. However, nothing would stop Republicans from using these same tools to rig the map in their favor in the unlikely event they gain control of the legislature.
Meanwhile, top Republican officials are pursuing outlandish claims of electoral fraud simply because counting mail-in and absentee ballots takes time. Paul Ryan, illustrating the spectacular hack he has always been, is claiming that there must be rampant voter fraud because of the way ballots are counted in California. Said Ryan, "California just defies logic to me... We were only down 26 seats the night of the election & 3 weeks later, we lost basically every contested CA race. This election system they have - I can’t begin to understand what ‘ballot harvesting’ is". Lindsey Graham had a similar issue with how the votes were counted in Florida, saying, "This is a constant problem... If you're a Republican, you've got to win by a lot to win by a little. Rick Scott had a 60,000 vote majority and wound up winning by 10".
Those comments are laughable. What is not is the actual voter fraud that appears to have occurred in North Carolina. There, the bipartisan Board of Elections unanimously agreed not to validate the Congressional election in the ninth district, where Republican Mark Harris apparently eked out a 905 vote victory. In two counties within that district, some fairly unusual things occurred. First, there was an unusually high number of absentee ballot requests, followed by reports that voters were being told their registrations had dropped and offering to submit an absentee ballot while their attempts to re-register would be processed. The election returns indicated two related anomalies. First, a large number of absentee ballots were never returned. More worryingly, the percentage of absentee ballots actually cast for Harris in those two counties was far higher than in any other county in the district. Together, this seems to indicate that absentee ballots for the Democratic candidate were suppressed while the ones for the Republican were actually sent in and processed. Now, apparently, the Board of Elections is looking at potentially similar problems with Harris' victory in the Republican primary back in May.
So, despite the constant Republican bogeyman about in-person voter fraud, which has been shown to be virtually non-existent, it appears the real voter fraud is being carried out by a Republican using absentee ballots. Voter ID would not have stopped this apparent fraud. Restricting early voting wouldn't have stopped it either. Rather, those are just "legal" steps to suppress Democratic votes.
American democracy has become fundamentally broken and dysfunctional. Politicians are now brazenly and willfully putting obstacles in place to restrict the will of the voters and, worse, actively overturning actions voters specifically authorized, responding instead only to the moneyed, corporate interests that fund their campaigns or pay them directly. It is no wonder that we see such a precipitous decline in the faith that younger people have in the very concept of democracy and increased tolerance for those such as Trump with autocratic tendencies. Restoring that faith and repairing the system will not be easy and will take time, but it must be done.
Now, Republicans in Michigan and Wisconsin, which both saw Democratic governors elected in November, are employing similar tactics, attempting to strip existing powers from the incoming governors and other Democratic officeholders. In Wisconsin, the Republican legislature, dominated by the GOP through extreme partisan gerrymandering, is expected to vote as early as tomorrow on a package that would limit the powers of the incoming Democratic governor, Tony Evers. In addition, one of the bills to be considered would change the date of the Supreme Court election in order to protect a conservative justice over the objections of 80% of the county election supervisors in the state and a unanimous vote against the idea from the bipartisan state elections commission. Yet another bill would attempt to limit early voting to within two weeks of an election, a move that has been ruled unconstitutional as recently as 2016.
In Michigan, Democrats won all three statewide offices, Governor, Attorney General, and Secretary of State, in November. As in Wisconsin, the Republican-held legislature, again a result of extreme partisan gerrymandering, is considering a number of bills that would limit the power of all three incoming officeholders. One bill would let the legislature, not the Attorney General, intervene in legal battles involving the state that the AG may have chosen not to engage. Another bill would strip the Secretary of State's authority over campaign finance and give it to an independent commission made up of three Republicans and three Democrats.
These actions follow the legislature's admitted attempt to sabotage the Michigan ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage and offer paid sick leave. The legislature passed bills that included these protections back in September specifically to invalidate the proposed ballot initiative in November and had every intention of then repealing those bills after the election.
That attempt was certainly a unique method for invalidating a ballot initiative. In the past, legislatures have simply passed laws overriding the results of those initiatives, many of which embody progressive ideas. In 2016, South Dakota's legislature effectively watered down a ballot initiative on government ethics that limited the influence of lobbyists. In Maine, Republican Governor Paul LePage successfully delayed the implementation of Medicaid expansion which had been approved by the voters in a ballot initiative. Oklahoma's legislature sought to overturn the results of a criminal justice reform ballot initiative. In the District of Columbia, the city council overturned a minimum wage ballot initiative.
While Democrats are trying to fight extreme partisan gerrymandering on a national level, the Democratic-controlled New Jersey legislature is trying to entrench their power by using those very same tactics. A new proposed constitutional amendment would give the legislature power over the redistricting commission and institute a mathematical modeling formula that could be tweaked to arrive at the result the commission wants. All this is being done with the assumption that Democrats will still be in control after the 2020 census, allowing them to set the maps for the next decade. However, nothing would stop Republicans from using these same tools to rig the map in their favor in the unlikely event they gain control of the legislature.
Meanwhile, top Republican officials are pursuing outlandish claims of electoral fraud simply because counting mail-in and absentee ballots takes time. Paul Ryan, illustrating the spectacular hack he has always been, is claiming that there must be rampant voter fraud because of the way ballots are counted in California. Said Ryan, "California just defies logic to me... We were only down 26 seats the night of the election & 3 weeks later, we lost basically every contested CA race. This election system they have - I can’t begin to understand what ‘ballot harvesting’ is". Lindsey Graham had a similar issue with how the votes were counted in Florida, saying, "This is a constant problem... If you're a Republican, you've got to win by a lot to win by a little. Rick Scott had a 60,000 vote majority and wound up winning by 10".
Those comments are laughable. What is not is the actual voter fraud that appears to have occurred in North Carolina. There, the bipartisan Board of Elections unanimously agreed not to validate the Congressional election in the ninth district, where Republican Mark Harris apparently eked out a 905 vote victory. In two counties within that district, some fairly unusual things occurred. First, there was an unusually high number of absentee ballot requests, followed by reports that voters were being told their registrations had dropped and offering to submit an absentee ballot while their attempts to re-register would be processed. The election returns indicated two related anomalies. First, a large number of absentee ballots were never returned. More worryingly, the percentage of absentee ballots actually cast for Harris in those two counties was far higher than in any other county in the district. Together, this seems to indicate that absentee ballots for the Democratic candidate were suppressed while the ones for the Republican were actually sent in and processed. Now, apparently, the Board of Elections is looking at potentially similar problems with Harris' victory in the Republican primary back in May.
So, despite the constant Republican bogeyman about in-person voter fraud, which has been shown to be virtually non-existent, it appears the real voter fraud is being carried out by a Republican using absentee ballots. Voter ID would not have stopped this apparent fraud. Restricting early voting wouldn't have stopped it either. Rather, those are just "legal" steps to suppress Democratic votes.
American democracy has become fundamentally broken and dysfunctional. Politicians are now brazenly and willfully putting obstacles in place to restrict the will of the voters and, worse, actively overturning actions voters specifically authorized, responding instead only to the moneyed, corporate interests that fund their campaigns or pay them directly. It is no wonder that we see such a precipitous decline in the faith that younger people have in the very concept of democracy and increased tolerance for those such as Trump with autocratic tendencies. Restoring that faith and repairing the system will not be easy and will take time, but it must be done.
Sunday, December 2, 2018
Natural Weekends - View From Top Of West Rock
The top of West Rock provides some lovely views of New Haven and its environs, as well as across the Sound to Long Island. Here are some photos from earlier in the fall.
