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.
Saturday, December 1, 2018
Friday, November 30, 2018
Democrats Must Be Allowed To Do More Than Clean Up Republican Failures
A few months ago, I wrote a piece about how Republican moderates, a vanishing breed, I admit, are once again asking the Democrats to clean up the mess that has been created under GOP leadership. It's been this way for the last 40 years. Carter had to bring the country together after Watergate. Clinton had to deal with G.H.W. Bush recession and deficits created by Reagan. And Obama had to virtually save the world's financial system after G.W. Bush and the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression.
It looks increasingly likely that Democrats will be in that same position again in the wake of Trump, perhaps having to deal with the fallout of a political scandal possibly even worse than Watergate and a recession with enormous deficits similar to the early 1990s or 2008 at the same time.
There has already been enough criminal behavior uncovered involving Trump's emoluments and obstruction of justice to warrant impeachment. In fact, even before the midterms, some of those vanishing GOP moderates were actually demanding Democrats in the House start impeachment procedures when they regained power, as it was assumed they would, in January. Now, with the extraordinary evidence of collusion with the Russians mounting every single day, those demands will become even greater.
There was a reason that Trump devoted most of his energy to electing Republican Senators in the recent midterms. The Senate is Trump's only hope to provide the firewall necessary to keep him from being convicted of impeachment and, based on the cult-like behavior of at least 45 Republican Senators over the last two years, acquittal of impeachment would seem the most probable outcome.
The new Democratic House looks to be faced with a choice come January. Assuming Mueller provides even more direct evidence of collusion, the pressure from the centrist institutionalists and the left to impeach will become enormous. But, unless there is a clear indication that Senate Republicans have had a massive change of heart, that process is doomed to failure. Moreover, moving on impeachment will play into Trump's hands, creating the pitched partisan battle that he thrives on. More importantly, that process will dominate the agenda for probably the entire 2019 legislative year, sucking time, energy, and political capital from the real Democratic agenda that is intended to set the party up for the 2020 election.
Assuming Trump survives impeachment, then the 2020 election becomes yet another referendum on Trump and his Republican protectors and much of the Democratic message will be overwhelmed by that partisan battle, much as Clinton's message was overwhelmed by Trump and EMAILS!. On the other hand, if Trump is impeached and convicted, the pressure from the professional pundit class on the 2020 Democratic nominee to "bring the country together" will be enormous. That will require "bipartisan" solutions and a more centrist point of view, once again blunting the progressive Democratic agenda.
Either way, assuming a Democrat wins in 2020, a big assumption, I know, and Democrats hold the House and squeak out a slim majority in the Senate, another Republican mess will be waiting to be cleaned up, thwarting the Democratic agenda again, just as it did under Obama.
We are in the midst of the second longest period economic expansion in history, not surprising since we are coming off the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. And yet there are clear danger signs on the horizon, some of which are driven by Trump policies.
Non-financial corporate debt is at an all-time high as a percentage of the economy and much of that is being bundled into collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), mirroring the way lower rated mortgages were bundled into AAA rated securities before the Great Recession. New home sales, a key driver of the economy, have cratered as it looks like higher interest rates are starting to have a detrimental effect. Auto loan delinquencies are at their highest point in 6 years, since the tail end of the financial crisis. The GM layoffs may have had more to do with Americans preference for lightweight trucks than cars, but, even so, vehicle sales, another driver of the economy, have been slowly dropping since 2015. This trend is only exacerbated by Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs but also by new tax law that actually encourages manufacturing to move overseas, in direct contrast to how the bill was sold. Similarly, Trump's agricultural tariffs are driving increased farm bankruptcies while at the same time increasing price for consumers.
The US economy is still in decent shape, but the odds of a 2020 recession are growing. In addition, so is the US budget deficit, which is expected to be close to $1 trillion in 2019 and even higher in 2020, much of which is a result of shrinking corporate tax receipts due to the new tax bill. If a recession does come, those deficits will explode even higher, which could also push interest rates up as well.
That, again, will create problems for Democrats if they do gain control in 2020. The demands for "austerity" and "entitlement reform" in order to bring the deficit under control will be as loud as they were after 2008. The GOP mantra about the deficit will once again be front and center and the pundit class will gladly take it up again, despite at least hopefully knowing now that the GOP's claims are in bad faith. And once again, real Democratic priorities like health care and jobs will have to take a back seat to cleaning up the Trump economic mess.
Democrats continue to live in this cycle of having to spend their hard-won political capital cleaning up after Republican failures, mitigating their ability to advance the Democratic agenda as far and as easily as they could. It has been that way for the last three Democratic presidents, Carter, Clinton, and Obama. Meanwhile, Clinton and Obama left a thriving economy and a successful presidency for their GOP successors to squander on destructive Republican policies.
Somehow, in 2020, despite all the potential obstacles, we must break out of this cycle. That will take courage and bold legislative initiatives that will be required to break the financial and corporate structures that lead us to these disasters in the first place. But that's a post for another day. For today, it is just enough to recognize and prepare for the difficulties and opposition that lie ahead if Democrats do gain power in 2020.
It looks increasingly likely that Democrats will be in that same position again in the wake of Trump, perhaps having to deal with the fallout of a political scandal possibly even worse than Watergate and a recession with enormous deficits similar to the early 1990s or 2008 at the same time.
There has already been enough criminal behavior uncovered involving Trump's emoluments and obstruction of justice to warrant impeachment. In fact, even before the midterms, some of those vanishing GOP moderates were actually demanding Democrats in the House start impeachment procedures when they regained power, as it was assumed they would, in January. Now, with the extraordinary evidence of collusion with the Russians mounting every single day, those demands will become even greater.
There was a reason that Trump devoted most of his energy to electing Republican Senators in the recent midterms. The Senate is Trump's only hope to provide the firewall necessary to keep him from being convicted of impeachment and, based on the cult-like behavior of at least 45 Republican Senators over the last two years, acquittal of impeachment would seem the most probable outcome.
The new Democratic House looks to be faced with a choice come January. Assuming Mueller provides even more direct evidence of collusion, the pressure from the centrist institutionalists and the left to impeach will become enormous. But, unless there is a clear indication that Senate Republicans have had a massive change of heart, that process is doomed to failure. Moreover, moving on impeachment will play into Trump's hands, creating the pitched partisan battle that he thrives on. More importantly, that process will dominate the agenda for probably the entire 2019 legislative year, sucking time, energy, and political capital from the real Democratic agenda that is intended to set the party up for the 2020 election.
Assuming Trump survives impeachment, then the 2020 election becomes yet another referendum on Trump and his Republican protectors and much of the Democratic message will be overwhelmed by that partisan battle, much as Clinton's message was overwhelmed by Trump and EMAILS!. On the other hand, if Trump is impeached and convicted, the pressure from the professional pundit class on the 2020 Democratic nominee to "bring the country together" will be enormous. That will require "bipartisan" solutions and a more centrist point of view, once again blunting the progressive Democratic agenda.
Either way, assuming a Democrat wins in 2020, a big assumption, I know, and Democrats hold the House and squeak out a slim majority in the Senate, another Republican mess will be waiting to be cleaned up, thwarting the Democratic agenda again, just as it did under Obama.
We are in the midst of the second longest period economic expansion in history, not surprising since we are coming off the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. And yet there are clear danger signs on the horizon, some of which are driven by Trump policies.
Non-financial corporate debt is at an all-time high as a percentage of the economy and much of that is being bundled into collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), mirroring the way lower rated mortgages were bundled into AAA rated securities before the Great Recession. New home sales, a key driver of the economy, have cratered as it looks like higher interest rates are starting to have a detrimental effect. Auto loan delinquencies are at their highest point in 6 years, since the tail end of the financial crisis. The GM layoffs may have had more to do with Americans preference for lightweight trucks than cars, but, even so, vehicle sales, another driver of the economy, have been slowly dropping since 2015. This trend is only exacerbated by Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs but also by new tax law that actually encourages manufacturing to move overseas, in direct contrast to how the bill was sold. Similarly, Trump's agricultural tariffs are driving increased farm bankruptcies while at the same time increasing price for consumers.
The US economy is still in decent shape, but the odds of a 2020 recession are growing. In addition, so is the US budget deficit, which is expected to be close to $1 trillion in 2019 and even higher in 2020, much of which is a result of shrinking corporate tax receipts due to the new tax bill. If a recession does come, those deficits will explode even higher, which could also push interest rates up as well.
That, again, will create problems for Democrats if they do gain control in 2020. The demands for "austerity" and "entitlement reform" in order to bring the deficit under control will be as loud as they were after 2008. The GOP mantra about the deficit will once again be front and center and the pundit class will gladly take it up again, despite at least hopefully knowing now that the GOP's claims are in bad faith. And once again, real Democratic priorities like health care and jobs will have to take a back seat to cleaning up the Trump economic mess.
Democrats continue to live in this cycle of having to spend their hard-won political capital cleaning up after Republican failures, mitigating their ability to advance the Democratic agenda as far and as easily as they could. It has been that way for the last three Democratic presidents, Carter, Clinton, and Obama. Meanwhile, Clinton and Obama left a thriving economy and a successful presidency for their GOP successors to squander on destructive Republican policies.
Somehow, in 2020, despite all the potential obstacles, we must break out of this cycle. That will take courage and bold legislative initiatives that will be required to break the financial and corporate structures that lead us to these disasters in the first place. But that's a post for another day. For today, it is just enough to recognize and prepare for the difficulties and opposition that lie ahead if Democrats do gain power in 2020.
Thursday, November 29, 2018
Disrespect And Uncertainty
I know this is probably beating a dead horse and meaningless in the context of the lawlessness that currently overwhelms us, but you really have to marvel at the current levels of hypocrisy in so many areas. You might remember back in the day when business leaders were constantly complaining that Obama didn't respect them and was clueless about their supposedly enormous contributions to the country. Some CEOs even blamed his attitude on the sluggish post-financial crash recovery as well as harping on the fact that the Obama administration wasn't providing the certainty that was required for them to invest. Those complaints were obviously picked up and amplified by Republican politicians.
Well, Trump has spent virtually his entire presidency attacking business leaders and their companies with whom he has had some beef. He has threatened those businesses with increased regulation, removal of subsidies and tax breaks, and even unfounded investigations and prosecutions.
The latest of these attacks comes against General Motors which is laying off around 14,000 workers and shuttering a number of US and Canadian plants. Trump demanded that GM "better damn well open a new plant there very quickly" and threatened that there would be a "problem" if that didn't happen. He then followed that up with a threat to "all GM subsidies including electric cars". Republicans have pitched in with attacks on GM management. On Morning Joe, Ohio Republican Mike Turner blamed the layoffs entirely on mismanagement by the leadership at GM.
Needless to say, business leaders are largely silent on these attacks. There is no talk of being disrespected or attacked by Trump. There are few complaints, mostly from small business owners, about the costs imposed by Trump's tariffs. There is no worry that Trump's threats are creating "uncertainty". There is no pushback against Republican attacks on CEOs' poor management. Those leaders got their enormous corporate tax cut and are just taking that money to the bank.
On the other hand, you can imaging the outcry if these similar tactics had actually been employed by Obama. The screams of "socialism" and "government takeover of business" would have deafening. The only thing deafening today, however, is the silence of the business community.
The lesson, of course, is that the business complaints against Obama never should have been taken seriously to begin with. Business leaders were not feeling disrespected and their business decisions were not colored by any uncertainty created by the Obama administration. What they were really feeling was the fear that the gravy train they had all been feasting on for the last three or four decades might actually be coming to an end. Too bad it couldn't have been reported that way.
Well, Trump has spent virtually his entire presidency attacking business leaders and their companies with whom he has had some beef. He has threatened those businesses with increased regulation, removal of subsidies and tax breaks, and even unfounded investigations and prosecutions.
The latest of these attacks comes against General Motors which is laying off around 14,000 workers and shuttering a number of US and Canadian plants. Trump demanded that GM "better damn well open a new plant there very quickly" and threatened that there would be a "problem" if that didn't happen. He then followed that up with a threat to "all GM subsidies including electric cars". Republicans have pitched in with attacks on GM management. On Morning Joe, Ohio Republican Mike Turner blamed the layoffs entirely on mismanagement by the leadership at GM.
Needless to say, business leaders are largely silent on these attacks. There is no talk of being disrespected or attacked by Trump. There are few complaints, mostly from small business owners, about the costs imposed by Trump's tariffs. There is no worry that Trump's threats are creating "uncertainty". There is no pushback against Republican attacks on CEOs' poor management. Those leaders got their enormous corporate tax cut and are just taking that money to the bank.
On the other hand, you can imaging the outcry if these similar tactics had actually been employed by Obama. The screams of "socialism" and "government takeover of business" would have deafening. The only thing deafening today, however, is the silence of the business community.
The lesson, of course, is that the business complaints against Obama never should have been taken seriously to begin with. Business leaders were not feeling disrespected and their business decisions were not colored by any uncertainty created by the Obama administration. What they were really feeling was the fear that the gravy train they had all been feasting on for the last three or four decades might actually be coming to an end. Too bad it couldn't have been reported that way.
Tuesday, November 27, 2018
The Manafort Mystery
So Paul Manafort has managed to void his cooperation agreement with Robert Mueller by continuing to lie to the Special Counsel. This is a guy who had already been caught trying to witness tamper in his earlier trial and had his bail accordingly revoked so I guess it should not come as a surprise that he would still try to get away with lying to Mueller. So, while it may not be a surprise, it remains unclear what his motivation might be.
Since Manafort is clearly still in hock to his criminal Russian partners, one obvious rationale for his actions would be that he knows telling the truth is most likely to get him or his family seriously injured. On the other hand, as Whitey Bulger found out, spending double digit years in prison is not necessarily a way to stay safe.
Alternatively, it may not be a coincidence that Jerome Corsi's plea negotiations also seem to have fallen apart at this same exact time. That lends credence to the theory that Trump has dangled the possibility of pardons to protect himself and his family. Manafort, of course, probably poses an existential threat to Trump because of his position as campaign manager and his close personal interaction with the President. Besides his immediate family, Roger Stone is Trump's other potential existential threat and protecting Corsi, who is basically a flunky, although perhaps a knowledgeable one, is a way to protect Stone. But even Trump's pardon won't protect Manafort, Corsi, and Stone from potential state charges, with Manafort almost certain to be charged. Additionally, Trump's offers of pardon or the actual pardons themselves could be the basis for impeachment, as they were for Nixon.
While it may take time to discern Manafort's reasoning, if ever, it is also unclear what kind of impact this will have on Mueller's investigation. One take is that this is a pretty clear blow to his investigation. Evidence that Mueller had hoped to obtain from Mueller is now not available and any evidence he has gleaned from Manafort, including conversations with Trump and his family, will be tainted by the fact that he is a liar and may not be admissible in court. However, that may not be as bad as it initially sounds, because the case against Trump will not be a legal proceeding but a political one where it is more than likely that evidence will emerge.
In addition, Mueller must have enough proof that Manafort is actually lying in order for him to make the filing to void the plea agreement on such grounds. That implies that Mueller already has the evidence and Manafort would merely be another corroborating witness to it. That does not negate the possibility that there is evidence that Mueller got solely from Manafort but it clearly indicates that he certainly had more than Manafort thought he did.
All of which brings us to the most interesting theory of all from Marcy Wheeler over at Emptywheel, namely that Mueller continued to let Manafort lie to him in order to entrap others, including Trump. Rudy Giuliani has always maintained that Manafort's legal team was still sharing information with the President's legal team all during his period of "cooperation". If the Trump team believed that Mueller was swallowing Manafort's lies, then that would color their answers to Mueller in Trump's open book test. Now that Mueller has Trump's answers, he has no reason to continue to let Manafort lie.
Mueller will be detailing all the instances where Manafort lied in a subsequent filing at his sentencing. As Wheeler suggests, the filing will essentially be Mueller's report, outlining all the areas where Manafort and perhaps Trump have lied. "There’s your Mueller report, which will be provided in a form that Matt Whitaker won’t be able to suppress". You can hear the screams of "perjury trap" already from Giuliani and others.
Who knows, perhaps Manafort has engaged in criminal behavior for so long he, like Trump, just can't stop himself and had no rationale reason for continuing to lie to Mueller. But it certainly seems clear we will have a lot more answers to so many questions sooner rather than later and you can already see Trump feeling the pressure.
Since Manafort is clearly still in hock to his criminal Russian partners, one obvious rationale for his actions would be that he knows telling the truth is most likely to get him or his family seriously injured. On the other hand, as Whitey Bulger found out, spending double digit years in prison is not necessarily a way to stay safe.
Alternatively, it may not be a coincidence that Jerome Corsi's plea negotiations also seem to have fallen apart at this same exact time. That lends credence to the theory that Trump has dangled the possibility of pardons to protect himself and his family. Manafort, of course, probably poses an existential threat to Trump because of his position as campaign manager and his close personal interaction with the President. Besides his immediate family, Roger Stone is Trump's other potential existential threat and protecting Corsi, who is basically a flunky, although perhaps a knowledgeable one, is a way to protect Stone. But even Trump's pardon won't protect Manafort, Corsi, and Stone from potential state charges, with Manafort almost certain to be charged. Additionally, Trump's offers of pardon or the actual pardons themselves could be the basis for impeachment, as they were for Nixon.
While it may take time to discern Manafort's reasoning, if ever, it is also unclear what kind of impact this will have on Mueller's investigation. One take is that this is a pretty clear blow to his investigation. Evidence that Mueller had hoped to obtain from Mueller is now not available and any evidence he has gleaned from Manafort, including conversations with Trump and his family, will be tainted by the fact that he is a liar and may not be admissible in court. However, that may not be as bad as it initially sounds, because the case against Trump will not be a legal proceeding but a political one where it is more than likely that evidence will emerge.
In addition, Mueller must have enough proof that Manafort is actually lying in order for him to make the filing to void the plea agreement on such grounds. That implies that Mueller already has the evidence and Manafort would merely be another corroborating witness to it. That does not negate the possibility that there is evidence that Mueller got solely from Manafort but it clearly indicates that he certainly had more than Manafort thought he did.
All of which brings us to the most interesting theory of all from Marcy Wheeler over at Emptywheel, namely that Mueller continued to let Manafort lie to him in order to entrap others, including Trump. Rudy Giuliani has always maintained that Manafort's legal team was still sharing information with the President's legal team all during his period of "cooperation". If the Trump team believed that Mueller was swallowing Manafort's lies, then that would color their answers to Mueller in Trump's open book test. Now that Mueller has Trump's answers, he has no reason to continue to let Manafort lie.
Mueller will be detailing all the instances where Manafort lied in a subsequent filing at his sentencing. As Wheeler suggests, the filing will essentially be Mueller's report, outlining all the areas where Manafort and perhaps Trump have lied. "There’s your Mueller report, which will be provided in a form that Matt Whitaker won’t be able to suppress". You can hear the screams of "perjury trap" already from Giuliani and others.
Who knows, perhaps Manafort has engaged in criminal behavior for so long he, like Trump, just can't stop himself and had no rationale reason for continuing to lie to Mueller. But it certainly seems clear we will have a lot more answers to so many questions sooner rather than later and you can already see Trump feeling the pressure.
Sunday, November 25, 2018
Recognizing The Autocrat
Last Wednesday, the New York Times had a front page that highlighted how Trump's continual abuses have become normalized and each new outrage seemingly makes us more and more inured to prior ones. At the same time, it also illustrated how we conveniently ignore calling out dysfunctions in our own country that we would quickly condemn in others.
The paper had two stories at the top right of the front page reporting on Trump's refusal to accept the determination of the intelligence community that Jamal Khashoggi's murder had been ordered by Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS). Below those two stories and to the left was the story that Trump had ordered the prosecution of both Hillary Clinton and James Comey.
The subheading for one of the Saudi stories was "A Cynical Blueprint For Autocrats", describing how Trump's attitude toward the Saudis sent a signal to all foreign leaders that killing domestic opponents and committing human rights crimes would be tolerated as long as they pursue a mercantilist foreign policy toward the United States.
Of course, the Times article makes no mention of it, but there is certainly evidence that the mercantilist approach has an even better chance of success if it is directed toward the President, his family, and his businesses. That certainly seems to be the case when it comes to Trump's appeasement of Russian and Putin.
There is certainly evidence that this is also the case with Saudi Arabia. Trump received Saudi money when his businesses were struggling in the 1990s. His hotel in New York was set to lose money last quarter until a large, seemingly unnecessary, booking from MbS helped push it into the black. There are indications Trump was pursuing a Trump-branded hotel or hotels in Saudi Arabia as recently as 2016.
Furthermore, MbS has bragged that he has Jared Kushner "in his pocket". It is unclear why he might think that. One possibility is that MbS was instrumental in getting Qatar to bail Kushner out of his disastrous investment in 666 Fifth Avenue. Another possibility is that Kushner was deeply involved with the unusual Saudi, Emirati, and Israeli alliance to help Trump in 2016 in return for isolating and weakening Iran. That theory was lent more credence when it was reported that Mueller was investigating John Hannah, Dick Cheney's former national security aide, for his involvement with George Nader, who is apparently cooperating with Mueller's team.
Considering Trump's fanciful and false claims that the Saudis are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in the US economy and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, it certainly seems as though feeding the Trump family racketeering scheme is the real blueprint for foreign autocrats. one that many foreign leaders easily recognize.
But that story is yet another Trump diversion from the real outrage of the day, namely that the President ordered the prosecution of Clinton and Comey. The fact that then White House Counsel Don McGahn managed to persuade Trump not to take such action hardly minimizes its egregiousness. Moreover, we have no idea whether Trump did not follow through on his intention because the arguments McGahn presented were persuasive or because of Trump's well-known lack of focus, best illustrated by Gary Cohn's story about preventing the President from exiting NAFTA and the South Korean trade agreement.
The fact that McGahn was able to thwart Trump at the time should give us no comfort. Trump has continued to press that issue and one of the reasons Matt Whitaker was appointed acting Attorney General was precisely because he promoted the same idea. Meanwhile, the right-wing media and Trump's sycophants in the House continue to press the same issue.
One day after these stories appeared, Politico detailed how Trump overcame the objections of his chief of staff, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and legal officials in the White House and authorized the troops previously deployed in a brazen political ploy to be able to use lethal force. Some constitutional scholars questioned whether the order violated the Posse Comitatus Act that prohibits federal troops from acting as law enforcement on American soil.
There are plenty of other problems with this order beyond its potential violation of Posse Comitatus. First, the order was signed by John Kelly under instructions from Trump and is described by the administration as a "Cabinet order". There is no such beast as a "Cabinet order" and that, as well as the fact that it is signed by Kelly who is not in the military chain of command, gives the order no constitutional weight.
This could be interpreted in numerous ways. It could be that Kelly and Nielsen, with Mattis as a willing co-conspirator, are accomplishing the same thing that Cohn did, namely subverting Trump's attempt to implement a disastrous and potentially illegal policy. A darker interpretation is that no legal authority in the White House would sign off on the plan and this is yet another brazen attempt by Trump to circumvent the law of the land.
One other critical point is that, according to current US law, the so-called border extends 25 miles inland, an area that encompasses many of the major cities of the US. It does not take a great stretch of the imagination to envision Trump using this "order" to instruct the military to employ lethal force in support of CBP and ICE in a broad sweep for undocumented immigrants in so-called sanctuary cities.
All of this, the personal corruption driving policy, ordering the prosecution of political opponents, and employing the military in a brazen political ploy, including authorizing the use of military force potentially against American citizens on American soil, indicates we have entered banana republic territory and highlights Trump's autocratic proclivities. These are clearly not features of a well-functioning democracy.
My point in highlighting the Times' front page is not so much to criticize the paper for the articles involved. It is that what we clearly recognize as autocratic behavior in other foreign leaders seems to be difficult for some in the media to confront in Trump. Much of that is due to the fact that the media has been unable to effectively deal with the continual barrage of Trump's outrages and abuses which is designed to provide focus on individual scandals, real or imagined, such as EMAILS!!
Of course, no one is equating Trump's autocratic tendencies with MbS murdering his own citizens. But that low threshold is something we should all hope we never cross. At the same time, others say that Trump is all bluster and never follows through on his most egregious plans. They note that, so far, Clinton and Comey are not being prosecuted because of McGahn's actions. But that is like saying the nuclear safeguards worked because a Soviet officer, Stanislav Petrov, ignored military protocol and relied on his "gut instinct", thereby averting nuclear war.
On the other hand, the safeguards clearly did not work when it came to lethal force at the border. Clearly, both Kelly and Nielsen, as well as the legal authorities in the White House, believed the order was problematic at best. And yet, all of those who opposed the policy either eventually caved to the President or allowed it to go forward as long as they were not involved.
Again, some may say that Mattis, despite having the authority to order lethal force be used, has opted not to fully arm the troops at the border, proving once again that Trump is all talk but little implementation. This argument also ignores the power of precedent in our current system. Presidential power once claimed without challenge becomes the basis for future actions.
Trump may be an ineffective autocrat, either by design or incompetence, but he is surely laying the groundwork if a truly effective one comes along.
The paper had two stories at the top right of the front page reporting on Trump's refusal to accept the determination of the intelligence community that Jamal Khashoggi's murder had been ordered by Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS). Below those two stories and to the left was the story that Trump had ordered the prosecution of both Hillary Clinton and James Comey.
The subheading for one of the Saudi stories was "A Cynical Blueprint For Autocrats", describing how Trump's attitude toward the Saudis sent a signal to all foreign leaders that killing domestic opponents and committing human rights crimes would be tolerated as long as they pursue a mercantilist foreign policy toward the United States.
Of course, the Times article makes no mention of it, but there is certainly evidence that the mercantilist approach has an even better chance of success if it is directed toward the President, his family, and his businesses. That certainly seems to be the case when it comes to Trump's appeasement of Russian and Putin.
There is certainly evidence that this is also the case with Saudi Arabia. Trump received Saudi money when his businesses were struggling in the 1990s. His hotel in New York was set to lose money last quarter until a large, seemingly unnecessary, booking from MbS helped push it into the black. There are indications Trump was pursuing a Trump-branded hotel or hotels in Saudi Arabia as recently as 2016.
Furthermore, MbS has bragged that he has Jared Kushner "in his pocket". It is unclear why he might think that. One possibility is that MbS was instrumental in getting Qatar to bail Kushner out of his disastrous investment in 666 Fifth Avenue. Another possibility is that Kushner was deeply involved with the unusual Saudi, Emirati, and Israeli alliance to help Trump in 2016 in return for isolating and weakening Iran. That theory was lent more credence when it was reported that Mueller was investigating John Hannah, Dick Cheney's former national security aide, for his involvement with George Nader, who is apparently cooperating with Mueller's team.
Considering Trump's fanciful and false claims that the Saudis are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in the US economy and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, it certainly seems as though feeding the Trump family racketeering scheme is the real blueprint for foreign autocrats. one that many foreign leaders easily recognize.
But that story is yet another Trump diversion from the real outrage of the day, namely that the President ordered the prosecution of Clinton and Comey. The fact that then White House Counsel Don McGahn managed to persuade Trump not to take such action hardly minimizes its egregiousness. Moreover, we have no idea whether Trump did not follow through on his intention because the arguments McGahn presented were persuasive or because of Trump's well-known lack of focus, best illustrated by Gary Cohn's story about preventing the President from exiting NAFTA and the South Korean trade agreement.
The fact that McGahn was able to thwart Trump at the time should give us no comfort. Trump has continued to press that issue and one of the reasons Matt Whitaker was appointed acting Attorney General was precisely because he promoted the same idea. Meanwhile, the right-wing media and Trump's sycophants in the House continue to press the same issue.
One day after these stories appeared, Politico detailed how Trump overcame the objections of his chief of staff, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and legal officials in the White House and authorized the troops previously deployed in a brazen political ploy to be able to use lethal force. Some constitutional scholars questioned whether the order violated the Posse Comitatus Act that prohibits federal troops from acting as law enforcement on American soil.
There are plenty of other problems with this order beyond its potential violation of Posse Comitatus. First, the order was signed by John Kelly under instructions from Trump and is described by the administration as a "Cabinet order". There is no such beast as a "Cabinet order" and that, as well as the fact that it is signed by Kelly who is not in the military chain of command, gives the order no constitutional weight.
This could be interpreted in numerous ways. It could be that Kelly and Nielsen, with Mattis as a willing co-conspirator, are accomplishing the same thing that Cohn did, namely subverting Trump's attempt to implement a disastrous and potentially illegal policy. A darker interpretation is that no legal authority in the White House would sign off on the plan and this is yet another brazen attempt by Trump to circumvent the law of the land.
One other critical point is that, according to current US law, the so-called border extends 25 miles inland, an area that encompasses many of the major cities of the US. It does not take a great stretch of the imagination to envision Trump using this "order" to instruct the military to employ lethal force in support of CBP and ICE in a broad sweep for undocumented immigrants in so-called sanctuary cities.
All of this, the personal corruption driving policy, ordering the prosecution of political opponents, and employing the military in a brazen political ploy, including authorizing the use of military force potentially against American citizens on American soil, indicates we have entered banana republic territory and highlights Trump's autocratic proclivities. These are clearly not features of a well-functioning democracy.
My point in highlighting the Times' front page is not so much to criticize the paper for the articles involved. It is that what we clearly recognize as autocratic behavior in other foreign leaders seems to be difficult for some in the media to confront in Trump. Much of that is due to the fact that the media has been unable to effectively deal with the continual barrage of Trump's outrages and abuses which is designed to provide focus on individual scandals, real or imagined, such as EMAILS!!
Of course, no one is equating Trump's autocratic tendencies with MbS murdering his own citizens. But that low threshold is something we should all hope we never cross. At the same time, others say that Trump is all bluster and never follows through on his most egregious plans. They note that, so far, Clinton and Comey are not being prosecuted because of McGahn's actions. But that is like saying the nuclear safeguards worked because a Soviet officer, Stanislav Petrov, ignored military protocol and relied on his "gut instinct", thereby averting nuclear war.
On the other hand, the safeguards clearly did not work when it came to lethal force at the border. Clearly, both Kelly and Nielsen, as well as the legal authorities in the White House, believed the order was problematic at best. And yet, all of those who opposed the policy either eventually caved to the President or allowed it to go forward as long as they were not involved.
Again, some may say that Mattis, despite having the authority to order lethal force be used, has opted not to fully arm the troops at the border, proving once again that Trump is all talk but little implementation. This argument also ignores the power of precedent in our current system. Presidential power once claimed without challenge becomes the basis for future actions.
Trump may be an ineffective autocrat, either by design or incompetence, but he is surely laying the groundwork if a truly effective one comes along.
Saturday, November 24, 2018
Friday, November 23, 2018
Astronomy Adventure - Area Near Southwestern Edge Of The Moon
Here is a photo of the area near the southwestern edge of the Moon. The triangle of similar sized craters at the top are Kircher, Bettinus, and Zuchius in descending order. Below that, the crater with the high peak on one of the walls whose shadow casts across nearly the whole length of the crater floor is Phocylides. The large crater below that is Schickard and the peaked crater down at the bottom right is Vieta.
Technical details:
Scope: Starblast 4.5; tracking on
Magnification: ~200x
Camera: iPhone6 using NightCap Pro; Low ISO