It was never supposed to be this close. And of course she was supposed to win. How Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump is the tragic story of a sure thing gone off the rails. For every Comey revelation or hindsight acknowledgment about the electorate, no explanation of defeat can begin with anything other than the core problem of Hillary’s campaign–the candidate herself.
From the NYT review, this is pretty good too:
Drawing on the authors’ deep knowledge of Hillary from their previous book, the acclaimed biography HRC, Shattered offers an object lesson in how Hillary herself made victory an uphill battle, how her difficulty articulating a vision irreparably hobbled her impact with voters, and how the campaign failed to internalize the lessons of populist fury from the hard-fought primary against Bernie Sanders.
This schadenfreude goes down well with a stout cup of coffee.
Her difficulty in “articulating a vision” is another way of saying “she had no vision.”
“Failed to internalize the lessons of populist fury” is another way of saying “didn’t understand the voters weren’t robots.”
Announcement is running late.
Nice jazz on the public address system.
Fairly nice 1st day of June in the Rose Garden (82F), and the suits are waiting in the sun for a global warming announcement. Nice.
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Can’t bring myself to watch anymore.
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Lemme know what happens.
Trump pulled the trigger. Let the hysteria begin.
Trump did leave the door cracked open to “renegotiate” the accord under terms more favorable to the USA. That’s not likely going to happen (Frau Merkel and the other Europeans will see to that), so it is pretty much a done deal. If he does actually start negotiations, he would be prudent to make sure his counter parties understand any treaty must be approved by 2/3 of the Senate.
The seas just rose 30 feet in FL, going to swim to the new mainland now. I blame Trump. The whole world is tut-tutting us now. I am ashamed, I so wanted to impress the virtuous Europeans.
Somebody please tell me what were all the ‘green’ jobs we’re now supposedly going to lose? The analyses I’ve seen indicate that the PA would have been a significant net loss for the US economy in total jobs and GDP.
Eddie, if it were an announcement to stay in, the Gore Effect would have made it snow.
I’m expecting a bunch of stupid lawsuits from the usual suspects within a few days. The only real question is if one of Obama’s leftist district judges will try to block Trump’s decision… that would be so big an overstep that the SC will quickly quash any suits that succeed at the district level; I would expect an immediate stay of any lower court ruling against Trump on this issue.
Tom,
“The seas just rose 30 feet in FL”
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Funny, I peeked at the ocean here on Cape Cod and nothing seems to have changed.
I doubt anyone thought he was going to announce we are staying in. It was just a matter of details.
Trump is highlighting how it’s a bad deal for America. He should also mention the various fossil fuel companies that have been encouraging him to stay in, just to confuse the opposition.
It’s not only a bad deal for America, much like the Kyoto Protocol, it’s not going to accomplish much even if everybody lived up to their end of the deal. I’m not betting on that either. If the PA is the best deal that could be done, it wasn’t worth the effort.
Lucia,
Yes, I doubted he would announce we were staying in, but I feared he might reverse course after listening to the First Daughter. The only good thing about Trump is that he is not Hillary, and doesn’t do the things Hillary would. Had he reversed himself on this issue, then that one good thing about him would be much diminished.
MikeN,
“He should also mention the various fossil fuel companies that have been encouraging him to stay in, just to confuse the opposition.”
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The fossil fuel companies are international companies, and they want consistent rules everywhere. They know they will be selling fossil fuels profitably for a very long time, in spite of the Paris accord.
For many countries with very low birth rates (most of Europe, China, Japan, Russia, Brazil) it is expected their populations will contract in the next few decades, so reductions in total CO2 emissions will be a smaller burden than in the States, where immigration and near-replacement birth rates mean continuing growth in population.
However, China has a lower CO2 per capita than the US and Europe, though well above the global average. Other countries are even further below in per capita.
There is no amount of demographic change that can produce the 90 percent cut needed.
SteveF,
Yes.
The Kyoto Protocols wouldn’t let the US count reforestation against CO2 emissions either. It’s beggar thy neighbor by other means.
Speaking of reforestation, I saw a sticker on a car the other day with the slogan: “Daddy, what where forest’s like?”
How out of touch can you get? There are more trees in the US now than there were a century ago. That’s what fossil fuels have allowed us to do. Forest land area is about 70% of what it was in 1630 and isn’t declining much anymore.
Of course if we convert from fossil fuels to biomass, that bumper sticker might come true.
I guess Obama’s legacy as the “Climate Change President” lasted 4 months. I hoped he enjoyed it.
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If you want a long lasting agreement, get people to agree to it.
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With about a zillion words written lately on this subject by the usual suspects they never get around to telling how much it is going to cost the US and how effective it will be if the US stays in or drops out (0.1C by 2100 I read). I do get lectured on my morals continuously.
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It takes effect the day after the next election, that should make things interesting.
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Trump: “It is time to put Youngstown, Ohio, Detroit, Mich., and Pittsburgh, Pa., along with many, many other locations within our great country before Paris, Franceâ€
DeWitt,
“There are more trees in the US now than there were a century ago.”
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A lot more. When I was growing up in the late 1950’s early 1960’s in Massachusetts, there were extensive forests behind my house of oak, maple, and white pine. But oddly enough, these forests were cordoned off into large rectangular plots by rubble stone walls made of granite boulders. Turns out all this land had, 50 – 75+ years earlier, been farmland, which had been abandoned and returned to forest when competition from much more productive farms in the mid-west made farming in Massachusetts unprofitable. The rubble stone walls were all that remained of the earlier farms.
MikeN,
“There is no amount of demographic change that can produce the 90 percent cut needed.”
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Please explain why there is a need for 90% reduction. My understanding is that plants currently fix about 25% of the emitted CO2, and ocean dissolution takes away another 25%, so that means the atmospheric concentration grows by about 50% of total emissions. If we were to reduce emissions by 90% then atmospheric concentration would fall for at least multiple decades, and maybe many decades. Are you suggesting that is what is needed? if so, please explain why you think that?
In other news, Wall Street hit another record.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #162567): “Somebody please tell me what were all the ‘green’ jobs we’re now supposedly going to lose? The analyses I’ve seen indicate that the PA would have been a significant net loss for the US economy in total jobs and GDP.”
Oh, there are lots of “green jobs”. The reason is that green is more labor intensive than the efficient “bad” way of doing things. If we get rid of all the earth moving machines and replace them with men wielding shovels, we will create a lot of green jobs. And make everyone poorer while we are at it.
SteveF, it’s not what I think. An 80% cut below 1990 levels is what scientists have been declaring for decades.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/ndp030/global.1751_2014.ems
1990 level 6078. 80% below that is 1216.
2014 level 9855, presumable 10000+ now. 88% cut needed.
Soon it will surpass 90%, or the science must declare a different target.
If the issue is stabilization of emissions, then demographic changes can achieve this, holding down increases in China and elsewhere and producing reductions eventually.
If the possibility of 90% reductions or any substantial reductions are eliminated by developing world increases, then I predict the science will change to allow for stabilization as the new target. Beenstock & Reingewertz might become the new paradigm.
DeWitt,
A more in touch bumper sticker might read:
Papá, ¿cómo era la selva tropical?
Seen on a car running palm oil bio-diesel.
MikeN,
Wow, it’s like you haven’t heard about empirical versus modeled sensitivity. Yes, rising atmospheric CO2 has to induce warming of the surface. But how much and over how long are the substantive issues, and those depend on sensitivity. Those “scientists” base projections of future warming mostly on models which are in disagreement with just about every empirical (aka measurement based) evaluation. Here’s the reality: emissions of CO2 are not going to be reduced any time in the next few decades; with development in India, China, and Africa, they will actually significantly increase. By that time, the discrepancy between modeled projections of warming and measured warming will be laughable. So will silly projections of rapid sea level rise. That is when serious policy discussions can (and likely will) take place; I expect nuclear power will be the practical choice, since it is reliable, available, and not too expensive. In the mean time, you can count on much political hysteria, but no rapid warming.
MikeN: “An 80% cut below 1990 levels is what scientists have been declaring for decades.”
That is probably based on the idiotic notion that CO2 must be kept below 450 ppm. But there is no scientific basis for that number.
MikeN
. 2014 level 9855, presumable 10000+ now. CO2 emissions fell in 2015 and again in 2016, so you might wish to revisit that presumption.
. If the issue is stabilization of emissions, then demographic changes can achieve this
Not can, but will.
. holding down increases in China and elsewhere and producing reductions eventually.
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Again, China CO2 emissions are not increasing, they are decreasing so you may reassess. There’s uncertainty, of course, with all things China, but declining CO2 emissions are entirely consistent with not even falling population, but falling working age population, which China now exhibits. ( also note the world working age percentage – declining for the next 80 years. Global demand for everything is slowing ).
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I bring this up constantly because the paradigms have shifted and these things bear repeating.
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I grew up with the world worrying about overpopulation. Now the world is worrying about lack of growth.
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This doesn’t mean that co2 emission won’t continue. But all gas GHG forcing rates peaked in 1989. CO2 forcing rates have now peaked. Going forward, rates of warming will be less than they were for the last four decades or so – without even trying.
SteveF, the purpose of emissions cuts is to stop global warming. If you don’t accept that assumption, fine. However, I am going to assume the scientists are accurate when evaluating their policy proposals. Their is no point in evaluating the policy if I wish to challenge the assumptions behind making the policy proposal.
So either
1) I do not accept that emission cuts are required to stop global warming(or that global warming is happening or needs to be stopped).
2) I assume emissions cuts are required and evaluate policies to see if they achieve the level required.
MikeN,
My problem is that I have worked a lifetime in science and engineering, and through much training, my bull$hit antenna is now very sensitive.
Eddie, these reports were made about previous years as well, but CDIAC now shows an increase for 2010-2014. Only 2009 saw a dip. Chinese emissions cuts I will believe when they are not being announced to go along with global deals from which China will benefit. China might not triple emissions over 20 years like the last twenty, but at least a 2/3 cut in Chinese emissions are required to stop global warming. A leveling off or slight reduction is possible.
I also don’t know what this means. I wasn’t able to engage in the debate about “deep state” on a previous thread because I don’t know what a “deep state” is.
Lucia,
Maybe a ‘deep state’ is when you have had too much wine.
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There have been lots of illegal leaks of confidential information. I don’t think that will stop; too many people who work for the Federal government are utterly opposed to Trump and what his administration wants to do. They will continue to leak whatever information they think might embarrass Trump. Unless a few end up in prison.
It’s just humorous to see the “world is ending” reactions by stupid people who don’t know the first thing about either the science or the Paris accord. Our elites are truly both out of touch and appallingly ignorant.
China, India and Africa are expected to have large emission increases, it is only a matter of when they peak and at what level. There is exactly zero expectation that they will stabilize or decrease anytime soon. This is all baked into the IPCC emission RCP profiles.
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China can’t be trusted in their pronouncements and it is unclear they can even effectively measure it if they wanted to. It is best just to monitor CO2 atmospheric measurements instead of adding up country estimates. http://voxeu.org/article/when-should-china-start-cutting-its-emissions
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The effusive praise of China’s climate efforts is a bit bizarre for a few reasons. They have been caught outright lying on their coal use: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/04/china-underreporting-coal-consumption-by-up-to-17-data-suggests
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The next reason is that if China was to be believed then that easily knocks us off of the unrealistic worst case RCP8.5 emissions profile and down to one of the more moderate estimates and you can throw those IPCC worst case projections out the window TODAY. Worst case is the only thing ever shown in the media. Worst case is China peaking in ~2080 and they are committed to ~2030 I understand.
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The next reason is China is attacking “climate” because they have a serious air pollution problem. They get free greeny points for this effort but the shaming by the environmentalists about how China is so great is strange. My response is “Great! I believe you! Climate problem solved!”.
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As a further note the media constantly misrepresents what they call “business as usual”. This is code for the worst case RCP8.5 profile which is emissions * increasing at the same rate * as circa 2007 for the next 80 years. BAU is not the emissions levels we have today. The media always infers that this is the case. RCP8.5 has us annually burning 10x the coal in 2100 as today, 15B population, etc. My belief is RCP8.5 was put in to bound the problem for simulations and was never intended as the “default” as activists and the media love to do. http://sedac.ipcc-data.org/ddc/ar5_scenario_process/RCPs.html
Eddie, these reports were made about previous years as well, but CDIAC now shows an increase for 2010-2014.
There have been undulations in the past.
There has most likely never before been a time in human history when fertility rates ( and the ensuing population deceleration ) have been as low as they are now.
More than three quarters of global CO2 emissions are from countries with below replacement rate fertility.
. Chinese emissions cuts I will believe when they are not being announced to go along with global deals from which China will benefit.
I’m skeptical of most China numbers but much less so of population. With a falling number of workers, falling emissions in China are baked in the cake.
. China might not triple emissions over 20 years like the last twenty, but at least a 2/3 cut in Chinese emissions are required to stop global warming. A leveling off or slight reduction is possible.
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That’s about what I think. CO2 uptake rates are roughly 50%, though they’ve steadily risen over the years. So about a 50% reduction in emission should result in steady CO2.
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But slow warming and elevated CO2 may well be benefits, never even reaching net detriment.
Tom Scharf (Comment #162606): “This is all baked into the IPCC emission RCP profiles.”
Nope. The profiles are not forecasts (it says so at the link you provided). They were derived by starting with the forcing in 2100 and working backwards. They are not based on any rational projection of emission
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Tom Scharf: “As a further note the media constantly misrepresents what they call “business as usualâ€. This is code for the worst case RCP8.5 profile which is emissions * increasing at the same rate * as circa 2007 for the next 80 years.”
It is much worse than that. emissions growing at the recent rate will put us squarely between RCP4.5 and RCP6.0. RCP8.6 is completely disconnected from reality.
Maybe a ‘deep state’ is when you have had too much wine.
A deep solid state for me usually involves sufficient bourbon where I make toasts that includes the word ‘covfefe’.
[Edit: Covfefe everyone!]
Mike M,
They call it “cumulative measure of human emissions of GHGs from all sources expressed in Watts per square meter” and “based on an internally consistent set of socioeconomic assumptions”.
They aren’t forecasts because they obviously depend on future behavior that cannot be predicted. It’s semantics like “projections” in temperature estimates. They look like separate hodgepodges of assumptions. There is nothing particularly wrong with doing it this way AFAICT, only how the media chooses to (mis)represent them.
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The hard part is really the complete inability to predict breakthroughs in power generation. When the black hole quantum entanglement battery which sucks energy from suns in parallel universes is discovered in 2025, all bets are off.
Tom: “There is nothing particularly wrong with doing it this way AFAICT, only how the media chooses to (mis)represent them.”
True. The scenarios are really just to provide a uniform set of inputs for models.
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Tom: “The hard part is really the complete inability to predict breakthroughs in power generation.”
True again. Energy generation is almost certain to be very different in 2100 than it is today.
Trump ‘solid’. People kept saying he would be flipped by Ivanka, Kushner, Musk, Gore, Friedman, et al. However, I said that as a conman, he can recognize a con, just like he saw thru Ali G. Think King Ezekiel on The Walking Dead.
They used to have many more of these scenarios with families and marker scenarios.
On this site there was an argument with I think Ian Castles, disputing a paper that said ‘It’s worse than we thought’, because they assumed all scenarios within a family were equally likely when the IPCC said no probability was assigned.
Mr. Trump has given America a good chance to continue self governance. But it will be up to skeptics to find a voice for those the climate consensus has silenced.
MikeN,
I never saw the Walking Dead. Never heard the word ‘solid’ used that way either. Trump has been consistently skeptical of the Paris accords, but he did soften the announcement with words about re-entering following renegotiation. Which does give me pause.
hunter,
Evolving reality (projections diverging from measurements) is all that is needed to stop the green madness; Trump has made a useful contribution by delaying for at least 4 years costly and economically damaging regulations that do nothing to reduce future warming. When wild eyed projections of doom are discredited by reality, reasoned public policy discussion becomes possible. But not ’till then.
Mark bofill,
Covfefe: It’s 7 am and I need my morning covfefe.
Me too Lucia. 🙂
They obviously worked pretty hard on the speech, NPR and the NYT tried their best to fact check and “annotate” the speech but came up with only minor points. The PA rhetoric seems to be mostly a virtue signalling exercise between limousine liberals.
TE,
Fertility will dominate in the long term. But in the short term, there are still billions of people living in primitive conditions, including many in China. That’s a lot of room for increased emissions in the next few decades.
Off topic:
The satellite sea level research group at the University of Colorado has not updated their sea level data in almost a year (since a little after the 2015/2016 uptick due to el nino), whereas in the past they updated about each 3 months. Maybe this means that the el nino uptick has reversed to below the long term trend line… all that water in the California reservoir system had to come from somewhere! 😉
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I want to post on satellite sea level trend after removing the influence of el nino, to more clearly see if there has been any acceleration in rate, and have been waiting since December for an update on the data. I sent an email in April asking when they will update…. no reply.
Normally I refrain from hanging out in the gutter, but this one is fairly delusional.
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Kathy Griffin breaks down: ‘I made a horrible, horrible call … he broke me’ http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2017/06/02/kathy-griffin-breaks-down-made-horrible-horrible-call-broke-me.html
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“It’s hurtful to me,” Griffin said. “There’s a bunch of old white guys trying to silence me and I’m just here to say that it’s wrong.”
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“The message is clear,” Bloom stated. “Criticize the president lose your job and that’s what happened to Kathy…it stops here, it stops now.”
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Rule #4: Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.
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Personally I’m no fan of using social pressure to shut people up and get them fired. The reason is simple, that mob may one day come for you, and it has for Kathy Griffin.
Trump announced a .2C difference because of Paris Accord. I can’t find the paper from which this came, but the authors are hitting back hard, saying it is 1C. Can anyone find the full paper?
MikeN,
Perhaps you can find it through here: http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2016/EGU2016-8016.pdf
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But you have to read the fine print. I think the key phrase here is how much will it change * over already existing commitments *. Effectively Paris didn’t add much to what people already had previously committed to.
It might be like a CBO assessment, since there aren’t any further known commitments one assumes only the current set. The other side says it doesn’t take into account more restrictive future commitments (that don’t exist yet and can’t be specified). The other side also continues to use the “no climate policy” (RCP8.5?) for their comparison.
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“Our analysis shows that, for the climate parameters corresponding to the median strength of the climate system response to anthropogenic forcing, the Paris Agreement can reduce the global mean surface air temperature (SAT) in 2100 between 0.63 and 1.07oC relative to “no climate policy†case. At the same time, due to a large inertia of climate system, in 2050 the SAT reduced only by about 0.12oC under all three scenarios.”
I think they are making extra assumptions about the Paris climate commitments beyond what countries committed. I wrote the author asking for the full paper.
Tom Scharf,
I saw that. I’m not so sure it was “the mob” that came and got her. She lost some jobs and was widely criticized by people using words. Her routine was always to make fun of other people, so I can’t work up much sympathy that eventually, people criticized her in public.
As for her career, I think she’ll continue to have a career; it will be less lucrative. But she’s still a rich woman and she will continue to be able to make more money than the average schmmoooo. So I’m not feeling that bat for her on that account either.
What really happened to her career? Well, it’s a set back. Evidently CNN didn’t want an extremely polarizing host for New Years Eve. So she lost that big $$ gig. Go. Figure.
She lost her celebrity connection with some sort of kids potty training toilet. I guess they didn’t want an endorsements from someone who 1/2 the parents might hate. Go. Figure.
Still, I imagine she’ll still do fine on stand up or endorsing things that are targeted toward the ‘hate Trump” demographic. That’s big enough that her career isn’t over. Just the super-mega $$ things that require someone who is at least tolerated by everyone is over until people forget this. She’s old enough that by the time people forget she may be past the time for heavy marketability. But. Oh. Well.
Trump announced a .2C difference because of Paris Accord.
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These are all pretty much sill wild a$$ guesses.
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I think the number for whether or not the US participated was a difference of 0.02C.
. But, the US is already ahead of schedule for meeting the PA targets. I don’t see anything that will change that trajectory.
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Pulling out may have had more to do with the shakedown fund that was supposed to go to indigent nations. Those funds usually get skimmed off by dictators, so it may be wise not to throw money down those rat holes.
I think she is feeling a bit unloved at the moment. People with withering careers sometimes do stuff like this under the all publicity is good publicity Hollywood rule. Madonna, Brittany Spears, etc. I was kind of feeling there were no limits to Trump criticism, but apparently there actually are. It might be a turning point in the over the top Trump hate, and KG just happened to be the sacrificial lamb that allowed some sane boundaries to be set.
Was Kathy actually paid for her CNN ‘job’? She should have been paying them for the exposure.
MikeN,
I assume they were paying her. I didn’t check. She does have history as fairly popular comedian and is just the sort of person one would expect CNN to want in that position. (Or to want until she makes herself extremely polarizing.)
Tm Scharf:
But you have to read the fine print.
Hells, yes!
Disentangling which parts are Paris Agreement, which and which parts are going to happen anyway (driven by economics) is extremely complicated.
Figuring out which sensitivity numbers should be used isn’t easy either.
I haven’t looked at how they actually derive their range of numbers, but I would expect, if it’s “business as usual”, there’s a fair amount of “cooking the books” to inflate the actual impact of the agreement.
The internet remembers forever. Kathy Griffin Dec 2016:
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“Now more than ever we must absolutely go for all the absurdities,†Kathy Griffin told Vulture at the Equality Now Gala Tuesday night. “For me, that’s Trump and all things Trump. It’s not about trying to be an equal-opportunity offender anymore because Hillary got such a beat down. It’s his turn. So I’m happy to deliver beat down to Donald Trump — and also to Barron. You know a lot of comics are going to go hard for Donald, my edge is that I’ll go direct for Barron. I’m going to get in ahead of the game.â€
. http://www.vulture.com/2016/12/kathy-griffin-comedy-should-go-hard-on-trump.html
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I will now return to regular programming.
> history as fairly popular comedian
Not too many people have ever said that. Even Kathy referred to herself as D list.
CNN probably paid her, but it was not a big get for them, and I suspect they could have gotten her to do it for free.
Mike N,
She regularly appeared on tv. Whether she calls herself “D” list or not, that’s fairly popular. Most comedians get nothing.
The lady has operated in very poor taste for a very long time. She went way beyond the pale with the beheaded Trump photo, and she is clearly an immoral worm besides…. going after a 11 year old? Come on! I have zero sympathy for her, and if she ends up destitute, that would be richly deserved. She probably won’t. This is the sort of comedian the world does not need; if she is truly saddened by all the criticism, suicide is always an option (only joking 🙃), or she could lay off the politics… which for her is tantamount to suicide.
Team Science Climate Alarmism Forensics:
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Original claim – The Guardian: “…on current projections, Trump’s own Florida resort of Mar-a-Lago will be under water by 2060”. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/02/comedy-trump-now-horror-show-paris-climate-change-sickening-twist
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Article links to tweet: “By 2060 Trump’s grandchildren—and son Barron—will be in their prime. And Mar-a-Lago will be underwater. Literally.”
Tweet links to another article: “The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predict “sea levels will rise as much as three feet in Miami by 2060.”
Article links to another article which links to a NOAA paper: https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/publications/techrpt83_Global_and_Regional_SLR_Scenarios_for_the_US_final.pdf
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Here we find on page 23 in the “extreme scenario” 0.9M rise by 2060. I’ve never heard of this scenario. In this scenario seas will be rising:
2010: 6 mm/year
2020: 10 mm / year
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According to the same NOAA, Miami sea level rise is currently 3 mm / year. At this rate seas will be 4 inches higher in 2060. Oops.
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Back on page 22 we find probabilities for “extreme”:
RCP2.6 = 0.05%
RCP4.5 = 0.05%
RCP8.5 = 0.10%
So even in RCP8.5 this is a 1 in 1000 longshot.
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They apparently created a new “impossible-to-rule-out” extreme scenario which is 2.5M by 2100 for upper bound planning purposes which is based on theoretical extreme Antarctic contributions.
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The land at Mar-A-Lago itself is 3 feet above sea level. I can’t tell how much the building is built up, but from photos the main building looks about 6 to 8 feet above grade. http://nbc4i.com/2017/05/22/sinkhole-opens-outside-pres-trumps-mar-a-lago-resort/
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Anyhow that’s how you go from 0.1% chance in RCP8.5 into a definitive “Mar-a-Lago will be under water by 2060”. I’m sure team science will realize the quote is not accurate and post a correction. Or not.
SteveF, she didn’t go after Barron. She said that she is edgy so she will go after Barron, unlike all the other riff-raff comedians who will go after Donald. It’s a joke, I think.
I have taken my boat past Mar-a-lago (shaddowed by coast guard gunboats, of course). To me the land looks to be about 2 meters above mean high tide. The building looks more like 3 to 4 meters above mean high tide. In Florida, people are pretty careful about building well above expected hurricane surge tides. Mar-a-largo is in no danger over the next 100+ years.
MikeN,
The ‘joke’ about Barron is not funny. Actually, very little she says or does is funny, as is now pretty clear. She is a product of the left, and so no suprise: the left finds nothing funny. Real comedy is not angry or cruel.. she is both. Reagan could be funny, Obama? Not so much.
This isn’t Trump’s mistake, but Obama’s failure to push hard when he had the chance.
If Obama had only put his personal guarantee on the line: “If you like your current climate, my plan will let you KEEP your current climate,” then it would surely have passed in the Senate
pouncer,
No matter what Obama said, 2/3 of the Senate would never have aproved it. Unilateral setting of public policy by force almost always fails.
According to our local paper, Pat Meehan our local senator is complaining about Trump withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. I sent him this:
The climate is changing. It has been increasing in temperature quite steadily since the Little Ice Age in the 1880’s. The temperature rises and falls on either side of this steady rate due to the multi-decadal oscillations. See Prof. Akasofu’s paper here, Fig. 2b, page 7: http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/pdf/two_natural_components_recent_climate_change.pdf
The main driver for major temperature changes is the variation of the Earth’s orbit, as described by Milutin Milanković (Milankovitch).
Looking at the satellite and balloon data, http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/ the temperature has been rising far slower than predicted by the IPCC’s models, to the point that most of them have been falsified.
There is no evidence that CO2 has the major effect claimed by the AGW believers and I challenge you to show real evidence that it does, not just saying that the “experts” IPCC claim something else. I have a technical background and have been following climate science closely for more than ten years.
So why the fuss that America is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement?
Steve, not funny. However, her Wikipedia page makes her out to be one of the biggest comediennes of all time. Emmy wins, Grammy nominations, etc.
MikeN,
Her career is essentially over… as she deserves. Unless of course she could actually reform her obnoxios behavior. Not going to happen: it seems she is like the scorpion riding on the back of the frog. She’s toast.
Tom Scharf – this quote
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“The message is clear,†Bloom stated. “Criticize the president lose your job and that’s what happened to Kathy…it stops here, it stops now.†is priceless.
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I do not recall Bloom expressing the same concern for the rodeo clown that was fired for wearing an Obama mask at a rodeo.
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Maybe clowns are of a lower order than comediennes.
Bloom is reality challenged. Lots of people have criticized Trump and have not suffered any consequences. What’s her name is in trouble because she visually put herself on the side of ISIS killing the President of the United States.
Mike M.
Lots of people have criticized him. Lots are criticizing him right now in many venues.
For me her smarmy sociopathetic whiney shallow attempt to channel Hillary Clinton, blaming the victim of her tasteless little gag is what tells me she is a derivative has been.
Steve, her career is not over. She has been fired for her ‘comedy’ many times. The View, Tonight Show, Apollo, all have banned her. This is one more.
@Lucia : given the current babble about climate in a mouths I came across someone who insists that the models are doing an excellent job of predicting current warming. I wanted to reference him here to one of your lovely comparisons but yo my dismay there doesn’t seem yo be anything newer than this post http://rankexploits.com/musings/2014/temperature-compare-to-ar4/
Perhaps you might find time to update.
Bob:
I haven’t been doing temperature posts. I’m not going to until the whim overcomes me (which might happen.)
But there are two thigns:
1) The AR5 shifted the projections down a bit so the projections were no longer as far from data.
2) The AR5 described more uncertainty.
3) Since the time of the AR5 have had some warming.
I wouldn’t call the agreement “excellent”. People claiming that still aren’t admitting that despite both (1) – (3) the projections tend to be are still on the high side compared to the data– just not so much as to call them wrong and not high this instant. But when assessing “skill” it’s worth remembering the AR5 is shifted relative to the previous “projections”. It’s a lot easier to seem to have “skill” if you shift your projects after they were first made.
I’d say it’s no longer really bad. Running comparisons regularly is time consuming; I’m giving the AR 5 some time to “mature”. Earth temperature will do what they do; in a year or two well know more. If we temperature continue to ruse, I think people will have to say that, yeah, the models don’t look so wrong. If it oscillates back down… no.
But when assessing “skill†it’s worth remembering the AR5 is shifted relative to the previous “projectionsâ€.
Yes, it’s not so much they move the goal posts.
More like a race that they restart with each report.
Ok, thanks. Not in the mood is as good a reason as any 😊. I was curious simply because of the warming and the moved targets and because I’m accused of cherry picking when referencing the older post because the Pause. On with your life and thanks again.
Bob Edgar,
Based on the rate of warming over the past decades, continued warming at somewhere near 0.15C per decade is likely, with the greatest warming at high northern latitudes in winter, and more warming at night than during the day. The Paris accord’s 2C ‘limit’ is likely to be breached late in the current century, unless greens soon come to their senses and start pushing hard for fail-safe nuclear power and advanced battery technology for cars. I doubt they will. Greens will accept nothing but solar and wind, combined with draconian reductions in fossil fuels. None of which represent practical policies. Since reasonable policy compromise is unlikely, I think the only important issue is how much sea level will increase, and how much it will cost to deal with that.
Turbulent Eddie,
They didn’t move a huge amount. And they can provide a sane reason for the shift. (The real question might be why the AR4 authors used a 20 year mean for their baseline and why the one they picked.)
That said: they picked it knowing the temperature at the time the AR5 was written. But given the amount of time it takes for a modest error in the mean trend to show disagreement, the shift does matter.
So, some of the apparent agreement has to be interpreted in that context. Of course models agree with data if the difference between them is subtracted out. Time is required to see if the subtraction was sufficient to result in maintaining agreement. Maybe it will; maybe it won’t.
Testing needs to wait.
Lucia,
My recollection of AR5 projections is that the uncertainty range was huge…. from almost no warming over the next few decades to >0.3C per decade. Hard to be proven wrong when your prediction has only to fall in a very broad range to declare yourself ‘right’.
MikeN,
All those firings were hardly noticed by the general public. This time her behavior has brought widespread condemnation; lots of people may not have even known who she was a week ago, but now she is in Tiger Woods’ recognition range. Being best known as ‘the lady who wants to cut off Trump’s head’ is really bad for business. The wacko left will probably keep her going, of course…. they really do want to behead Trump… but her days of lucrative national TV appearances is over.
SteveF
My recollection of AR5 projections is that the uncertainty range was huge
Yes. The shift is there, the uncertainties went to ginormous. The former made the disagreement between the mean and observations smaller at the time, the latter makes it rather difficult to say the models are “wrong” because at least in the short term, the projection is practically “almost anything can happen”.
It’s a big much for someone to say a model that predicts “almost anything can happen” has “skill”. But in a bit longer term, one will be able to return to testing trends and/or anomalies (from whatever baseline is considered “right” by “whomever”.)
In the short term, it’s sort of not worth the effort. I guess we’ll see if I regain interest in 2018 or so. But people should be aware that temperature did rise and models are not going to look like crap right now. In the end one must go with data– so we’ll see.
SteveF: “Based on the rate of warming over the past decades, continued warming at somewhere near 0.15C per decade is likely”
Where did you get that number? A couple years ago, I did fits to all the major temperature data sets from 1950 on and got warming rates of 0.11 to 0.13 C per decade. I picked 1950 as my starting point since forcing has risen linearly since then, that is roughly a full cycle of the AMO (and the global stadium wave), and it is long enough for decent extraction of signal from noise. Extrapolating the higher value to 2100 gives a bit under 2.0 C warming relative to pre-industrial. So it looks to me like that is pretty much the upper bound.
For those not up on these things: An exponential increase in CO2 gives a linear increase in forcing which should produce a linear increase in temperature.
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SteveF: “Paris accord’s 2C ‘limit’ is likely to be breached late in the current century, unless greens soon come to their senses”
I think continued exponential increase of CO2 throughout this century is extremely unlikely. For one thing, there is only so much fossil fuel. For another, it seems that as societies reach a high level of industrialization, emissions level off. Finally, I am confident that there will be some sort of energy revolution before the end of this century. I don’t know if it will be a new generation of nuclear, or some form of renewable energy that actually works for more than niche use, or fusion, or something else. The world will be a lot different in 2100 than it is today.
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Addition: If Las Vegas was taking bets on the maximum amount of human induced warming that will someday occur and set the over/under at 2.0 C, I would not hesitate to take under.
SteveF, I’m guessing she gets nominated for a comedy grammy in the next five years, and does another TV or Netflix special in that time.
Mike M,
The rate of forcing increase is uncertain, of course, due mainly to large uncertainty in aerosol offsets to GHG forcing. According to the IPCC AR5 ‘best estimates’, the rate of forcing increase has increased since 1950. According to AR5, forcing increased by 0.68 watt/M^2 between 1950 and 1980 (0.022 per year), but 1.04 watts/M^2 between 1980 and 2011 (0.034 per year), so not linear at all. Based on those numbers, it is reasonable to expect 50% more rapid warming after 1980. Bets are difficult to collect on when you are dead. I would be happy to take the over 2.0C bet if I would live that long.
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I came up with ‘somewhere near 0.15C’ per decade from the OLS trend from Hadcrut4 between 1996 and present. There is uncertainty due to ENSO and potentially longer natural cycles, which is why I said “somewhere near”. I suppose you could attempt to adjust the temperatures for the influence of ENSO, but I don’t see any rational way to adjust for potential longer term cycles.
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WRT emissions leveling off: continued industrialization of China, India, and Africa, combined with projected rapid population growth in Africa, makes any leveling off unlikely for several decades. Note also that the cheapest fuel in Africa is likely to be coal, which Africa has lots of. That could change if greens were willing to support switching to fail-safe nuclear power, but that seems to me unlikely. It is true that exponential growth in emissions for more than a few decades is unlikely, but that has been close to the trend since the late 1950’s. But absent a dramatic change, continued growth in emissions is very likely for the foreseeable future.
MikeN,
“I’m guessing she gets nominated for a comedy grammy in the next five years”
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Could happen; would mean nothing. Her fellow ‘entertainment’ leftists who loath Trump are the ones who nominate. A bit like the DNC declaring it was perfectly OK for Hillary to use a private email server when she worked at the State Department. Or like character witness testimony from the mother of the accused at a murder trial.
The left has killed comedy. They are trying to get Maher fired today, they are eating their own now that they are done with everyone else.
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It’s only politically acceptable for white people to make fun of white people now (I’m all for that, but the suffocating secret rules made by the secret society have made everyone run for cover). People can howl at comedy that crosses a secret social line if they like, but excommunicating people from society or a job for a single instance is ridiculous. Social media has become a totalitarian force in a bizarre way. It has become a tool of conformity, not expression (says the guy without a Facebook or Twitter account).
The pause is over. It remains to be seen if the current step up in temperatures will be like 1998 (followed by a plateau) or will do something different. That’s going to take 10 years or more to find out.
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What makes me confident in the models is that the modelers themselves go out of there way to demonstrate their veracity and the media does such a good job of investigating them and asking the hard question which the modelers answer in pretty convincing manner. What? You haven’t seen this? I guess I haven’t either. It’s telling that people need to search out Lucia’s site to try to find an analysis as it really just isn’t done anywhere.
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I do grow weary of some things that assume we are just before the knee of the curve and sea level / temperatures are going to spike very soon. And that knee gets pushed out a decade every decade.
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PA: The usual suspects all said the expected things. I do enjoy the part about how this is a huge blow to climate action followed a paragraph later by debunking Trump by saying that the US wasn’t required to do anything in the agreement. It still looks like nobody has learned that labeling people morons and imbeciles is a poor consensus building strategy. Team science has spent oodles of money on climate communication, this must be the results from our best and brightest.
Tom,
Maher went off the reservation by saying Islam instigates violent jihad. That is a sin from which you can’t ever atone. (Saying anything but ‘all beliefs are equally valid, Kumbaya’ is forbidden on the left.) Doesn’t help that he blames Hillary for losing to Trump either…. guilt and blame must NEVER be assigned to anyone on the left; all blame is with the unwashed masses of ‘deplorables’.
Wow! Maher actually said something politically incorrect. I thought that name for his show was yet another instance of irony always increasing as it was, in fact, one of the most politically correct shows on TV.
SteveF,
I used Meinshausen et al. (I think that is the standard source for models) as my source for forcing, but reduced the aerosol forcing to match the best recent determinations. It makes it somewhat more linear than the original data. The data I used only go to 2005, but extrapolating my fit gave good agreement with more recent numbers in AR5. I looked back at what I did, and it is really only linear from 1960 or so (that, plus the difference in aerosol forcing accounts for the non-linearity you cite), but the trend in forcing is hardly different if I start my fit in 1950 or 1960. Given all the uncertainties and wiggles in the data, I stand by my statement, except that I should have said “reasonably linear” instead of linear.
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You wrote: “I suppose you could attempt to adjust the temperatures for the influence of ENSO, but I don’t see any rational way to adjust for potential longer term cycles.”
I don’t think there is any way to adjust for such things. All one can really do is to use a long enough time scale to minimize their impact. Minimum 60 years, in my opinion.
Given all the uncertainties, including the possibility of natural drift, the trend could well be 0.15 C per decade or 0.09 C per decade.
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You wrote: “continued industrialization … makes any leveling off unlikely for several decades. … It is true that exponential growth in emissions for more than a few decades is unlikely, … But absent a dramatic change, continued growth in emissions is very likely for the foreseeable future.
If the foreseeable future means the next 30-50 years, then I completely agree. But I think the trend will change well before the end of the century. Which is why my money remains on under. Alas, as you point out, I will never get to collect on it.
SteveF,
To return to an earlier conversation: You may not like a VAT, but the choice is not between good and bad, it’s between bad and worse. It’s either a VAT now with lower personal and corporate income taxes or a VAT later with higher income taxes and a wealth tax. 90% of the population is not saving anywhere near enough for retirement and they’re living longer, and that’s not including Social Security. That’s almost inevitably going to lead to a wealth tax down the road when the Democrats regain power again.
DeWitt: “That’s almost inevitably going to lead to a wealth tax down the road”.
A wealth tax would be a direct tax. As such, it would be unconstitutional unless the amount collected from each state is in proportion to its population. Not going to happen.
DeWitt,
A VAT with lower income tax rates would probably be beneficial for me personally, but I think dreadful for the economy, and the most regressive tax possible; it also invites the moral hazard of politicians hiding the true tax rate on products. Of course, everywhere that a VAT has been used it has greatly increased total tax take…. that is the point of a VAT. I would much prefer tax reform that eliminates distorting tax preferences, from home interest deduction to the state tax deduction to the odious ‘carried interest’ capital gains treatment. Take away all the distorting preferential treatments, and taxes would be more rational, simpler, and lower. The economy would grow faster too by eliminating inefficient use of capital.
Mike M,
The ‘living constitution’ is more flexible than you give it credit for. Of course, getting a progressive majority on the court (needed to make the constitution ‘alive’) may take a long while if Trump gets one or two more SC appointments.
DeWitt,
Maher’s current sin is using the N-word in a one liner during an interview. But this is just the last straw… his live audience gasped when he agreed that “Islam is the mother-load of bad ideas.” Air-head leftist Ben Affleck became so angry when he heard this that he started yelling at Maher.
SteveF: “The ‘living constitution’ is more flexible than you give it credit for.”
I get that justices, especially “progressive” ones, can often stretch the Constitution almost beyond recognition. But they stretch it, they don’t tear it up. They need some sort of a fig leaf to hide behind, such as calling the Obamacare penalty a tax. With a wealth tax, there is no fig leaf; a wealth tax is basically the definition of a direct tax.
Mike M wrote:
“For those not up on these things: An exponential increase in CO2 gives a linear increase in forcing which should produce a linear increase in temperature.”
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It is not that simple. “The absorption length for the existing concentration of CO2 is around 25 meters i.e. the distance to reduce the intensity by 1/e. All agree that direct IR radiation in the main CO2 bands is absorbed well below 1 km above the earth. Increasing levels of CO2 merely cause the absorption length to move closer to the surface.”
It is also true the heat is radiated to space from a higher level in the atmosphere.
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The main problem with IPCC is that they assume the added CO2 increases water vapor and that is the real driving force. The problem with that is that the increased humidity in the atmosphere has not been found.
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I find the IPCC has not reduced the error band for climate sensitivity since they started (which is pathetic) and their estimate for global warming from CO2 is about twice that shown by satellite measurements.
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Possibly more on topic is https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/green-climate-fund.jpg
Adrian Ashffield (Comment #162683): “It is not that simple.”
No, it is very, very close to being exactly that simple. Your mystery quote makes little sense.
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Adrian wrote: “The main problem with IPCC is that they assume the added CO2 increases water vapor and that is the real driving force. The problem with that is that the increased humidity in the atmosphere has not been found.”
No, absolute humidity in the boundary layer has increased. The situation for the upper troposphere is less clear since humidity is hard to measure at those levels. There are two humidity related feedbacks: the positive water vapor feedback and the negative lapse rate feedback. The sum of the two seems to be on pretty good ground, but the breakdown between the two is highly uncertain.
There are two huge problems with the models. One is that they can’t really do clouds at all, the other is that they can’t do natural variability. They are probably connected.
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Adrian wrote: “I find the IPCC has not reduced the error band for climate sensitivity since they started (which is pathetic) and their estimate for global warming from CO2 is about twice that shown by satellite measurements.
Amen to that. I used to accept the conventional wisdom. Then, about 5 years ago, I realized that the range was the same as 20+ years before. I thought “How can that be?”, started looking into it, and was shocked to find so much junk science.
Mike M, My “mystery quote” is the accepted science as far as I know.
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The humidity in the atmosphere, where it matters, has apparently not increased.
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See Svensmark that I linked earlier. You may find it interesting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANMTPF1blpQ&feature=youtu.be
Adrian Ashffield (Comment #162685): “My “mystery quote†is the accepted science as far as I know.”
It sounds to me like a garbled version of the accepted science. In any case, it says nothing about the relation between CO2 concentration and radiative forcing.
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Adrian: “The humidity in the atmosphere, where it matters, has apparently not increased.”
IPCC, section 2.5.4: “In summary, it is very likely that global near surface air specific humidity has increased since the 1970s. However, during recent years the near surface moistening over land has abated (medium confidence).”
Section 2.5.5.1: “There is no evidence for a significant change in free tropospheric relative humidity, although a decrease in relative humidity at lower levels is observed”.
Section 2.5.5.3: “The rate of moistening at large spatial scales over oceans is close to that expected from the Clausius–Clapeyron relation (about 7% per degree Celsius) with invariant relative humidity (Figure 2.31). Satellite measurements also indicate that the globally averaged upper tropospheric relative humidity has changed little over the period 1979–2010 while the troposphere has warmed, implying an increase in the mean water vapour mass in the upper troposphere”
In the run-up to the announcement, I thought it odd that the persuasion used on Trump was 100% of the bullying type.
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If they really wanted him to agree, they should have asked themselves “what can we offer to sweeten the deal?”
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Maybe they did and couldn’t think of anything. I’m thinking they didn’t try, because…
There are two parts to the US agreeing: cut emissions and send money.
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If they wanted the US emission cuts so bad, they could have offered the US money. Or, maybe they don’t care about US emission cuts, everybody knows they won’t make any difference, they just wanted the US dollars.
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So, what’s on the agenda for COP 23 in Bonn?
>They need some sort of a fig leaf to hide behind, such as calling the Obamacare penalty a tax.
The liberals did not need this fig leaf, and were prepared to endorse the penalty as a mandate.
Ledite,
“So, what’s on the agenda for COP 23 in Bonn?”
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Endless complaints about Trump and deplorable US voters, along with fabulous dinners at five star restaurants…. at taxpayer expense, of course. Plus a few off the record conversations about where they will get the money to bribe leaders of developing countries to keep those countries poor.
Mike M.,
Saying my quotation was “a garbled version of the accepted science” doesn’t explain your objection. Specifically, what was wromg with it?
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.I was basing my comment on humidity from this article by Forrest Mims 111
Another IPCC AR5 reviewer speaks out: no trend in global water vapor.
“Therefore, at this time, we can neither prove nor disprove a robust trend in the global water vapor data.â€
It is a bit dated but if the IPCC, who claim CO2 raises the temperature that then increases the humidity, could not find a trend by 2012 something is up. It is key to their claim. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/14/another-ipcc-ar5-reviewer-speaks-out-no-trend-in-global-water-vapor/#comment-1173881
Mike N,
“The liberals did not need this fig leaf, and were prepared to endorse the penalty as a mandate.”
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True, and John Roberts should have taken that, and the actual text of the statute, at face value and struck the mandate as unconstitutional. He even said in his opinion that any mandate by Congress to force individuals to purchase something would be unconstitutional, but then insisted what everyone was calling a mandate, and was called in the law itself a mandate, was in fact only a complicated tax scheme. It is the most bizarre, twisted SC opinion I ever read. Roberts had a chance to stand up for the Constitution, and he blew it. Had he struck the mandate, Obama and company would have been forced to revise the law through compromise with Republicans. And we wouldn’t have the health care mess we have now. Roberts is not going to be remembered as a great justice, or much remembered at all. More like a placeholder on a historical list of SC justices, like some justice you never heard of who died in the 1890’s.
The Paris Agreement is for the climate extremists a sort of Council at Nicea. That council defined orthodox Christianity at the behest of Constantine and empowered the Catholic Church to emerge as the state religion of Rome. The one later emperor who challenged the power of the state religion died in a likely assassination. Perhaps, since Nicea was actually a many years process of meetings it would be better to think of the IPCC as the council and Paris as the Nicene creed that eventually emerged. The analogy is admittedly not perfect but the emotions and political stakes surrounding the Nicene process was a big deal in the late Roman empire.
MikeN – I am missing something from your comment in #162686.
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Adrian Ashffield said: “The humidity in the atmosphere, where it matters, has apparently not increased.â€
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Then you provide references from AR5 that essentailly back up Adrian’s statement (except for 2.5.5 which was a weasely statement with the recent years part).
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Are you in agreement with Adrian or pointing out something else?
Kan,
I think your question was meant for me rather than MikeN. Easy mistake to make.
Adrian Ashffield said: “The humidity in the atmosphere, where it matters, has apparently not increased.â€
That is an ambiguous statement. Making the unproven assumption that Adrian knows a little about what he is talking about, he meant to say “The ABSOLUTE humidity in the atmosphere … ” because no climate scientist expects the relative humidity to increase. If temperature increases and relative humidity stays the same, then absolute humidity (also sometimes called specific humidity) increases. So the IPCC statements contradict what Adrian said.
I did mean you (Mike M).
Thanks.
What should Trump do at future IPCC meetings?
Mike N,
Laugh. There is nothing more to be said. Of course, if there were actual movement away from the current leftist lunacy, he should constructively engage. And if pigs had wings, unbrellas would be stronger.
MikeN,
If he sends people, I’m sure they will be selected to pretty much say, “No. Not going to do that”. “No. We don’t agree to that.” and so on. Maybe some will say sorry and whine about the Trump administration. But everyone else will be wishing the agreement didn’t require exit time. I’m sure they would rather the Americans weren’t there than being there with no intention of advancing further agreements.
MikeN and SteveF,
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is a treaty that was ratified by the US Senate in 1992. I believe that would obligate the US to send representatives to any conference of the parties like COP23.
Adrian Ashfield,
It doesn’t much matter where CO2 absorbs in the lower atmosphere. It matters where it emits to space. That’s at high altitude. As the CO2 concentration increases, the absorption band gets wider, so less total energy is emitted to space. CO2 alone decreases total emission at the same temperature. Increasing specific humidity with temperature is a feedback, not the primary effect.
For example, using the 1976 US Standard Atmosphere at 12km (in the tropopause) with clear sky looking down, at 280ppmv CO2 with all other settings unchanged, the upward heat flux is 273.934 W/m² from 100 to 1500 cm-1 . At 560ppmv, it’s 270.417 W/m².
Clouds absorb 100% of the radiation from the surface, but increased CO2 still causes a reduction in emission to space. Using the first cloud selection, Cumulus Cloud Base 0.66km, Top 2.7km, at 280ppmv CO2 upward heat flux from 100-1500cm-1 is 233.428 W/m². At 560ppmv CO2, it’s 231.073 W/m².
MikeN (Comment #162696): “What should Trump do at future IPCC meetings?”
He might just obstruct, as lucia suggests. But he has key people (Tillerson, for example) who think that the issue can not just be ignored. So perhaps they will push for a different approach.
One problem with Kyoto and Paris is that they set demanding short term goals that, if met, amount to a hill of beans. But the problem, if it exists, is a long term problem. The logic seems to be that meeting the short term goals with set the stage to make progress toward the long term goals. But that logic is faulty (perhaps because the real goal is something else). The short term goals can likely be met by tweaks (small amounts of wind and solar, more use of natural gas, improved fuel economy). But those tweaks are ultimately a dead end since they are self-limiting. And to be sure of making any significant progress by means of tweaks requires a heavy hand from the government.
To really make a long term difference, what is needed is innovation that creates something that can actually compete in the energy market. A recent relevant example is fracking. Future examples might be advanced nuclear, fusion, really good batteries, space solar, cheap multi-junction solar cells, etc. (some of those are obviously more likely than others). So to address the long term problem, what is needed is progress on such things.
So one way to be constructive while avoiding the many flaws of Paris could be to push for policies that will encourage long term energy innovation. Perhaps there are also other possibilities.
De Witt, when you say that the absorption band gets wider are you saying that more CO2 means new frequencies are absorbed by CO2, or do you mean that more of the frequencies CO2 already absorbs are absorbed?
Ledite: If they really wanted him to agree, they should have asked themselves “what can we offer to sweeten the deal?â€
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This is surprising from a normal viewpoint and unsurprising from a cynical viewpoint. The NYT ran a article yesterday about how Trump has avoided many of the Bush errors from Kyoto. One of those was offering to renegotiate.
. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/04/us/politics/trump-paris-accord-bush-kyoto.html
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This is one of the other bizarre cognitive dissonances from last week. The howling about the end of the world coupled with the outright refusal to even consider a renegotiation of any kind. This was smart by Trump.
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If one entertained the notion that elites use climate change primarily as virtue signalling instrument, this would fit that theory. Trump also laid out his reasoning in a public speech whose content was barely engaged. These reasons were ignored for the most part. No thought was given to overcoming these. This is “war” after all.
hunter,
Weakly absorbing frequencies absorb more. There are no new lines. The center of the band where absorption is high is saturated. That’s why the emission dip is more or less flat on the bottom. But what are called the wings are not saturated. As the concentration increases, those frequencies absorb/emit more if nothing else changed. But it does change. The emission to space at those frequencies moves to higher and colder altitudes. Since the temperature is lower, the emission drops. The observed emission dip gets wider and less total energy is emitted.
DeWitt,
Thanks. I figured it was something along those lines no pun intended.
SteveF,
You have it exactly backwards. A consumption tax like a VAT that raises the same amount of money is far less damaging to the economy than a highly progressive income tax. Regressive is a highly loaded word, by the way, as is progressive. Remember, a ‘progressive’ income tax was one of Karl Marx’s ten planks of the Communist Manifesto. The negative effect of a consumption tax on lower income earners would be ameliorated by a rebate.
Tinkering around the edges, i.e. your suggestions on eliminating deductions, is not going to raise enough money to make a dent in the debt problem, which is currently a serious drag on the economy and will only get worse without radical tax reform.
I point this out, however, with no hope of changing your mind.
DeWitt: “is not going to raise enough money to make a dent in the debt problem”
I seem to recall similar arguments being made 25 years ago. But by the end of the 90’s, the federal budget was balanced.
Here is a guest post over at SSC where Elizabeth Van Nostrand is recruiting for the International Refugee Assistance Project after the first travel ban. All fine and good, except this part:
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“RAP’s ground level work meant that when Trump’s order went out, it took them approximately four seconds to create a list of extremely sympathetic/photogenic immigrants who would be caught at airports that day, for some of whom they were already the legal representative of record. It took another six seconds to find even more photogenic supporters of those immigrants who were willing to loudly support them in media interviews.” http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/02/guest-post-the-international-refugee-assistance-program/
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The coordination between the media and these activist NGO’s isn’t exactly a search for the truth. It’s propaganda (as in only telling side of a story).
DeWitt,
“I point this out, however, with no hope of changing your mind.”
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Your lack of hope is well founded. I’m just a closet Maxist, as all of my comments here and elsewhere have intimated. I went to school in Hoboken NJ, same city as where Karl lived here in the States. 😉 But in all seriousness, the blizzard of distorting tax preferences, import duties, politically motivated regulations, etc are killing economic growth…. and are often immoral as well, like the special tax treatment for ‘carried interest’, which rewards wealthy investment bankers for richly funding Democrat politicians like Hillary.
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An alternative theory is that I am actually closer to libertarian. The enormous debt and even greater unfunded liabilities the country faces can only be serviced through a combination of more rapid growth and significant reductions in entitlement benefits. I am in favor of both, but since entitlement reform is politically difficult, tax and regulation reform to increase growth look more plausible in the near term. Of course, reduced benefits will be delayed for as long as possible by courageous politicians, but will ultimated happen.
DeWitt Payne.
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“It doesn’t much matter where CO2 absorbs in the lower atmosphere. It matters where it emits to space. That’s at high altitude….”
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I know. That is why I wrote what I did. You know, the theory Mike M. said was wrong but never defined why.
DeWitt,
Sorry, it wasn’t Marx in Hoboken, it was the communist organizer Friedrich Sorge (like Marx, a German) who coresonded with Marx.
DeWitt,
Greetings!
It is refreshing to be able to agree with you. A consumption tax is better for the economy than an income tax or a corporate profit tax. One should not tax things you want more of.
Paris Accord = Real Pain, No Gain
Adrian Ashffield (Comment #162711): “You know, the theory Mike M. said was wrong but never defined why.”
Your reading comprehension is sorely lacking, Adrian. I never said it was wrong. In fact, if one only looks at the disjointed pieces, they appear to correct. I said it was garbled. The whole says nothing meaningful. In particular, it says nothing relevant to the subject it was quoted with respect to.
gallopingcamel: “A consumption tax is better for the economy … One should not tax things you want more of.”
Less consumption is less economic growth. Profits and income are not goods in themselves, they are sought after because they permit consumption. To a first approximation, a tax is a tax. But that approximation fails when we have, as SteveF says a” blizzard of distorting tax preferences, import duties, politically motivated regulations …”.
Too good not to read… from a comment at Scott Adams’ blog:
When Osama bin Laden died, he was met at the Pearly Gates by George Washington, who slapped him across the face and yelled, “How dare you try to destroy the nation I helped conceive!”
James Madison followed, kicked him in the groin and said, “This is why I allowed our government to provide for the common defense!”
Patrick Henry approached, punched him in the nose and shouted, “You wanted to end our liberties but you failed!”
Thomas Jefferson was next, he beat Osama with a long cane and snarled, “It was evil men like you who inspired me to write the Declaration of Independence.”
The beatings and thrashings continued as George Mason, James Monroe and 66 other early Americans unleashed their anger on the terrorist leader.
As Osama lay bleeding and in pain, an Angel appeared. Bin Laden wept and said, “This is not what you promised me.”
The Angel replied, “I told you there would be 72 Virginians waiting for you in Heaven. What did you think I said?”
SteveF – 😀
Bravo Steve f.
Mike M.,
DeWitt: “is not going to raise enough money to make a dent in the debt problemâ€
I seem to recall similar arguments being made 25 years ago. But by the end of the 90’s, the federal budget was balanced.
First, the budget under Bill Clinton was only nominally balanced because Social Security was off the books. In fact, total government debt, including the Social Security trust fund, was still increasing.
Second, the Clinton tax increase in 1993 was not tinkering around the edges. However, the most important factor in the so-called balanced budget was that annual growth in government spending was held to less than 3%. It also didn’t hurt that the capital gains tax rate was reduced from 28% to 20% in 1997.
Mike M.,
Where do you think the capital to increase production capacity comes from if not income and profits, directly, or indirectly from borrowing others savings? Real question. You can’t consume if the government takes away your money before you can spend it. Income taxes, whether corporate or individual, punish investment. You’re fixated on GDP/capita. It’s a really bad measure of standard of living.
Here was an interesting point I read:
“Trump is brilliant at channeling the anti-elitist theory of the white working class, and I think the reason he’s so good at that is because he felt condescended to his whole life.”
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This is from an interview at Slate which is pretty comical to the point of it should have been in Mad magazine. Q: “What attitude should we be taking toward people who voted for a racist buffoon that is scamming them?” http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2017/06/advice_on_how_to_talk_to_the_white_working_class.html
Mike M.
I stand by my comments #162648 & #162683)
Contrary to what you say they are not garbled.
Tom Scharf,
“What attitude should we be taking toward people who voted for a racist buffoon that is scamming them?â€
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I saw that. It is actually both funny and sad that the left can’t imagine they are mistaken about anything. Hillary and her “It wasn’t my fault!” tour is a pathetic example, of course.
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They are mistaken about most of Trump’s voters, who are quite aware of Trump’s many flaws and weaknesses, but saw a continuation of Obama-like policies by Hillary as even more damaging than Trump. It is simply not possible for most on the left to entertain even the possibility that views and policies different from their own could ever have legitimacy.
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Islamic terrorists murder random people in London, stabbing and cutting throats, and the left fixates on what Trump says about it, and the need to completely accept Islam, even while any sentient (AKA ‘deplorable’) person understands Islam is the principle motivation for terror attacks. It strikes me as shear madness, but it seems they will never change.
DeWitt,
“You can’t consume if the government takes away your money before you can spend it.”
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VAT’s take away your money too, especially for middle income people, and make it much easier for wealthy individuals to become even more wealthy, because wealthy individuals spend a much smaller share of income on consumption… a VAT combined with lower income taxes is a windfall for the wealthy, and shift the cost of government to the middle class. You clearly think this is a good idea. I don’t.
Adrian,
I wouldn’t called #162648 garbled. I’d say as a letter to the editor it would be ineffective. Here’s your letter with my comments
The climate is changing. It has been increasing in temperature quite steadily since the Little Ice Age in the 1880’s. The temperature rises and falls on either side of this steady rate due to the multi-decadal oscillations. See Prof. Akasofu’s paper here, Fig. 2b, page 7: http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sa…..change.pdf
Few reading letters to the editor are going to rush off to download a pdf, open it, and find figure 2b on page 2.
The main driver for major temperature changes is the variation of the Earth’s orbit, as described by Milutin Milanković (Milankovitch).
This is going to be seen as a bald claim because it is a bald claim.
Few reading your local paper are going to dash off to watch a video. When they arrive and see it’s 52 minutes long they aren’t going to watch it. They are going to go upstairs brush their teeth and head off to work.
If there is a point you want to make about Svensmark’s theory about clouds, state it in your own words preferably in fewer than 4 sentences.
Looking at the satellite and balloon data, http://www.drroyspencer.com/la…..peratures/ the temperature has been rising far slower than predicted by the IPCC’s models, to the point that most of them have been falsified.
There is no evidence that CO2 has the major effect claimed by the AGW believers and I challenge you to show real evidence that it does, not just saying that the “experts†IPCC claim something else. I have a technical background and have been following climate science closely for more than ten years.
Buttressing your claims about warming with a bald claim to authority — and worse a vague one– is going to make many people doubt your critical thinking skills. After all: someone who understands how to support an argument would not rely on bald claims to authority.
So why the fuss that America is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement?
Ending on a rhetorical question…. sigh….
DeWitt Payne (Comment #162720): “First, the budget under Bill Clinton was only nominally balanced because Social Security was off the books. In fact, total government debt, including the Social Security trust fund, was still increasing.”
Nope. At the end of the Clinton administration the budget surplus was some $200 billion compared to a Social Security surplus of a few tens of billions.
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DeWitt Payne (Comment #162720): “Second, the Clinton tax increase in 1993 was not tinkering around the edges.”
I understood you to be saying that only a VAT could balance the budget. Perhaps I misunderstood. Compared to a VAT, the Clinton tax increase was tinkering around the edges.
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DeWitt Payne (Comment #162720): “However, the most important factor in the so-called balanced budget was that annual growth in government spending was held to less than 3%.”
I strongly agree. What is needed to get the budget deficit under control is economic growth and spending restraint.
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DeWitt Payne (Comment #162721): “Where do you think the capital to increase production capacity comes from if not income and profits, directly, or indirectly from borrowing others savings? Real question.”
Sorry, that is a rhetorical question, since you obviously know the answer, and should know that I know the answer also.
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DeWitt Payne (Comment #162721): “You can’t consume if the government takes away your money before you can spend it.”
You are setting up a false dichotomy. If the government takes half your income, you can only consume half as much. The same as if the government doubles the cost of everything you buy. Either way, taxes take money out of the economy. A VAT reduces profits and savings, just like an income tax.
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DeWitt Payne (Comment #162721): “Income taxes, whether corporate or individual, punish investment.”
Rubbish. Absolute rubbish. If you get to keep only $1 million in profit instead of $2 million in profit, you are still better off than before. You are not being “punished”. Getting to keep only half as much profit will likely impact your decision making, quite possibly to the detriment of the economy as a whole. But the same is true if the tax system reduces sales and/or profit margins so that you only make $1 million in the first place.
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DeWitt Payne (Comment #162721): “You’re fixated on GDP/capita. It’s a really bad measure of standard of living.”
I don’t see why you say I am “fixated” on that any more than you are. I agree that it is a deeply flawed measure of standard of living. But it is appropriate for some purposes, such as reducing deficits via growth.
Adrian Ashffield (Comment #162723): “I stand by my comments #162648 & #162683) Contrary to what you say they are not garbled.”
Please don’t put words in my mouth. I never said Comment #162648 was garbled. I never said anything about it. I never even said that #162683 was garbled, only that the unsourced quote contained in it was garbled.
Mike M.
You’ve drastically underestimated Social Security and other intra-government borrowings like Medicare, which currently total about $5.5 trillion, almost 40% as much as $14.3 trillion held by the public.
Total public debt was only relatively stable during the 1950’s. It went up every year from 1957-2016
As I said, correctly, total public debt increased every year under WJC. The closest it came to balance was fiscal year 2000 when the debt increased from 5,656,270,901,615.43 in 1999 to 5,674,178,209,886.86 in 2000, an increase of only $17.9 billion.
“Income taxes, whether corporate or individual, punish investment.â€
Rubbish. Absolute rubbish. If you get to keep only $1 million in profit instead of $2 million in profit, you are still better off than before.
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Mike M,
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Still better off but not as well off means that there is relatively less motivation to invest.
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This matters, because investment keeps productivity going.
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At one point in this country, the top marginal income tax rate was 95%.
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People in this bracket could have earned a million dollars more and still kept 5% of it, but they didn’t. If they did invest, they did things off the books so as to avoid the tax.
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Repeat after me: “tax something and you get less of it, subsidize something else and you get more of it.”
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Another example of tax policy changing investment is retirement accounts. Like many, I have tax deferred retirement accounts. Because of the tax status, I fund them. Would I if they were heavily taxed? I don’t think so.
a 403b and an IRA which I attempt to fund.
“Income taxes, whether corporate or individual, punish investment.â€
Rubbish. Absolute rubbish. If you get to keep only $1 million in profit instead of $2 million in profit, you are still better off than before.
If you earn $0.20/hr that’s better than $0.10/hr. So you should be glad to take the 8 hour a day $0.20/hr job.
Well… maybe someone should. But if the amount you make is low enough, you’ll stay home and figure out something else to do.
Some things change at higher dollar amounts. But not everything. On the both the high and low end, if the amount made is insufficient to lure the earner/producer to devote time and energy (and possibly risk) to do something, they’ll do something else. For the wealthy person that might mean vacationing in Aruba, for the less wealthy, growing their own veggies.
Speaking of a 95% tax rate, there’s the Beatles song Taxman.
Let me tell you how it will be
There’s one for you, nineteen for me
Cos I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman
DeWitt: “As I said, correctly, total public debt increased every year under WJC. The closest it came to balance was fiscal year 2000 when the debt increased from 5,656,270,901,615.43 in 1999 to 5,674,178,209,886.86 in 2000, an increase of only $17.9 billion.”
Turbulent Eddie: “Still better off but not as well off means that there is relatively less motivation to invest.
This matters, because investment keeps productivity going.”
I said as much.
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Turbulent Eddie: “Repeat after me: tax something and you get less of it, subsidize something else and you get more of it.”
I said as much.
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lucia: “But if the amount you make is low enough, you’ll stay home and figure out something else to do.”
I said as much.
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I can’t tell if Turbulent Eddie and lucia are agreeing with me or disagreeing. They sound like they are disagreeing. Yet what they said agrees with what I said. Confusing.
MikeM
I was commenting on what I quoted:
“Income taxes, whether corporate or individual, punish investment.â€
Rubbish. Absolute rubbish. If you get to keep only $1 million in profit instead of $2 million in profit, you are still better off than before.
The way that reads, it sounds as if someone s saying those taxes don’t punish investment, and suggest it’s for the reason given. In fact, those taxes do punish investment. If the fraction of profits a person is allowed to keep is reduced, they will tend to chose to invest less. Investing always involves risk. At very high tax levels, a person is better off putting money in a mattress and drawing it down than investing. Because their choice with investing becomes:
* risking losing money in the investment.
* keep only (for example) 1/20th of the profit should they actually make money.
In this case, the choice of “put it in mattress” becomes attractive. Taxing investment earnings punishes investment.
Mike M.,
The Social Security trust fund is not the only intra-governmental borrowing. Here’s the complete list as of September, 2016:
The big ones are Social Security, $2.8 trillion, Civil Service Retirement and Disability, $0.9 trillion, Military retirement, $0.6 trillion, Medicare Hospital and Supplemental Medical Insurance, $0.25 trillion. There are a lots of others. In summary, trust funds totaled $4.84 trillion and public debt securities held by federal agencies was $0.56 trillion for a total of $5.4 trillion. So Social Security is slightly more than half the total.
Mike M.,
If you only include Social Security and ignore the other half of intra-government borrowing, then there was a small surplus in 1999 and 2000. But if you include everything, there wasn’t. The increase in debt in 2000 was very small, 0.3%. That’s pretty close to balanced. But it was only one year. Total debt is close to four times as much now.
Lucia,
“Taxing investment earnings punishes investment.”
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Sure. But taxing any kind of income also reduces investment, because people have less to invest. Taxing consumption and reducing taxes on income punishes people who have to spend more of their income on consumption (that is, punishes middle class and lower) more than wealthy people, who spend relatively less on consumption.
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Taxing consumption also indirectly punishes investment, because there is less market demand for goods and services, so less profit for production. The effect can be seen in Germany, where consumption is heavily taxed (including electricity at 3X US prices!). German businesses then are motivated to sell their products in places like the US, where consumption is not heavily taxed and demand is much greater per capita than in Germany. The people who suffer the most: the German middle class, which faces high domestic prices, only partially off-set by generous social benefits. People ought not wonder why so many Europeans have chosen to not have families… they cost too much.
Mike M, you seem to have taken exception to the word “punish”. Whatever the other connotations of the word, I’m glad you agree that taxes, however necessary or agreed upon, do have consequences of dissuading behaviors.
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Taxing income is an interesting case. We don’t want to dissuade earned income ( aka jobs ), but we know that’s an effect of income taxes. On the other hand, taxing earned income may be good, because the governments will probably want to preserve the things that they tax.
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Along those lines, we tax tobacco to theoretically dissuade its consumption. But there’s a catch. If it really worked 100%, and everyone stopped smoking, then all the revenue from the tax would disappear. So the government’s vested interest is in keeping people smoking, and they become beneficiaries of selling tobacco just like tobacco companies.
SteveF,
In the end, it comes down to government spending. All government spending is a drain on the economy, whether funded by taxation, borrowing or devaluing the currency. The method of taxation may make some difference, though.
I think Piketty’s claim that inequality of income is somehow damaging in and of itself and requires government intervention is idiotic. Steeply progressive taxes and wealth taxes would make everyone poorer.
SteveF,
I agree taxes in general punish investment. It certainly has a negative effect on production.
But taxes on investment earnings specifically punishes investment. Taxes on sales indirectly punishes investment but since it specifically affects sales of goods, it punishes those investments that most rely on sales of goods. Meanwhile, investors with money might put their money in rental property. Or, if the tax on sales is specifically on goods, investors might put their money in businesses that provide services — for example baby sitting, beauty salons and so on.
Of course, I suspect in the case of Germany, the baby sitting is now free– paid for out of taxes.
Proposed new question on security clearance forms:
YES/NO: I will use my personal political preferences to unilaterally decide to leak government secrets to the media.
TE,
Sin taxes create business opportunities for criminals. Something like half the cigarettes smoked in NYC, with its super high taxes on cigarettes, are smuggled.
lucia (Comment #162735): “I was commenting on what I quoted”.
Yes, but you quoted me out of context, thus changing the meaning of what I wrote. What I said was:
“If you get to keep only $1 million in profit instead of $2 million in profit, you are still better off than before. You are not being “punishedâ€. Getting to keep only half as much profit will likely impact your decision making …”.
I was complaining about the use of the word “punished” which is a totally inappropriate and misleading word to use in that manner. I suppose I could have made that clearer. But I made it perfectly clear that I was *not* saying that such taxes have no effect, which is the opposite of what you implied I was saying.
Mike M.,
Then there are the unfunded liabilities of the government at all levels. The current estimate for the federal government is $100 trillion, or about five times the current public debt.
DeWitt: “The Social Security trust fund is not the only intra-governmental borrowing. … So Social Security is slightly more than half the total.”
Thank you. I just learned something.
Mike M.,
There are semantic implications in your statement. “You get to keep” is quite different than ‘The government takes…’ The implication is that the profits actually all belong to the government, but it allows you to keep some of it as a reward as opposed to taking half your profits as a punishment.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #162745): “Then there are the unfunded liabilities of the government at all levels. The current estimate for the federal government is $100 trillion, or about five times the current public debt.”
There are unfunded liabilities that result from fanciful accounting by governments. And there are unfunded liabilities that result from fanciful accounting by people who want to make things seems even worse than they are. Skepticism is warranted with respect to all projections of the distant future.
Humorous media framing exercise.
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WSJ: Intelligence Chiefs Say They Didn’t Feel Pressured on Probe
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Fox: NO PRESSURE: Intelligence chiefs push back on claims Trump illegally pressed them on Russia
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NYT: Intelligence Chief Won’t Say if Trump Asked About Comey
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NBC: Coats, Rogers Won’t Discuss Talks With Trump About Russia Probe
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CNN: Intel chiefs won’t say if Trump asked the question
DeWitt Payne (Comment #162747): “There are semantic implications in your statement. “You get to keep†is quite different than ‘The government takes…’ The implication is that the profits actually all belong to the government, but it allows you to keep some of it as a reward as opposed to taking half your profits as a punishment.”
Yes, the issue is semantics, but I am not saying anything remotely like what you claim.
Look at the definition of “punish” http://www.wordnik.com/words/punish
The first one is representative: To subject to a penalty for an offense, sin, or fault.
That might apply to sin taxes, but not to other types of tax.
Even that definition is arguably too broad. Let’s say I steal $1 million, get caught, and have to pay a fine of $500,000 but otherwise get to keep the money I stole. Am I being punished for stealing? Many people would say no.
Loaded words distort reasoning.
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DeWitt Payne (Comment #162740): “All government spending is a drain on the economy, whether funded by taxation, borrowing or devaluing the currency”.
That is the sort of statement I expect when reasoning gets distorted by using loaded words. With no government spending at all, there would be anarchy. That would be very bad for the economy. Spending to maintain law and order is not the only beneficial government spending. Building and maintaining infrastructure is often beneficial. Universal education is beneficial. There is a good argument that a basic safety net is beneficial.
As government spending increases, and especially as it becomes more indiscriminate, it can become a drain on the economy. In my opinion, we have long since passed that point.
Turbulent Eddie (Comment #162739): “I’m glad you agree that taxes, however necessary or agreed upon, do have consequences of dissuading behaviors.”
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I agree that all taxes have consequences. I seriously doubt that reasonable taxes (or even unreasonable ones) do much dissuading. If you are not going to stop smoking cigarettes because they might kill you, you probably won’t quit because of the tax. Taxes do influence choices. As such, they can encourage unproductive activity (investing in tax shelters, spending money on clever accountants and lawyers) rather than productive activity (actually making something).
I think that SteveF has done a better job of explaining my position than I have.
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Eddie: “we tax tobacco to theoretically dissuade its consumption. But there’s a catch. If it really worked 100%, and everyone stopped smoking, then all the revenue from the tax would disappear. So the government’s vested interest is in keeping people smoking, and they become beneficiaries of selling tobacco just like tobacco companies.”
Excellent point. That is one of the reasons that I would oppose a carbon tax, even if I agreed that we must take government action to reduce CO2 emissions.
“All government spending is a drain on the economy”
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The military industrial complex is a huge government jobs program. The “private sector” does most of the work here, but it is probably more accurate to call this government work. If the US didn’t embark on ICBM’s / weapons development we wouldn’t have a world’s leading tech sector like we do. Lot of gray areas like this.
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This why I get a laugh when liberals call for government jobs programs and want to fund it by cutting the military budget.
Tom Scharf, the media “narrative” (myth) of Trump & Russia is very lycrative. Even now as responsible party after responsible party says their was no collusion and no obstruction media myth hypsters cling to their lies and tales. I am waiting for one person to have the guts to tell the panels that the only group that has worked to undermine the American election of 2916 has been democrats and media.
Tom Scharf,
” Make the border wall out of solar panels. Brilliant!”
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I nearly fell on the floor laughing. 🙂
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It is difficult to split out long term benefits due to technological development for military use and the cost of military equipment and staffing. In any case, those technological benefits ultimately accrue globally, while their cost is currently borne mostly by US taxpayers. I think it is likely that there are indeed real benefits, but the cost for developing the technology probably is a modest fraction of the total military budget. You could fund just the development of technology for a lot less than the weapons systems based on that technology.
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ICBM’s, nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers, submarines, etc. are needed for security today, but we should recognize that these things place a heavy burden on the US economy, which many other developed nations (Japan, Western Europe, Australia, etc) do not bear, or at least bear only at a much lower level. It has been the size and rate of growth of the US economy which has allowed military funding at the relatively high level the US supports.
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The US economy’s size and historical growth rate are in large part due to historically lower overall per capita government expenditures. Starting with Mr Obama in 2009, growth has been strangled by expenditures far outstripping economic growth, and by the growth in regulations, which are in fact a real cost imposed by government, just like taxes, but which do not show up as a government ‘expenditure’. The total increase in the cost of the Federal government, including regulations, has been ‘yuge’ under Mr. Obama… just as he wanted. It is no mystery why growth has been slow for 8 years.
DeWitt,
“In the end, it comes down to government spending.”
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On this we 100% agree… so long as you include the cost of regulations as ‘government spending’.
CNN just had a level 10 stroke, Massive type COMEY’S BOMBSHELL. It then goes on to state exactly what was already leaked and discussed ad naseum in the past month. Here it is:
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“He then said, ‘I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go,'” Comey said in remarks posted on the website of the Senate intelligence committee. “I replied only that ‘he is a good guy.’ (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a colleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my term at FBI.) I did not say I would ‘let this go.'”
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“Comey, in his opening statement, said Trump told him “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty” during their first dinner in January. Comey said in the statement “I didn’t move, speak or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed.” Comey said he told Trump “you will always get honesty from me.” He said the President responded, “that’s what I want. Honest loyalty.”
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The fainting spells have already begun. I think we are going to need to pass out huge Xanax pills to the media in the next 48 hours or else media panels are going to need medical personnel on call, ha ha.
This is written with testimony tomorrow, right? I read it. Looks like anti-Trump people got bupkiss from this. I think everything in there was already ‘out there’. And most ends up being not a whole lot.
But maybe something more will come tomorrow.
And reading the fine print…Comey told Trump he was not under investigation. No wonder Trump kept asking everyone to publicly state that.
Tom Scharf,
Yeah. Given the rumors that he is under investigation, I would think that
(a) the sitting president would like people to know he is not under investigation and
(b) it would be good for people to know he is not under investigation.
Tom,
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Trump: “Comey, if I am not under investigation, then I want you to tell the MSM that I am not under investigation.”
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Comey: “Mr. President, I won’t do that. It might prejudice the rest of my investigation.”
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Trump: “What!?! You’re fired!”
So far it looks like a big nothing-burger as Clinton would say, ha ha. We will see if anything else comes out, I’m sure the panel’s questions will be a diligent search for the truth… I would be surprised if anything really came out in a testimony. People are falling all over each other in a competition to be the “hero” who takes down Trump. Unfortunately it looks like a naive Ms. Winner will be doing some jail time for this over zealousness.
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If someone really had something it seems unlikely they would hold onto it when they could be a hero. It’s certainly possible there is a part of the IC than can actually keep a secret and is running a very tight compartmentalized investigation.
The correct answer from Comey probably should have been: “You are not under investigation…yet”.
Tom Scharf (Comment #162757): “CNN just had a level 10 stroke”
Literally? 🙂
Oh, figuratively. 🙁
lucia:
Tom Scharf,
Yeah. Given the rumors that he is under investigation, I would think that
(a) the sitting president would like people to know he is not under investigation and
(b) it would be good for people to know he is not under investigation.
As I understand it, informing the public has the undesirable outcome that if Trump then came under investigation, the FBI would then have “a duty to correct” the record. In the case where they had made no such public statement, the fact that he had been promoted to a subject of the investigation would not need a separate public statement.
Here’s Comey’s explicit statement on why he felt it inappropriate to inform the public that Trump was not a subject of the investigation:
I did not tell the President that the FBI and the Department of Justice had been reluctant to make public statements that we did not have an open case on President Trump for a number of reasons, most importantly because it would create a duty to correct, should that change.
From the FBI’s point of view, they don’t always want to alert people or the public when those individuals have become subjects of an investigation, so a public reporting here would not be in either public’s best interest, nor in the best interests of the FBI to conduct an independent investigation.
Carrick,
I get that. But the problem is that there have been huge rumors swirling that the president is under investigation. Anyway, evidently, now we are learning Trump was not under investigation.
I also saw no bombshells in the Comey stuff.
Carrick,
“From the FBI’s point of view, they don’t always want to alert people or the public when those individuals have become subjects of an investigation, so a public reporting here would not be in either public’s best interest, nor in the best interests of the FBI to conduct an independent investigation.”
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In this case, that POV is kind of irrelevant, since the MSM had been screaming about the (non-existent) investigation of Trump since the election…. based on leaks from Obama officials. I think Comey had an absolute duty to the public to say, “No, contrary to media reports, we have no investigation of Trump underway. I will let you know if that changes.”
Lucia, you beat me to it.
lucia–I honestly haven’t seen any credible accounts in the MSM claiming that Trump was himself under investigation. The closest where blog stories run after Comey’s March testimony that incorrectly reported Comey as saying Trump was under investigation.
I honestly think Trump was just looking for a magic bullet to make this go away, and that unfortunately (for those of us who like a functioning federal government anyway) ended up making things worse.
The real problem is keeping these people on his staff, while federal investigations surrounding them continues, is what is causing the cloud of smoke. And I honestly don’t think they’ve stayed on due to his undying loyalty either.
think that’s due to the part of him that never wants to retreat an inch on anything. Dropping them now would paint him in an unflattering light.
SteveF:
In this case, that POV is kind of irrelevant, since the MSM had been screaming about the (non-existent) investigation of Trump since the election…. based on leaks from Obama officials
You’ve got a fair amount of exaggeration going on there, I’m afraid.
If you had said “investigation of Trump’s administration” then maybe. But that’s a legitimate story, because it’s actually happening.
I doubt you could show it was “Obama officials” either who were responsible for the leaks.
I think Comey had an absolute duty to the public to say, “No, contrary to media reports, we have no investigation of Trump underway. I will let you know if that changes.â€
Obviously I don’t agree. It isn’t general policy to inform people when they have become subjects of an investigation. If Comey did what you described, then the FBI would be forced to announce it, were it to happen. That benefits neither the independence of the investigation, nor really, Trump’s best interests either.
I don’t think the FBI needs to run around and tell the world everyone who isn’t under investigation. In the event there are no ties to Trump ever found, it is the media (my favorite whipping dog) that needs to be held accountable. As I remember the media went to great lengths to constantly remind us there was no criminal investigation of Clinton, and it was just a “referral” which turned out to be a meaningless term the FBI never uses. I also hear she won the popular vote.
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I would say the evidence suggests that the leakers are framing the evidence in the most politically damaging way possible, but this undermines the long term case when it turns out it was a very uncharitable interpretation of the facts.
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It’s possible that the hysteria is a fatally flawed approach to taking down Trump. Trump shoots himself in the foot every 12 seconds, that ought to be enough. From a Trump supporter’s viewpoint he starts to look like a victim here, but you do have to squint pretty hard, ha ha.
Tom Scharf—I think the problem with the hysteria is as much as right-wing problem as it is a left wing one.
They characterize the left-wing coverage in a less than honest fashion. Trump gets most of his news from the right-wing, meaning that he ends ups reacting to things that aren’t actually happening (at least not in the way the right wing media makes them out to be).
That’s Trump’s problem and not the FBI’s. He needs to get out more and maybe consume sources of information from people who aren’t “yes men”.
Regarding Clinton, it’s probably worth your while to go back and refresh yourself on how that was really covered by the MSM, which is remarkably different in important ways from the way you’re charactering it here, and IMO in no way provides a justification for Trump being given special treatment here for problems that are mostly self-made.
The left wing/media/democrats are the only group that has been making baseless lies, pushing rumor and innuendo, all to weaken the American people’s faith and acceptance in the outcome of the 2016 election. If there is any justice the dems should be blown out in the 2018 election and the criminals who illegally leaked names and Intel and top secrets to further inflame this madness should face the maximum legal penalties.
Carrick,
There weren’t anything but Obama officials until Jan 20, and unfortunately, in many cases for a long time after that.
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“Obviously I don’t agree. It isn’t general policy to inform people when they have become subjects of an investigation.”
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Unless your name is Hillary Clinton. Then you know exactly when you are being investigated, and better yet, your husband can chat with the AG about your legal status without any problem.
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If you actually read MSM accounts, you will see that there is constant drumming of “Trump is under FBI investigation”, even while, according to Comey, that investigation never has happened. WRT investigating people who worked for Trump: the FBI should be done with it ASAP. The endless dragging out of the “investigation” is designed only to cause political problems for Trump, not to identify any criminal wrongdoing. Absent evidence of explicit collusion, it is all nothing more than a politically motivated witch hunt.
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“That benefits neither the independence of the investigation, nor really, Trump’s best interests either.”
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Your comment is wholly disconnected from reality.
Carrick,
I don’t read a lot of right wing media so I can’t comment. I suspect what you call right wing (Breitbart, Drudge Report, etc.) is not very DC politically influential relative to CNN / ABC / CBS / NYT / WP / NBC and the rest before 2016. The very existence and popularity of the non-legacy right wing sites is probably due to hive mind (Overton Window) coverage that is increasingly left leaning since ~2004 in my view. This is when Fox News exploded.
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The intellectual class has increasingly enforced internal cultural conformity over the past decade. They moved too fast culturally and when the others classes rebelled the intellectual class attempted to use the same conformity mechanisms they used internally to keep people on the reservation. The result hasn’t been pretty. The rise of anti-intellectualism is quite threatening and so shrieking like banshees is apparently the next phase.
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It’s more easily summarized as The Left: You guys elected an idiot!
The Right: Because you guys are a-holes! Both sides have a point.
@ Tom Scharf
Your last paragraph would be a perfect summary if you replace Left with Establishment and Right with Masses.
SteveF:
There weren’t anything but Obama officials until Jan 20, and unfortunately, in many cases for a long time after that.
You’re forgetting that the Moron in Chief was using a trivial to hack unprotected phone for months. That explains a lot.
Then you know exactly when you are being investigated, and better yet, your husband can chat with the AG about your legal status without any problem.
In your comic book universe where the Clintons resemble Batman universe super-villains maybe. In the real world, things are a lot more complicated.
If you actually read MSM accounts, you will see that there is constant drumming of “Trump is under FBI investigationâ€, even while, according to Comey, that investigation never has happened.
I read both right & left wing media. Yet I haven’t seen a single example of “Trump is under FBI investigation”, except for a few blogs (not MSM sites at all) which misrepresented Comey in the March hearing. Nor I might add have you provided one.
Your comment is wholly disconnected from reality.
Uh huh. And yet you couldn’t provide a single example of what you were talking about. Disconnected from reality is when you don’t need facts, like actual examples of the things you claim to be true, to know things. Which of us is that describing here?
Tom Scharf, I meant read and watch: Fox News is certainly right-wing. They used to be more centrist when I used to watch them and had higher standards than they do now (that last statement applies to the current media in general).
The right-wing are as bad in exaggerating the left-wing media as the left-wing are in exaggerating problems with the right-wing media. This just increases the level of misunderstandings.
And both sides demonize the other’s candidates, and many people believe the demonizations without blinking an eye, as long as it’s aimed at the other party. There are people who actually think the Clintons are mass murderers for example. That certainly beats anything mean they’re saying about poor Mr. Trump.
Carrick,
You wrote (addressing SteveF): “Yet I haven’t seen a single example of “Trump is under FBI investigationâ€, except for a few blogs (not MSM sites at all) which misrepresented Comey in the March hearing. Nor I might add have you provided one.”
Knowing the way you split verbal hairs when it suits you, I guess you will say that they did not actually say that Trump is under investigation. They only implied that either he is or ought to be. A constant drumming of such implications fits within what SteveF describes.
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538 did a recent poll of Trump supporters and asked media coverage of “Trump’s relationships with Russia”. Sounds like they see this pretty much the same as SteveF and I. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-trumps-least-enthusiastic-voters-feel-about-him-now/
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I do disagree with SteveF about you being wholly disconnected from reality. I’d say you distort reality to make it agree with the way you want it to be.
Carrick: “They characterize the left-wing coverage in a less than honest fashion. Trump gets most of his news from the right-wing, meaning that he ends ups reacting to things that aren’t actually happening (at least not in the way the right wing media makes them out to be).
That’s Trump’s problem and not the FBI’s. He needs to get out more and maybe consume sources of information”
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If you are talking about Trump’s “wiretap” tweet allegation against Obama that is still a developing story. But I suppose if the unmasking by Susan Rice and possibly many other political appointees are exposed as clear party opposition espionage your come back will be the same as CNNs and MSNBC who I’m sure will say it was all legal, (under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and was not wiretapping).
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The MSM and left are becoming more and more out of touch with the Trump voters as was well described here in recent comments. I think it is natural tribalism, spawned by the lack of fear instilling national enemies. I don’t think it is completely innocent. I think the “war on women,” Islamophobia and racism accusations are extensions of negative campaigning. Although they are clearly unethical and destructive to the national fabric, those points are discounted relative to the necessity to save the planet from evil conservative deplorables.
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When the Dems were asked in first Dem debate what enemies were they most proud to have the first candidate answered the coal lobby. The second candidate said the National Rifle Association. Clinton after pondering some more settled on Republicans. Sanders said Wall Street and pharmaceuticals industry.
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She was proud that Republicans where her enemy. Of course, it was the politically correct answer as the trick was not to alienate any Democrats, which could be conceivably part of any other mentioned group. But we all know she meant it and she said so after the nomination in interviews and with the deplorables speech.
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Carrick: ” There are people who actually think the Clintons are mass murderers for example…”
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How many is “mass”? And, what if it’s just Hillary? Could the Clintons could keep individual secrets maybe? Does Hillary have less ambition or less of a temper than Putin? Do you believe the CIA ever assassinated anyone before the congress held hearings to stop CIA assassinations? Real questions.
MikeM: The USA Today counts, but your quote didn’t say the FBI was investigating Trump, which is what SteveF and others are claiming they are saying. What this quote says is, “This investigation matters because we need to know IF Trump, or any individual on his team, worked with Russia to do it or tried to cover it up after the fact.†(My emphasis.)
This doesn’t even come close to saying the FBI was investigating Trump. They aren’t even saying anything less obvious than “the sun rises in the morning.” Of course the investigation needs to be done. That’s a no brainer, and no hair splitting is required.
If you think that’s reality bending on my part, then I can see how you came to support the Reality Bender in Chief.
Ron, the Susan Rice story wouldn’t be a story except for Trump’s desire to find something to distract people from his own trash, and the willingness of so many of Republicans in Congress and their supporters in the press to wipe Trump’s butt for him.
That has nothing to do with what I was talking about though, which was really a speculation on why Trump is so fixated on Russia himself.
I’ll use the FBI’s definition for mass murderer, which is 4 or more.
Notably you can’t even talk about Trump for more than one paragraph before you’re forced to change the topic to Killary.
Just amazing.
Carrick,
“What this quote says is, “This investigation matters because we need to know IF Trump, or any individual on his team, worked with Russia to do it or tried to cover it up after the fact.†(My emphasis.)
This doesn’t even come close to saying the FBI was investigating Trump.”
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Not sure how that statement implies no investigation of Trump. Seems to me it says exactly that ‘this investigation’ (the one ongoing since last July) of Trump and his entire ‘team’ ‘matters’. It’s just like saying ‘we need to know if Hillary and her team were dealing access to foreign nationals in exchange for Bill’s exorbitant speaking fees while she was Secretary of State’, but then claiming that is NOT investigating Hillary. Bizarre. After 7+ months of ‘this investigation’ Comey states multiple times that Trump was not being investigated (presumably some on his ‘team’ were, since the FBI has been investigating something since July).
My (Comment #162779), addressed to Carrick: “Knowing the way you split verbal hairs when it suits you, I guess you will say that they did not actually say that Trump is under investigation. They only implied that either he is or ought to be.”
I guessed right.
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I find it fascinating how Carrick splits hairs when he needs to and insists on using sloppy language when that serves his purpose. For instance he claims that there are people who actually think the Clintons are mass murderers and claims that he is using the FBI definition of mass murder. But not even the wackiest right wing conspiracy nuts do that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_murder
Carrick,
From CNN today: “Instead of tamping down the issue, Trump has revved up public interest. Instead of asserting control of the FBI and other intelligence agencies, he now faces a probe led by a formidable independent counsel, Robert Mueller, the second-longest serving director in FBI history.”
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OK, so do you think a ‘probe’ of Trump isn’t an investigation?
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Headline from the NYTimes in March: “F.B.I. Is Investigating Trump’s Russia Ties, Comey Confirms”
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Could anyone read that headline and think the FBI is not investigating Trump? I don’t think so.
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The MSM has been beating the ‘FBI investingating Trump’ story for a long time. What got Comey fired was his refusal to state publically what he had told Trump and members of Congress multiple times: Trump was never under investigation by the FBI. This is the most destructive political witch hunt I have ever seen.
Carrick,
Jonathan Turley today: “CNN ran comments that the Comey testimony was nothing short of the Watergate tapes. The desire for some indictable or impeachable offense by President Trump has distorted the legal analysis to an alarming degree. Analysts seem far too thrilled by the possibility of a crime by Trump.”
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The MSM is wildly prejudiced and inaccurate about anything Trump, and most people can see that…. even a legal scholar who disagrees with Trump’s policies 100%.
This is a classic slow motion coup attempt. Flood the public square with lies and innuendos. Goad the victim into rage. Make the issue the victim’s rage. Ignore the exonerating evidence. Shout down or ignore any defenders. Comey’s testimony reads much more like a novel than testimony. I wonder who ghost wrote it? And the idea that asking a proven political player like Coney for “honest loyalty” is unethical much less impeachable is outrageous.
Carrick, I understand your point to have been that the thought of Clintons committing murder is so outrageous that it discredits any person’s sanity who would entertain such a notion. And, since many of Trumps defenders would entertain it from the current evidence available if researched, then this is an indication that Trump supporters have early signs of insanity (or are less intellectually adept than Democrats). I would like to dissect your logic. (And, in presenting the flaw I will refrain from extrapolating it as a symptom of liberal ideological propensity.)
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Assumptions:
1) If one Clinton were involved in a crime it would be shared with the family and perhaps close staff. False. Bill lied about his sex-capades with Monica and presumably he did it without HRC’s consent.
2) Rich and powerful people do not crimes because they have more to lose than common folk. False.
3) Murder for hire is so rare as to eliminate the fruitfulness in investigating it in a mysterious unnatural death. False.
4) Because paranoia is a mental illness and one of the symptoms is the propensity for imagining fanciful conspiracies, anyone who considers the possibility of a conspiracy is paranoid. False.
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I find the last point the most fascinating, and I think a lot of others do also since it’s at the core of countless movie plots. It provides cover, and thus opportunity, for such by making them taboo for investigation (or disclosure of the investigation).
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BTW, this is not a deflection but right on topic: acceptance of a Russian-Trump conspiracy vs. the acceptance of an Obama-IC conspiracy. As Carrick rightly points out we are talking about conspiracies. Each side now has to enforce consensus to discredit the other’s.
I had a post get moderated. Maybe Lucia can recover it. It beats the dead horse of whether an opinion about the need for investigation of Trump’s administration is the same as a statement of fact about the existence of an FBI investigation of Trump.
As I said in that comment, what I think got Comey fired was his refusal to drop the Russian investigation.
Given some of the crazy opinions given by conservative commentators on the right-wing news about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, there’s nothing amazing about seeing similar crazy opinions voiced by people like Jonathan Turley, who certainly is suffering from Trump Derangement Disorder.
There’s also nothing amazing that the balance of conservative to liberal commentators varies between networks. I find none of these people interesting enough to watch live, but do monitor the ones that I think aren’t total lunatics.
(I think Turley is deranged, as are Robert Reich and Dan Rather. They aren’t people I monitor, other than in the way you monitor a lunatic asylum.)
Hunter–this really is a big “nothing burger”. Trump is in no more danger of being removed from office over Comey’s testimony than I personally am in danger of being appointed the next President.
Comey’s moral failure is to refuse to state clearly on a timely basis that there was no investigation of Trump personally. He was fired for being a Pontius Pilate type of player. ” no crime here but go ahead and kill the pesky outsider.” And no Trump is not Jesus so don’t go there.The felony leaks and the FBI declining to take them seriously while egging on the Russian bs is enough to fire Comey. His inability to prevent Boston or San Diego was enough to fire him. His slow walking Hillary was enough to fire him. Now he presents his movie treatment style”testimony” to further egg on this dangerous theater. Eff him.
Carrick,
“I think Turley is deranged”
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Wow. From Wiki:
Jonathan Turley (born May 6, 1961) is an American lawyer, legal scholar, writer, commentator, and legal analyst in broadcast and print journalism. He is currently a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School.
Turley holds the Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law at The George Washington University Law School where he teaches torts, criminal procedure, and constitutional law. He is the youngest person to receive an academic chair in the school’s history. He runs the Project for Older Prisoners (POPS),[5][6] the Environmental Law Clinic, and the Environmental Legislation Project.[1]
Prior to joining the George Washington University, he was on the faculty of Tulane University Law School.[1]
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I suspect some people would disagree with your analysis of Turley.
Carrick,
I have no idea where the post went!! It’s not in moderated or spam.
Lucia,
I suspect the Russians… or Trump. 😉
Perhaps it’s Hillary Clinton’s IT people.
Ron, the problem with the Clinton mass murderer theory goes way beyond simply the extreme nature of the theory. It goes to the absolute lack of credible evidence, whether it be the multiple criminal investigations of Frank Seth Rich or Vincent Foster finding no evidence of criminal conspiracy.
Given five different official investigations of Foster and the amount of collusion that would have been required to keep an actual criminal conspiracy quiet, the Killary crowd still thinks she was responsible for Foster’s death.
In the case of the Russians, well this actually happened:
Russian hackers with ties to the Russian government did hack the DNC, and they did provide emails to Wikileaks. We know these things as facts. It’s possible, though unlikely, the hackers were working without approval from key individuals in the Russian government.
And we know that numerous people associated with Trump’s campaign had contacts with Russian officials. Many of those contacts were misrepresented. Some of those people (Monafort, Flynn, Paige for starts) are probably facing legal action. Some of these people were targets of attempts by Russia to influence the Trump campaign.
None of this implies Trump did anything wrong himself (other than possibly poor judgement with the people he associated with). Nor do I know of any reason to cast suspicion on Trump himself. But clearly there are people associated with Trump who face legal jeopardy over their behavior during the campaign.
I can accept the latter because there are facts to back it up. I can’t accept the former because, the theory is bereft of anything that looks like real facts and requires laws of human behavior that exist in comic books or cheesy novels but not the real universe.
SteveF, to be clear, I think Tuley is deranged in his comments about Trump, I wasn’t questioning his pedigree. Robert Reich has a very good pedigree too, but he’s still nuts (in general).
Lucia-thanks for trying. This really is a dead horse, so they can have the last turn at beating it. I love the Clinton IT speculation. lol.
Carrick
I love the Clinton IT speculation. lol.
I think the Clintons also introduce typos and spelling errors in my comments here, at Twitter and generally all over the web. Otherwise, my comments would always be impeccable.
Could be. It is now clear that every outlandish and irrational claim must be taken seriously, even in the complete absence of evidence.
SteveF, which claims are you referring to which are outlandish and irrational and lack any evidence?
Perhaps it’s Hillary Clinton’s IT people.
Hillary is not smiling. 🙂
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Carrick, your assertion that it’s only Trump’s people colluded with the Russians (without his knowledge) is both an unsound theory and a misrepresentation for the 24-7 Russian-Trump conspiracy binge.
Carrick,
“Some of those people (Monafort, Flynn, Paige for starts) are probably facing legal action. Some of these people were targets of attempts by Russia to influence the Trump campaign.”
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I agree some do face legal action…. either for tax evasion or the catchall of “saying something to a federal investigator which was not completely accurate”, even when not under oath. If prosecuted for anything other than tax evasion, I would bet they are never convicted. Too bad you are not a betting man.
Carrick,
“I think Tuley is deranged in his comments about Trump”
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Was he also deranged when he said Obama acted on multiple occasions to subvert the rule of law? Serious question.
Ron Graf, I never said “only”.
SteveF, if I were you, I wouldn’t be against charges against Paul Manafort, at least in the Ukraine.
Not completely accurate” is a bit different than “deliberately misrepresented.” For example, Flynn lied to the DIA about receiving money from Russia and Turkey.
I wouldn’t bet either way on this. Normally this meets the bar needed for prosecution. Given the current environment in Washington this could well morph into “tax evasion”. But that doesn’t mask the seriousness of what he actually did.
Re: Comey & Russia investigation
I read Comey’s prepared remarks about his interactions with Trump. There is zero, absolutely nada, in them that indicates any wrongdoing by Trump. (People could argue bad judgment. On that issue I am neutral.) I would add that I see zero wrong with the way that Comey handled the matter in the way described in the remarks. Trump and Comey simply have different views of what their relationship should be.
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The significance of the lack of evidence of wrongdoing by Trump is that it shows the biased and malevolent attitude of the Leftist media towards Trump. He has every right to ask Comey to lay off. Comey can resist. In the bigger picture, this is all a kerfuffle over nothing. It is not illegal to influence elections. (If the actions of Israel’s supporters in the US were examined through the prism of the idea that it is wrongful to work with a foreign government to influence US elections,I think that very interesting questions would arise.) Democrats are simply manufacturing an issue out of hate in their attempt to impale Trump in any way possible. The Left Wing media is working as an ally of the Democrats while falsely claiming to be reasonably objective. (See NYTs ads, laughably claiming that the NYTs is guided by the truth)
JD
Carrick,
I woulds say the media’s treatment of Obama was fawning, Clinton(s) not so much. They cut her little slack, but always made it clear that she was preferred (but flawed) over Trump. They report Clinton’s flaws, but obsess over Trump’s every move. It’s a standard confirmation bias thing I think.
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Clinton conspiracy theories do get out of hand. It’s like Trump, Clinton does a perfectly adequate job of making herself look bad so need to pile on.
SteveF: I haven’t seen those comments so it’s hard for me to judge.
Turley came across (at least when I watched him) as highly emotional and reflexive in his comments about Trump. It’s in that sense that I meant “deranged”. It’s possible Turley makes outrageous comments on CNN that pays the bills.
Ron Graf,
“I think it is natural tribalism, spawned by the lack of fear instilling national enemies.”
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Totally agree. Familiarity breeds contempt as they say. There is nothing for the left/right to unite over so they spend their free time throwing rocks at each other. It’s too peaceful for there to be peace, ha ha.
JD Ohio–thanks for the comments. I would say Trump’s requests certainly had a bad outcome. That speaks to the quality of his judgement.
Tom Scharf,
Well… Trump has some unfortunate moves.
I kinda like Melania. A first lady who pretty much sits back and practically nothing in public?! What a breath of fresh air!!
Mind you, I suspect Melania and I aren’t at all similar types and we would find little in common. Although if her mom handed down a good potica recipe, I’d try to make it. Potica is delicious.
Hmm… Maybe I’ll tweet her and ask her to post one?
Re: Media Bias
From AOL “Some legal experts said Comey’s testimony could strengthen any impeachment case in Congress to remove Trump from office built on an allegation of obstruction of justice.” https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/06/08/comey-accuses-trump-administration-of-lies-and-defamation/22132648/ No citations of the “experts” (I am sure there are some lawyers who did say what AOL is stating. It doesn’t mean that they really know what they are talking about. Don’t look at AOL as major news source. However, couldn’t miss it while checking some of my email accounts) No citations of any wrongdoing that Trump is alleged to have done. Appears to be based on the incorrect idea that Trump stopping an investigation, in and of itself, is obstruction of justice, which is clearly wrong. If Clinton or Obama was accused of the same thing, I am quite confident many people in what used to be the mainstream media would be explaining his executive role and what prosecutorial discretion is.
JD
JD Ohio (Comment #162805) ,
Yep. That’s how I see it.
Trump detractors and GOP opponents are trying to paint bad judgement as criminal. Mind you, that’s what politicians do if they think sturm und drang advances their political agenda, or at least curbs the other sides political agenda. That’s why bad judgement in a president is a very, very bad thing. But bad judgement is what this looks like.
Trump? Bad judgement. What. A. Surprise. (Not!)
I’ve decided to ask Melania for a family Potica recipe. If she publishes one, remember it was my idea.
Ron Graf:
Carrick, your assertion that it’s only Trump’s people colluded with the Russians (without his knowledge) is both an unsound theory and a misrepresentation for the 24-7 Russian-Trump conspiracy binge.
Sorry but this mischaracterization doesn’t fly with me.
I have said absolutely nothing about Trump’s people colluding with the Russian government, and certainly not on the matter of Russian interference in the 2016 US elections. (I don’t even think this ever happened.)
Certainly Trump isn’t going to be aware of every meeting his staff members have, nor would necessarily be aware of the money that Flynn received from Russia and Turkey.
I don’t see anything inconsistent about that.
Added:
There is by the way, absolutely no reasonable doubt that the meetings occurred and that moneys from foreign governments were received (by multiple Trump staff members by the way).
I would say that the media’s excitement over Trump’s self inflicted trauma has ventured into glee a little too often. They love big stories and need to manufacture news when there isn’t any, but if anyone in the media is thinking removing Trump is a bad thing I’m not picking up on it. I have seen a few articles that state it would be bad in the sense that Pence may govern better etc. The least convincing speeches in history will be the “sad day for America” diatribes from the media that would be put out if Trump is removed.
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The bar to remove Trump is really quite high. It should be high for any President to start with and the right controls Congress. Congress has to be convinced and more importantly Trump supporters needs to be not just dissatisfied with him, but actively calling for his removal. Given the polarization and the reasons Trump got sent to DC in the first place, it is going to take a lot for this to happen. The establishment calling for his removal prematurely only validates Trump supporter’s views and hardens their position.
There is bad judgment, and then there is lack of experience. Trump having never been in government has come in and tried to do things “his way or the highway” and this has caused a lot of kerfuffle because he is doing things differently.
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The question is whether this different is bad judgment or not. Some clearly is bad, self inflicted wounds where nothing is gained.
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But what happens if he dutifully becomes DC experienced? He turns into an Obama / Romney / Clinton political robot that is nearly impossible to decode. Saying all the “right” things that the media expects to hear and the media die from boredom. I’m so sick of political robots that Trump is a nice change albeit not a dream candidate. I want politicians to change into human beings and for the media to stop holding them to an impossible unforgiving standard that just makes them fake wax statues that only resemble humans. I don’t like the stale rules of conduct.
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One part of experience though is learning what happens when you dump on DC veterans that run powerful agencies.
Lucia: I think the real “treasure” that Trump’s detractors are aiming for is painting him as having such poor judgement that you simply can’t trust him. Trump is helping them of course with things like the Comey firing and his mishandling of Obamacare repeal.
That would, I think, severely limit his capacity to accomplish anything significant, so that may be the real political goal here of his enemies, which are many (rather than his probably unobtainable removal from office).
Tom Scharf: I just want to see some of the real problems we are facing addressed. Bad judgement that prevents this from happening is a serious problem. Lack of experience also makes it more difficult, even if his followers find it sexy for him to be incompetent.
He said that nothing Comey relates about Trump is “obstruction of justice”.
From his prepared statement, Comey appears to think that the FBI is an independent agency. That might have been effectively true when J. Edgar Hoover was director, but it isn’t now and shouldn’t have been then. That’s insubordination. And, of course, that’s not the only time he’s engaged in insubordination.
Carrick,
“even if his followers find it sexy for him to be incompetent.”
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Nobody I know is happy about his many (obvious) mistakes.
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I certainly find nothing about his errors ‘sexy’. I find most all his ‘tweeting’ both foolish and counterproductive. They open him to the kind of relentless attack and exaggeration of his errors by the MSM which pleases only those who oppose his policy goals. He spends far too much time and energy fighting his political opponents and not enough time nominating people for judgeships and political appointments.
DeWitt,
“From his prepared statement, Comey appears to think that the FBI is an independent agency.”
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For certain. Congress didn’t help by setting the term of an appointment to 10 years… which I think suggests they wanted the FBI to be independent of the President. It is a wacky idea. There are only three branches of government in the Constitution, and Congress can’t create another by passing legislation. Executive functions are the sole responsibility of the President.
SteveF: “Congress didn’t help by setting the term of an appointment to 10 years… which I think suggests they wanted the FBI to be independent of the President.”
That is the opposite of the actual situation. The FBI director does not have a term of 10 years; he serves at the pleasure of the President. That is just like any other executive appointment with one big exception: he is *not allowed* to serve for more than 10 years without specific approval from Congress. That was done to prevent another J. Edgar Hoover, who acted like the head of a 4th branch of government.
The press has depicted the firing of Comey as extraordinary, but it was not. Since the term limit was introduced, there have been five FBI directors. Exactly one (Mueller) reached the 10 year limit; Congress granted him permission to stay in office for a couple extra years. One (appointed by Carter) would have reached the 10 year limit, but shortly before that happened he was appointed by Reagan to head the CIA. Two were fired (by Clinton and Trump) and one was forced to resign by Bush the Younger.
Comey had friend leak memo notes to NYT. My first thought was “he can’t do that”. Apparently he can or he wouldn’t have said it out loud. Comey isn’t going to say anything that has potential legal blow back because he is…ahem…experienced. It does seem a bit unseemly. Why not just release them himself? Not helpful for him.
SteveF—I had Jonathan Tuley and Jeffrey Toobin confused. Sorry. I’d plead old age, but name aphasia has been there with me since a kid.
Tuley’s comments that you linked look completely sane to me and pretty much reflect my non-expert opinion on this.
Re: Trump Claimed Bad Judgment
I don’t agree that Trump is guilty of bad judgment. I agree that there are two reasonable sides to the issue. Whether the FBI can in a practical matter be objective is worthy of serious debate. Much worse than Trump’s “bad judgment” is the media’s uninformed and often malicious criticism of Trump.
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On a related but not, identical subject, I agree that Trump made the right decision in firing Comey. Intrinsically, Comey is simply a loose cannon.
JD
JD,
There is no doubt that firing Comey was correct looking at it now. If you have an employee that is actively working against you and the goals of your company, they should get fired. Comey recording everything Trump said and leaking notes to the NYT shows his focus is not on America but on this petty dispute. I expect these so-called elite professionals to do their job irregardless of who is in office, in fact that is the very definition of professional. My perception is they are way too wrapped up in DC drama then looking for terrorists and hardening US infrastructure from foreign IT attacks.
Tom Sharf,
There is bad judgment, and then there is lack of experience. Trump having never been in government has come in and tried to do things “his way or the highway†and this has caused a lot of kerfuffle because he is doing things differently.
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Sure. But deciding to take on something that impacts many other people when you have no experience is frequently bad judgement. It’s one thing to be a bit ambitious and willing to reach, but at a certain point, one hits over reaching much too much.
Trump put himself in a position for which he has little or no experience.
My theory remains that when he entered the race he never dreamed he’d win. Then, surprised he was doing well, he stayed in. Nevertheless, taking on the job of US president when one has practically no relevant experience while other people do falls in the realm of bad judgement.
But what happens if he dutifully becomes DC experienced? He turns into an Obama / Romney / Clinton political robot that is nearly impossible to decode.
Not necessarily. Lots of his bad judgement has nothing to do with being easy to decode. I don’t think his bad judgement in dealing with Comey falls in a category like that. I think due to lack of experience he doesn’t know the range of appropriate things he is allowed, he doesn’t have foresight in what can happen in DC and he ends up acting like the proverbial bull in the china shop. It’s blundering.
One could be not-a-robot without becoming a blundering bull in a china shop.
Someone did bring up a point that Comey was effectively trying to entrap Trump. Comey felt he was being pressured to drop the investigation of Flynn but * never actually told Trump * that Trump’s questions were inappropriate and then began recording everything Trump said to him which can be interpreted as building a secret case against Trump. It’s entirely believable that Trump just didn’t agree with Comey on the rules of engagement and Trump understood he was the boss of the FBI. Trump isn’t exactly subtle when communicating what he wants.
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AFAICT the most memorable thing that happened today was Comey admitting he leaked his documents to the NYT which makes him look like yet another partisan actor with his knife out.
Tom Scharf,
Honestly, I think Trump might be better off if he had been more direct.
When Comey told him he was not under investigation, he should have consulted with legal eagles and asked if them to judge the legal basis of the following:
Telling Comey that in Trump’s view, the FBI was a part of the executive branch and that as such, he could order the FBI to set aside the “protocol” of not telling people the president is not the subject of an investigation. Comey could have advised whatever he advised, but I suspect that the President can order them to not follow said protocol for reasons the President thinks important.
The President may judge wrongly. Carrick has listed good reasons why the FBI doesn’t ordinarily tell anyone whether someone is the subject of an investigation. But I don’t think FBI internal protocol, however well meaning or justified, overrides the fact that they fall in the executive branch. So: even if the President is ultimately wrong in his jugement, it seems to me that would be the Presidents call.
If Comey refused, the President could fire him for failing to follow orders. He could even state which specific one.
Of course maybe I’m wrong. That’s why I think Trump would need to consult a legal team and learn his basis.
But it seems to me that the FBI doesn’t have the authority to override an order like this which, after all, is not telling them to halt any investigation. It is not asking them to lie. It’s not even entirely clear it badly harms any investigation of Trump’s staff.
Even if it did harm some other investigation, my view is tough cookies. Lots of things happen that interfere with investigations. Presumably FBI agents wear big boy pants and can deal with inconvenient facts on the ground that might complicate their investigation.
If Trump had done the above, his actions would be entirely straightforward. Some people would have been upset– but so? There would be no slightly ambiguous questioning of Comey, no question he told Comey his position on the line of authority and so on.
So, in my view, part of Trump’s problem was trying to be cagey and play politics– just like any politician. But he bungled that attempt.
Tom
Trump isn’t exactly subtle when communicating what he wants.
Actually, if Comey’s rendition of what was said at that table is accurate or close to, Trump was actually trying to be subtle. I think he may have been so subtle Comey misunderstood him. For example Comey write
My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that thiswas our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship.
That concerned me greatly, given the FBI’s traditionally independent status in the executive branch.
Now: here, Comey clearly thinks Trump is trying to be subtle. I also think so. But I don’t think Trump was trying to encourage a patronage relationship. My guess is Trump as trying to get him to volunteer to resign.
I also think Comey tries to be overly clever, and I think he is hallucinating when he claims:
The term – honest loyalty – had helped
end a very awkward conversation and my explanations had made clear what he should expect.
In fact, it’s rather odd thinking for Comey to both claim “it is
possible we understood the phrase “honest loyalty†differently, but I decided it wouldn’t be productive to push it further” and later think his meaning had been clear.
On this in comey
He repeatedly told me, “We need
to get that fact out.†(I did not tell the President that the FBI and the Department of Justice had been reluctant to make public statements that we did not have an open case on President Trump for a number of reasons, most importantly because it would create a duty to correct, should that change.)
First: Why didn’t Comey explain this? I don’t expect anyone to answer that. But it seems to me Comey did not because he wants to be cagey and get to remain the “boss”, implementing his preferences over the Chief Executive and doing so by avoiding engagement. This worked for a time because Trump is inexperienced with this. That’s my view here– could be wrong.
Second: I get the reason for their reluctance. But it seems to me that the FBI and Department of Justice’s reluctance and their reasons, even if good, can legally be over-ridden by the Chief Executive. Who. Is. Currently. Trump.
I suspect Comey knew that if he came out directly and said they were ‘reluctant’, Trump would escalate to figuring out that he was going to have to order the behavior. But– not previously being the President– he thought he should use persuasion. That wasn’t going to work.
Trump erred either not recognizing this or not exercising his authority here. Comey wanted to be the boss of bosses and he was going to resort to every passive aggressive trick in the book to be there.
Did Trump mishandle this: Yeppers. But Comey looks like a passive-aggressive operator to me on this one.
Rubio asked Comey why he didn’t leak the “Trump not under investigation” part of the conversation and Comey said “he didn’t know”. If Comey leaked all the notes to his friends and the NYT saw them all, they seemed to have forgotten to report on that part.
JD Ohio
I agree that Trump made the right decision in firing Comey. Intrinsically, Comey is simply a loose cannon.
Absolutely.
Comey’s testimony is far too literary. It is a novelization, not a testimony.
It would seem that actually obstructing justice would be an important part of the charge. Comey didn’t halt anything, only vaguely understood he was being asked to, and went on. This all ends up with “I think I was being asked to halt an investigation and I didn’t”. Trump can simply respond, “I wasn’t ordering him to do that, and if I was it would have been crystal clear”. My best guess is that Trump was trying for a quid pro quo to help Flynn out with plausible deniability.
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The failure of Comey to not actually halt the investigation and to not attempt to clear up the question at hand is going to doom the obstruction accusation I think. Comey could have just asked if he was being ordered to do that and there wouldn’t be anything to talk about. He didn’t. End of case.
The administration chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI by saying the organization was in disarray … those were lies,” Comey said.
I can’t help wondering how a leaking FBI with a head who leaks is not in disarray. I guess Comey wouldn’t think so since it’s doing what he wants.
Comey wouldn’t say that Trump is not under investigation, but complied with Lynch’s demands to not call their investigation of Hillary an investigation.
Trump was not under investigation because it is not a criminal investigation, but a counterintelligence investigation. The target is Russia. Everyone else is incidental, and any interviews are for informational purposes, not to get prosecutions.
My guess is Comey was going to let this whole thing go, took notes for CYA, got unceremoniously fired and humiliated, and then had a temper tantrum. Part of Trump’s bad judgment is his desire for vindication, not just winning, and the humiliation of the loser. Realistically he is addicted to this type of drama and enjoys it.
lucia (Comment #162829): “Trump having never been in government has come in and tried to do things “his way or the highway†and this has caused a lot of kerfuffle because he is doing things differently.”
I think that is correct. A lot of people, me included, think that it is high time to do things differently in Washington and voted for Trump for that reason.
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lucia: “But deciding to take on something that impacts many other people when you have no experience is frequently bad judgement. It’s one thing to be a bit ambitious and willing to reach, but at a certain point, one hits over reaching much too much.
Trump put himself in a position for which he has little or no experience.”
Well, yes. No one has experience being President except ex-Presidents. I don’t see how being a Senator constitutes better experience than being a successful business man. It certainly didn’t seem to help Obama.
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lucia: “I think due to lack of experience he doesn’t know the range of appropriate things he is allowed, he doesn’t have foresight in what can happen in DC and he ends up acting like the proverbial bull in the china shop.”
OK, that is one way in which Obama’s experience was much better than Trump’s. He was familiar with the unwritten rules as to what the President is allowed to do by the establishment. If ignoring those rules is “bad judgement” then I voted for Trump *because* I was hoping that he would display monumentally bad judgement. So far, I am not disappointed.
Clintons are mass-murderers, there are many people who will accuse them of this under your definition 4 or more.
The Boys on the Tracks, if I am remembering right this was published in the Wall Street Journal and was pushed by Pat Robertson for awhile. I think it had something to do with drugrunning out of Mena airport. Not sure how many still believe this but it was big for the early years of his presidency. I think this is 2 boys.
Vince Foster 1.
Seth Rich 1
Ron Brown 1, found with bullet hole. However, you have to account for the plane crash, and you have mass murder by itself.
TWA 800, I think people just call it a coverup, either of a terrorist attack or an accidental Navy shootdown. At best the government was on high alert and failed. I’ll call this one 0.
Waco, some say Hillary was the deciding factor here. However, there is no real conspiracy theory. Let’s say 0 again.
Disappearing people- There was a list of various adversaries and compadres who dies ‘mysteriously’ that was circulating at the end of Clinton’s presidency. Dick Morris said that the lawyers involved in impeachment were talking about it too. I don’t remember how large the list was.
Chinese embassy bombing in Serbia. Accidental bombing that was to cover up their scandals.
I think all of these are still believed by some.
The FBI is in disarray (a state of disorganization or untidiness) is a “lie”? Those are opinions actually. If Trump believes the FBI is in disarray then it isn’t a lie, it is either being uninformed, having a different standard, or perhaps even being correct. Comey is defending his agency which is fine, he is expected to do so. He could have just said he disagrees with that assessment.
Comey is flat out lying about the disarray. Last fall there’s as a near mutiny over his bizarre sift glove treatment of Hillary when he decided that actual criminal behavior was not inevitable. He lies about his concerns over the leaks because he likely one of the leakers. He lies about his integrity when he allowed Obama to publicly prejudice the investigation into Hillary. And he lies about his caring for the nation by enabling this Russian bs to fester
Comey didn’t leak until after he was fired. It’s not clear that anyone else at the FBI leaked anything.
Trump opponents got nothing from Comey’s testimony because they oversold it. If they hadn’t been peddling Russia collusion, money laundering, prostitutes, secret server communications with a bank, etc., then Comey’s saying Trump tried to influence the Flynn investigation was potentially impeachment level.
I thought Comey leaking the memo was a bit bizarre, but good on him to confess to it. As to his making memos, that’s well known—remember Ashcroft?
Regarding Comey confirming that Trump wasn’t a target of the investigation:
Some of you guys have misplaced outrage here and seem to be operating under the misimpression that Comey took this knowledge with him when he left the FBI and only revealed it yesterday, and that’s the only reason we learned about it yesterday instead of earlier.
But actually:
• Obviously after Comey left, the acting director could have relayed this information.
• Sessions or Rosenstein could have been ordered it released, but didn’t.
• Finally, Trump could have ordered the DOJ to have it released after the first time Comey confirmed to him he was under investigation in February, but didn’t.
I will speculate that Fox News hasn’t even noticed that somebody else could have confirmed the absence of an investigation to the public.
General principle that applies to all organizations: It’s always easier to scapegoat a f***up that’s left than it is to deal with the f***ups that remain.
MikeN, the Killary list has grown long indeed. I blame too many DC Comic Universe movies (the Batman series in particular).
Here’s a body count list I found by googling, that was posted last year:
Trump put himself in a position for which he has little or no experience.â€
Well, yes. No one has experience being President except ex-Presidents.
Sure. That’s trivially true. But being governor gives you experience as executive in an American government system. Being in Congress, the diplomatic corp and so on gives you experience with the way the Fed. gov. works. Trump comes in with bubkiss. This is a salient difference.
I absolutely do not think being a successful business man develops the skills involved in being Chief Exective of the US. That Trump clearly had not developed these skills tend to support my view rather than that of those who thought it might.
Carrick,
It’s not outrage, it is the selective release of information that gets to bias. If Comey only selectively leaked information to make Trump look bad, then he is not a neutral actor and his opinion of what he thinks he thinks he was told is colored either directly or indirectly. It’s a minor point. If it is a he said / she said then there isn’t a case here because the words themselves are ambiguous.
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One needs to look at this through both lenses, Trump actually guilty and Trump actually innocent. As far as the words go here, I don’t think you can discriminate with Trump’s behavior whether it is now more likely one or the other. His behavior can be plausibly explained by both. Also remember that the anti-Trump case involves a grand conspiracy that is bit hard to believe, but not impossible to believe.
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This is another of those really great cases where people’s prior assumptions end up equating to their conclusions. It is OJ Simpson all over again, although I would say the evidence there was a bit more damning. But I would say that based on my priors, ha ha.
MikeN
Oh? I’m not so sure about that. One NYT article says Comey authorized Witte to talk about things after he was fired. But Comey was certainly taking to Wittes before that:
Mr. Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, the editor in chief of the Lawfare blog and a frequent critic of Mr. Trump, recalls a lunch he had with Mr. Comey in March at which Mr. Comey told him he had spent the first two months of Mr. Trump’s administration trying to preserve distance between the F.B.I. and the White House and educating it on the proper way to interact with the bureau.
Mr. Wittes said he never intended to publicly discuss his conversations with Mr. Comey. But after The New York Times reported earlier this month that shortly after his inauguration Mr. Trump asked Mr. Comey for a loyalty pledge, Mr. Wittes said he saw Mr. Trump’s behavior in a “more menacing light†and decided to speak out.
Comey was fired in May. The discussion Comey is said to have had with Wittes in March aligns pretty well with the contents of “the leak”.
I will also point out that if Comey really had it in for Trump the whole time he would have halted the Flynn investigation and then assert it was an order. This would be a better case.
Lucia, this guy is at Brookings, not a newspaper. It wasn’t a leak, and he didn’t speak up until after Comey was fired.
Carrick
I will speculate that Fox News hasn’t even noticed that somebody else could have confirmed the absence of an investigation to the public.
The second bit– that someone else could have confirmed it– is the reason I say Trump mis-managed this. I think he could have ordered any number of people to confirm this. He could have ordered Comey. That he seems to have attempted an indirect expressing of ‘hoping’ something in the presence of someone who was kinda sorta going to think that might be verging on an order but who was kinda sorta going to act like it was not… That was Trump’s bungle.
Lots of people bungle when dealing with passive-aggresive types. Comey seems to have a strong streak of that. But a strong executive who knew he held the authority for something should know how to deal with that. Trump evidently does not.
lucia,
It’s kind of funny you brought up Wittes. I randomly ended up at Lawfare yesterday and came across Witte’s rather tortured conclusion that Trump was never told he wasn’t under investigation, this even after Comey’s written testimony was released. It seemed to be a bit of an alternate universe explanation.
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“Put simply, this emphatically does not amount to Trump’s blanket statement that he was assured multiple times that he was not under investigation.”
. https://www.lawfareblog.com/initial-comments-james-comeys-written-testimony
.
CNN actually reported Comey was going to testify he never told Trump that and then had to retract the story. http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/comey-testimony-refute-trump-russian-investigation/
.
“CORRECTION AND UPDATE: This article was published before Comey released his prepared opening statement. The article and headline have been corrected to reflect that Comey does not directly dispute that Trump was told multiple times he was not under investigation in his prepared testimony released after this story was published.”
MikeN
Lucia, this guy is at Brookings, not a newspaper. It wasn’t a leak, and he didn’t speak up until after Comey was fired.
I didn’t say he was with a newspaper. I also don’t see how leaking information to Brookings rather than a newspaper makes it not a leak. And Wittes saying nothing until after Comey was fired doesn’t make turn a leak into not-a-leak.
Disclosure of information that security or protocol would ordinarily dictate as private is a leak whether the info was disseminated to a newspaper and whether or not the person who got the info decided to convey it to others.
I think the private meetings with heads of members of the executive branch are ordinarily considered private. A president ought to be able to have such conversations without the details being conveyed to the public. A person at Brookings is a member of the public. So in my view: this is a leak by the head of the FBI. It’s not illegal but that doesn’t make it not a leak.
By the way: this conversation in March would prove that when Comey was reluctant to pledge loyalty, it was likely because he had every intention of being disloyal. Because these sorts of leaks of private conversations with the President are certainly disloyal to the Office of the President.
>I also don’t see how leaking information to Brookings rather than a newspaper makes it not a leak.
If it’s with the intent of going into a Brookings press release or paper, then it’s a leak. If it is just talking to a friend, then it is not a leak. If the friend is a reporter, then it is arguably still a leak as you have expectation it would end up in a story. Maybe the President didn’t get as private a conversation as he intended, but it is unreasonably to say you can never discuss things with anyone you know.
Comey didn’t even tell him all the details, just that he’s trying to stay distant and ‘training’ the White House to butt out, Trump asked for loyalty was told in general terms.
That concerned me greatly, given the FBI’s traditionally independent status in the executive branch.
I should have left off the ‘appears to’ qualifier in my earlier post about how Comey appears to think the FBI is an independent agency. He said it flat out. There is no such thing as a police force independent of the political system at any level in the US. The closest thing would probably be a county sheriff who is elected on his own rather than appointed. County sheriff’s have been known to abuse this independence.
But Comey was appointed, not elected and the FBI isn’t a politically separate agency like a county sheriff’s office. Maybe they still yearn for the Hoover days.
MikeN,
Two people can keep a secret only if one of them is dead. If you tell someone who doesn’t have a need to know something, you’ve leaked it. It may or may not become public knowledge.
MikeN
If it is just talking to a friend, then it is not a leak.
In my book, disclosing the contents of private conversations with the President of the United states with a friend who regularly blogs about political goings on at a widely read “Lawfare” blog is a leak. I realize it might be tough on people who are in politics, but this conversation isn’t in the same category as having a heart to heart conversation about how you feel about your ageing ailing cat with your BFF from high school. This is a leak.
The fact that Comey later authorized dissemination only confirms this is a leak.
DeWitt,
I don’t think it would be improper for Trump to just come out and say the IC / FBI are not independent entities and they need to stop pretending they are. They need to understand the constitutional checks and balances and who is on that list and who isn’t. At the same time he can say he has no plans to change anything, but if they continue to misbehave with leaks heads will roll. Ahem…elections have consequences.
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I’m all for that. I also understand how that would go over in the current environment, with a massive thud.
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He can also direct them to immediately release any and all information they have regarding the Russian investigation. If I’m Trump I am sick of this sh** and they are pressing his hand. Let the world know what we got, sources and methods be damned. Everyone pretends there is something there, and if Trump wants the cloud gone, he can make them release the cloud.
Thinking further, the standard of ‘just talking to a friend’ ≠“not a leak” would mean that if Comey was in bed with his bff Svetlana, and while “just talk(ing)” to her mentioned this whole deal, without authorizing her to report it, then it’s magically “not a leak”. But it clearly is a leak, and a dangerous one if Svetlana turns out to be a Rooooosian agent. It’s a leak whether or not Svetlana’s people published the info at a blog, newspaper, twitter or kept it to themselves for strategic advantage.
Beyond that: Wittes writes blog posts published at a widely read Lawfare blog. He is a columnist. He may not be at the NYT, but with respect to disseminating information, bloggers at widely read outfits an publicize leaked information just as well and the NYT or Huffpo.
but it is unreasonably to say you can never discuss things with anyone you know.
Nonsense. If someone has a security clearance, there are things the can never discuss with anyone they know. If you sign a non-disclosure and share with someone you know, you can end up with tort liability. In business, there is confidential information that if you share with others constitutes a leak.
So yes, you can call something “a leak” if they share it with someone who they just happen to know. Comey’s sharing private conversations with Trump with his a blogger is a leak.
Lucia, “The second bit– that someone else could have confirmed it– is the reason I say Trump mis-managed this. ”
….
The problem with this point of view is that much of the public at large and Congress would not believe the information if it came from anyone other than Comey.
JD
Lucia—I definitely think that Trump has bungled the entire Russia story, so it’s not just limited to his mis-reading of Comey. If he had wanted to keep the flames alive, he couldn’t have done it much differently.
Whether the disclosure to Wittes would a “leak” depends on whether Comey was authorized to disclose that information. I would guess that non-classified information (and not falling under Executive Privilege) pertaining to a conversation Comey had with the President would not be considered privileged.
There are also circumstances where Wittes would be authorized to receive certain types of privileged information. For example, if Wittes were on a contract (e.g., as a legal consultant) then Comey could share that information at his discretion. Wittes would in that case still be on the hook though, because non-disclosure of privileged information is usually part of the contracts you sign for this type of work.
Anyway it gets complicated.
Tom Scharf—regarding the leaks, I think a lot of them are internal to the Trump administration itself. Trump seems to think so too.
I think there are two main groups, the ex-military types on one side, and the Breitbarts on the other. I believe they have been leaking harmful inside information about the other group as part of an ongoing internal power struggle.
JD Ohio—always a judgement call, but I think people would be a lot more likely to believe a definitive statement from the DOJ than they would the media. Also, Comey himself admitted he could have been ordered by the DOJ to divulge this information. As people have pointed out, a lot of his complaints about Trump really boil down to Trump not following the proper chain of command, rather than Trump asking for inappropriate things.
Wittes writes
There was no leak from Comey, no leak from anyone else at the FBI, and no leak from anyone outside of the bureau either—just conversations between friends, the contents of which one friend is now disclosing.
Putin must be loving this. The Russian destabilization campaign, whatever it actually was, has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. What people don’t understand is that I doubt he or his spies cared who won the election as long as the election itself was tarnished.
Carrick,
Of course the details of a private meeting between Comey and Trump would be privileged under executive privilege if nothing else. Otherwise there would have been no need for it to be private.
In fact, Trump might have been able to prevent Comey from testifying about anything he did as FBI director under the doctrine of executive privilege. But Trump publicly elected to not do that.
DeWitt–honestly, this is what you get when you have a Reality-TV star running the country.
From discussions I’ve had, I don’t get the impression the Russians like this very much at all (it’s actually pushed the US-Russian relationship to the worst it’s been since the Cold War), though I know they’re glad that Hillary isn’t in power.
Considering the bits I saw and the highly prejudicial and obviously orchestrated manner of his presentation, as well as his prior deception where he claimed that there was no pressure, Comey is not only a source of leaks but likely orchestrated leaks for awhile. He seems likely to have kept the Russian bs going to have power over President Trump. We know he participated in whitewashing Hillary. His press conference was proof. Now we see him full of self righteous justification 0persecuting an innocent President just Roche could get an independent prosecutor. We are watching the deep state in action.
De Witt, This is the democrat party campaign to destabilize America, not the Russian.
DeWitt:
Of course the details of a private meeting between Comey and Trump would be privileged under executive privilege if nothing else. Otherwise there would have been no need for it to be private.
It’s not obvious at all to me it’s privileged. Comey wasn’t Trump’s lawyer, so there is no lawyer-client privilege.
According to this legal review, the two places where Trump could claim executive privilege are under matters of national security, and for protecting the privacy of certain types of White House deliberations.
This is neither of those.
From the fact he divulged the information while still working at the FBI, I would guess it would depend in this case on the exact statement of Comey’s contract and whether there are Federal regulations that apply to conversations of this nature.
I suppose Wittes is a lawyer and lawyers make arguments irregardless of the facts. He seems to be into a “black is white” argument. I don’t think I’ll ever read anything anything he writes again.
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If Trump wants to have fun with this, he can direct the FBI to investigate Comey’s leak of executive privileged information. I assume he can do that. Trump isn’t afraid to escalate or hit back hard typically.
Carrick,
You read the article differently. Here’s the quote:
Today, executive privilege is considered most legitimate when used to protect, first, certain national security needs, and second, the confidentiality of White House deliberations when it is in the public interest to do so. Related to the second, executive privilege may be appropriate in circumstances where confidentiality is necessary to protect ongoing executive branch investigations.[my emphasis]
Most legitimate does not mean limited to. I would say that a private conversation of a subordinate with the President related to government business was privileged unless it could be shown otherwise.
The conversation of whether news media had been reporting Trump under investigation fell by the wayside. But, this national review article confirms they were:
Rachel Maddow
“Rachel Maddow March 24 headline: “Schumer: Wrong to vote on Gorsuch while Trump under investigation.†Schumer told Maddow that “to have a president under investigation, appoint a lifetime appointment, it’s wrong.â€
You can go to NPR to see evidence newsmedia were reporting Trump was under investigation.
Carrick,
I trust academia lawyers to be unbiased here as much as I expect HRC to blame herself for her loss. It is exactly this type of situation where academia’s opinion can reasonably be assumed to be untrustworthy. They may be correct but it is definitely not the first place I would look for an answer.
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“protecting the privacy of certain types of White House deliberations” seems to be a loophole you can drive a truck through. Leakers should be prosecuted. If they can justify it, fine, but they need to justify it in court.
Tom Scharf:
I trust academia lawyers to be unbiased here as much as I expect HRC to blame herself for her loss.
Great. The argument that works with anything because it says virtually nothing. Find another source that disagrees with it if you don’t like it, but don’t diss it because you don’t like the conclusions.
DeWitt:
I would say that a private conversation of a subordinate with the President related to government business was privileged unless it could be shown otherwise.
I agree with your nuance here about “most legitimate.” I’d be surprised that the President would’t need to clear a private conversation, but again it depends on the details of the conversation.
Lucia: Remember that the original context was Comey’s statement to Trump that Trump wasn’t the subject of an investigation.
Very likely, people associated with him still were and are (esp., Mike Flynn). If you are claiming Comey was saying they aren’t, that’d be real news.
So, sorry I don’t agree that these headlines show what you are claiming they show.
The NYTimes headline:
“F.B.I. Is Investigating Trump’s Russia Ties, Comey Confirms.” That says nothing about Trump being the target of the FBI investigation. Nor could I find any assertion in the body .
And: “Schumer: Wrong to vote on Gorsuch while Trump under investigation.” –that is just Schumer’s characterization of the investigation of course. I suppose people will bitch that a senior Senator gets quoted in the press now.
Lucia,
“You can go to NPR to see evidence newsmedia were reporting Trump was under investigation.”
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Yes, there and a hundred other places. I find it very strange that anyone could actually believe much of the MSM has not been blaring “Trump is under FBI investigation!” The left leaning bias of the MSM has been obvious to me since at least the Reagan administration; that bias is worse than ever since Trump became the Republican candidate last year.
Carrick,
No.
Go look at the voting patterns in every college town. Read a 1000 essays and open letters from academia pre-election about their preferences. What is the ratio of academics supporting Trump over those literally calling him Hitler? I think that number is close enough to zero to be zero. The bias is clear. Can they still write an unbiased viewpoint? Sure, but how can I tell when academia has TDS in spades?
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All that blabber aside, the link is more useful since it was written in 2002, but I refuse to diminish my rant with that fact, ha ha.
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I think it is unlikely Comey will face any legal jeopardy here, but the howls of indignation if he did would be quite entertaining.
Carrick,
Fair enough. Anyway, those are the headlines NationalReview came up with. So that would amount to the evidence for their reporting that.
On trusting academic lawyers…. Seems to me some can be trusted to be balanced. Others not so much. With respect to their blogging, some are discussing legal topics as legal topics. Those tend to be more balanced.
Others are blogging as political pundits or columnists. They tend to be less balanced. But not any less than many columnists.
SteveF:
Lucia,
“You can go to NPR to see evidence newsmedia were reporting Trump was under investigation.â€
.
Yes, there and a hundred other places.
If there are “a hundred other places” then you should have no problems finding one example. (I’m sure it must exists, but “hundreds” seems like the sort of exaggeration you guys, in an other context, are railing against.)
Lucia–the reason I brought this up to start with was because it was my perception that the right was claiming unfair coverage much more often than it seemed to me it was really occurring.
My comment above was that Trump was over-reacting to the coverage partly because he was relying on right-wing media to accurately characterize what the left were reporting. In other words, it’s possible that his over-reaction was created by mis-reporting by right-wing media.
What you’re provided is evidence for the veracity of my comment, rather than for the accuracy of right-wing reporting in this context. NRO certainly is making claims, but the claims don’t seem to hold any water.
Tom Scharf, what is interesting to me now is whether Comey perjured himself in his May 3 testimony. He might have broken a law or two there.
Carrick,
I think the leak occurred after that date? NYT article was May 16. Not clear when Comey actually gave anyone anything. Comey will claim it’s not legally a leak in any case. EDIT: I think we are talking about different things. Comey had testified he has never leaked anything recently, not sure of the date.
Comey is an artful liar. He has been leaking a long time. He was not some innocent virgin over come with outrage. He’s been dancing this for awhile. We now know that he knew there is nothing to the Russian bull shot. He just wanted a special prosecutor because he hates Trump.
Tom Scharf,
Comey will claim it’s not legally a leak in any case.
I think the point Carrick made has to do with whether there is anything illegal in disseminating the info. I suspect Comey will also lean on that– and he has a right to do that if the conversation is discussing legality.
I use “leak” more broadly– but perhaps my usage is wrong. In my view: I think people do expect a certain amount of voluntary non-disclosure of things and that expectation is fair in many circumstances. I would think that if the Office of the Presidency is to function high ranking officials must follow a protocol of not disclosing many conversations.
Which type? I hesitate to use the adjective “sensitive” because that has a specific meaning when we are dealing with “leaks”. But there is information that is “sensitive” in the more every day sense. For example: I might confide something personal to my mom, best friend or husband with the expectation they aren’t going to decide to disclose that to their mom, husband or husbands best friend and so on. If I’m pretty sure they knew I didn’t want others to know that info, and they disclose it, I might consider their behavior to be a sort of “leak”. If I discover the person I confided in does disclose, I might be angry. Maybe if I’m huffy I will express it… but whether or not I do, I will cease to confide in them.
But while I might call that a “leak”, that behavior of spilling my secret is not illegal.
So, maybe Carrick wouldn’t call it a “leak”.
That said: I do find it interesting that when characterizing it as “not a leak” Wittes came up with the idea that it’s not a leak if Comey told a friend who was not planning to report it. I don’t think that has anything to do with whether or not it’s a leak. In contrast, I can accept Carricks distinction which seems to be related to what th law says about the level of privacy.
Carrick (if I misunderstood you.. sorry. I’m not trying to speak for you. But I think you are focusing on the legal meaning of “leak” and I think of something broader.)
I think it’s find for people to discuss whether Comey did anything illegal. He may well not have done anything illegal. I still call it a leak. I just don’t mean to imply that makes the act illegal.
Carrick
Lucia–the reason I brought this up to start with was because it was my perception that the right was claiming unfair coverage much more often than it seemed to me it was really occurring.
Yes. And you have a point. On the other hand, headlines and tone do give impressions. So… well… it’s a bit in between. It’s easy to get the impression they were reporting Trump himself was under investigation, but as a matter of literal truth, they were not. You are right about that.
I like the definition that Google offers, “the intentional disclosure of secret information.”
I agree that covers a broad spectrum of disclosures, some of which rise to the level of illegality, and others which are mere acts of disloyalty.
On the issue of the press and “TRUMP UNDER INVESTIGATION!!11!!” lather, a trivial search reveals that there has been plenty of buzz. Here’s some links from March:
And I’d add that following some of the links in the Google search above it’s a mixed bag. Certainly many of the headlines imply that the President himself is under investigation. I have a hard time aligning that with Carrick’s perspective that it’s all an exaggeration from the right.
Lucia, I agree with Wittes’s definition. However, I am surprised that I used that defense that he is at Brookings and not a reporter, after reading his definition at his blog.
Comey testified that the New York Times story about Trump’s associates meeting with Russians was false. If he saying the meetings never happened, this is even more bizarre than I expected.
MikeN
Lucia, I agree with Wittes’s definition.
I know. Because you posted it here before I read Witte’s who wrote it up before you posted.
But it’s an absurd definition of ‘leak’. If you think it’s not absurd, rather than telling me you agree with Witte’s definition, explain how giving a state secret to ones lover “Svetlana” would not be leaking.
After all: Svetlana is just your friend. She’s not a newspaper reporter. You didn’t authorize her to publish. That would appear to fully meet your and Witte’s definition of “not a leak”.
Sorry: but the zillions of people could agree with you that those conditions are what makes it not a leak. But it is utterly absurd.
For all the discussion about what is or isn’t a leak, the real question is why did Comey not call up the NYT himself and say he had a memo, and show it to them?
Why all the silliness with the law professor?
Carrick said “If there are “a hundred other places†then you should have no problems finding one example.”
“Comey confirmed that under our Constitution, the president has the authority to direct the FBI to stop investigating any individual. I paraphrase, because the transcript is not yet available: the president can, in theory, decide who to investigate, who to stop investigating, who to prosecute and who not to prosecute. The president is the head of the unified executive branch of government, and the Justice Department and the FBI work under him and he may order them to do what he wishes.
As a matter of law, Comey is 100 percent correct. As I have long argued, and as Comey confirmed in his written statement, our history shows that many presidents—from Adams to Jefferson, to Lincoln, to Roosevelt, to Kennedy, to Bush 1, and to Obama – have directed the Justice Department with regard to ongoing investigations. The history is clear, the precedents are clear, the constitutional structure is clear, and common sense is clear. ” See http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/06/08/dershowitz-comey-confirms-that-im-right-and-all-democratic-commentators-are-wrong.html
To me the fact that there is a large amount of media coverage discussing the firing of Comey as though it is a legal wrong is evidence of very biased coverage.
JD
lucia (Comment #162888): “But it’s an absurd definition of ‘leak’. If you think it’s not absurd, rather than telling me you agree with Witte’s definition, explain how giving a state secret to ones lover “Svetlana†would not be leaking.”
A top Obama official (Petraeus) almost went to prison for doing that. He plead out and got a couple years probation and a big fine.
Kan–We already discussed the NRO article. What I am looking for are examples where the MSM media (not just bloggers) stated Trump is a subject of the investigation.
NYTimes:
“F.B.I. Is Investigating Trump’s Russia Ties, Comey Confirmsâ€
That’s accurate.
Salon: “The FBI is leading an investigation into Donald Trump’s connections with Russiaâ€
That’s accurate.
Atlantic: ““It’s Official: The FBI Is Investigating Trump’s Links to Russiaâ€
That’s accurate.
As Lucia says, it’s easy to get that mis-impression—I think especially if the author of the article primed you to expect to see that. I don’t doubt that there must be MSM news reports that mis-state the investigation. But, as far as I can tell, all of the examples given by the NRO article of MSM reports were accurate reporting.
Kan: “Why did Comey not call up the NYT himself and say he had a memo, and show it to them?”
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Occam’s Razor says he originally intended this to be an anonymous leak, had second thoughts after he confirmed he couldn’t be charged and he might get caught, and then fessed up.
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It is not exactly “honorable” to anonymously leak information to damage someone else. Comey is a media hero…this week.
Regarding leak—I would loosely use “leak” to describe any improper disclosure of information by a federal official to a person who has not been given the right to the access that information.
There’s an legal argument by Stephen Kohn in the Washington Post entitled Were James Comey’s leaks lawful? that I thought was worth a read.
Thesis statement:
The vast majority of anonymous leaks are fully legal, many serve the public interest, they follow in a tradition widely practiced by our nation’s Founding Fathers, and they are recognized as fully protected speech by the U.S. Supreme Court.
An interesting counterpoint to Dershowitz’s argument (written in my opinion more like a legal brief arguing in favor of a client than an objective independent analysis) is this article in the NYT A Constitutional Puzzle: Can the President Be Indicted?
The Constitution does not answer every question. It includes detailed instructions, for instance, about how Congress may remove a president who has committed serious offenses. But it does not say whether the president may be criminally prosecuted in the meantime.
The Supreme Court has never answered that question, either. It heard arguments on the issue in 1974 in a case in which it ordered President Richard M. Nixon to turn over tape recordings, but it did not resolve it.
The obvious related example is the Paula Jones trial and the related unanimous Supreme Court ruling that “that a sitting President of the United States has no immunity from civil law litigation against him or her, for acts done before taking office and unrelated to the office.”
After the 8-0 ruling in the United States v. Nixon, it is plausible that if you brought a legal case involving criminal prosecution of a sitting president, that a Supreme Court would ultimately permit such an action.
I also think that the sovereignty granted to the president to fire at will people potentially investigating his actions have been overstated by Dershowitz and others. In the past, the Supreme Court has seemed reluctant to extend absolute sovereignty to the president in any matter where he doesn’t have direct constitutional authority granted.
Tom Scharf & Kan,
Kan: “Why did Comey not call up the NYT himself and say he had a memo, and show it to them?â€
Comey provided the rationale yesterday during the hearing:
This is starting to look exactly like a fishing expedition. The channels are now changing from Russia links to a seemingly desperate obstruction of justice that is barely related to Russia. We are now 8 months removed from the election with an IC and media hyperventilating to take down Trump and the Russia Conspiracy is starting to look like a cold case.
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As I said right after the election, if we knew only one thing it was it wasn’t going to be boring.
Back to the topic of the Paris Agreement.
Having been shocked into feverish action by the unexpected election of Donald Trump as President in 2016, the Democrats will probably be successful over the next four years in fully mobilizing their voter base in support of an environmentally friendly slate of progressive candidates, thus gaining control of Congress in 2018 and taking back the White House in 2020.
Once they are back in power and in full control of the US Government, if the Democrats don’t enact a stiff tax on carbon in 2021; and if they don’t start using the full legal authority of the Clean Air Act to regulate all sources of carbon emissions — imposing what is in all practical effect a carbon fuel rationing scheme — then they can be rightly accused of being completely dishonest and hypocritical in claiming to be concerned about the dangers of climate change.
But what if my prediction is wrong and the Democrats don’t return to power in 2021; and the Republicans remain in control of both Congress and the White House into the 2020’s? In that case, an answer to the question of just how committed the Democrats actually are to pursuing serious GHG emission reductions will have to be postponed to another time.
Carrick,
Thanks for that. I find his explanation rather confusing and unconvincing. Using an indirect source is semantics.
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“And though he readily admitted that he himself was an indirect source of that explosive information, he reiterated that he agrees with President Trump about stamping out another kind of leak: that of classified information.”
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Rationalization: the action of attempting to explain or justify behavior or an attitude with logical reasons, even if these are not appropriate.
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Someone should ask him if he thinks it is OK for his team to leak his every conversation in the most unflattering way possible.
Carrick: Paula Jones case
…..
From the first sentence of Wiki article you cited:
“Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case establishing that a sitting President of the United States has no immunity from civil law litigation against him or her, for acts done before taking office and unrelated to the office.”
….
This is civil litigation, not criminal. Has nothing to do with indictments or criminal activity.
I agree that the case law is not clear on indicting sitting Presidents. However, among the practical problems are: 1. What prosecutor will indict him [who can’t be fired] 2. How can you prevent the President from pardoning himself?
….
Again, as a practical matter, I would observe that it is preposterous to claim obstruction of justice for stopping an investigation with no associated criminal activity. (For instance, in contrast, Nixon paid hush money) I have seen lawyers making arguments that there is potentially a case against Trump. I would then ask them, or others, to cite one instance where a prosecutor or the superior of a prosecutor has been prosecuted for simply stopping an investigation.
….
Would also like records of Obama administration and others where AG, or maybe Obama, intervened to stop investigations and set policy. Be interesting to compare and contrast.
JD
Look, I find Trump’s tweets to be as ill advised as anyone, but here is a case where it does work.
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WP Headline: Trump calls Comey a ‘leaker’ and claims ‘vindication’ after Senate hearing
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How else is that framing going to get into an openly hostile media? The media cannot ignore it, as much as they would like to this particular time. Now if he could just control the other 99% of his tweets, ha ha.
So much for Comey as a man of integrity. He leaked confidential information that was damaging to Trump, but refused to publicly state the simple fact that Trump was not under investigation. So definitely putting politics above integrity.
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With respect to Trump’s comment about the Flynn investigation, Comey told Congess “I mean, this is the president of the United States, with me alone, saying, ‘I hope’ this. I took it as, this is what he wants me to do.”
I see two possible interpretations of this. One is that Comey lied to Congress. The other is that he is the only person in America who thinks that Trump uses circumlocutions to avoid saying what he means.
Then, when asked by Feinstein: “Why didn’t you stop, and say, ‘Mr. President, this is wrong?’” Comey replied: “Maybe if I were stronger, I would have.”
So, by his own admission, Comey is not a man of integrity.
.
He seems to have directly lied about Sessions recusing himself. http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/comey-was-before-congress-to-indict-trump-instead-he-might-have-indicted-himself/
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Then there is his disgraceful statement as to why he was fired “It’s my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation. I was fired, in some way, to change — or the endeavor was to change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted.”
If he had said it what way Trump wanted the investigation to change, that could be a damaging statement. But as it stands, it only provides fodder for misleading headlines without actually saying anything.
He then added: “The nature of the FBI and the nature of its work requires that it not be the subject of political consideration.”
Look in a mirror, Mr. Comey.
betablocker: “In that case, an answer to the question of just how committed the Democrats actually are to pursuing serious GHG emission reductions will have to be postponed to another time.”
No need. The Dems already established that in 2009.
Tom Scharf: “How else is that framing going to get into an openly hostile media?”
There are experts on communication who claim that is what Trump is doing with all his tweets. He who frames first, wins.
The likes of you and me only get to hear about his tweets via the media. But tens of millions of American get those tweets directly. They are composed to communicate with the “deplorables” not to impress the likes of us.
Beta Blocker,
I think they already proved this in 2009 when they had Congress (with a filibuster proof Senate) and the White House and failed to pass cap and trade. They were then routed in 2010 for this and other reasons.
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Revkin at the NYT I think accurately called climate support “a mile wide and an inch deep”. Everybody is for it up until they need to actually sacrifice something. The PA were perfect because it required almost no sacrifice and gave the greens moral cover.
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I don’t think you can convince middle America to make a financial sacrifice for the developing world or measurably increase their energy bills. The coastal elites preaching climate morality to the fly-over country rubes has only increased hostility. The democrats are not going to forget 2010 for a long time.
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I do share the prediction that the right will suffer serious losses over the next 4 years. The pendulum is always moving. Winning is great but governing is difficult.
Interesting criminal aspect of Clinton v. Jones from Wiki — compare and contrast:
….
“More specifically, the Independent Counsel concluded that President Clinton testified falsely on three counts under oath in Clinton v. Jones. However, Ray chose to decline criminal prosecution… [because of other detriments suffered by Clinton]
….
We have clear perjury by Clinton and a decision not to prosecute or impeach Clinton. Nothing Trump has done is close to what Clinton did which were obvious and clear significant crimes.
JD
Carrick – Is Huffington Post a MSM media?
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Jason Linkins from Huffpo (and link in the already discussed NRO article)
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“Nevertheless, we have a president under FBI investigation. How do you like that?”
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In the next paragraph he goes on with “You know, not for nothing, but back in my day (2016) there was a lot of consensus opinion-having that merely being the subject of an FBI probe was a disqualification for serving as the leader of the free world.”
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He would not say that Clinton was under investigation but was the subject of a probe. Clearly he is saying that Trump was the target of the investigation. you have to jump through some hoops to say otherwise.
I will take one second out and make this observation: If I was the head of the FBI and told I was going to lead investigations into both Clinton and Trump I would just self-immolate on the spot to save everyone else the time and effort.
Kan,
Clearly Trump is not under investigation, it is simply a “matter”, ha ha.
Carrick – the first line in the Salon article referenced is “The FBI is leading a multi-agency investigation into possible links between Russian officials and President-elect Donald Trump.”
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There is no ambiguity about Donald Trump being the subject of an FBI investigation.
Kan,
You are missing Carrick’s subtlety. The MSM is not investigating Trump, they are investigating the alleged links. Totally different things. Unless you are a normal person.
Surely, there is no need for me to insert /sarc tags in the above?
Tom Scharf—there are definitely elements of the investigation that are not fishing expeditions. Flynn in particular is in real legal jeopardy. Since the special prosecutor was appointed, the danger of it turning into a fishing expedition is very real.
Kan–Huffington Post is a blog. They discuss news articles as well as politics, but are not a news organization (digesters not creators). At best an opinion or analysis website.
As to this title: “The FBI is leading a multi-agency investigation into possible links between Russian officials and President-elect Donald Trump.†That is accurate.
Links could include investigations of Trump’s associates, and virtually any other thread that connects Trump to the Russians, so no it neither says nor implies Trump is the subject of an FBI investigation.
JD Ohio—I think Jones is relevant because prior to that people had generally thought sitting Presidents were immune from civil action. “A toe in the door.”
Whether a president could be sued for something he did as President remains an open question. Theoretically then, Trump could be sued for his decision on the NDAPL or his withdrawal from the Paris Agreements.
As a practical matter, I happen to all of these are terrible ideas.
Maybe they are permitted constitutionally, but I don’t see that they are protected constitutionally. So at least least, I would think Congressional statutes could provide blanket immunity to siting presidents as well as provide conditions under which that immunity could be lost.
On another matter, the President has resumed tweeting and I suspect he’s not vetting them with Kasowitz either. That was predictable.
MikeM:
You are missing Carrick’s subtlety. The MSM is not investigating Trump, they are investigating the alleged links. Totally different things. Unless you are a normal person.
Actually just links. Not alleged links.
If you want to say “The FBI is investigating Trump” then that’s how you say it.
“Links” include Trump’s associates and any other relationship between Trump and Russian officials, rather than Trump himself, so in fact they actually are different things.
I apologize for the English language not cooperating with your prior beliefs.
This will never satisfy Trump’s partisan knob-polishers, but here’s a good definition of link from the Google:
link (n): a relationship between two things or situations, especially where one thing affects the other.”
Thus “The FBI is leading a multi-agency investigation into possible links between Russian officials and President-elect Donald Trump.â€
implies there is a multi-agency investigation into the relationships “between Russian officials and President-elect Donald Trump.”
Trump is a person rather a relationship, so there can be no ambiguity here: This statement does not say, nor can it reasonably be construed to say, that Trump is a subject of the investigation.
(The fact it leaves open the question of whether Trump is a subject is meaningless: It simply makes no assertion at all about whether Trump is a subject of the investigation, either way.)
Carrick: “Trump is a person rather a relationship, so there can be no ambiguity here”
Carrick once again demonstrates both his capacity to split hairs and his pretzel-like reasoning. In this case, by pretending that there is a difference between investigating a person’s relationships and investigating that person.
I suppose Carrick would claim that the FBI never investigated Hillary, they only investigated her actions.
Beta Blocker
Once they are back in power and in full control of the US Government, if the Democrats don’t enact a stiff tax on carbon in 2021; and if they don’t start using the full legal authority of the Clean Air Act to regulate all sources of carbon emissions — imposing what is in all practical effect a carbon fuel rationing scheme — then they can be rightly accused of being completely dishonest and hypocritical in claiming to be concerned about the dangers of climate change.
The fact of Trump is that he changed facts on the ground for these future Dems. Obama also changed them, but Trump undid that.
What I mean by this is that by signing Paris without resorting to submitting it as a treaty, Obama attempted to single handedly change apparent obligations and commitments of the US. If not undone, that would mean that in the future, those who wanted to act would just at be continuuing what appeared to be established policy of the US. This would be easier for those who do want to enact regulations because they avoid individually pushing anything a fraction of their constituents might dislike.
By exiting the agreement, Trump has changed the situation. Now those who might want to rejoin Parish have to openly say so. Also: a future president who does want to join will realize that he probably does need to submit to the Senate otherwise, the agreement can just be undone by the next guy. In the meantime, because we are not bound by an agreement, those who want to use the “fact” of an international commitment in legal arguments justifying EPA regulations no longer have that. So things likely need to be done through legislation.
Obviously, if Trump manages to convert everyone in the US to voting for Democrats in Congress, the Senate and President, the Democrats will be able to accomplish many of their goals. I don’t know if that will occur.
>rightly accused of being completely dishonest and hypocritical in claiming to be concerned about the dangers of climate change.
FWIW: accusations of hypocrisy almost never change anyone’s mind about anything.
Is Flynn in legal jeopardy because of working for Turkey and not declaring it, or because he lied to the FBI? Why were they interviewing him in the first place? It was supposed to be a FISA investigation, not a criminal one, and they already knew what was said in the conversation.
Mike M. (Comment #162893)
A top Obama official (Petraeus) almost went to prison for doing that. He plead out and got a couple years probation and a big fine.
Yes. What he did was both illegal and called a leak. Because the condition of giving something to “your friend” who is not a reporter and who you believe does not intend to turn it into a newsstory has nothing to do with whether sharing information is a leak.
It’s amazing that Wittes (a lawyer?!) wants to suggest those aspects make something that might otherwise be a leak “not a leak”.
The big difference between Comey’s leak and Petraeus has to do the fact the fact that the material Petraeus leaked was classified and so sharing was very clearly unauthorized.
If Wittes was focusing on that, that would make sense. But. He’s. Not.
Carrick,
“After the 8-0 ruling in the United States v. Nixon, it is plausible that if you brought a legal case involving criminal prosecution of a sitting president, that a Supreme Court would ultimately permit such an action.”
.
No, that is not likely to happen, for three reasons:
1) The president can require the halt of any prosecution (as Nixon and other presidents have demonstrated). He/she is not going to prosecute him/herself via the Department of Justice.
2) The president could simply pardon himself (or his cronies) at any time.
3) The SC justices can actually read the Constitution, unlike MSM ‘legal experts’ who appear constitutionally illiterate.
.
The Constitution is very clear: Congress can remove a president from office via prosecution of an impeachment bill… and conviction by 2/3 of the Senate. Nobody else, and no other way. Dershowitz is right.
Lucia,
“a future president who does want to join will realize that he probably does need to submit to the Senate otherwise, the agreement can just be undone by the next guy.”.
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Sure, but in this case Obama probably just figured the chance of a Democrat president after him was pretty good, and that “established facts on the ground” 4 or 8 years after his departure would make reversal difficult. He for sure knew that submission of anything like the Paris accord to the Senate was pointless, so he had nothing to lose by trying the “executive agreement” route to bypass treaty requirements. As in most everything he did, he placed implementing his desired policies above political compromise, the law, and the Constitution.
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I suspect the next Democrat elected president will do exactly what Obama did if the votes for a treaty are not there.
MikeN,
“Is Flynn in legal jeopardy because of working for Turkey and not declaring it, or because he lied to the FBI? Why were they interviewing him in the first place? It was supposed to be a FISA investigation, not a criminal one, and they already knew what was said in the conversation.”
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Nobody is saying what he is in jeopardy for. My guess is that Obama officials had him “unmasked” so that they could make sure his communications were widely distributed within the Justice Department and CIA. Most likely, information from his communications led to an interview where the FBI asked him questions based on his intercepted communications… if he did not answer all questions honestly, then they could prosecute him for that. If his communications showed that he had not properly disclosed his work for Turkey, then they could prosecute him for that… and/or for not declaring the income from that work. Maybe all the above.
Carrick,
““The FBI is leading a multi-agency investigation into possible links between Russian officials and President-elect Donald Trump.†That is accurate.
Links could include investigations of Trump’s associates, and virtually any other thread that connects Trump to the Russians, so no it neither says nor implies Trump is the subject of an FBI investigation.”
.
That logical contortion must almost hurt.
SteveF, you’re smarter than this.
A relationship is an abstract object. Trump is a person.
Abstract objects cannot be people. This is fourth grade logic, something that Trump and his more ardent supporters are not good at.
Keep knob polishing if you must. Mike M could use some help.
Carrick,
“SteveF, you’re smarter than this.”.
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And so are you Carrick. Virtually anybody who reads that is going to conclude “Trump is being investigated by the FBI”. It is only in your imagination that it is otherwise. Heck, ask people on campus if they thought Trump was being investigated by the FBI (at least before Comey’s recent testimony)… most of them will say “yes”, based on the MSM reporting.
> Most likely, information from his communications led to an interview where the FBI asked him questions based on his intercepted communications…
It was a FISA investigation, so he would not have been a criminal suspect. The interview is not needed since they already knew what he said. Andy McCarthy wrote about it at the time, suspecting that the whole purpose of the interview was to see if they could catch him in a lie.
JD,
The Oscar Lopez Rivera story gets much crazier.
“This year, the organizers of New York City’s annual Puerto Rican Day Parade, set for June 11, chose to turn the event into a vehicle for honoring López Rivera, the vicious Marxist-Leninist co-founder of a murder gang, by bestowing upon him the unprecedented title of “National Freedom Hero.—
. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448466/bill-de-blasio-about-face-puerto-rican-day-parade
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After this was publicized they eventually changed their mind.
While I changed my mind about whether it’s a leak given he is a blogger, I don’t think talking to friends about non classified material is a leak. Shouldn’t the intent of the person speaking matter(or investigation)? There is a difference between giving your friend a memo to read to a reporter vs telling a friend don’t like the way Trump is operating, he needs to keep his distance from the FBI.
Leaking of classified information is illegal, and therefore is not protected speech. As explained in that article,
[a]bsent a specific legal prohibition, government employees have a constitutional right to speak out on matters of public concern. This right was recognized by the Supreme Court in 1968 and is unchallenged today.
Basically it’s freedom of speech. When you become a federal employee, you don’t shed your constitutional rights.
Carrick,
Here is the Guardian: “Donald Trump is under investigation for ties to Russia. What happens now?”
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Do you also believe that says something other than ‘Trump is under investigation’. Really, this is getting weird.
Can those involved in the war on semantics just agree that the real target is Trump regardless of what is technically literally occurring at the moment? If this all ended with Flynn I don’t think we would have media hysteria and it would be called an investigation into Flynn. If I type “Trump Russia” into a Google search the number is so big that the internet crashes.
Unless a relationship or any other abstract object can refer to a person (a concrete thing), which it can’t, your interpretation is simply untenable. A link is not a person, and so investigating a link is not investigating a person.
A technical point here is that Comey never had his notes reviewed by anyone for whether they should be classified / government work product or not. This “unclassified” is an assumption and it might actually be true, but I’m not sure it is a fact.
MikeN (Comment #162919): “Is Flynn in legal jeopardy because of working for Turkey and not declaring it, or because he lied to the FBI? Why were they interviewing him in the first place?”
Fair questions. Although I knew that Flynn was supposedly in legal jeopardy, you made me realize that I did not know why. It seems that Flynn worked as a lobbyist for a Dutch company owned by a Turkish businessman. Some time after that Flynn’s lawyer warned him that it could be construed as working for the Turkish government (the businessman apparently has ties to Erdogan) and that Flynn should CYA by registering as such. Flynn did.
It does not seem to be at all clear that Flynn ever acted on behalf of the Turkish government or that he did anything illegal. It seems to me that if he did, he would have been indicted by now.
MikeN,
” the whole purpose of the interview was to see if they could catch him in a lie.”
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Sure. But they can ask him anything, and catch him in a lie about anything…. FBI: “General, did you earn money from your work with Turkey?” Flynn: “Yes”. FBI: “Did you disclose that on both your tax returns and your declarations before assuming your job as security adviser?” It goes down hill for Flynn from there.
Can you imagine trying to sit an unbiased jury for a Trump trial? Ha ha.
MikeN (Comment #162930): “I don’t think talking to friends about non classified material is a leak. Shouldn’t the intent of the person speaking matter(or investigation)?”
A fair point. But we don’t need to speculate. Comey made it perfectly clear that his intent was that his friend pass the information on to the press.
Leaking confidential information is not the same as leaking classified information, but it is still a leak. Since Comey passed on a government document, rather than merely telling tales out of school, it is quite likely a crime. It certainly merits firing.
SteveF, yes I agree with that example. This got weird along time ago and yes I blame Trump.
But I will summarize what I said above, which is I was sure that examples existed where the MSM mis-reported that Trump was a subject of the investigation. However, having looked through the articles with a cool head, I doubted (and still doubt) there were hundreds of examples. This headline “Donald Trump is under investigation for ties to Russia. What happens now?” does say erroneously that Trump was under investigation. (There are similar factual errors in the body of this article.)
Tom Scharf—I’m not sure there’s a singular motive for much of anything. People are more like cats. We sometimes go in the same direction, but there’s usually no coordination to it.
I believe semantics are important in this case. Words can cause wars after all.
It’d be a big story if Clinton won the election too, so it’s hard to put this all off on media hysteria about Trump. Russia interference with US elections, their targeting of members of a campaign to try and influence them, targeted hacking aimed at producing a particular outcome, are all big issues.
There’s no secret that the MSM don’t like Trump. Partly, he’s reaping what he’s sowed there, so not a lot of sympathy on my part there.
Tom Scharf (Comment #162933): “Can those involved in the war on semantics just agree that the real target is Trump regardless of what is technically literally occurring at the moment?”
I think that we all agree on that, with the exception of the person who thinks that the FBI investigates abstract ideas. As if they were a philosophy department.
Carrick,
You know, being a partisan knob polisher (BTW buddy: Really? Does your wife know you’re out in public with your knob in that sad state? Get a quick polish; won’t take a moment, only cost you a pittance…) as well as a denier, people need to take what I say with a grain o’ salt. Still, we’ve come from a fairly reasonable starting point:
You’ve got a fair amount of exaggeration going on there, I’m afraid.
If you had said “investigation of Trump’s administration†then maybe. But that’s a legitimate story, because it’s actually happening.
to a place where knobs are getting banged up and knocked about mercilessly:
Unless a relationship or any other abstract object can refer to a person (a concrete thing), which it can’t, your interpretation is simply untenable. A link is not a person, and so investigating a link is not investigating a person.
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What was the deal with asking for examples, if this was the end point. You seem to be now saying it is impossible in principle for what you were asking for empirical evidence of before to be true.
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Please do not feel compelled to stick my knob in a grinder over this. I’ve spent a lot of time rubbing extra polish into my knob and I’m feeling pretty protective of it frankly. If we could all agree to extend the same consideration and courtesy towards each others knobs that we harbor for our own for the remainder of this conversation, it might be that none of us will need any remedial polishing before the day is out – and I think we can all agree that making sure nobody requires knob handling is a goal we can all works together towards.
Best regards as always sir.
Oh. Already sorted out. Nevermind then; I’ll just pack up my knob shining kit and move to a different part of the airport.
Cheers.
Mike M, I’m afraid you’re be-clowning yourself now.
The FBI is the domestic agency responsible for investigation of espionage in the United States. So, not only are relationships abstract things, they get investigated as a matter of course by intelligence officers.
Mark Bofill, I have no clue what you’re on about or what you even thought I was saying.
Double martini lunch?
“Am I under investigation for incest?”.
“No, of course not. Not you as a person. It’s just your relationships and ties with your children that are under investigation”….
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Steve F:”Really, this is getting weird.” Indeed.
Carrick,
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Yeah, clearly. In addition to being a partisan knob polisher I’m a drunk. I’d forgotten why I quit engaging with you.
.
Thanks Carrick.
Regarding Russia there isn’t much to do about it. Obama told them to stop it and they didn’t. I doubt sanctions are going to help, and nuclear weapons aren’t yet called for. The real answer is to pay them back in kind, but…ahem…double down on it. There can then be an understanding to lay off each other after that. But Russia asked for it, and they should get it. I want to see polling stations melt down in Russia and for Clinton to somehow mysteriously win their next election.
Niels, thanks for illustrating the problems with highly imperfect analogies.
The Russia story is much broader than Trump or his current administration. One of the primary focuses is Russian acts of espionage. Another is on personnel who were with Trump during the campaign trail but aren’t in his current administration. And so forth.
If it had been a narrowly focused investigation like the sort you used in your analogy, then saying one could imply the other.
mark bofill:
Yeah, clearly. In addition to being a partisan knob polisher I’m a drunk. I’d forgotten why I quit engaging with you.
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Thanks Carrick.
Let me guess… it’s because you don’t have a sense of humor?
The really weird thing here is I hadn’t even addressed you and you hadn’t even been participating until your totally opaque comments. But whatever. If you are that thin skinned, maybe take up cricket.
MikeN
Shouldn’t the intent of the person speaking matter(or investigation)? There is a difference between giving your friend a memo to read to a reporter vs telling a friend don’t like the way Trump is operating, he needs to keep his distance from the FBI.
There may or may not be a difference. But you are mixing two things in one example. When determining whether what happened is a “leak” of any sort, the relevant difference is absolutely not the “intent” of the person speaking. It’s whether sharing the information is authorized or unauthorized. Your example has
(A) A person who is sharing clearly unauthorized info to a reporter and
(B) Sharing information that may or may not be unauthorized with a friend.
The first is a leak because it was unauthorized. The second is a leak if sharing is unauthorized. The reporter vs. friend distinction you and Wittes want to introduce is irrelevant to determining if it’s a leak.
If Witte’s theory that it wasn’t a leak was based on the idea that the sharing of that info was not unauthorized he might be correct or incorrect. We could just figure out in what sense sharing was authorized.
But Witte’s doesn’t make that distinction which would be relevant. He tries to hang the distinction on the “friend/reporter” issue.
Sorry, but the theory that the distinction is based on whether the material was shared with a friend vs. reporter is beyond wrong. It’s like suggesting the distinction of “leak vs no-leak” is be based on whether you were wearing red or green when you divulged. It’s obviously not based on that. It’s based on whether divulging is authorized or not.
Trump, he is the master media manipulator at times. Never a dull moment. This has actually turned into a reality TV show.
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“Trump also twice declined to confirm the existence of White House recordings of the conversations.
“I’ll tell you about that sometime in the very near future,” Trump said.
Asked again, Trump said: “I’m not hinting anything. I will tell you over a very short period of time.”
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What’s the press going to run around speculating on now?
Tom Scharf,
“Can those involved in the war on semantics just agree that the real target is Trump regardless of what is technically literally occurring at the moment?”
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Absolutely. Trump has been the target of the MSM since before he was nominated but became the presumptive nominee. Since the election targeting Trump has become an all consuming obsession. It started with the breathless reporting of “recounts” in sates Trump won narrowly, reporting of claims of Russians had “hacked” voting equipment, “reporting” on how electors might reverse Trump’s win, and endless “analysis” of how everything Trump said was wrong. Since inauguration, it has only become worse. Really, the MSM has behaved much worse that Trump… and that is saying quite a lot. More troubling is the apparent effort to sabotage Trump in the final days of the Obama administration and by Obama holdovers. ‘Sore losers’ does not do it justice.
Tom Scharf:
A technical point here is that Comey never had his notes reviewed by anyone for whether they should be classified / government work product or not. This “unclassified†is an assumption and it might actually be true, but I’m not sure it is a fact.
I think this may be a problem too. I have to clear anything I publish from DOD contracts. It’s hard for me to imagine that the DOJ is less stringent.
Comey is a political appointee and doesn’t have the statutory protections of civil servants who are whistleblowers. So I’m still not certain he didn’t break laws or at least violate regulations.
Cnn
Trump also twice declined to confirm the existence of White House recordings of the conversations.
“I’ll tell you about that sometime in the very near future,” Trump said.
Luca—here’s the way I’d put it: If Witte is “just a friend” or colleague of Comey, then sharing the information would amount to a leak. If Witte is on the DOJ payroll as a legal consultant, then Comey might be authorized to share the information with Witte.
But what if Witte was serving as Comey’s legal counsel? Witte couldn’t legal divulge the information without Comey’s permission (and he didn’t).
After Comey was fired, he wouldn’t be governed by departmental regulations, and he could then legally direct Witte to release the information. In the case, it wouldn’t really be a leak, would it?
Adding 1 + 1 here is that Trump has tapes that dispute Comey’s testimony under oath. You aren’t paranoid if everyone is actually out to get you. Unfortunately with Trump after you add you need to also multiply by zero.
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If there were tapes, Trump would selectively release them, and the usual suspects would fall all over themselves demanding all the tapes. I imagine Trump’s secretary will accidentally erase parts of them.
Carrick
I agree that if Witte is on the DOJ payroll, it might not be a leak. Also: if the discussion was under attorney/client privilege it might not be a leak.
fter Comey was fired, he wouldn’t be governed by departmental regulations, and he could then legally direct Witte to release the information. In the case, it wouldn’t really be a leak, would it?
I would consider it one. But I think you wouldn’t. Because you don’t consider sharing that stuff unauthorized and I do. I sort of consider certain stuff as being unauthorized by informal rules too and I think you seem to only be concerned about formal regulations.
What is true is that after he quits or is fired, rules whose only consequence is getting fired can’t really apply in the sense that he can’t be fired. But in my view, that doesn’t unbind him from certain informal rules. I consider a certain amount of “spilling the beans” to be leaking even after a formal rule doesn’t apply. (Mind you, the leak might be justified, it’s not illegal, or a tort. I’m discussing semantics here. I think think semantically the word “leak” applies because the dissemination is unauthorized.)
Anyway, it’s clear I think that some stuff is still a leak after you leave a job. Certainly if the material was classified, leaving the job would not be relevant. If you gained trade secrets as part of a job with non-discloure part of the condition, sharing after you left the job is still a leak.
But anyway, Comey appears to have shared info with Witte in March, one or two months before he left the job.
The thing is: while hypothetical facts you mention (i.e. DOJ payroll, lawyer/client confidentiality) are relevant, they aren’t included Witte’s theory which is the one I criticize as unhinged. Wittes definitely does not hinge on the question of whether Comey was still an employee of the FBI, it does not bring up the lawyer/client confindentiality issue (wittes is not Comey’s lawyer), it does not bring up the hypothetical that Wittes might be on the DOJ payroll. (I think Wittes is not on the payroll). Witte’s theory is he and are long time friends– not even very close ones– and Comey just told him stuff over lunch when they are shooting the breeze.
Witte’s theory as expounded in the article is that the two friends sharing info over lunch is “not leaking”. Period. That aspect is irrelevant. If you shared classified info with a friend over lunch, that’s a leak. Your friendship and desire to shoot the breeze is irrelevant to the analysis. It’s whether the sharing is authorized or not.
Lucia:
But I think you wouldn’t. Because you don’t consider sharing that stuff unauthorized and I do. I sort of consider certain stuff as being unauthorized by informal rules too and I think you seem to only be concerned about formal regulations.
I’m not actually sure I wouldn’t. It would depend on the nature of the material I guess and whether the person who gave it to me had a right to expect it to remain confidential.
And it’s still not clear to me even in this case that Comey didn’t violate the law let alone government regulations, IF he didn’t get prior approval from the DOJ before releasing the memo.
But we don’t actually know that he didn’t get approval.
To follow up that chain of thought, I am fairly certain he’s in contact with Mueller and that Mueller cleared his prepared statement. Given Comey’s discussion went beyond the contents of the memo, it’s possible that Mueller cleared the release of the memo too, at least ex post facto.
This is, as I’ve said before, a very muddled affair. It’s part of why this cloud is going to linger for a while.
But I absolutely agree with your assessment of the argument Witte put forth. It’s absolute rubbish. There are various reasons why Witte might be withholding the real reasoning behind the release, so I don’t know how much to read into this.
Steve F said: “My guess is that Obama officials had him “unmasked†so that they could make sure his communications were widely distributed within the Justice Department and CIA.”
Talk about leaks. The leaking of the Flynn-Kislyak phone conversation transcript was a crime.
I would imagine everyone (unauthorized) in the chain of a secret document getting released to the press is guilty regardless of what anyone was thinking at the time. The ex-head of the FBI considered the legal aspects of this carefully before he admitted to leaking.
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I doubt Mueller coordinated with a fired Comey. Another word for that might be collusion. That would be dangerous for Mueller, there isn’t any need for him to have Comey testify or get involved with it.
Carrick
There are various reasons why Witte might be withholding the real reasoning behind the release, so I don’t know how much to read into this.
Witte’s written quite a bit. My take is Witte is a friend of Comey and is probably not entire objective. I won’t hunt down the link, but, for example Witte discusses this bit
The President began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI Director, which I found strange because he had already told me twice in earlier conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to. He said that lots of people wanted my job and, given the abuse I had taken during the previous year, he would understand if I wanted to walk away.
My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship.
Witte seems to harbor the delusion is the only way to understand what Comey says Trump said is the way Comey understood it. But even reading the way Comey described it, my first reaction to this was, “Huh?! You thought he wanted you to ask for your job!?!?!!!!! He was inviting you to quit!” Moreover, I would guess Trump probably thought he was being very nice and giving you time to get your resume together, look around, and then explain that you’ve found something that better suits your current needs or desires.
Trump is a bull-in-the china shop. He doesn’t look good to me. And I think he’s breaking stuff and dropping lots of manure. But he’s there because some voters wanted a bull in the china shop. I didn’t want him there.
That doesn’t make me a fan of Comey or Witte…. I’d like to see then as far from governance as we can get them.
Tom Scharf—This is my understanding:
Comey is almost certainly going to be a witness in Mueller’s grand jury. So Comey would am most certainly need to coordinate what he could speak about publicly so as to not taint the jury.
Not trying to feed the conspiracy theorists, but the word collusion is maybe appropriate. I suspect that Mueller has more loyalty to his fired friend that he does Trump. I’m not saying Trump is in trouble here, but he needs to start listening to his legal counsel before he steps in it too far for him to muddle his way out of.
Carrick,
Sure, but Comey needs to be very careful as well if Tump has a recording of one or more conversations. Perjury before a grand jury is a felony, and Comey knows that.
Lucia—interesting take.
I didn’t read Trump’s meeting with Comey to be particularly innocent in nature. I think if Trump had wanted Comey out, he would have just sent Comey on his way. If Trump had a private dinner with Comey, it’s because Trump wanted to discuss an arrangement of some sort with Comey that was to Trump’s benefit.
This is not meant as reading anything nasty towards Trump. My perception is, these sorts of people are very focussed on where they are going to… So it’s not so much them trying to trample people underfoot that they leave behind as it is expecting the laggers to have the good sense to move out of the way or get squished.
My opinion of Comey is also not very high. I think Trump should have been fired Comey the day he took office. I think Trump misjudged Comey at the start and took him for somebody significantly higher in caliber than what amounts to an over-promoted PR guy. My theory is Trump felt some fledgling loyalty to Comey for Comey “doing the right thing” at the end.
SteveF:
Sure, but Comey needs to be very careful as well if Tump has a recording of one or more conversations. Perjury before a grand jury is a felony, and Comey knows that.
Agreed. His testimony before Congress also qualifies for that (esp. the May 3 testimony, which occurred before he suspected he was being taped).
That said, I don’t think Comey is very intelligent, so the possibility that he perjures himself is real, in spite of having been warned.
I would imagine everyone (unauthorized) in the chain of a secret document getting released to the press is guilty regardless of what anyone was thinking at the time.
In the generality, yes, but…
The Press itself gets off scot-free, per the famous Pentagon Papers case. (Ellsberg, the actual leaker, was prosecuted…but his case was dropped due to government misconduct.)
The statutes I know require knowledge or intent or at least reason to believe…so it’s possible for a person to be involved and escape due to an innocent frame of mind. (Not, “I thought it was important for the public to know,” but “I had no way of knowing that stuff was classified.”)
Carrick
I didn’t read Trump’s meeting with Comey to be particularly innocent in nature. I think if Trump had wanted Comey out, he would have just sent Comey on his way.
Or not.
Interestingly, I also think Trump was trying to get something he wanted and he wanted to optimize it. He might have preferred Comey quitting to outright firing him especially if he anticipated people might interpret the firing as his interfering with an investigation. Or, being from the business world, his past experience is that work relationships serve a purpose. When they no longer do, you ease out of them and let others ease out knowing that you may need to do business with them later. By giving Comey an opportunity to save face and retain status, Trump might think could avoid an enemy– and that’s what he would prefer.
I’m not seeing this offer as a pure favor. But still… it’s more “be nice so he’s less likely to stab me in the back later”.
The fact is, there are lots of possible ways to interpret what Comey reported. There are even in Comey’s report which is naturally colored by Comey’s reaction which tends to make the way it’s related more favorable to Comey’s interpretation than it otherwise might be.
My interpretation of Comey is also not high. I also think Trump should have fired him much, much sooner.
Carrick,
You’re coming very close to logic chopping with your distinction between investigating links and investigating a person.
Reporter: “Is OJ Simpson being investigated for murdering his ex-wife and her lover?”
Police: “No we’re only investigating possible links between OJ and the murders.”
DeWitt, it’s amazing to me how many people are having trouble with simple logic here.
DeWitt—The other thing that I’m wanting to explore here—how would you guys, who are objecting to the wording of the various reports, want the MSM to report it instead? Actual question.
Not reporting the story isn’t a valid option. It’s newsworthy. And pro-Trump propaganda version isn’t another option.
It’s completely valid to say there are links between Trump, Trump’s organization and the Russian officials who allegedly attempted to interfere with the election. That doesn’t imply Trump murdered anybody.
It may cause some people indigestion to see it described in those terms, but, to me, there’s nothing misleading or disingenuous about that description.
MikeM, there are two leaks. One was when Comey had someone read his memo to the press. The other is several conversations he had with a friend who is also a blogger, that didn’t get revealed until after he was fired.
Lucia, authorized by who? Comey, Trump, someone else?
Carrick,
You would be well served to avoid the expression ‘you guys’ when you are responding to individuals.
Mike N
Lucia, authorized by who? Comey, Trump, someone else?
Are you referring to lucia (Comment #162959) ?
Carrick: “DeWitt—The other thing that I’m wanting to explore here—how would you guys, who are objecting to the wording of the various reports, want the MSM to report it instead? Actual question”
… .
I have no problem with some coverage. However, it is the incessant/lynch mob piling on that I object to. For instance at the top of the NYTs opinion page today, there were 5 stories on Trump/Comey and one story on what a terrible boss Trump is. It is ridiculous. For instance, Obama pardoning an unrepentant terrorist is as big a story as the Comey story, but I saw nothing about it at the time it occurred. Comey should only be a moderate story not a huge story.
JD
Yes that one. You appear to be saying the conversation has to be authorized by DOJ or perhaps the other side of the conversation, Trump.
Now is probably a good time to remind everyone underestimating Trump can backfire spectacularly. Teflon Trump. He probably has a Waterloo waiting somewhere but it’s probably going to be from someone who takes him seriously.
Carrick,
How about a prominent statement in the stories that there do not appear to be direct links to Trump himself, since there aren’t. Otherwise I agree with JD Ohio that we’re getting multiple front page stories above the fold that aren’t news.
Obviously Neils and I disagree that our analogies are bad, much less very bad. I think they’re right on point.
JD Ohio,
Well, that was a ‘good terrorist’, terrorizing people for good leftist values, while Trump and all his deplorable voters are the scum of the Earth… wait, no… lower than the scum of the Earth.
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The MSM is run by a bunch of dedicated leftists. There is no way they can report ‘news’ without grotesque spinning and distortion. Heck, they can’t even report the barest of plain facts without distortion.
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Get used to it; the ‘journalism’ schools are run by wacko leftist professors who think all political questions reduce to nothing more than the endless conflict between oppressors (that be you, dude!), and the oppressed (that be everyone who is not like you); they will work to make sure they graduate only dedicated leftists to maintain future control of the ‘news media’. Public defunding of all non-techical ‘education’ is the only appropriate response.
DeWitt,
“Obviously Neils and I disagree that our analogies are bad, much less very bad. I think they’re right on point.”
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Agreed, you’re both exactly on point. The entire exercise is focused on getting rid of Trump, not on accurate reporting.
Carrick,
“It may cause some people indigestion to see it described in those terms, but, to me, there’s nothing misleading or disingenuous about that description.”
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The willful misrepresentation of facts generates in me more a combination of incredulity and nausea that so many people seem to willing to railroad Trump without evidence of any kind. Trump
is a jerk, and has a long personal history that proves it. Trump makes horrible choices (and tweets) which are self-defeating if he wants to advance the policies he supports. But the suggestion he has colluded with Russia to steal the election and undermine the US is supported by not a shread of evidence. It is all garbage, nothing more.
Carrick (Comment #162972): “how would you guys, who are objecting to the wording of the various reports, want the MSM to report it instead? Actual question.”
Speaking for myself, there are three different issues here. One is about you, not the media. You made the ludicrous claim that the press has not been saying that Trump is under investigation. You have been proven wrong, but refuse to admit it. Instead, you claim that I, and others here, do not understand your idiotic argument, even though we plainly do.
Second, as JD has explained, there is the issue of the press piling on.
Third, there is the false reporting. Trump was never under investigation. Trump’s relationships were never under investigation. The press has insisted on reporting rumor as fact. The only investigation that is a fact is the possibility of Russian meddling. Responsible reporting would be limited to that, perhaps with some mention of the allegations, identified as such, that some members of the Trump campaighn might be involved.
MikeN,
No. I’m not saying that. I was engaging a hypothetical Carrick brought up which involved situations where Comey’s discussion with Witte would be authorized. Those situations are hypothetical, but Carrick asked for example “What if Witte was Comey’s attorney and has attorney client privilege?” and “What if Witte worked for the DOJ?”
In those cases, the discussion between Comey and Witte might be authorized even though discussion with a friend would not absolutely not be authorized. Because in one case, it’s the right to an attorney and the other it’s a coworker at the DOJ.
But neither of those cases apply to the Comey-Witte conversation. They also aren’t teh justification Witte gave for his “not a leak” theory. (Witte’s justification is nutso.)
One of the best things Trump can do for us is to simplify federal taxes. Something like Herman Caine’s 9-9-9 would be great but with weasels like Ryan in leadership positions I am not holding my breath.
When people talk about submitting one’s income tax return on a postcard I love it. In my imagination hundreds of thousands of drones (IRS people, CPAs, tax attorneys and on and on) will have to find real jobs.
gallopingcamel,
It appears tax simplification is not going to happen.
A moratorium on tax tinkering is the next best thing. Obamacare and Dodd-Frank have proved the government is incapable of competent one-party reforms. (See, I don’t lay it just on Dems.) The best hope is to shrink government, balance the budget, enforce the laws we have and follow the constitution.
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BTW, I did not see anyone mention that Comey testified the central core of the blockbuster NYT article in Feb was false when questioned by Sen. Collins. Then Sen. Langford followed up and asked him if he would agree the article was almost completely baseless. Comey agreed. That article was the base for the 100 stories of Trump (or Trump’s people) being in the cross hairs. http://www.businessinsider.com/comey-new-york-times-story-russia-inaccurate-2017-6
Comey apparently thought his private notes were his own property. It’s amazing that the head of the FBI didn’t know FBI (or common confidential workplaces) policy or the Records Act, especially after the Clinton email investigation. Lucia is absolutely correct, the leak is based on the lack of authority to disclose. Comey certainly had no such authority after being fired. Trump could make an example of him if he wants to. Would that be good? I suppose only if Trump has tapes that prove Comey a liar. Otherwise, Trump would have to stay neutral and let DOJ pilot that call since it would look too much like personal revenge if he ordered prosecution for the leak. It’s a travesty that the Clinton’s and Comey’s get away with the stuff that others go to jail for.
Ron Graf,
If he’d kept them in a diary at home, I think they would have been. But “memo to file” sounds like something filed at work and distributed. Seems to me that would make it a work product.
Willis Eschenbach writes about Comey’s leaking of memos:
18 U.S. Code § 641 – Public money, property or records
Whoever embezzles, steals, purloins, or knowingly converts to his use or the use of another, or without authority, sells, conveys or disposes of any record, voucher, money, or thing of value of the United States or of any department or agency thereof, or any property made or being made under contract for the United States or any department or agency thereof; or
Whoever receives, conceals, or retains the same with intent to convert it to his use or gain, knowing it to have been embezzled, stolen, purloined or converted—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; but if the value of such property in the aggregate, combining amounts from all the counts for which the defendant is convicted in a single case, does not exceed the sum of $1,000, he shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
My highlighting.
And the FBI employment agreement.
1. Unauthorized disclosure, misuse, or negligent handling of information contained in the files, electronic or paper, of the FBI or which I may acquire as an employee of the FBI could impair national security, place human life in jeopardy, result in the denial of due process, prevent the FBI from effectively discharging its responsibilities, or violate federal law. I understand that by being granted access to such information, I am accepting a position of special trust and am obligated to protect such information from unauthorized disclosure.
2. All information acquired by me in connection with my official duties with the FBI and all official material to which I have access remain the property of the United States of America. I will surrender upon demand by the FBI, or upon my separation from the FBI, all materials containing FBI information in my possession.
3. I will not reveal, by any means, any information or material from or related to FBI files or any other information acquired by virtue of my official employment to any unauthorized recipient without prior official written authorization by the FBI.
4. Prior to making any disclosure, I will seek a determination of whether the information may be disclosed.
Maybe it will turn out he had authorization to disclose to the NYT– through his friend. That would be interesting. I guess we’ll see.
Lucia,
I suspect Comey did violate the letter of the law. Nobody is going to prosecute him for it.
Steve F:
The MSM is run by a bunch of dedicated leftists. There is no way they can report ‘news’ without grotesque spinning and distortion. Heck, they can’t even report the barest of plain facts without distortion.
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Get used to it; the ‘journalism’ schools are run by wacko leftist professors who think all political questions reduce to nothing more than the endless conflict between oppressors (that be you, dude!), and the oppressed (that be everyone who is not like you); they will work to make sure they graduate only dedicated leftists to maintain future control of the ‘news media’. Public defunding of all non-techical ‘education’ is the only appropriate response.
The situation is more or less exactly the same in Denmark/Europe – heck, the journalists and in turn the huge majority of academics and intellectuals copy and repeat information from the American MSM, NYT, WP, CNN etc as if it was a gospel. Independent thought is as rare as water in a desert.
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The Austrian political philosopher August Friedrich von Hayek who recieved the Nobel Price in Economic Sciences in 1974 offers an explanation of the omnipresent leftist bias of intellectuals (and journalists):
Morals, including especially, our institutions of property, freedom and justice, are not a creation of man’s reason but a distinct second endowment conferred on him by cultural evolution – runs counter to the main intellectual outlook of the twentieth century. The influence of rationalism has indeed been so profound and pervasive that, in general, the more intelligent an educated person is, the more likely he or she now is not only to be a rationalist, but also to hold socialist views (regardless of whether he or she is sufficiently doctrinal to attach to his or her views any label, including ‘socialist’). The higher we climb up the ladder of intelligence, the more we talk with intellectuals, the more likely we are to encounter socialist convictions. Rationalists tend to be intelligent and intellectual; and intelligent intellectuals tend to be socialist.
One’s initial surprise at finding that intelligent people tend to be socialist diminishes when one realises that, of course, intelligent people will tend to overvalue intelligence, and to suppose that we must owe all the advantages and opportunities that our civilisation offers to deliberate design rather than to following traditional rules, and likewise to suppose that we can, by exercising our reason, eliminate any remaining undesired features by still more intelligence reflection, and still more appropriate design and ’rational coordination’ of our undertakings. This leads one to be favorably disposed to the central economic planning and control that lie at the heart of socialism
– F Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism
SteveF,
WRT to what’s been discussed above. There are three things:
1) Whether what he did was literally illegal.
2) Whether he will be prosecuted and
3) Whether the word “unauthorized” applies to the disclosure.
I agree with you that he probably won’t be prosecuted. However, I think #3 applies to whether giving the memos themselves is “a leak” under Carrick’s definition which requires them disclosure or dissemination to be “unauthorized” in a somewhat formal way.
To my (non-lawyer) eyes, this does seem like this:
1) The memo to file itself is a document prepared for the FBI while Comey was an employee of the FBI. So it is an “FBI files […] acquired by virtue of my official employment” . I think this is so even if he both created and acquired the file.
2) While working at the FBI Comey could not disclose or disseminate that memo unless he specifically obtained a determination the info could be disclosed.
3) ” I will surrender upon demand by the FBI, or upon my separation from the FBI, all materials containing FBI information in my possession.” means when he left the FBI, he should have surrendered that document. So once gone from the FBI, he isn’t permitted to even have that memo.
Currently, he either disseminated it before he left the FBI, (which seem to be not allowed) or he kept it when he left the FBI (which seem to be not allowed) and then disseminated material he wasn’t allowed to keep.
Something certainly appears to be “unauthorized” here. So I think this indicates “unauthorized disclosure” and hence, a leak.
But there may be other caveats I’m not getting.
Ron Graf (Comment #162988): “Comey apparently thought his private notes were his own property.”
lucia (Comment #162989): “If he’d kept them in a diary at home, I think they would have been.”
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Even if that were so, which it isn’t, the memo would still be FBI property since it contained information obtained in the course of his work. I say this on the basis of lucia’s Comment #162990 quoting the FBI employment agreement:
“2. All information acquired by me in connection with my official duties with the FBI and all official material to which I have access remain the property of the United States of America. I will surrender upon demand by the FBI, or upon my separation from the FBI, all materials containing FBI information in my possession.”
That seems pretty clear to me.
What is becoming very clear is that Comey did not consider direct political interference by Obama/Clinton tolerable.
Lucia: “But there may be other caveats I’m not getting.”
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The only thing not covered expressly in the laws cited is the allowance for accidental disclosure. Comey eliminates this question by giving details of his intention to: 1) leak the memo to his friend, 2) instructing the friend to give it to the NYT, 3) hope that it would initiate the appointment of a special prosecutor, which it did.
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The special prosecutor would now have the logical call on the prosecution of Comey’s leak. But the fact that Comey and Mueller worked together in the past should require Mueller to recuse himself from that authority. It should go to the AT, Jeff Sessions.
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Hayek: “…This leads one to be favorably disposed to the central economic planning and control that lie at the heart of socialism.”
The flaw in the logic of socialism lies at this: Being more educated than the 90% does not mean one is more intelligent than the 90%, and it certainly does not mean one is informed enough about another’s life circumstances, vocation or aspirations to make decisions for them. And, even if it did, making decisions for others has the negative consequences of removing the other from self-responsibility and depriving them of that dignity.
MikeM,
Even if that were so, which it isn’t, the memo would still be FBI property since it contained information obtained in the course of his work.
Yes. I think you may be more right than I. My thought was formally filing something as a “memo for file” certainly makes that memo FBI property. It really doesn’t matter what it contains. The document is FBI property.
On the clarity, there is a later thing with specific list of items that can’t be shared. One might argue “all” means all items on that list and then say that this memo for file isn’t on that list. But I think such an argument seems tortured for a number of reasons including the fact that if the rule goes that way, members of the FBI could write a memo for file and then immediately disseminate it to all and sundry, telling all and sundry it’s an FBI memo. The FBI clearly couldn’t function if that were allowed. So it seems to me the list has to be a list that one needs to be reminded of, but it’s not to be interpreted as the only thing you can’t disseminate. In that case, the “all” in the stuff I quoted does mean “all”.
But I also know my reading of this thing withoug pouring over the full legal document… well… I could easily overlook something. But this does seem relevant to the issue of was disclosure of the memos authorized. It looks to me like the answer is likely “no”.
Liberal icon, NYT foreign affairs editorialist and author, Thomas Friedman I once saw on CSPAN during a Q&A reflecting on whether the US invasion of Afghanistan was in hindsight a wise decision. Friedman pointed out that the new roads were deteriorating or being intentionally undermined as fast as they could be laid. Freedoms from the Taliban meant that opium production was at an all-time high. He went on and rattled off a half dozen other foreseen negative consequences for the intervention and then reflected on “nation building” in general. “After many years of study and reflection I’ve come to the conclusion that although intervention can force people to stop doing bad, it can’t force them to do good.”
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Without realizing it then or now Friedman is the embodiment of the famous quote attributed to Churchill:
If you’re not a liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 35, you have no brain.
hunter
What is becoming very clear is that Comey did not consider direct political interference by Obama/Clinton tolerable.
What makes that clear? I believe it certainly could be. But I’d like to know what evidence you actually have.
My impression is Comey is a man who very, very, very much wants to run the show. He wants to dictate how Trump and likely anyone interacts with him. Lots of stuff he writes can be viewed different ways. But one possible way to view his “concern” about the what Trump was doing and how was that Trump wasn’t doing things the way Comey wanted Trump to do them.
So, in the memo, Comey tells us how he periodically explained to Trump why the way Comey wanted Trump to operate was the “best” way. But when testifying, Comey agrees that Trump had the authority to fire him, tell him to lay off Flynn and so on.
Comey was certainly not giving Trump full and complete advise on how to accomplish what Trump wanted to accomplish. In fact, he was misleading Trump -saying he’s look into what they can do about laying off the Flynn investigation when he had no intention of looking into any such thing nor of laying off. Given the sort of expected relation between the Chief Executive and an important employees in the Excutive Branch (i.e. FBI director) you would tend to expect more accurate and full advise. I mean… really… “misleading” was a rather tame term. One could easily call telling Trump he was “going to look into it” when he had no intention of looking into it lying.
Honestly, I imagine Comey wouldn’t want Obama or Clinton to “interfere” with whatever Comey wanted to do either. That seems consistent with his other actions. But I’d like to know which evidence you have that this is so.
Re: 18 U.S. Code § 641 “Whoever embezzles, steals, purloins, or knowingly converts to his use or the use of another , or without authority, sells, conveys or disposes of any record, voucher, money, or thing of value of the United States… .”
… ..
I have always instinctively felt that it was very clear that Clinton had no right to convert or place emails under her personal control. This statue makes clear that that is the case. The use of the term “convert” is very important because it has a very specific legal meaning. It is referring to the concept underlying the tort of conversion, which deals with the unauthorized use or exercise of control over the property of another. Clinton clearly violated this statute. Comey has committed a minor violation of the statute, but still a violation. Sort of strange that no one in Obama’s department of justice appeared to have any familiarity with the statute. Wonder if the statute of limitations has run.
JD
The NYT stands by its Feb 14 story that Comey testified was “almost entirely wrong.”
A Times spokesperson said in a statement that the new report had “found no evidence that any prior reporting was inaccurate….
…White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said Feb. 19 on NBC’s “Meet the Press†that officials at the “top levels of the intelligence community†had assured him the Times story “was grossly overstated, and inaccurate and totally wrong.†https://www.yahoo.com/news/york-times-stands-trump-russia-221420245.html
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Priebus was responding to a leak that he had asked the FBI to refute the NYT claim after he was informed by high IC officials that it was false. I remember Priebus being accused in the same manner Trump was being accused of interfering or obstructing justice. If Comey’s testimony is accurate on this point Priebus was in fact attempting to promote justice. If Trump had good reason to believe Flynn was not a Russian agent or had compromised himself then his remark of that to Comey was in the same vein as what Priebus did.
” If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 35, you have no brain.”
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How does this claim square with the socialism being associated with intellectualism? The answer is that blindness is independent of intellect. This is the same reason that no MSM lawyer guests or legal academics saw “conversion” in 18 U.S. Code § 641 applying to Clinton’s making a personal email server. People often don’t find what they don’t look for.
“So once gone from the FBI, he isn’t permitted to even have that memo.”
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This might explain why Comey didn’t leak the memo himself. Instead he concocted this story that he had already given the memo to his friend before he left the FBI and then his friend leaked it “later”.
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I don’t know the timing of when Comey gave his friend the memo. If he claims it was before he left the FBI then this thing is starting to smell a little. It’s a minor point in the grand scheme.
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Realistically if “boy scout” Comey has exposed himself, he should be made to sweat. He looks like just another partisan DC actor who cares a lot more about DC inside baseball than protecting the country.
This might explain why Comey didn’t leak the memo himself. Instead he concocted this story that he had already given the memo to his friend before he left the FBI and then his friend leaked it “laterâ€.
Maybe. But if Comey’s goal was to get an independent counsel appointed, you would think he’d know that the story would come out.
Anyway, Comey giving the memo to the friend while Comey was still at the FBI would seem to be equally unauthorized.
It’s hard to see how this dissemination doesn’t fall into the category of “unauthorized”, and so it would seem to correctly be called a “leak”. Online, I’ve seen some defend it was not a leak because the material was not classified. But the word “leak” isn’t restricted to classified material. It’s used more broadly than that– and that’s true even if I use it even more broadly that some others (like Carrick) seem to.
I’m making a last comment on this then move on (/applause I’m sure). Thanks to everybody for your comments. It’s been interesting to see how differently different people react to the same sequence of words.
If a person expects the media to have a particular bias,it’s not really surprising to seem that they are going to fight tooth and nail for interpretations like “the FBI is investigating links between Trump and Russian officials” must clearly be saying that Trump is a subject of the investigation. And anybody who seems it differently clearly must be wearing a reality-distortion hat.
(I’d say a similar thing will happen with liberals–they are obviously expecting Trump to be corrupt, and are consciously looking for confirming evidence.)
JD Ohio—Here’s how I see it: We have a free press, which for the most part, is for-profit. Because they are typically seated in large towns, which are traditional liberal areas, it’s perfectly natural that the stories they cary cater to a liberal audience. Similarly, the few cities that are conservatives bastions, like San Diego or Tuscon, end up having conservative papers.
The only place I really object to bias being present is NPR, which is paid by public funding, and shouldn’t be propagandizing one side, but it clearly does.
Anyway, the clearest exposition of this I’ve seen is from the first public editor of the New York Times, Daniel Okrent:
His answer is “OF course it is.” The whole thing is worth a read, but my favorite paragraph is this:
The fattest file on my hard drive is jammed with letters from the disappointed, the dismayed and the irate who find in this newspaper a liberal bias that infects not just political coverage but a range of issues from abortion to zoology to the appointment of an admitted Democrat to be its watchdog. (That would be me.) By contrast, readers who attack The Times from the left — and there are plenty — generally confine their complaints to the paper’s coverage of electoral politics and foreign policy.
I’ll get to the politics-and-policy issues this fall (I want to watch the campaign coverage before I conclude anything), but for now my concern is the flammable stuff that ignites the right. These are the social issues: gay rights, gun control, abortion and environmental regulation, among others. And if you think The Times plays it down the middle on any of them, you’ve been reading the paper with your eyes closed.
Anyway, the stories they cover or headline are going to have a liberal bent…this is self-selecting. Stories you think are important aren’t the ones that sell that paper, and stories that give you heart-burn are more likely to be front page.
I don’t think there’s any huge problem with bias, as long as the newspaper clearly labels what their bias is. The trouble is when people end up self-selecting newspaper or cable news outlets, so they end up reinforcing just one viewpoint. I think this is contributing to the polarization we’re seeing. In the age of information, it seems that people are typically using fewer sources than they used when they had fewer choices.
DeWitt Payne:
How about a prominent statement in the stories that there do not appear to be direct links to Trump himself, since there aren’t. Otherwise I agree with JD Ohio that we’re getting multiple front page stories above the fold that aren’t news.
Another related problem is the level of plagiarism in the MSM. A lot of these stories begin as AP Press stories, and get republished ad infinitum, with only minor tweaks to add “local color”, and often without any attribution to the original news source. Anyway, this results one particular write-up getting massively amplified through the resulting plagiarized local stories.
To the other point, honestly I think the real story is above their heads.
I wonder how many people are even aware the FBI investigation of Russian “links” isn’t focused just on criminal behavior for example. One of the FBI’s biggest missions is domestic counter-intelligence. So even when somebody is a “focus” of the investigation, like Jared Kushner, the interest might only be “what are the techniques the Russians used to attempt to recruit this person.” Even being a focus wouldn’t necessarily imply they were being investigated for criminal activity.
I’d like the press to spell that out better too, because it’s not fair to people who’s only “crime” is Russian intelligence officers became interested in trying to manipulate them. None of this becomes “collusion” until you have willing participants on the US side. Good luck finding that spelled out in the press.
[With the exception of Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who I think is facing real legal jeopardy, criminal activity that I expect will be uncovered by members of Trump’s campaign are things like perjury and mis-reporting of income, things that may fall under “prosecutor digression” and probably won’t even result in indictments.]
That is all.
Lucia,
Yes, There has been a lot of talk about “norms” with respect to the independence of the FBI, but then the media goes super technical to the letter of the law for obstruction charges. It’s almost impossible to find references that Trump had the authority to simply command Comey to drop the case in the vast majority of articles.
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Everything with corruption charges hinges on whether Trump had “corrupt” intent even if the final judgment was he was commanding Comey to drop the case (which is weak tea).
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It’s just partisan threading of the needle either way.
Ron Graf,
NYT: “found no evidence that any prior reporting was inaccurate”
Note the double negative. It is not saying it was accurate. This is how our best and brightest use misdirection.
Carrick: “Anyway, the stories they cover or headline are going to have a liberal bent…this is self-selecting.”
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I don’t have a problem with people expressing their ideological viewpoint. I do have a problem with people being so self-delusional that they consider their ideological viewpoint to be the truth.
JD
Tom Scharf
Note the double negative. It is not saying it was accurate. T
There is little way for them to know if the story is accurate. As Comey explains: Those who know what is really happening aren’t talking about it; those who don’t know are. If that is true, the NYT could have several “sources” none of whom know what is going on all confirming each other.
Hunter said: “What is becoming very clear is that Comey did not consider direct political interference by Obama/Clinton tolerable.”
But he did find it tolerable. He did nothing to stop it, or to remove himself from it.
Steve F: “I suspect Comey did violate the letter of the law. Nobody is going to prosecute him for it.”
An all too frequent occurrence these days. Which raises the question, why have letters of the law at all. Let’s just allow an authority to be arbitrary in their judgement of right and wrong.
Kan thank you for catching my bad typo. The point I managed to mangle is that Comey rolled over in favor helping democrats to get by on multiple occasions. Enough times and significantly enough to raise questions if him obstructing justice. Yet a mere question and expression of opinion from the Republican President is enough for him to contrive a way to force an independent counsel on the Republican. How Comey is a corrupt player in this. He is not an impartial law enforcement professional.
Carrick,
Applause….ha ha.
The NYT likes to have it both ways, they claim they have two sections, the news side and the opinion side with a firewall in between. The NYT rarely lies to promote what is obviously a liberal agenda. It is clear to me that they take fact checking seriously with occasional errors. This lets them believe they are straight shooters with “all the news that is fit to print”, and more importantly it lets * their readers * believe it too.
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But they are very smart people, and they have a conscious or unconscious agenda. If you want to know which way a media operation points, the best place to look is what anecdotal stories they report on. If you can find any anecdotal stories at the NYT or other left leaning MSM outlets about illegals, blacks, or gays behaving badly, you are looking harder than I am. But if a white guy calls someone a slave at Starbucks it is national news:
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Man goes on racist rant at Starbucks, calls black man a slave http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/09/us/racist-rant-chicago-starbucks-trnd/index.html
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If a story is big enough and clear enough they will all dutifully cover the facts. What the headline is and what page the story is on and what paragraph to report certain facts on is essentially an editor’s job. I have seen the NYT “bury the lead” many times into paragraph 9 or put an article on page A16.
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The NYT didn’t even report ClimateGate for two weeks after it happened and then declared it wouldn’t report on “stolen emails”, a laughably inconsistent standard for the NYT. Climate coverage is so biased I could go on for hours…they all hit the fainting couches when Bret Stephens wrote what is a tame column about it.
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There are counterexamples. Terrorism is something the left would realistically like to minimize as it serves the right’s agenda. They still cover it breathlessly.
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A recent example is the Russia links and Comey’s testimony. The “news” that there still aren’t any Russia links and the director of the FBI told Trump he wasn’t under investigation 3 times was dropped like a lead balloon after it was covered for 10 months straight like it was Watergate. Yes, they reported it, but what are 90% of the words and stories about….”I hope” and obstruction.
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Benefit of the doubt. If someone accused Obama of something (sicking the IRS on conservatives) the mentality is innocent until proven guilty. With Trump (Russian collusion) it is guilty until proven innocent.
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Where to look. The WP said it had 20 reporters investigating Trump during the election. I doubt they were asking people if they thought Trump was more like Lincoln or Roosevelt.
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How is it that a hyperactive media never even knew Clinton had her own email server for years and years? They aren’t looking very hard.
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Clinton emails was first reported in 2013. http://gawker.com/5991563/hacked-emails-show-hillary-clinton-was-receiving-advice-at-a-private-email-account-from-banned-obama-hating-former-staffer
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The NYT exposure came in March 2015 after the Benghazi investigation (witch hunt) uncovered it again. I would bet my life it was leaked to the NYT’s first either by Clinton herself or sympathizers to get it framed correctly before others got it (that ended up backfiring).
Carrick, I agree with some of your summary but disagree in particular with this:
JD Ohio—Here’s how I see it: We have a free press, which for the most part, is for-profit. Because they are typically seated in large towns, which are traditional liberal areas, it’s perfectly natural that the stories they carry cater to a liberal audience.
Although it’s fine and expected to have big city tabloids exploiting an audience it’s not OK if you claim to be a paper of record like the NYT, WP and LA times.
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Tom Scharf, I find it amazing that it is still being reported that the NYT was the first to uncover HRC email server, almost as amazing as the MSM not picking up on Benghazi after the contractors (heroes) on the ground went to Fox News while swallowing whole Mike Morell (CIA) talking points drawn for Susan Rice to spread on all the news shows.
Tom,
The NY Times is in the business of selling leftist drivel to an audience who laps up as much leftist drivel as possible. Fair enough; any honest effort to present an unbiased story, even on the news side, would never be accepted by their readers (note all the cancelations of subscriptions over the mildest of columns written by a fairly toasty ‘luke-warmer’!). The Times doesn’t want to lose readership. So if there ever were Times reporters who would play news stories straight, they have long ago been driven out or found a different career option. The only rational thing to do with the Times is set your expectations very low… and don’t pay any attention to what they report.
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I fortunately have relatives who read the Times every Sunday, so I never run out of newspaper for wrapping up fish guts…. and in truth, I can think of no better use for the Times.
Ron Graf,
The worst part about Benghazi was the initial attempt to blame it on some 4th rate YouTube movie. I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but it fits nicely with the mentality on some college campuses that “hate” speech like that movie needs to be banned. Thank God (or Allah) that the 1st Amendment is not anywhere near as malleable as some SJW activists wish it to be. We just need some college administrators to understand that as well.
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Middlebury president writes and entirely reasonable essay in the WSJ today: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-right-way-to-protect-free-speech-on-campus-1497019583
SteveF,
I read the NYT mostly to know what the left is thinking on subjects, and to constantly remind myself that they still don’t know what the right is about, ha ha. Talk about the world’s most uncharitable interpretation. If you get out of culture war subjects, it is decent, but they tend to try to make everything about the culture wars.
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Here they tie Comey’s treatment by Trump with that of being a victim of sexual harassment, written by a theater critic.
James Comey and the Predator in Chief https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/opinion/james-comey-and-the-predator-in-chief.html
JD Ohio—I don’t think the NYT is necessarily delusional. The line that it’s reporting the truth was probably created by an advertising firm… so I’ve viewed it as a gimmick, and not an attempt at truthful portrayal of the product they are selling.
Tom Scharf overall good comments. I think Andy Revkin had decent coverage of it. That article is just four days after the original leak.
I haven’t seen a claim that they didn’t want to cover it due to the emails being stolen. Can you find that and post it?
Ron Graf: Keep in mind the media are for profit. I like your idea in principle, but in a market driven economy, they don’t always have the luxury of staying on the high ground ethically.
Added: Tom I don’t find the NYT horrible, but they aren’t the first paper I look at. I look at their versions of stories because I like looking at multiple perspectives and they are less likely than some to plagiarize.
The story you linked was a commentary by Nicole Serratore, and it was covered in multiple newspapers. The NYT publishes a broad range of commentaries (less so than they used to unfortunately). But I wouldn’t use a commentary written by a free lance as evidence of bias in a newspaper, especially if they allow dissenting opinions.
Comey did not leak any memos to Wittes. The general idea in the memos is what he told Wittes(or so Wittes claims.)
Carrick,
I followed Revkin for years, he is pretty reasonable overall, he’s gone. Revkin was writing a blog, it wasn’t covered by the news team, and the NYT was one of the very last outlets to cover it. ClimateGate was a big story. It ended up changing climate science for the better with improved accountability and data sharing. Climate media coverage has gotten decidedly worse due to an activist monoculture in almost all media outlets.
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Here is Revkin discussing not publishing emails https://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/private-climate-conversations-on-display/?_r=0
MikeN,
We now have the FBI regs which includes
I will not reveal, by any means, any information or material from or related to FBI files or any other information acquired by virtue of my official employment to any unauthorized recipient without prior official written authorization by the FBI.
Detals of what hhappened in the meeting is information acquired by virtue of my official employment it is also related to FBI files. It is definitely “related to” the contents of the Memo to File which Comey wrote and deposited in the file.
Witte’s would appear to be an ‘unauthorized recipient’ of that “information” and appears to be even if he wasn’t given the Memo.
Tom Scharf—I read the public editors commentary. I actually think the distinction between public emails and private ones is legitimate. But the emails were copied from a public email server run by a public university. I don’t think those can be construed to be private emails.
So I don’t buy the argument. It smells like more a legal concern manufactured by a lawyer to appease a client.
I would guess the newspaper is replete with examples where it published without permission private emails.
lucia, thanks for digging all that up on the FBI regulations. Very interesting.If it’s an unsanctioned disclosure, then it’s a leak.
There’s a caveat, though. Tom Devine, legal director for the Government Accountability Project pointed out in an email after this article was originally published that Comey himself isn’t covered by the Whistleblower Protection Act since he was both a presidential appointee and a representative of the FBI, a position which doesn’t fall under the act’s purview.
So Comey leaked (in my opinion of course) illegally (with the caveat that the DOJ did not sanction it), and he does not have appear to have protected status.
Carrick,
My reading suggests it is. But the lawyers might snag the whole thing and interpret it better.
I’m trying to unpack things we know. The following are just bread crumbs to keep track:
Feinstein & committee write Comey’s “friend” for copy of memo
Contains links to letters to FBI and assorted history of the committee trying to get stuff.
Carrick,
I should also add: Willis dug it up. I just read his tweets and found it that way. Twitter is a good place to find stuff– real, fake and real-but-misleading.
Carrick,
Unless evidence is produced showing Comey either 1) outright lied multiple times during his testimony, or 2) he is a serial child molester, or 3) both, nobody is going to prosecute him. He skates under the ‘too big to jail’ rule.
Lucia,
Willis did, but law professor Johnathan Turley wrote a column shortly after Comey’s written statment was released and drew the same conclusions, referencing the same statutes and condition of employment rules. I don’t know who wrote first, Willis or Turley. 😉
In either case, Comey almostly certainly is theoretically in jeopardy, but still, nobody is going to prosecute Comey over trying to damage Trump…. that makes him a hero to half the country.
What I mean to convey is that I didn’t do much digging. I got it from Willis. I don’t know if Willis got it from Turley or found it himself. But anyway, Carrick thanked, me. It’s nice to be thanked. I should go thank willis. 🙂
Lucia,
“It’s nice to be thanked.”
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Thank you for hosting this blog…. and not allowing rhetorical questions.
SteveF: “He skates under the ‘too big to jail’ rule.”
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So is there any place for “professional courtesy?” Is such a thing corrupt at its core? I am sure a lot of officials and lawyers would like to know. The founders gave a too big to jail clause for the President. I believe the reason was to keep opponents from attempting to paralyze the government. Does any of that trickle down?
SteveF,
I agree with you that legal jeopardy is theoretical.. We have been discussing whether the disclosure was a “leak”. All that requires is “unauthorized”. (Although, I am running across articles that try to say it’s not a “leak” if it’s not classified or illegal and it’s clear they mean criminal. But that’s nonsense. The word “leak” applies to any disclosure that is unauthorized. That doesn’t necessarily mean criminal. You or I could have a contract– violation wouldn’t amount to anything criminal, it’s civil. A disclosure that is unauthorized in the civil sense is a leak.
I go further can call things leaks when the lack of authorization is merely “tradition” or “violation of norm”. But not everyone goes that far. That’s ok.
But here: here, we don’t have to go so far as my definition. This appears to be at least a violation of FBI employment agreement. That’s enough to make it a leak. And since FBI is a fed office it appear t be against the law which looks like it escalate to “illegal leak”.
So… looks like a “leak” to me.
Will Comey be charged? Almost certainly not. Not even if he’s guilty.
I have no particular problem with prosecutorial discretion. But it would be rather ironic that COMEY isn’t charged for that reason while, somehow the issues with Trump wanting investigation of Flynn dropped would also be legit if we recognize that Trump is, ultimately, boss of FBI and has just as much right to said discretintion. (Even if he is a poo-poo head and you hate his ass like I do.)
Exposing private emails while working for the taxpayer is controversial, I come down on the “I paid for it, I get to see it” side. Ultimately they just start communicating via outside channels as Clinton did.
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The bigger matter is scientists (not just climate science) who work on taxpayer funded grants that refuse to share their data with other scientists or refuse FOI requests. There is no justification for this from a taxpayer’s point of view. I get it that they consider this part of their ongoing blood, sweat, and tears career effort and don’t want to give it to others for free, but the taxpayer wants to see the most efficient progress possible with their funds.
Comey might get charged if they try to bring “Trumped up” charges against Trump over “I hope”. The thing Trump has going for him here is they didn’t charge Clinton for some clear letter of the law violations, and if they refuse to even look at Comey it’s going to start looking rather partisan.
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If the FBI then goes after the president on some letter of the law violations that are “get in his head” judgment based, it will infuriate half of America. Most analysts agree he can’t be charged while in office but it would be used as a basis (excuse) to impeach if the left gets control of Congress in 2018.
Lucia: “…Trump is, ultimately, boss of FBI and has just as much right to said discretion.”
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Loretta Lynch was also Comey’s boss. Did Comey have the right to refuse the attorney general’s (his direct report) requests? I think the answer is it depends on content. If the directive is deemed improper the answer would be “yes.” Is a request to change the FBI’s messaging on HRC emails an improper favor to the HRC campaign? I think one could argue “yes.” Is Trump’s giving a character reference for Flynn while under investigation proper? Maybe.
Trump might be smarmy, but the head of the FBI openly leaking stuff to the NYT just doesn’t look good. My faith in governmental institutions hasn’t improved since Nov 8th.
Lucia,
“Even if he is a poo-poo head and you hate his ass like I do.”
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Please don’t hold back. Tell us what you really think.😉
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I would never suggest Trump doesn’t have many character flaws, and I understand why it seems few eople actually like him. For me, Trump was purely a hold-your-nose vote, and most others in the Republican primary field were far more competent (and likeable). But they were not on the ballot last November. My vote for Trump was actually very selfish: I could not have endured listening for 4 years to Hillary speeches; having my teeth drilled without novocaine would be much easirer to take.
>Detals of what happened in the meeting is information acquired by virtue of my official employment it is also related to FBI files. It is definitely “related to†the contents of the Memo to File which Comey wrote and deposited in the file.
So would explaining what type of coffee he had in the morning at the FBI.
There is further detail after the signature page.
PROHIBITED DISCLOSURES
Employees shall not disclose the following types of information to unauthorized recipients…(I’ve removed some of them)
Information protected from disclosure by the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended;
Information that is classified or the disclosure of which could harm national security;
Information that reveals sensitive law enforcement, … techniques…;
Information that would reveal grand jury material…
Information that would tend to reveal the identity of a confidential source…
Information that relates to any sensitive operational details or the substantive merits of any ongoing or open investigation or case;
Information pertaining to wiretaps or intercepts, electronic communications (including storage mechanisms), or foreign intelligence…
Any other information the disclosure of which is prohibited by law, Executive Order, or regulation; or Any other information that the FBI would have discretion to withhold from disclosure pursuant to civil discovery obligations, the Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act, or any other statute, law, or regulation.
Willis applies the last provision(to the NYT leak), so any conversations with the President cannot be relayed to anyone. I think it is an enormous stretch.
@Lucia,
The smart money is with you when you say “It appears tax simplification is not going to happen.” Maybe tax cuts won’t happen either in which case forget about growing the economy by 3% per year. However, we have all underestimated Trump on many occasions……..
I was sure that Trump would not “Pull Out of Paris” but he surprised me and maybe you too.
The Lame Stream Media continues to underestimate Trump. He makes them look like idiots time after time but they still have not figured out what he is doing.
Trump was able to provoke the media with a couple of tweets knowing he would be proven right once again. Trump has nothing to fear from the media given their inability to figure out that they are being played.
Trump’s real problems are his lukewarm “friends”. They are not as predictable as the media. You don’t see Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell or Paul Ryan fighting for the Trump agenda, much less for Trump himself.
I have high hopes for the “Freedom Caucus”. They are not fair weather friends…..they supported Trump from the start.
Trump is an innovator. Nicolo Machiavelli explains the travails of such people in Chapter VI of “The Prince” published in 1532:
“Those who by valorous ways become princes, like these men, acquire a principality with difficulty, but they keep it with ease. The difficulties they have in acquiring it rise in part from the new rules and methods which they are forced to introduce to establish their government and its security. And it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them. Thus it happens that whenever those who are hostile have the opportunity to attack they do it like partisans, whilst the others defend lukewarmly, in such wise that the prince is endangered along with them.”
Thus you have the lukewarm GOP wilting under attacks from the establishment (DEMS, RINOs, banks, media, academia, big business, judicial activists and on and on). Against such powerful opposition it will take at least a year for Trump to gain control but after that he will win a second term with ease.
SteveF,
Oh. I understand. As much as I shake my head at Trump and wish Thor would fling his hammer and take him out I never wish Hillary was President.
Galloping.
We’ll see what happens with taxes.
Ron,
Trumps “hope” about Flynn may or may not have been improper. But, generically, he still has at least as much right to exercise prosecutorial discretion as Comey or Lynch.
FWIW: I’m not going to assume Comey or Lynch always correctly exercised prosecutorial. But there are some (and I’m not suggesting you) who seem to believe that Trump has no right to exercise prosecutorial discretion. In fact he has. And, absent evidence of his exercising corruption when exercising it, his discretion goes.
So far, I haven’t read any evidence to support an accusation that Trump has corrupt motives in wanting further investigation into Flynn dropped. Generally those who try to may the case seem to think the “evidence” the request was corrupt was merely that it was made. Or the want to just ignore that the request is not obstruction of justice unless the motive was corrupt.
Neither of those approaches make the case that Trump did anything wrong. Doing “X” is not evidence that “Y” was the motive for doing X, particuarly when there are many possible motives for doing X.
Mind you: The lack of evidence he had an impure motive, is not evidence he didn’t have one. But our justice system doesn’t work that way. Someone has to identify the specific impure motive and find actual evidence Trump had that motive.
Lucia, this thing is not over. Flynn could have been directed by Trump to set up a back channel, which in any other presidency would be shrewd statecraft, but in the current environment would be circumstantial evidence of collusion.
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Also, we are waiting to know if Trump has a tape of the private meeting. If Trump does and it shows Comey’s testimony to be colored even mildly it would lead to the following:
1) Comey prosecution.
2) Re-energizing Trump supporters.
3) MSM vilification of Trump for nefariously entrapping Comey.
4) Chill deep state actors.
5) Impress the heck out of geopolitical chess-master Putin.
Ron Graf,
Unless said tapes, if they exist, showed blatant outright lies in Comey’s testimony, he will never be prosecuted for anything.
WRT tax reform (and every other substantive issue): Democrats in Congress are using the investigating-Trump/Russia-all-the-time strategy to delay action on the substantive issues. Same as delaying for as long as possible Trump’s nominees. They probably figure that if they can delay any real changes in taxes, health care, etc. until the 2018 elections, then they may gain control of at least one chamber, and so be able to block all changes for the remainder of Trump’s term. The faux hysteria in Congress about Russia is utterly dishonest; Democrat leaders have known for months that the FBI was never investing Trump for collusion with Russia, but have continued the beat the “stolen election” drum without stop. It seems they are both dishonest and incapable of shame.
Ron
I didn’t say it was over. I am hoping for tapes. I’ve always wanted to be a bug on the wall, and tapes are the next best thing.
I have no theory about which version of the story the tapes will support. Both men are yucky.
Tom Scharf:
Exposing private emails while working for the taxpayer is controversial, I come down on the “I paid for it, I get to see it†side. Ultimately they just start communicating via outside channels as Clinton did.
I’m fully on the side of “if the emails relate to work you are doing for the public, and it doesn’t contain classified or confidential material, the public owns them and has a right to view them.” (There’s some emails of mine published in a book, so this isn’t a theoretical on my part.)
I’m curious what it is that people are trying to hide, when they don’t want them seen (well, not with the climategate stuff, it’s obvious some of these people were acting in poor faith even before we saw their emails).
Carrick,
I suppose that people just don’t want to be embarrassed by their emails. I’m sure I have written things in emails that I would not want published. I think the issue is really two-fold: Personal information (‘my wife is suffering terrible depression’) is sometimes going to find its way into work emails. People would never want that kind of information published, even if the email really is ‘owned’ by your employer; I think that desire is perfectly understandable. The second is that they don’t want anyone to see the ‘warts and all’ information: the kinds of things that were common in the UEA emails. One would be hard pressed to read those emails and not conclude there were some very unscrupulous actors involved. My take is that you simply should not put anything in a work related email that you would not want your employer to read. In the case of publicly funded reseachers, the employer is the public… so public employees should never put anything in an email which they would not want the public to read. Act in good faith, and you will have nothing to hide.
SteveF: I do think personal emails, even sent from a work computer, should not be considered public. Those would fall under “confidential”. Similarly, discussions about future projects and other privileged information (like performance of students working under you).
The UEA emails went beyond simply the usual warts, that is problems with software that people were trying to step around, that weren’t as reliable as they needed to be. These should be shared because they speak to the reliability of the work.
But generally this is a good prescription: “public employees should never put anything in an email which they would not want the public to read”. If you want to vent about a colleague use a different medium, because it actually is informative to see how animus affects the character of scientific rebuttals.
The recommendation I give is “always write work emails as if there’s a person looking over your shoulder. ” Once you send the email, you’ve lost any personal control of who can ultimately see that email.
Carrick,
The problem with screening personal emails is can you trust the one who redacts? HRC’s self filtering was very untrustworthy. Given the opportunity the usual suspects would purge their embarrassing climategate emails. I don’t want to know about somebody’s colon exams.
Ha ha. Don’t expect this poll result to get much coverage.
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Select the two most important issues to you:
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Healthcare – 45%
Economy – 39%
Immigration – 21%
Environment – 18%
Way Things Work In DC – 12%
Trump / Russia – 12%
Social Issues – 11%
Guns – 8%
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Trump / Russia 12% (Clinton Voters 26%, Trump Voters 2%, 3rd party – 11%)
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To make this more explicit, only 1 out of 4 Clinton Voters put Trump / Russia in their TOP TWO issues.
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As expected, the HuffPost isn’t going out of their way to highlight this. Paragraph 20:
“Few Americans rate the story as a top worry. Just 12 percent of Americans picked President Trump’s relationship with Russia as one of the two issues they find most important” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/poll-americans-trust-james-comey-over-trump_us_593c4814e4b0b13f2c6b1b69
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The inside the beltway / outside the beltway disconnect is stark.
Tom,
And what do progressives carry on about: Trump/Russia, social issues (transgender rights, micro-aggressions, subconscious racism, etc), climate, and gun control. And they wonder why they keep losing elections.
Paris is dangerous. It was designed to allow courts to impose its provisions on countries like the US. No thanks.
hunter, PA can be viewed either as non-binding or unconstitutional, because it never went through the Senate. Had it been ratified, then probably yes.
Here’s the blurb from Amazon on that book I linked:
From the NYT review, this is pretty good too:
This schadenfreude goes down well with a stout cup of coffee.
Her difficulty in “articulating a vision” is another way of saying “she had no vision.”
“Failed to internalize the lessons of populist fury” is another way of saying “didn’t understand the voters weren’t robots.”
Announcement is running late.
Nice jazz on the public address system.
Fairly nice 1st day of June in the Rose Garden (82F), and the suits are waiting in the sun for a global warming announcement. Nice.
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Can’t bring myself to watch anymore.
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Lemme know what happens.
Trump pulled the trigger. Let the hysteria begin.
Trump did leave the door cracked open to “renegotiate” the accord under terms more favorable to the USA. That’s not likely going to happen (Frau Merkel and the other Europeans will see to that), so it is pretty much a done deal. If he does actually start negotiations, he would be prudent to make sure his counter parties understand any treaty must be approved by 2/3 of the Senate.
The seas just rose 30 feet in FL, going to swim to the new mainland now. I blame Trump. The whole world is tut-tutting us now. I am ashamed, I so wanted to impress the virtuous Europeans.
Somebody please tell me what were all the ‘green’ jobs we’re now supposedly going to lose? The analyses I’ve seen indicate that the PA would have been a significant net loss for the US economy in total jobs and GDP.
Eddie, if it were an announcement to stay in, the Gore Effect would have made it snow.
I’m expecting a bunch of stupid lawsuits from the usual suspects within a few days. The only real question is if one of Obama’s leftist district judges will try to block Trump’s decision… that would be so big an overstep that the SC will quickly quash any suits that succeed at the district level; I would expect an immediate stay of any lower court ruling against Trump on this issue.
Tom,
“The seas just rose 30 feet in FL”
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Funny, I peeked at the ocean here on Cape Cod and nothing seems to have changed.
I doubt anyone thought he was going to announce we are staying in. It was just a matter of details.
Trump is highlighting how it’s a bad deal for America. He should also mention the various fossil fuel companies that have been encouraging him to stay in, just to confuse the opposition.
It’s not only a bad deal for America, much like the Kyoto Protocol, it’s not going to accomplish much even if everybody lived up to their end of the deal. I’m not betting on that either. If the PA is the best deal that could be done, it wasn’t worth the effort.
Lucia,
Yes, I doubted he would announce we were staying in, but I feared he might reverse course after listening to the First Daughter. The only good thing about Trump is that he is not Hillary, and doesn’t do the things Hillary would. Had he reversed himself on this issue, then that one good thing about him would be much diminished.
MikeN,
“He should also mention the various fossil fuel companies that have been encouraging him to stay in, just to confuse the opposition.”
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The fossil fuel companies are international companies, and they want consistent rules everywhere. They know they will be selling fossil fuels profitably for a very long time, in spite of the Paris accord.
Ouch.
http://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2017/06/Kyoto-before-and-after.jpeg?resize=580%2C425
DeWitt,
For many countries with very low birth rates (most of Europe, China, Japan, Russia, Brazil) it is expected their populations will contract in the next few decades, so reductions in total CO2 emissions will be a smaller burden than in the States, where immigration and near-replacement birth rates mean continuing growth in population.
However, China has a lower CO2 per capita than the US and Europe, though well above the global average. Other countries are even further below in per capita.
There is no amount of demographic change that can produce the 90 percent cut needed.
SteveF,
Yes.
The Kyoto Protocols wouldn’t let the US count reforestation against CO2 emissions either. It’s beggar thy neighbor by other means.
Speaking of reforestation, I saw a sticker on a car the other day with the slogan: “Daddy, what where forest’s like?”
How out of touch can you get? There are more trees in the US now than there were a century ago. That’s what fossil fuels have allowed us to do. Forest land area is about 70% of what it was in 1630 and isn’t declining much anymore.
Of course if we convert from fossil fuels to biomass, that bumper sticker might come true.
I guess Obama’s legacy as the “Climate Change President” lasted 4 months. I hoped he enjoyed it.
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If you want a long lasting agreement, get people to agree to it.
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With about a zillion words written lately on this subject by the usual suspects they never get around to telling how much it is going to cost the US and how effective it will be if the US stays in or drops out (0.1C by 2100 I read). I do get lectured on my morals continuously.
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It takes effect the day after the next election, that should make things interesting.
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Trump: “It is time to put Youngstown, Ohio, Detroit, Mich., and Pittsburgh, Pa., along with many, many other locations within our great country before Paris, Franceâ€
DeWitt,
“There are more trees in the US now than there were a century ago.”
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A lot more. When I was growing up in the late 1950’s early 1960’s in Massachusetts, there were extensive forests behind my house of oak, maple, and white pine. But oddly enough, these forests were cordoned off into large rectangular plots by rubble stone walls made of granite boulders. Turns out all this land had, 50 – 75+ years earlier, been farmland, which had been abandoned and returned to forest when competition from much more productive farms in the mid-west made farming in Massachusetts unprofitable. The rubble stone walls were all that remained of the earlier farms.
MikeN,
“There is no amount of demographic change that can produce the 90 percent cut needed.”
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Please explain why there is a need for 90% reduction. My understanding is that plants currently fix about 25% of the emitted CO2, and ocean dissolution takes away another 25%, so that means the atmospheric concentration grows by about 50% of total emissions. If we were to reduce emissions by 90% then atmospheric concentration would fall for at least multiple decades, and maybe many decades. Are you suggesting that is what is needed? if so, please explain why you think that?
In other news, Wall Street hit another record.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #162567): “Somebody please tell me what were all the ‘green’ jobs we’re now supposedly going to lose? The analyses I’ve seen indicate that the PA would have been a significant net loss for the US economy in total jobs and GDP.”
Oh, there are lots of “green jobs”. The reason is that green is more labor intensive than the efficient “bad” way of doing things. If we get rid of all the earth moving machines and replace them with men wielding shovels, we will create a lot of green jobs. And make everyone poorer while we are at it.
SteveF, it’s not what I think. An 80% cut below 1990 levels is what scientists have been declaring for decades.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/ndp030/global.1751_2014.ems
1990 level 6078. 80% below that is 1216.
2014 level 9855, presumable 10000+ now. 88% cut needed.
Soon it will surpass 90%, or the science must declare a different target.
If the issue is stabilization of emissions, then demographic changes can achieve this, holding down increases in China and elsewhere and producing reductions eventually.
If the possibility of 90% reductions or any substantial reductions are eliminated by developing world increases, then I predict the science will change to allow for stabilization as the new target. Beenstock & Reingewertz might become the new paradigm.
DeWitt,
A more in touch bumper sticker might read:
Papá, ¿cómo era la selva tropical?
Seen on a car running palm oil bio-diesel.
MikeN,
Wow, it’s like you haven’t heard about empirical versus modeled sensitivity. Yes, rising atmospheric CO2 has to induce warming of the surface. But how much and over how long are the substantive issues, and those depend on sensitivity. Those “scientists” base projections of future warming mostly on models which are in disagreement with just about every empirical (aka measurement based) evaluation. Here’s the reality: emissions of CO2 are not going to be reduced any time in the next few decades; with development in India, China, and Africa, they will actually significantly increase. By that time, the discrepancy between modeled projections of warming and measured warming will be laughable. So will silly projections of rapid sea level rise. That is when serious policy discussions can (and likely will) take place; I expect nuclear power will be the practical choice, since it is reliable, available, and not too expensive. In the mean time, you can count on much political hysteria, but no rapid warming.
MikeN: “An 80% cut below 1990 levels is what scientists have been declaring for decades.”
That is probably based on the idiotic notion that CO2 must be kept below 450 ppm. But there is no scientific basis for that number.
MikeN
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2014 level 9855, presumable 10000+ now.
CO2 emissions fell in 2015 and again in 2016, so you might wish to revisit that presumption.
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If the issue is stabilization of emissions, then demographic changes can achieve this
Not can, but will.
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holding down increases in China and elsewhere and producing reductions eventually.
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Again, China CO2 emissions are not increasing, they are decreasing so you may reassess. There’s uncertainty, of course, with all things China, but declining CO2 emissions are entirely consistent with not even falling population, but falling working age population, which China now exhibits. ( also note the world working age percentage – declining for the next 80 years. Global demand for everything is slowing ).
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I bring this up constantly because the paradigms have shifted and these things bear repeating.
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I grew up with the world worrying about overpopulation. Now the world is worrying about lack of growth.
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This doesn’t mean that co2 emission won’t continue. But all gas GHG forcing rates peaked in 1989. CO2 forcing rates have now peaked. Going forward, rates of warming will be less than they were for the last four decades or so – without even trying.
SteveF, the purpose of emissions cuts is to stop global warming. If you don’t accept that assumption, fine. However, I am going to assume the scientists are accurate when evaluating their policy proposals. Their is no point in evaluating the policy if I wish to challenge the assumptions behind making the policy proposal.
So either
1) I do not accept that emission cuts are required to stop global warming(or that global warming is happening or needs to be stopped).
2) I assume emissions cuts are required and evaluate policies to see if they achieve the level required.
MikeN,
My problem is that I have worked a lifetime in science and engineering, and through much training, my bull$hit antenna is now very sensitive.
Eddie, these reports were made about previous years as well, but CDIAC now shows an increase for 2010-2014. Only 2009 saw a dip. Chinese emissions cuts I will believe when they are not being announced to go along with global deals from which China will benefit. China might not triple emissions over 20 years like the last twenty, but at least a 2/3 cut in Chinese emissions are required to stop global warming. A leveling off or slight reduction is possible.
SteveF, no need for all that training. I predicted Trump would be solid because of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_ref_Xly7Y
Trump would be ‘solid’? What does that mean?
SteveF
I also don’t know what this means. I wasn’t able to engage in the debate about “deep state” on a previous thread because I don’t know what a “deep state” is.
Lucia,
Maybe a ‘deep state’ is when you have had too much wine.
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There have been lots of illegal leaks of confidential information. I don’t think that will stop; too many people who work for the Federal government are utterly opposed to Trump and what his administration wants to do. They will continue to leak whatever information they think might embarrass Trump. Unless a few end up in prison.
It’s just humorous to see the “world is ending” reactions by stupid people who don’t know the first thing about either the science or the Paris accord. Our elites are truly both out of touch and appallingly ignorant.
China, India and Africa are expected to have large emission increases, it is only a matter of when they peak and at what level. There is exactly zero expectation that they will stabilize or decrease anytime soon. This is all baked into the IPCC emission RCP profiles.
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China can’t be trusted in their pronouncements and it is unclear they can even effectively measure it if they wanted to. It is best just to monitor CO2 atmospheric measurements instead of adding up country estimates.
http://voxeu.org/article/when-should-china-start-cutting-its-emissions
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The effusive praise of China’s climate efforts is a bit bizarre for a few reasons. They have been caught outright lying on their coal use:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/04/china-underreporting-coal-consumption-by-up-to-17-data-suggests
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The next reason is that if China was to be believed then that easily knocks us off of the unrealistic worst case RCP8.5 emissions profile and down to one of the more moderate estimates and you can throw those IPCC worst case projections out the window TODAY. Worst case is the only thing ever shown in the media. Worst case is China peaking in ~2080 and they are committed to ~2030 I understand.
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The next reason is China is attacking “climate” because they have a serious air pollution problem. They get free greeny points for this effort but the shaming by the environmentalists about how China is so great is strange. My response is “Great! I believe you! Climate problem solved!”.
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As a further note the media constantly misrepresents what they call “business as usual”. This is code for the worst case RCP8.5 profile which is emissions * increasing at the same rate * as circa 2007 for the next 80 years. BAU is not the emissions levels we have today. The media always infers that this is the case. RCP8.5 has us annually burning 10x the coal in 2100 as today, 15B population, etc. My belief is RCP8.5 was put in to bound the problem for simulations and was never intended as the “default” as activists and the media love to do.
http://sedac.ipcc-data.org/ddc/ar5_scenario_process/RCPs.html
Eddie, these reports were made about previous years as well, but CDIAC now shows an increase for 2010-2014.
There have been undulations in the past.
There has most likely never before been a time in human history when fertility rates ( and the ensuing population deceleration ) have been as low as they are now.
More than three quarters of global CO2 emissions are from countries with below replacement rate fertility.
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Chinese emissions cuts I will believe when they are not being announced to go along with global deals from which China will benefit.
I’m skeptical of most China numbers but much less so of population. With a falling number of workers, falling emissions in China are baked in the cake.
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China might not triple emissions over 20 years like the last twenty, but at least a 2/3 cut in Chinese emissions are required to stop global warming. A leveling off or slight reduction is possible.
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That’s about what I think. CO2 uptake rates are roughly 50%, though they’ve steadily risen over the years. So about a 50% reduction in emission should result in steady CO2.
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But slow warming and elevated CO2 may well be benefits, never even reaching net detriment.
Tom Scharf (Comment #162606): “This is all baked into the IPCC emission RCP profiles.”
Nope. The profiles are not forecasts (it says so at the link you provided). They were derived by starting with the forcing in 2100 and working backwards. They are not based on any rational projection of emission
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Tom Scharf: “As a further note the media constantly misrepresents what they call “business as usualâ€. This is code for the worst case RCP8.5 profile which is emissions * increasing at the same rate * as circa 2007 for the next 80 years.”
It is much worse than that. emissions growing at the recent rate will put us squarely between RCP4.5 and RCP6.0. RCP8.6 is completely disconnected from reality.
A deep solid state for me usually involves sufficient bourbon where I make toasts that includes the word ‘covfefe’.
[Edit: Covfefe everyone!]
Mike M,
They call it “cumulative measure of human emissions of GHGs from all sources expressed in Watts per square meter” and “based on an internally consistent set of socioeconomic assumptions”.
They aren’t forecasts because they obviously depend on future behavior that cannot be predicted. It’s semantics like “projections” in temperature estimates. They look like separate hodgepodges of assumptions. There is nothing particularly wrong with doing it this way AFAICT, only how the media chooses to (mis)represent them.
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The hard part is really the complete inability to predict breakthroughs in power generation. When the black hole quantum entanglement battery which sucks energy from suns in parallel universes is discovered in 2025, all bets are off.
Tom: “There is nothing particularly wrong with doing it this way AFAICT, only how the media chooses to (mis)represent them.”
True. The scenarios are really just to provide a uniform set of inputs for models.
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Tom: “The hard part is really the complete inability to predict breakthroughs in power generation.”
True again. Energy generation is almost certain to be very different in 2100 than it is today.
Trump ‘solid’. People kept saying he would be flipped by Ivanka, Kushner, Musk, Gore, Friedman, et al. However, I said that as a conman, he can recognize a con, just like he saw thru Ali G. Think King Ezekiel on The Walking Dead.
They used to have many more of these scenarios with families and marker scenarios.
On this site there was an argument with I think Ian Castles, disputing a paper that said ‘It’s worse than we thought’, because they assumed all scenarios within a family were equally likely when the IPCC said no probability was assigned.
Mr. Trump has given America a good chance to continue self governance. But it will be up to skeptics to find a voice for those the climate consensus has silenced.
MikeN,
I never saw the Walking Dead. Never heard the word ‘solid’ used that way either. Trump has been consistently skeptical of the Paris accords, but he did soften the announcement with words about re-entering following renegotiation. Which does give me pause.
hunter,
Evolving reality (projections diverging from measurements) is all that is needed to stop the green madness; Trump has made a useful contribution by delaying for at least 4 years costly and economically damaging regulations that do nothing to reduce future warming. When wild eyed projections of doom are discredited by reality, reasoned public policy discussion becomes possible. But not ’till then.
Mark bofill,
Covfefe: It’s 7 am and I need my morning covfefe.
Me too Lucia. 🙂
They obviously worked pretty hard on the speech, NPR and the NYT tried their best to fact check and “annotate” the speech but came up with only minor points. The PA rhetoric seems to be mostly a virtue signalling exercise between limousine liberals.
TE,
Fertility will dominate in the long term. But in the short term, there are still billions of people living in primitive conditions, including many in China. That’s a lot of room for increased emissions in the next few decades.
Off topic:
The satellite sea level research group at the University of Colorado has not updated their sea level data in almost a year (since a little after the 2015/2016 uptick due to el nino), whereas in the past they updated about each 3 months. Maybe this means that the el nino uptick has reversed to below the long term trend line… all that water in the California reservoir system had to come from somewhere! 😉
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I want to post on satellite sea level trend after removing the influence of el nino, to more clearly see if there has been any acceleration in rate, and have been waiting since December for an update on the data. I sent an email in April asking when they will update…. no reply.
Normally I refrain from hanging out in the gutter, but this one is fairly delusional.
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Kathy Griffin breaks down: ‘I made a horrible, horrible call … he broke me’
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2017/06/02/kathy-griffin-breaks-down-made-horrible-horrible-call-broke-me.html
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“It’s hurtful to me,” Griffin said. “There’s a bunch of old white guys trying to silence me and I’m just here to say that it’s wrong.”
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“The message is clear,” Bloom stated. “Criticize the president lose your job and that’s what happened to Kathy…it stops here, it stops now.”
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Rule #4: Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.
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Personally I’m no fan of using social pressure to shut people up and get them fired. The reason is simple, that mob may one day come for you, and it has for Kathy Griffin.
Trump announced a .2C difference because of Paris Accord. I can’t find the paper from which this came, but the authors are hitting back hard, saying it is 1C. Can anyone find the full paper?
http://news.mit.edu/2016/how-much-difference-will-paris-agreement-make-0422
MikeN,
Perhaps you can find it through here:
http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2016/EGU2016-8016.pdf
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But you have to read the fine print. I think the key phrase here is how much will it change * over already existing commitments *. Effectively Paris didn’t add much to what people already had previously committed to.
It might be like a CBO assessment, since there aren’t any further known commitments one assumes only the current set. The other side says it doesn’t take into account more restrictive future commitments (that don’t exist yet and can’t be specified). The other side also continues to use the “no climate policy” (RCP8.5?) for their comparison.
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“Our analysis shows that, for the climate parameters corresponding to the median strength of the climate system response to anthropogenic forcing, the Paris Agreement can reduce the global mean surface air temperature (SAT) in 2100 between 0.63 and 1.07oC relative to “no climate policy†case. At the same time, due to a large inertia of climate system, in 2050 the SAT reduced only by about 0.12oC under all three scenarios.”
I think they are making extra assumptions about the Paris climate commitments beyond what countries committed. I wrote the author asking for the full paper.
Tom Scharf,
I saw that. I’m not so sure it was “the mob” that came and got her. She lost some jobs and was widely criticized by people using words. Her routine was always to make fun of other people, so I can’t work up much sympathy that eventually, people criticized her in public.
As for her career, I think she’ll continue to have a career; it will be less lucrative. But she’s still a rich woman and she will continue to be able to make more money than the average schmmoooo. So I’m not feeling that bat for her on that account either.
What really happened to her career? Well, it’s a set back. Evidently CNN didn’t want an extremely polarizing host for New Years Eve. So she lost that big $$ gig. Go. Figure.
She lost her celebrity connection with some sort of kids potty training toilet. I guess they didn’t want an endorsements from someone who 1/2 the parents might hate. Go. Figure.
Still, I imagine she’ll still do fine on stand up or endorsing things that are targeted toward the ‘hate Trump” demographic. That’s big enough that her career isn’t over. Just the super-mega $$ things that require someone who is at least tolerated by everyone is over until people forget this. She’s old enough that by the time people forget she may be past the time for heavy marketability. But. Oh. Well.
Trump announced a .2C difference because of Paris Accord.
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These are all pretty much sill wild a$$ guesses.
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I think the number for whether or not the US participated was a difference of 0.02C.
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But, the US is already ahead of schedule for meeting the PA targets. I don’t see anything that will change that trajectory.
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Pulling out may have had more to do with the shakedown fund that was supposed to go to indigent nations. Those funds usually get skimmed off by dictators, so it may be wise not to throw money down those rat holes.
I think she is feeling a bit unloved at the moment. People with withering careers sometimes do stuff like this under the all publicity is good publicity Hollywood rule. Madonna, Brittany Spears, etc. I was kind of feeling there were no limits to Trump criticism, but apparently there actually are. It might be a turning point in the over the top Trump hate, and KG just happened to be the sacrificial lamb that allowed some sane boundaries to be set.
Was Kathy actually paid for her CNN ‘job’? She should have been paying them for the exposure.
MikeN,
I assume they were paying her. I didn’t check. She does have history as fairly popular comedian and is just the sort of person one would expect CNN to want in that position. (Or to want until she makes herself extremely polarizing.)
Tm Scharf:
Hells, yes!
Disentangling which parts are Paris Agreement, which and which parts are going to happen anyway (driven by economics) is extremely complicated.
Figuring out which sensitivity numbers should be used isn’t easy either.
I haven’t looked at how they actually derive their range of numbers, but I would expect, if it’s “business as usual”, there’s a fair amount of “cooking the books” to inflate the actual impact of the agreement.
The internet remembers forever. Kathy Griffin Dec 2016:
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“Now more than ever we must absolutely go for all the absurdities,†Kathy Griffin told Vulture at the Equality Now Gala Tuesday night. “For me, that’s Trump and all things Trump. It’s not about trying to be an equal-opportunity offender anymore because Hillary got such a beat down. It’s his turn. So I’m happy to deliver beat down to Donald Trump — and also to Barron. You know a lot of comics are going to go hard for Donald, my edge is that I’ll go direct for Barron. I’m going to get in ahead of the game.â€
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http://www.vulture.com/2016/12/kathy-griffin-comedy-should-go-hard-on-trump.html
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I will now return to regular programming.
> history as fairly popular comedian
Not too many people have ever said that. Even Kathy referred to herself as D list.
CNN probably paid her, but it was not a big get for them, and I suspect they could have gotten her to do it for free.
Mike N,
She regularly appeared on tv. Whether she calls herself “D” list or not, that’s fairly popular. Most comedians get nothing.
The lady has operated in very poor taste for a very long time. She went way beyond the pale with the beheaded Trump photo, and she is clearly an immoral worm besides…. going after a 11 year old? Come on! I have zero sympathy for her, and if she ends up destitute, that would be richly deserved. She probably won’t. This is the sort of comedian the world does not need; if she is truly saddened by all the criticism, suicide is always an option (only joking 🙃), or she could lay off the politics… which for her is tantamount to suicide.
Team Science Climate Alarmism Forensics:
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Original claim – The Guardian: “…on current projections, Trump’s own Florida resort of Mar-a-Lago will be under water by 2060”.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/02/comedy-trump-now-horror-show-paris-climate-change-sickening-twist
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Article links to tweet: “By 2060 Trump’s grandchildren—and son Barron—will be in their prime. And Mar-a-Lago will be underwater. Literally.”
Tweet links to another article: “The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predict “sea levels will rise as much as three feet in Miami by 2060.”
Article links to another article which links to a NOAA paper:
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/publications/techrpt83_Global_and_Regional_SLR_Scenarios_for_the_US_final.pdf
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Here we find on page 23 in the “extreme scenario” 0.9M rise by 2060. I’ve never heard of this scenario. In this scenario seas will be rising:
2010: 6 mm/year
2020: 10 mm / year
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According to the same NOAA, Miami sea level rise is currently 3 mm / year. At this rate seas will be 4 inches higher in 2060. Oops.
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Back on page 22 we find probabilities for “extreme”:
RCP2.6 = 0.05%
RCP4.5 = 0.05%
RCP8.5 = 0.10%
So even in RCP8.5 this is a 1 in 1000 longshot.
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They apparently created a new “impossible-to-rule-out” extreme scenario which is 2.5M by 2100 for upper bound planning purposes which is based on theoretical extreme Antarctic contributions.
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The land at Mar-A-Lago itself is 3 feet above sea level. I can’t tell how much the building is built up, but from photos the main building looks about 6 to 8 feet above grade.
http://nbc4i.com/2017/05/22/sinkhole-opens-outside-pres-trumps-mar-a-lago-resort/
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Anyhow that’s how you go from 0.1% chance in RCP8.5 into a definitive “Mar-a-Lago will be under water by 2060”. I’m sure team science will realize the quote is not accurate and post a correction. Or not.
SteveF, she didn’t go after Barron. She said that she is edgy so she will go after Barron, unlike all the other riff-raff comedians who will go after Donald. It’s a joke, I think.
I have taken my boat past Mar-a-lago (shaddowed by coast guard gunboats, of course). To me the land looks to be about 2 meters above mean high tide. The building looks more like 3 to 4 meters above mean high tide. In Florida, people are pretty careful about building well above expected hurricane surge tides. Mar-a-largo is in no danger over the next 100+ years.
MikeN,
The ‘joke’ about Barron is not funny. Actually, very little she says or does is funny, as is now pretty clear. She is a product of the left, and so no suprise: the left finds nothing funny. Real comedy is not angry or cruel.. she is both. Reagan could be funny, Obama? Not so much.
This isn’t Trump’s mistake, but Obama’s failure to push hard when he had the chance.
If Obama had only put his personal guarantee on the line: “If you like your current climate, my plan will let you KEEP your current climate,” then it would surely have passed in the Senate
pouncer,
No matter what Obama said, 2/3 of the Senate would never have aproved it. Unilateral setting of public policy by force almost always fails.
According to our local paper, Pat Meehan our local senator is complaining about Trump withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. I sent him this:
The climate is changing. It has been increasing in temperature quite steadily since the Little Ice Age in the 1880’s. The temperature rises and falls on either side of this steady rate due to the multi-decadal oscillations. See Prof. Akasofu’s paper here, Fig. 2b, page 7: http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/pdf/two_natural_components_recent_climate_change.pdf
The main driver for major temperature changes is the variation of the Earth’s orbit, as described by Milutin Milanković (Milankovitch).
Prof. Svensmark’s theory about clouds is well worth a look too. See
https://youtu.be/ANMTPF1blpQ
Looking at the satellite and balloon data, http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/ the temperature has been rising far slower than predicted by the IPCC’s models, to the point that most of them have been falsified.
There is no evidence that CO2 has the major effect claimed by the AGW believers and I challenge you to show real evidence that it does, not just saying that the “experts” IPCC claim something else. I have a technical background and have been following climate science closely for more than ten years.
So why the fuss that America is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement?
Steve, not funny. However, her Wikipedia page makes her out to be one of the biggest comediennes of all time. Emmy wins, Grammy nominations, etc.
MikeN,
Her career is essentially over… as she deserves. Unless of course she could actually reform her obnoxios behavior. Not going to happen: it seems she is like the scorpion riding on the back of the frog. She’s toast.
Tom Scharf – this quote
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“The message is clear,†Bloom stated. “Criticize the president lose your job and that’s what happened to Kathy…it stops here, it stops now.†is priceless.
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I do not recall Bloom expressing the same concern for the rodeo clown that was fired for wearing an Obama mask at a rodeo.
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Maybe clowns are of a lower order than comediennes.
Bloom is reality challenged. Lots of people have criticized Trump and have not suffered any consequences. What’s her name is in trouble because she visually put herself on the side of ISIS killing the President of the United States.
Mike M.
Lots of people have criticized him. Lots are criticizing him right now in many venues.
For me her smarmy sociopathetic whiney shallow attempt to channel Hillary Clinton, blaming the victim of her tasteless little gag is what tells me she is a derivative has been.
Steve, her career is not over. She has been fired for her ‘comedy’ many times. The View, Tonight Show, Apollo, all have banned her. This is one more.
@Lucia : given the current babble about climate in a mouths I came across someone who insists that the models are doing an excellent job of predicting current warming. I wanted to reference him here to one of your lovely comparisons but yo my dismay there doesn’t seem yo be anything newer than this post http://rankexploits.com/musings/2014/temperature-compare-to-ar4/
Perhaps you might find time to update.
Bob:
I haven’t been doing temperature posts. I’m not going to until the whim overcomes me (which might happen.)
But there are two thigns:
1) The AR5 shifted the projections down a bit so the projections were no longer as far from data.
2) The AR5 described more uncertainty.
3) Since the time of the AR5 have had some warming.
I wouldn’t call the agreement “excellent”. People claiming that still aren’t admitting that despite both (1) – (3) the projections tend to be are still on the high side compared to the data– just not so much as to call them wrong and not high this instant. But when assessing “skill” it’s worth remembering the AR5 is shifted relative to the previous “projections”. It’s a lot easier to seem to have “skill” if you shift your projects after they were first made.
I’d say it’s no longer really bad. Running comparisons regularly is time consuming; I’m giving the AR 5 some time to “mature”. Earth temperature will do what they do; in a year or two well know more. If we temperature continue to ruse, I think people will have to say that, yeah, the models don’t look so wrong. If it oscillates back down… no.
Yes, it’s not so much they move the goal posts.
More like a race that they restart with each report.
Ok, thanks. Not in the mood is as good a reason as any 😊. I was curious simply because of the warming and the moved targets and because I’m accused of cherry picking when referencing the older post because the Pause. On with your life and thanks again.
Bob Edgar,
Based on the rate of warming over the past decades, continued warming at somewhere near 0.15C per decade is likely, with the greatest warming at high northern latitudes in winter, and more warming at night than during the day. The Paris accord’s 2C ‘limit’ is likely to be breached late in the current century, unless greens soon come to their senses and start pushing hard for fail-safe nuclear power and advanced battery technology for cars. I doubt they will. Greens will accept nothing but solar and wind, combined with draconian reductions in fossil fuels. None of which represent practical policies. Since reasonable policy compromise is unlikely, I think the only important issue is how much sea level will increase, and how much it will cost to deal with that.
Turbulent Eddie,
They didn’t move a huge amount. And they can provide a sane reason for the shift. (The real question might be why the AR4 authors used a 20 year mean for their baseline and why the one they picked.)
That said: they picked it knowing the temperature at the time the AR5 was written. But given the amount of time it takes for a modest error in the mean trend to show disagreement, the shift does matter.
So, some of the apparent agreement has to be interpreted in that context. Of course models agree with data if the difference between them is subtracted out. Time is required to see if the subtraction was sufficient to result in maintaining agreement. Maybe it will; maybe it won’t.
Testing needs to wait.
Lucia,
My recollection of AR5 projections is that the uncertainty range was huge…. from almost no warming over the next few decades to >0.3C per decade. Hard to be proven wrong when your prediction has only to fall in a very broad range to declare yourself ‘right’.
MikeN,
All those firings were hardly noticed by the general public. This time her behavior has brought widespread condemnation; lots of people may not have even known who she was a week ago, but now she is in Tiger Woods’ recognition range. Being best known as ‘the lady who wants to cut off Trump’s head’ is really bad for business. The wacko left will probably keep her going, of course…. they really do want to behead Trump… but her days of lucrative national TV appearances is over.
SteveF
Yes. The shift is there, the uncertainties went to ginormous. The former made the disagreement between the mean and observations smaller at the time, the latter makes it rather difficult to say the models are “wrong” because at least in the short term, the projection is practically “almost anything can happen”.
It’s a big much for someone to say a model that predicts “almost anything can happen” has “skill”. But in a bit longer term, one will be able to return to testing trends and/or anomalies (from whatever baseline is considered “right” by “whomever”.)
In the short term, it’s sort of not worth the effort. I guess we’ll see if I regain interest in 2018 or so. But people should be aware that temperature did rise and models are not going to look like crap right now. In the end one must go with data– so we’ll see.
SteveF: “Based on the rate of warming over the past decades, continued warming at somewhere near 0.15C per decade is likely”
Where did you get that number? A couple years ago, I did fits to all the major temperature data sets from 1950 on and got warming rates of 0.11 to 0.13 C per decade. I picked 1950 as my starting point since forcing has risen linearly since then, that is roughly a full cycle of the AMO (and the global stadium wave), and it is long enough for decent extraction of signal from noise. Extrapolating the higher value to 2100 gives a bit under 2.0 C warming relative to pre-industrial. So it looks to me like that is pretty much the upper bound.
For those not up on these things: An exponential increase in CO2 gives a linear increase in forcing which should produce a linear increase in temperature.
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SteveF: “Paris accord’s 2C ‘limit’ is likely to be breached late in the current century, unless greens soon come to their senses”
I think continued exponential increase of CO2 throughout this century is extremely unlikely. For one thing, there is only so much fossil fuel. For another, it seems that as societies reach a high level of industrialization, emissions level off. Finally, I am confident that there will be some sort of energy revolution before the end of this century. I don’t know if it will be a new generation of nuclear, or some form of renewable energy that actually works for more than niche use, or fusion, or something else. The world will be a lot different in 2100 than it is today.
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Addition: If Las Vegas was taking bets on the maximum amount of human induced warming that will someday occur and set the over/under at 2.0 C, I would not hesitate to take under.
SteveF, I’m guessing she gets nominated for a comedy grammy in the next five years, and does another TV or Netflix special in that time.
Mike M,
The rate of forcing increase is uncertain, of course, due mainly to large uncertainty in aerosol offsets to GHG forcing. According to the IPCC AR5 ‘best estimates’, the rate of forcing increase has increased since 1950. According to AR5, forcing increased by 0.68 watt/M^2 between 1950 and 1980 (0.022 per year), but 1.04 watts/M^2 between 1980 and 2011 (0.034 per year), so not linear at all. Based on those numbers, it is reasonable to expect 50% more rapid warming after 1980. Bets are difficult to collect on when you are dead. I would be happy to take the over 2.0C bet if I would live that long.
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I came up with ‘somewhere near 0.15C’ per decade from the OLS trend from Hadcrut4 between 1996 and present. There is uncertainty due to ENSO and potentially longer natural cycles, which is why I said “somewhere near”. I suppose you could attempt to adjust the temperatures for the influence of ENSO, but I don’t see any rational way to adjust for potential longer term cycles.
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WRT emissions leveling off: continued industrialization of China, India, and Africa, combined with projected rapid population growth in Africa, makes any leveling off unlikely for several decades. Note also that the cheapest fuel in Africa is likely to be coal, which Africa has lots of. That could change if greens were willing to support switching to fail-safe nuclear power, but that seems to me unlikely. It is true that exponential growth in emissions for more than a few decades is unlikely, but that has been close to the trend since the late 1950’s. But absent a dramatic change, continued growth in emissions is very likely for the foreseeable future.
MikeN,
“I’m guessing she gets nominated for a comedy grammy in the next five years”
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Could happen; would mean nothing. Her fellow ‘entertainment’ leftists who loath Trump are the ones who nominate. A bit like the DNC declaring it was perfectly OK for Hillary to use a private email server when she worked at the State Department. Or like character witness testimony from the mother of the accused at a murder trial.
The left has killed comedy. They are trying to get Maher fired today, they are eating their own now that they are done with everyone else.
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It’s only politically acceptable for white people to make fun of white people now (I’m all for that, but the suffocating secret rules made by the secret society have made everyone run for cover). People can howl at comedy that crosses a secret social line if they like, but excommunicating people from society or a job for a single instance is ridiculous. Social media has become a totalitarian force in a bizarre way. It has become a tool of conformity, not expression (says the guy without a Facebook or Twitter account).
The pause is over. It remains to be seen if the current step up in temperatures will be like 1998 (followed by a plateau) or will do something different. That’s going to take 10 years or more to find out.
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What makes me confident in the models is that the modelers themselves go out of there way to demonstrate their veracity and the media does such a good job of investigating them and asking the hard question which the modelers answer in pretty convincing manner. What? You haven’t seen this? I guess I haven’t either. It’s telling that people need to search out Lucia’s site to try to find an analysis as it really just isn’t done anywhere.
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I do grow weary of some things that assume we are just before the knee of the curve and sea level / temperatures are going to spike very soon. And that knee gets pushed out a decade every decade.
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PA: The usual suspects all said the expected things. I do enjoy the part about how this is a huge blow to climate action followed a paragraph later by debunking Trump by saying that the US wasn’t required to do anything in the agreement. It still looks like nobody has learned that labeling people morons and imbeciles is a poor consensus building strategy. Team science has spent oodles of money on climate communication, this must be the results from our best and brightest.
Tom,
Maher went off the reservation by saying Islam instigates violent jihad. That is a sin from which you can’t ever atone. (Saying anything but ‘all beliefs are equally valid, Kumbaya’ is forbidden on the left.) Doesn’t help that he blames Hillary for losing to Trump either…. guilt and blame must NEVER be assigned to anyone on the left; all blame is with the unwashed masses of ‘deplorables’.
Wow! Maher actually said something politically incorrect. I thought that name for his show was yet another instance of irony always increasing as it was, in fact, one of the most politically correct shows on TV.
SteveF,
I used Meinshausen et al. (I think that is the standard source for models) as my source for forcing, but reduced the aerosol forcing to match the best recent determinations. It makes it somewhat more linear than the original data. The data I used only go to 2005, but extrapolating my fit gave good agreement with more recent numbers in AR5. I looked back at what I did, and it is really only linear from 1960 or so (that, plus the difference in aerosol forcing accounts for the non-linearity you cite), but the trend in forcing is hardly different if I start my fit in 1950 or 1960. Given all the uncertainties and wiggles in the data, I stand by my statement, except that I should have said “reasonably linear” instead of linear.
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You wrote: “I suppose you could attempt to adjust the temperatures for the influence of ENSO, but I don’t see any rational way to adjust for potential longer term cycles.”
I don’t think there is any way to adjust for such things. All one can really do is to use a long enough time scale to minimize their impact. Minimum 60 years, in my opinion.
Given all the uncertainties, including the possibility of natural drift, the trend could well be 0.15 C per decade or 0.09 C per decade.
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You wrote: “continued industrialization … makes any leveling off unlikely for several decades. … It is true that exponential growth in emissions for more than a few decades is unlikely, … But absent a dramatic change, continued growth in emissions is very likely for the foreseeable future.
If the foreseeable future means the next 30-50 years, then I completely agree. But I think the trend will change well before the end of the century. Which is why my money remains on under. Alas, as you point out, I will never get to collect on it.
SteveF,
To return to an earlier conversation: You may not like a VAT, but the choice is not between good and bad, it’s between bad and worse. It’s either a VAT now with lower personal and corporate income taxes or a VAT later with higher income taxes and a wealth tax. 90% of the population is not saving anywhere near enough for retirement and they’re living longer, and that’s not including Social Security. That’s almost inevitably going to lead to a wealth tax down the road when the Democrats regain power again.
DeWitt: “That’s almost inevitably going to lead to a wealth tax down the road”.
A wealth tax would be a direct tax. As such, it would be unconstitutional unless the amount collected from each state is in proportion to its population. Not going to happen.
DeWitt,
A VAT with lower income tax rates would probably be beneficial for me personally, but I think dreadful for the economy, and the most regressive tax possible; it also invites the moral hazard of politicians hiding the true tax rate on products. Of course, everywhere that a VAT has been used it has greatly increased total tax take…. that is the point of a VAT. I would much prefer tax reform that eliminates distorting tax preferences, from home interest deduction to the state tax deduction to the odious ‘carried interest’ capital gains treatment. Take away all the distorting preferential treatments, and taxes would be more rational, simpler, and lower. The economy would grow faster too by eliminating inefficient use of capital.
Mike M,
The ‘living constitution’ is more flexible than you give it credit for. Of course, getting a progressive majority on the court (needed to make the constitution ‘alive’) may take a long while if Trump gets one or two more SC appointments.
DeWitt,
Maher’s current sin is using the N-word in a one liner during an interview. But this is just the last straw… his live audience gasped when he agreed that “Islam is the mother-load of bad ideas.” Air-head leftist Ben Affleck became so angry when he heard this that he started yelling at Maher.
SteveF: “The ‘living constitution’ is more flexible than you give it credit for.”
I get that justices, especially “progressive” ones, can often stretch the Constitution almost beyond recognition. But they stretch it, they don’t tear it up. They need some sort of a fig leaf to hide behind, such as calling the Obamacare penalty a tax. With a wealth tax, there is no fig leaf; a wealth tax is basically the definition of a direct tax.
Mike M wrote:
“For those not up on these things: An exponential increase in CO2 gives a linear increase in forcing which should produce a linear increase in temperature.”
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It is not that simple. “The absorption length for the existing concentration of CO2 is around 25 meters i.e. the distance to reduce the intensity by 1/e. All agree that direct IR radiation in the main CO2 bands is absorbed well below 1 km above the earth. Increasing levels of CO2 merely cause the absorption length to move closer to the surface.”
It is also true the heat is radiated to space from a higher level in the atmosphere.
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The main problem with IPCC is that they assume the added CO2 increases water vapor and that is the real driving force. The problem with that is that the increased humidity in the atmosphere has not been found.
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I find the IPCC has not reduced the error band for climate sensitivity since they started (which is pathetic) and their estimate for global warming from CO2 is about twice that shown by satellite measurements.
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Possibly more on topic is https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/green-climate-fund.jpg
Adrian Ashffield (Comment #162683): “It is not that simple.”
No, it is very, very close to being exactly that simple. Your mystery quote makes little sense.
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Adrian wrote: “The main problem with IPCC is that they assume the added CO2 increases water vapor and that is the real driving force. The problem with that is that the increased humidity in the atmosphere has not been found.”
No, absolute humidity in the boundary layer has increased. The situation for the upper troposphere is less clear since humidity is hard to measure at those levels. There are two humidity related feedbacks: the positive water vapor feedback and the negative lapse rate feedback. The sum of the two seems to be on pretty good ground, but the breakdown between the two is highly uncertain.
There are two huge problems with the models. One is that they can’t really do clouds at all, the other is that they can’t do natural variability. They are probably connected.
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Adrian wrote: “I find the IPCC has not reduced the error band for climate sensitivity since they started (which is pathetic) and their estimate for global warming from CO2 is about twice that shown by satellite measurements.
Amen to that. I used to accept the conventional wisdom. Then, about 5 years ago, I realized that the range was the same as 20+ years before. I thought “How can that be?”, started looking into it, and was shocked to find so much junk science.
Mike M, My “mystery quote” is the accepted science as far as I know.
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The humidity in the atmosphere, where it matters, has apparently not increased.
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See Svensmark that I linked earlier. You may find it interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANMTPF1blpQ&feature=youtu.be
Adrian Ashffield (Comment #162685): “My “mystery quote†is the accepted science as far as I know.”
It sounds to me like a garbled version of the accepted science. In any case, it says nothing about the relation between CO2 concentration and radiative forcing.
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Adrian: “The humidity in the atmosphere, where it matters, has apparently not increased.”
IPCC, section 2.5.4: “In summary, it is very likely that global near surface air specific humidity has increased since the 1970s. However, during recent years the near surface moistening over land has abated (medium confidence).”
Section 2.5.5.1: “There is no evidence for a significant change in free tropospheric relative humidity, although a decrease in relative humidity at lower levels is observed”.
Section 2.5.5.3: “The rate of moistening at large spatial scales over oceans is close to that expected from the Clausius–Clapeyron relation (about 7% per degree Celsius) with invariant relative humidity (Figure 2.31). Satellite measurements also indicate that the globally averaged upper tropospheric relative humidity has changed little over the period 1979–2010 while the troposphere has warmed, implying an increase in the mean water vapour mass in the upper troposphere”
In the run-up to the announcement, I thought it odd that the persuasion used on Trump was 100% of the bullying type.
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If they really wanted him to agree, they should have asked themselves “what can we offer to sweeten the deal?”
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Maybe they did and couldn’t think of anything. I’m thinking they didn’t try, because…
There are two parts to the US agreeing: cut emissions and send money.
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If they wanted the US emission cuts so bad, they could have offered the US money. Or, maybe they don’t care about US emission cuts, everybody knows they won’t make any difference, they just wanted the US dollars.
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So, what’s on the agenda for COP 23 in Bonn?
>They need some sort of a fig leaf to hide behind, such as calling the Obamacare penalty a tax.
The liberals did not need this fig leaf, and were prepared to endorse the penalty as a mandate.
Ledite,
“So, what’s on the agenda for COP 23 in Bonn?”
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Endless complaints about Trump and deplorable US voters, along with fabulous dinners at five star restaurants…. at taxpayer expense, of course. Plus a few off the record conversations about where they will get the money to bribe leaders of developing countries to keep those countries poor.
Mike M.,
Saying my quotation was “a garbled version of the accepted science” doesn’t explain your objection. Specifically, what was wromg with it?
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.I was basing my comment on humidity from this article by Forrest Mims 111
Another IPCC AR5 reviewer speaks out: no trend in global water vapor.
“Therefore, at this time, we can neither prove nor disprove a robust trend in the global water vapor data.â€
It is a bit dated but if the IPCC, who claim CO2 raises the temperature that then increases the humidity, could not find a trend by 2012 something is up. It is key to their claim.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/14/another-ipcc-ar5-reviewer-speaks-out-no-trend-in-global-water-vapor/#comment-1173881
Mike N,
“The liberals did not need this fig leaf, and were prepared to endorse the penalty as a mandate.”
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True, and John Roberts should have taken that, and the actual text of the statute, at face value and struck the mandate as unconstitutional. He even said in his opinion that any mandate by Congress to force individuals to purchase something would be unconstitutional, but then insisted what everyone was calling a mandate, and was called in the law itself a mandate, was in fact only a complicated tax scheme. It is the most bizarre, twisted SC opinion I ever read. Roberts had a chance to stand up for the Constitution, and he blew it. Had he struck the mandate, Obama and company would have been forced to revise the law through compromise with Republicans. And we wouldn’t have the health care mess we have now. Roberts is not going to be remembered as a great justice, or much remembered at all. More like a placeholder on a historical list of SC justices, like some justice you never heard of who died in the 1890’s.
The Paris Agreement is for the climate extremists a sort of Council at Nicea. That council defined orthodox Christianity at the behest of Constantine and empowered the Catholic Church to emerge as the state religion of Rome. The one later emperor who challenged the power of the state religion died in a likely assassination. Perhaps, since Nicea was actually a many years process of meetings it would be better to think of the IPCC as the council and Paris as the Nicene creed that eventually emerged. The analogy is admittedly not perfect but the emotions and political stakes surrounding the Nicene process was a big deal in the late Roman empire.
MikeN – I am missing something from your comment in #162686.
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Adrian Ashffield said: “The humidity in the atmosphere, where it matters, has apparently not increased.â€
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Then you provide references from AR5 that essentailly back up Adrian’s statement (except for 2.5.5 which was a weasely statement with the recent years part).
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Are you in agreement with Adrian or pointing out something else?
Kan,
I think your question was meant for me rather than MikeN. Easy mistake to make.
Adrian Ashffield said: “The humidity in the atmosphere, where it matters, has apparently not increased.â€
That is an ambiguous statement. Making the unproven assumption that Adrian knows a little about what he is talking about, he meant to say “The ABSOLUTE humidity in the atmosphere … ” because no climate scientist expects the relative humidity to increase. If temperature increases and relative humidity stays the same, then absolute humidity (also sometimes called specific humidity) increases. So the IPCC statements contradict what Adrian said.
I did mean you (Mike M).
Thanks.
What should Trump do at future IPCC meetings?
Mike N,
Laugh. There is nothing more to be said. Of course, if there were actual movement away from the current leftist lunacy, he should constructively engage. And if pigs had wings, unbrellas would be stronger.
MikeN,
If he sends people, I’m sure they will be selected to pretty much say, “No. Not going to do that”. “No. We don’t agree to that.” and so on. Maybe some will say sorry and whine about the Trump administration. But everyone else will be wishing the agreement didn’t require exit time. I’m sure they would rather the Americans weren’t there than being there with no intention of advancing further agreements.
MikeN and SteveF,
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is a treaty that was ratified by the US Senate in 1992. I believe that would obligate the US to send representatives to any conference of the parties like COP23.
Adrian Ashfield,
It doesn’t much matter where CO2 absorbs in the lower atmosphere. It matters where it emits to space. That’s at high altitude. As the CO2 concentration increases, the absorption band gets wider, so less total energy is emitted to space. CO2 alone decreases total emission at the same temperature. Increasing specific humidity with temperature is a feedback, not the primary effect.
The web version of MODTRAN demonstrates this.
For example, using the 1976 US Standard Atmosphere at 12km (in the tropopause) with clear sky looking down, at 280ppmv CO2 with all other settings unchanged, the upward heat flux is 273.934 W/m² from 100 to 1500 cm-1 . At 560ppmv, it’s 270.417 W/m².
Clouds absorb 100% of the radiation from the surface, but increased CO2 still causes a reduction in emission to space. Using the first cloud selection, Cumulus Cloud Base 0.66km, Top 2.7km, at 280ppmv CO2 upward heat flux from 100-1500cm-1 is 233.428 W/m². At 560ppmv CO2, it’s 231.073 W/m².
MikeN (Comment #162696): “What should Trump do at future IPCC meetings?”
He might just obstruct, as lucia suggests. But he has key people (Tillerson, for example) who think that the issue can not just be ignored. So perhaps they will push for a different approach.
One problem with Kyoto and Paris is that they set demanding short term goals that, if met, amount to a hill of beans. But the problem, if it exists, is a long term problem. The logic seems to be that meeting the short term goals with set the stage to make progress toward the long term goals. But that logic is faulty (perhaps because the real goal is something else). The short term goals can likely be met by tweaks (small amounts of wind and solar, more use of natural gas, improved fuel economy). But those tweaks are ultimately a dead end since they are self-limiting. And to be sure of making any significant progress by means of tweaks requires a heavy hand from the government.
To really make a long term difference, what is needed is innovation that creates something that can actually compete in the energy market. A recent relevant example is fracking. Future examples might be advanced nuclear, fusion, really good batteries, space solar, cheap multi-junction solar cells, etc. (some of those are obviously more likely than others). So to address the long term problem, what is needed is progress on such things.
So one way to be constructive while avoiding the many flaws of Paris could be to push for policies that will encourage long term energy innovation. Perhaps there are also other possibilities.
De Witt, when you say that the absorption band gets wider are you saying that more CO2 means new frequencies are absorbed by CO2, or do you mean that more of the frequencies CO2 already absorbs are absorbed?
Ledite: If they really wanted him to agree, they should have asked themselves “what can we offer to sweeten the deal?â€
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This is surprising from a normal viewpoint and unsurprising from a cynical viewpoint. The NYT ran a article yesterday about how Trump has avoided many of the Bush errors from Kyoto. One of those was offering to renegotiate.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/04/us/politics/trump-paris-accord-bush-kyoto.html
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This is one of the other bizarre cognitive dissonances from last week. The howling about the end of the world coupled with the outright refusal to even consider a renegotiation of any kind. This was smart by Trump.
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If one entertained the notion that elites use climate change primarily as virtue signalling instrument, this would fit that theory. Trump also laid out his reasoning in a public speech whose content was barely engaged. These reasons were ignored for the most part. No thought was given to overcoming these. This is “war” after all.
hunter,
Weakly absorbing frequencies absorb more. There are no new lines. The center of the band where absorption is high is saturated. That’s why the emission dip is more or less flat on the bottom. But what are called the wings are not saturated. As the concentration increases, those frequencies absorb/emit more if nothing else changed. But it does change. The emission to space at those frequencies moves to higher and colder altitudes. Since the temperature is lower, the emission drops. The observed emission dip gets wider and less total energy is emitted.
DeWitt,
Thanks. I figured it was something along those lines no pun intended.
SteveF,
You have it exactly backwards. A consumption tax like a VAT that raises the same amount of money is far less damaging to the economy than a highly progressive income tax. Regressive is a highly loaded word, by the way, as is progressive. Remember, a ‘progressive’ income tax was one of Karl Marx’s ten planks of the Communist Manifesto. The negative effect of a consumption tax on lower income earners would be ameliorated by a rebate.
Tinkering around the edges, i.e. your suggestions on eliminating deductions, is not going to raise enough money to make a dent in the debt problem, which is currently a serious drag on the economy and will only get worse without radical tax reform.
I point this out, however, with no hope of changing your mind.
DeWitt: “is not going to raise enough money to make a dent in the debt problem”
I seem to recall similar arguments being made 25 years ago. But by the end of the 90’s, the federal budget was balanced.
Media explicitly staging/framing the sympathetic Muslim view for a news shot after terror attack. They have obviously been doing this for years now, the only news here is CNN denies that they were doing this. Judge for yourself.
https://youtu.be/muME4lb7YhM
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http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2017/06/05/cnn-denies-staging-pro-muslim-shot-after-london-terror-attack.html
Here is a guest post over at SSC where Elizabeth Van Nostrand is recruiting for the International Refugee Assistance Project after the first travel ban. All fine and good, except this part:
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“RAP’s ground level work meant that when Trump’s order went out, it took them approximately four seconds to create a list of extremely sympathetic/photogenic immigrants who would be caught at airports that day, for some of whom they were already the legal representative of record. It took another six seconds to find even more photogenic supporters of those immigrants who were willing to loudly support them in media interviews.”
http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/02/guest-post-the-international-refugee-assistance-program/
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The coordination between the media and these activist NGO’s isn’t exactly a search for the truth. It’s propaganda (as in only telling side of a story).
DeWitt,
“I point this out, however, with no hope of changing your mind.”
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Your lack of hope is well founded. I’m just a closet Maxist, as all of my comments here and elsewhere have intimated. I went to school in Hoboken NJ, same city as where Karl lived here in the States. 😉 But in all seriousness, the blizzard of distorting tax preferences, import duties, politically motivated regulations, etc are killing economic growth…. and are often immoral as well, like the special tax treatment for ‘carried interest’, which rewards wealthy investment bankers for richly funding Democrat politicians like Hillary.
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An alternative theory is that I am actually closer to libertarian. The enormous debt and even greater unfunded liabilities the country faces can only be serviced through a combination of more rapid growth and significant reductions in entitlement benefits. I am in favor of both, but since entitlement reform is politically difficult, tax and regulation reform to increase growth look more plausible in the near term. Of course, reduced benefits will be delayed for as long as possible by courageous politicians, but will ultimated happen.
DeWitt Payne.
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“It doesn’t much matter where CO2 absorbs in the lower atmosphere. It matters where it emits to space. That’s at high altitude….”
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I know. That is why I wrote what I did. You know, the theory Mike M. said was wrong but never defined why.
DeWitt,
Sorry, it wasn’t Marx in Hoboken, it was the communist organizer Friedrich Sorge (like Marx, a German) who coresonded with Marx.
DeWitt,
Greetings!
It is refreshing to be able to agree with you. A consumption tax is better for the economy than an income tax or a corporate profit tax. One should not tax things you want more of.
Paris Accord = Real Pain, No Gain
Adrian Ashffield (Comment #162711): “You know, the theory Mike M. said was wrong but never defined why.”
Your reading comprehension is sorely lacking, Adrian. I never said it was wrong. In fact, if one only looks at the disjointed pieces, they appear to correct. I said it was garbled. The whole says nothing meaningful. In particular, it says nothing relevant to the subject it was quoted with respect to.
gallopingcamel: “A consumption tax is better for the economy … One should not tax things you want more of.”
Less consumption is less economic growth. Profits and income are not goods in themselves, they are sought after because they permit consumption. To a first approximation, a tax is a tax. But that approximation fails when we have, as SteveF says a” blizzard of distorting tax preferences, import duties, politically motivated regulations …”.
Too good not to read… from a comment at Scott Adams’ blog:
SteveF – 😀
Bravo Steve f.
Mike M.,
First, the budget under Bill Clinton was only nominally balanced because Social Security was off the books. In fact, total government debt, including the Social Security trust fund, was still increasing.
Second, the Clinton tax increase in 1993 was not tinkering around the edges. However, the most important factor in the so-called balanced budget was that annual growth in government spending was held to less than 3%. It also didn’t hurt that the capital gains tax rate was reduced from 28% to 20% in 1997.
Mike M.,
Where do you think the capital to increase production capacity comes from if not income and profits, directly, or indirectly from borrowing others savings? Real question. You can’t consume if the government takes away your money before you can spend it. Income taxes, whether corporate or individual, punish investment. You’re fixated on GDP/capita. It’s a really bad measure of standard of living.
Here was an interesting point I read:
“Trump is brilliant at channeling the anti-elitist theory of the white working class, and I think the reason he’s so good at that is because he felt condescended to his whole life.”
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This is from an interview at Slate which is pretty comical to the point of it should have been in Mad magazine. Q: “What attitude should we be taking toward people who voted for a racist buffoon that is scamming them?”
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2017/06/advice_on_how_to_talk_to_the_white_working_class.html
Mike M.
I stand by my comments #162648 & #162683)
Contrary to what you say they are not garbled.
Tom Scharf,
“What attitude should we be taking toward people who voted for a racist buffoon that is scamming them?â€
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I saw that. It is actually both funny and sad that the left can’t imagine they are mistaken about anything. Hillary and her “It wasn’t my fault!” tour is a pathetic example, of course.
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They are mistaken about most of Trump’s voters, who are quite aware of Trump’s many flaws and weaknesses, but saw a continuation of Obama-like policies by Hillary as even more damaging than Trump. It is simply not possible for most on the left to entertain even the possibility that views and policies different from their own could ever have legitimacy.
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Islamic terrorists murder random people in London, stabbing and cutting throats, and the left fixates on what Trump says about it, and the need to completely accept Islam, even while any sentient (AKA ‘deplorable’) person understands Islam is the principle motivation for terror attacks. It strikes me as shear madness, but it seems they will never change.
DeWitt,
“You can’t consume if the government takes away your money before you can spend it.”
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VAT’s take away your money too, especially for middle income people, and make it much easier for wealthy individuals to become even more wealthy, because wealthy individuals spend a much smaller share of income on consumption… a VAT combined with lower income taxes is a windfall for the wealthy, and shift the cost of government to the middle class. You clearly think this is a good idea. I don’t.
Adrian,
I wouldn’t called #162648 garbled. I’d say as a letter to the editor it would be ineffective. Here’s your letter with my comments
Few reading letters to the editor are going to rush off to download a pdf, open it, and find figure 2b on page 2.
This is going to be seen as a bald claim because it is a bald claim.
Few reading your local paper are going to dash off to watch a video. When they arrive and see it’s 52 minutes long they aren’t going to watch it. They are going to go upstairs brush their teeth and head off to work.
If there is a point you want to make about Svensmark’s theory about clouds, state it in your own words preferably in fewer than 4 sentences.
Buttressing your claims about warming with a bald claim to authority — and worse a vague one– is going to make many people doubt your critical thinking skills. After all: someone who understands how to support an argument would not rely on bald claims to authority.
Ending on a rhetorical question…. sigh….
DeWitt Payne (Comment #162720): “First, the budget under Bill Clinton was only nominally balanced because Social Security was off the books. In fact, total government debt, including the Social Security trust fund, was still increasing.”
Nope. At the end of the Clinton administration the budget surplus was some $200 billion compared to a Social Security surplus of a few tens of billions.
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DeWitt Payne (Comment #162720): “Second, the Clinton tax increase in 1993 was not tinkering around the edges.”
I understood you to be saying that only a VAT could balance the budget. Perhaps I misunderstood. Compared to a VAT, the Clinton tax increase was tinkering around the edges.
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DeWitt Payne (Comment #162720): “However, the most important factor in the so-called balanced budget was that annual growth in government spending was held to less than 3%.”
I strongly agree. What is needed to get the budget deficit under control is economic growth and spending restraint.
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DeWitt Payne (Comment #162721): “Where do you think the capital to increase production capacity comes from if not income and profits, directly, or indirectly from borrowing others savings? Real question.”
Sorry, that is a rhetorical question, since you obviously know the answer, and should know that I know the answer also.
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DeWitt Payne (Comment #162721): “You can’t consume if the government takes away your money before you can spend it.”
You are setting up a false dichotomy. If the government takes half your income, you can only consume half as much. The same as if the government doubles the cost of everything you buy. Either way, taxes take money out of the economy. A VAT reduces profits and savings, just like an income tax.
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DeWitt Payne (Comment #162721): “Income taxes, whether corporate or individual, punish investment.”
Rubbish. Absolute rubbish. If you get to keep only $1 million in profit instead of $2 million in profit, you are still better off than before. You are not being “punished”. Getting to keep only half as much profit will likely impact your decision making, quite possibly to the detriment of the economy as a whole. But the same is true if the tax system reduces sales and/or profit margins so that you only make $1 million in the first place.
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DeWitt Payne (Comment #162721): “You’re fixated on GDP/capita. It’s a really bad measure of standard of living.”
I don’t see why you say I am “fixated” on that any more than you are. I agree that it is a deeply flawed measure of standard of living. But it is appropriate for some purposes, such as reducing deficits via growth.
Adrian Ashffield (Comment #162723): “I stand by my comments #162648 & #162683) Contrary to what you say they are not garbled.”
Please don’t put words in my mouth. I never said Comment #162648 was garbled. I never said anything about it. I never even said that #162683 was garbled, only that the unsourced quote contained in it was garbled.
Mike M.
You’ve drastically underestimated Social Security and other intra-government borrowings like Medicare, which currently total about $5.5 trillion, almost 40% as much as $14.3 trillion held by the public.
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/mspd/2016/opdm102016.pdf
This covers US government total public debt from 1950-1999.
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm
This covers 2000-2016
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm
Total public debt was only relatively stable during the 1950’s. It went up every year from 1957-2016
As I said, correctly, total public debt increased every year under WJC. The closest it came to balance was fiscal year 2000 when the debt increased from 5,656,270,901,615.43 in 1999 to 5,674,178,209,886.86 in 2000, an increase of only $17.9 billion.
“Income taxes, whether corporate or individual, punish investment.â€
Rubbish. Absolute rubbish. If you get to keep only $1 million in profit instead of $2 million in profit, you are still better off than before.
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Mike M,
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Still better off but not as well off means that there is relatively less motivation to invest.
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This matters, because investment keeps productivity going.
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At one point in this country, the top marginal income tax rate was 95%.
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People in this bracket could have earned a million dollars more and still kept 5% of it, but they didn’t. If they did invest, they did things off the books so as to avoid the tax.
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Repeat after me: “tax something and you get less of it, subsidize something else and you get more of it.”
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Another example of tax policy changing investment is retirement accounts. Like many, I have tax deferred retirement accounts. Because of the tax status, I fund them. Would I if they were heavily taxed? I don’t think so.
a 403b and an IRA which I attempt to fund.
If you earn $0.20/hr that’s better than $0.10/hr. So you should be glad to take the 8 hour a day $0.20/hr job.
Well… maybe someone should. But if the amount you make is low enough, you’ll stay home and figure out something else to do.
Some things change at higher dollar amounts. But not everything. On the both the high and low end, if the amount made is insufficient to lure the earner/producer to devote time and energy (and possibly risk) to do something, they’ll do something else. For the wealthy person that might mean vacationing in Aruba, for the less wealthy, growing their own veggies.
Speaking of a 95% tax rate, there’s the Beatles song Taxman.
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/beatles/taxman.html
DeWitt: “As I said, correctly, total public debt increased every year under WJC. The closest it came to balance was fiscal year 2000 when the debt increased from 5,656,270,901,615.43 in 1999 to 5,674,178,209,886.86 in 2000, an increase of only $17.9 billion.”
I can’t directly dispute that. But then there is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Revenue_and_Expense_to_GDP_Chart_1993_-_2012.png
which clearly shows total revenues exceeding expenses and includes Social Security. I don’t understand this and would appreciate an explanation of the discrepancy.
Turbulent Eddie: “Still better off but not as well off means that there is relatively less motivation to invest.
This matters, because investment keeps productivity going.”
I said as much.
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Turbulent Eddie: “Repeat after me: tax something and you get less of it, subsidize something else and you get more of it.”
I said as much.
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lucia: “But if the amount you make is low enough, you’ll stay home and figure out something else to do.”
I said as much.
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I can’t tell if Turbulent Eddie and lucia are agreeing with me or disagreeing. They sound like they are disagreeing. Yet what they said agrees with what I said. Confusing.
MikeM
I was commenting on what I quoted:
The way that reads, it sounds as if someone s saying those taxes don’t punish investment, and suggest it’s for the reason given. In fact, those taxes do punish investment. If the fraction of profits a person is allowed to keep is reduced, they will tend to chose to invest less. Investing always involves risk. At very high tax levels, a person is better off putting money in a mattress and drawing it down than investing. Because their choice with investing becomes:
* risking losing money in the investment.
* keep only (for example) 1/20th of the profit should they actually make money.
In this case, the choice of “put it in mattress” becomes attractive. Taxing investment earnings punishes investment.
Mike M.,
The Social Security trust fund is not the only intra-governmental borrowing. Here’s the complete list as of September, 2016:
https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/fsreports/rpt/combStmt/cs2016/sc4.pdf
The big ones are Social Security, $2.8 trillion, Civil Service Retirement and Disability, $0.9 trillion, Military retirement, $0.6 trillion, Medicare Hospital and Supplemental Medical Insurance, $0.25 trillion. There are a lots of others. In summary, trust funds totaled $4.84 trillion and public debt securities held by federal agencies was $0.56 trillion for a total of $5.4 trillion. So Social Security is slightly more than half the total.
Mike M.,
If you only include Social Security and ignore the other half of intra-government borrowing, then there was a small surplus in 1999 and 2000. But if you include everything, there wasn’t. The increase in debt in 2000 was very small, 0.3%. That’s pretty close to balanced. But it was only one year. Total debt is close to four times as much now.
Lucia,
“Taxing investment earnings punishes investment.”
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Sure. But taxing any kind of income also reduces investment, because people have less to invest. Taxing consumption and reducing taxes on income punishes people who have to spend more of their income on consumption (that is, punishes middle class and lower) more than wealthy people, who spend relatively less on consumption.
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Taxing consumption also indirectly punishes investment, because there is less market demand for goods and services, so less profit for production. The effect can be seen in Germany, where consumption is heavily taxed (including electricity at 3X US prices!). German businesses then are motivated to sell their products in places like the US, where consumption is not heavily taxed and demand is much greater per capita than in Germany. The people who suffer the most: the German middle class, which faces high domestic prices, only partially off-set by generous social benefits. People ought not wonder why so many Europeans have chosen to not have families… they cost too much.
Mike M, you seem to have taken exception to the word “punish”. Whatever the other connotations of the word, I’m glad you agree that taxes, however necessary or agreed upon, do have consequences of dissuading behaviors.
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Taxing income is an interesting case. We don’t want to dissuade earned income ( aka jobs ), but we know that’s an effect of income taxes. On the other hand, taxing earned income may be good, because the governments will probably want to preserve the things that they tax.
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Along those lines, we tax tobacco to theoretically dissuade its consumption. But there’s a catch. If it really worked 100%, and everyone stopped smoking, then all the revenue from the tax would disappear. So the government’s vested interest is in keeping people smoking, and they become beneficiaries of selling tobacco just like tobacco companies.
SteveF,
In the end, it comes down to government spending. All government spending is a drain on the economy, whether funded by taxation, borrowing or devaluing the currency. The method of taxation may make some difference, though.
I think Piketty’s claim that inequality of income is somehow damaging in and of itself and requires government intervention is idiotic. Steeply progressive taxes and wealth taxes would make everyone poorer.
SteveF,
I agree taxes in general punish investment. It certainly has a negative effect on production.
But taxes on investment earnings specifically punishes investment. Taxes on sales indirectly punishes investment but since it specifically affects sales of goods, it punishes those investments that most rely on sales of goods. Meanwhile, investors with money might put their money in rental property. Or, if the tax on sales is specifically on goods, investors might put their money in businesses that provide services — for example baby sitting, beauty salons and so on.
Of course, I suspect in the case of Germany, the baby sitting is now free– paid for out of taxes.
Proposed new question on security clearance forms:
YES/NO: I will use my personal political preferences to unilaterally decide to leak government secrets to the media.
TE,
Sin taxes create business opportunities for criminals. Something like half the cigarettes smoked in NYC, with its super high taxes on cigarettes, are smuggled.
lucia (Comment #162735): “I was commenting on what I quoted”.
Yes, but you quoted me out of context, thus changing the meaning of what I wrote. What I said was:
“If you get to keep only $1 million in profit instead of $2 million in profit, you are still better off than before. You are not being “punishedâ€. Getting to keep only half as much profit will likely impact your decision making …”.
I was complaining about the use of the word “punished” which is a totally inappropriate and misleading word to use in that manner. I suppose I could have made that clearer. But I made it perfectly clear that I was *not* saying that such taxes have no effect, which is the opposite of what you implied I was saying.
Mike M.,
Then there are the unfunded liabilities of the government at all levels. The current estimate for the federal government is $100 trillion, or about five times the current public debt.
DeWitt: “The Social Security trust fund is not the only intra-governmental borrowing. … So Social Security is slightly more than half the total.”
Thank you. I just learned something.
Mike M.,
There are semantic implications in your statement. “You get to keep” is quite different than ‘The government takes…’ The implication is that the profits actually all belong to the government, but it allows you to keep some of it as a reward as opposed to taking half your profits as a punishment.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #162745): “Then there are the unfunded liabilities of the government at all levels. The current estimate for the federal government is $100 trillion, or about five times the current public debt.”
There are unfunded liabilities that result from fanciful accounting by governments. And there are unfunded liabilities that result from fanciful accounting by people who want to make things seems even worse than they are. Skepticism is warranted with respect to all projections of the distant future.
Humorous media framing exercise.
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WSJ: Intelligence Chiefs Say They Didn’t Feel Pressured on Probe
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Fox: NO PRESSURE: Intelligence chiefs push back on claims Trump illegally pressed them on Russia
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NYT: Intelligence Chief Won’t Say if Trump Asked About Comey
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NBC: Coats, Rogers Won’t Discuss Talks With Trump About Russia Probe
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CNN: Intel chiefs won’t say if Trump asked the question
DeWitt Payne (Comment #162747): “There are semantic implications in your statement. “You get to keep†is quite different than ‘The government takes…’ The implication is that the profits actually all belong to the government, but it allows you to keep some of it as a reward as opposed to taking half your profits as a punishment.”
Yes, the issue is semantics, but I am not saying anything remotely like what you claim.
Look at the definition of “punish” http://www.wordnik.com/words/punish
The first one is representative: To subject to a penalty for an offense, sin, or fault.
That might apply to sin taxes, but not to other types of tax.
Even that definition is arguably too broad. Let’s say I steal $1 million, get caught, and have to pay a fine of $500,000 but otherwise get to keep the money I stole. Am I being punished for stealing? Many people would say no.
Loaded words distort reasoning.
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DeWitt Payne (Comment #162740): “All government spending is a drain on the economy, whether funded by taxation, borrowing or devaluing the currency”.
That is the sort of statement I expect when reasoning gets distorted by using loaded words. With no government spending at all, there would be anarchy. That would be very bad for the economy. Spending to maintain law and order is not the only beneficial government spending. Building and maintaining infrastructure is often beneficial. Universal education is beneficial. There is a good argument that a basic safety net is beneficial.
As government spending increases, and especially as it becomes more indiscriminate, it can become a drain on the economy. In my opinion, we have long since passed that point.
Turbulent Eddie (Comment #162739): “I’m glad you agree that taxes, however necessary or agreed upon, do have consequences of dissuading behaviors.”
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I agree that all taxes have consequences. I seriously doubt that reasonable taxes (or even unreasonable ones) do much dissuading. If you are not going to stop smoking cigarettes because they might kill you, you probably won’t quit because of the tax. Taxes do influence choices. As such, they can encourage unproductive activity (investing in tax shelters, spending money on clever accountants and lawyers) rather than productive activity (actually making something).
I think that SteveF has done a better job of explaining my position than I have.
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Eddie: “we tax tobacco to theoretically dissuade its consumption. But there’s a catch. If it really worked 100%, and everyone stopped smoking, then all the revenue from the tax would disappear. So the government’s vested interest is in keeping people smoking, and they become beneficiaries of selling tobacco just like tobacco companies.”
Excellent point. That is one of the reasons that I would oppose a carbon tax, even if I agreed that we must take government action to reduce CO2 emissions.
“All government spending is a drain on the economy”
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The military industrial complex is a huge government jobs program. The “private sector” does most of the work here, but it is probably more accurate to call this government work. If the US didn’t embark on ICBM’s / weapons development we wouldn’t have a world’s leading tech sector like we do. Lot of gray areas like this.
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This why I get a laugh when liberals call for government jobs programs and want to fund it by cutting the military budget.
The ultimate wedge issue! Make the border wall out of solar panels. Brilliant!
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/a-solar-powered-border-wall/529425/
Tom Scharf, the media “narrative” (myth) of Trump & Russia is very lycrative. Even now as responsible party after responsible party says their was no collusion and no obstruction media myth hypsters cling to their lies and tales. I am waiting for one person to have the guts to tell the panels that the only group that has worked to undermine the American election of 2916 has been democrats and media.
Tom Scharf,
” Make the border wall out of solar panels. Brilliant!”
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I nearly fell on the floor laughing. 🙂
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It is difficult to split out long term benefits due to technological development for military use and the cost of military equipment and staffing. In any case, those technological benefits ultimately accrue globally, while their cost is currently borne mostly by US taxpayers. I think it is likely that there are indeed real benefits, but the cost for developing the technology probably is a modest fraction of the total military budget. You could fund just the development of technology for a lot less than the weapons systems based on that technology.
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ICBM’s, nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers, submarines, etc. are needed for security today, but we should recognize that these things place a heavy burden on the US economy, which many other developed nations (Japan, Western Europe, Australia, etc) do not bear, or at least bear only at a much lower level. It has been the size and rate of growth of the US economy which has allowed military funding at the relatively high level the US supports.
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The US economy’s size and historical growth rate are in large part due to historically lower overall per capita government expenditures. Starting with Mr Obama in 2009, growth has been strangled by expenditures far outstripping economic growth, and by the growth in regulations, which are in fact a real cost imposed by government, just like taxes, but which do not show up as a government ‘expenditure’. The total increase in the cost of the Federal government, including regulations, has been ‘yuge’ under Mr. Obama… just as he wanted. It is no mystery why growth has been slow for 8 years.
DeWitt,
“In the end, it comes down to government spending.”
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On this we 100% agree… so long as you include the cost of regulations as ‘government spending’.
CNN just had a level 10 stroke, Massive type COMEY’S BOMBSHELL. It then goes on to state exactly what was already leaked and discussed ad naseum in the past month. Here it is:
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“He then said, ‘I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go,'” Comey said in remarks posted on the website of the Senate intelligence committee. “I replied only that ‘he is a good guy.’ (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a colleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my term at FBI.) I did not say I would ‘let this go.'”
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“Comey, in his opening statement, said Trump told him “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty” during their first dinner in January. Comey said in the statement “I didn’t move, speak or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed.” Comey said he told Trump “you will always get honesty from me.” He said the President responded, “that’s what I want. Honest loyalty.”
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The fainting spells have already begun. I think we are going to need to pass out huge Xanax pills to the media in the next 48 hours or else media panels are going to need medical personnel on call, ha ha.
This is written with testimony tomorrow, right? I read it. Looks like anti-Trump people got bupkiss from this. I think everything in there was already ‘out there’. And most ends up being not a whole lot.
But maybe something more will come tomorrow.
And reading the fine print…Comey told Trump he was not under investigation. No wonder Trump kept asking everyone to publicly state that.
Tom Scharf,
Yeah. Given the rumors that he is under investigation, I would think that
(a) the sitting president would like people to know he is not under investigation and
(b) it would be good for people to know he is not under investigation.
Tom,
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Trump: “Comey, if I am not under investigation, then I want you to tell the MSM that I am not under investigation.”
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Comey: “Mr. President, I won’t do that. It might prejudice the rest of my investigation.”
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Trump: “What!?! You’re fired!”
So far it looks like a big nothing-burger as Clinton would say, ha ha. We will see if anything else comes out, I’m sure the panel’s questions will be a diligent search for the truth… I would be surprised if anything really came out in a testimony. People are falling all over each other in a competition to be the “hero” who takes down Trump. Unfortunately it looks like a naive Ms. Winner will be doing some jail time for this over zealousness.
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If someone really had something it seems unlikely they would hold onto it when they could be a hero. It’s certainly possible there is a part of the IC than can actually keep a secret and is running a very tight compartmentalized investigation.
The correct answer from Comey probably should have been: “You are not under investigation…yet”.
Tom Scharf (Comment #162757): “CNN just had a level 10 stroke”
Literally? 🙂
Oh, figuratively. 🙁
lucia:
As I understand it, informing the public has the undesirable outcome that if Trump then came under investigation, the FBI would then have “a duty to correct” the record. In the case where they had made no such public statement, the fact that he had been promoted to a subject of the investigation would not need a separate public statement.
Here’s Comey’s explicit statement on why he felt it inappropriate to inform the public that Trump was not a subject of the investigation:
From the FBI’s point of view, they don’t always want to alert people or the public when those individuals have become subjects of an investigation, so a public reporting here would not be in either public’s best interest, nor in the best interests of the FBI to conduct an independent investigation.
I read Comey’s full statement, which you can find here. No bomb shells that I could see.
Carrick,
I get that. But the problem is that there have been huge rumors swirling that the president is under investigation. Anyway, evidently, now we are learning Trump was not under investigation.
I also saw no bombshells in the Comey stuff.
Carrick,
“From the FBI’s point of view, they don’t always want to alert people or the public when those individuals have become subjects of an investigation, so a public reporting here would not be in either public’s best interest, nor in the best interests of the FBI to conduct an independent investigation.”
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In this case, that POV is kind of irrelevant, since the MSM had been screaming about the (non-existent) investigation of Trump since the election…. based on leaks from Obama officials. I think Comey had an absolute duty to the public to say, “No, contrary to media reports, we have no investigation of Trump underway. I will let you know if that changes.”
Lucia, you beat me to it.
lucia–I honestly haven’t seen any credible accounts in the MSM claiming that Trump was himself under investigation. The closest where blog stories run after Comey’s March testimony that incorrectly reported Comey as saying Trump was under investigation.
I honestly think Trump was just looking for a magic bullet to make this go away, and that unfortunately (for those of us who like a functioning federal government anyway) ended up making things worse.
The real problem is keeping these people on his staff, while federal investigations surrounding them continues, is what is causing the cloud of smoke. And I honestly don’t think they’ve stayed on due to his undying loyalty either.
think that’s due to the part of him that never wants to retreat an inch on anything. Dropping them now would paint him in an unflattering light.
SteveF:
You’ve got a fair amount of exaggeration going on there, I’m afraid.
If you had said “investigation of Trump’s administration” then maybe. But that’s a legitimate story, because it’s actually happening.
I doubt you could show it was “Obama officials” either who were responsible for the leaks.
Obviously I don’t agree. It isn’t general policy to inform people when they have become subjects of an investigation. If Comey did what you described, then the FBI would be forced to announce it, were it to happen. That benefits neither the independence of the investigation, nor really, Trump’s best interests either.
I don’t think the FBI needs to run around and tell the world everyone who isn’t under investigation. In the event there are no ties to Trump ever found, it is the media (my favorite whipping dog) that needs to be held accountable. As I remember the media went to great lengths to constantly remind us there was no criminal investigation of Clinton, and it was just a “referral” which turned out to be a meaningless term the FBI never uses. I also hear she won the popular vote.
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I would say the evidence suggests that the leakers are framing the evidence in the most politically damaging way possible, but this undermines the long term case when it turns out it was a very uncharitable interpretation of the facts.
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It’s possible that the hysteria is a fatally flawed approach to taking down Trump. Trump shoots himself in the foot every 12 seconds, that ought to be enough. From a Trump supporter’s viewpoint he starts to look like a victim here, but you do have to squint pretty hard, ha ha.
Tom Scharf—I think the problem with the hysteria is as much as right-wing problem as it is a left wing one.
They characterize the left-wing coverage in a less than honest fashion. Trump gets most of his news from the right-wing, meaning that he ends ups reacting to things that aren’t actually happening (at least not in the way the right wing media makes them out to be).
That’s Trump’s problem and not the FBI’s. He needs to get out more and maybe consume sources of information from people who aren’t “yes men”.
Regarding Clinton, it’s probably worth your while to go back and refresh yourself on how that was really covered by the MSM, which is remarkably different in important ways from the way you’re charactering it here, and IMO in no way provides a justification for Trump being given special treatment here for problems that are mostly self-made.
The left wing/media/democrats are the only group that has been making baseless lies, pushing rumor and innuendo, all to weaken the American people’s faith and acceptance in the outcome of the 2016 election. If there is any justice the dems should be blown out in the 2018 election and the criminals who illegally leaked names and Intel and top secrets to further inflame this madness should face the maximum legal penalties.
Carrick,
There weren’t anything but Obama officials until Jan 20, and unfortunately, in many cases for a long time after that.
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“Obviously I don’t agree. It isn’t general policy to inform people when they have become subjects of an investigation.”
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Unless your name is Hillary Clinton. Then you know exactly when you are being investigated, and better yet, your husband can chat with the AG about your legal status without any problem.
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If you actually read MSM accounts, you will see that there is constant drumming of “Trump is under FBI investigation”, even while, according to Comey, that investigation never has happened. WRT investigating people who worked for Trump: the FBI should be done with it ASAP. The endless dragging out of the “investigation” is designed only to cause political problems for Trump, not to identify any criminal wrongdoing. Absent evidence of explicit collusion, it is all nothing more than a politically motivated witch hunt.
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“That benefits neither the independence of the investigation, nor really, Trump’s best interests either.”
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Your comment is wholly disconnected from reality.
Carrick,
I don’t read a lot of right wing media so I can’t comment. I suspect what you call right wing (Breitbart, Drudge Report, etc.) is not very DC politically influential relative to CNN / ABC / CBS / NYT / WP / NBC and the rest before 2016. The very existence and popularity of the non-legacy right wing sites is probably due to hive mind (Overton Window) coverage that is increasingly left leaning since ~2004 in my view. This is when Fox News exploded.
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The intellectual class has increasingly enforced internal cultural conformity over the past decade. They moved too fast culturally and when the others classes rebelled the intellectual class attempted to use the same conformity mechanisms they used internally to keep people on the reservation. The result hasn’t been pretty. The rise of anti-intellectualism is quite threatening and so shrieking like banshees is apparently the next phase.
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It’s more easily summarized as The Left: You guys elected an idiot!
The Right: Because you guys are a-holes! Both sides have a point.
@ Tom Scharf
Your last paragraph would be a perfect summary if you replace Left with Establishment and Right with Masses.
SteveF:
You’re forgetting that the Moron in Chief was using a trivial to hack unprotected phone for months. That explains a lot.
In your comic book universe where the Clintons resemble Batman universe super-villains maybe. In the real world, things are a lot more complicated.
I read both right & left wing media. Yet I haven’t seen a single example of “Trump is under FBI investigation”, except for a few blogs (not MSM sites at all) which misrepresented Comey in the March hearing. Nor I might add have you provided one.
Uh huh. And yet you couldn’t provide a single example of what you were talking about. Disconnected from reality is when you don’t need facts, like actual examples of the things you claim to be true, to know things. Which of us is that describing here?
Tom Scharf, I meant read and watch: Fox News is certainly right-wing. They used to be more centrist when I used to watch them and had higher standards than they do now (that last statement applies to the current media in general).
The right-wing are as bad in exaggerating the left-wing media as the left-wing are in exaggerating problems with the right-wing media. This just increases the level of misunderstandings.
And both sides demonize the other’s candidates, and many people believe the demonizations without blinking an eye, as long as it’s aimed at the other party. There are people who actually think the Clintons are mass murderers for example. That certainly beats anything mean they’re saying about poor Mr. Trump.
Carrick,
You wrote (addressing SteveF): “Yet I haven’t seen a single example of “Trump is under FBI investigationâ€, except for a few blogs (not MSM sites at all) which misrepresented Comey in the March hearing. Nor I might add have you provided one.”
Does USA Today count as MSM?
“The Russians tried to take away our inalienable right as Americans to elect our own leaders. This investigation matters because we need to know if Trump, or any individual on his team, worked with Russia to do it or tried to cover it up after the fact.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/06/07/trump-resistance-working-democrats-cant-let-up-david-brock-column/102527764/
Knowing the way you split verbal hairs when it suits you, I guess you will say that they did not actually say that Trump is under investigation. They only implied that either he is or ought to be. A constant drumming of such implications fits within what SteveF describes.
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538 did a recent poll of Trump supporters and asked media coverage of “Trump’s relationships with Russia”. Sounds like they see this pretty much the same as SteveF and I.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-trumps-least-enthusiastic-voters-feel-about-him-now/
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I do disagree with SteveF about you being wholly disconnected from reality. I’d say you distort reality to make it agree with the way you want it to be.
Carrick: “They characterize the left-wing coverage in a less than honest fashion. Trump gets most of his news from the right-wing, meaning that he ends ups reacting to things that aren’t actually happening (at least not in the way the right wing media makes them out to be).
That’s Trump’s problem and not the FBI’s. He needs to get out more and maybe consume sources of information”
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If you are talking about Trump’s “wiretap” tweet allegation against Obama that is still a developing story. But I suppose if the unmasking by Susan Rice and possibly many other political appointees are exposed as clear party opposition espionage your come back will be the same as CNNs and MSNBC who I’m sure will say it was all legal, (under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and was not wiretapping).
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The MSM and left are becoming more and more out of touch with the Trump voters as was well described here in recent comments. I think it is natural tribalism, spawned by the lack of fear instilling national enemies. I don’t think it is completely innocent. I think the “war on women,” Islamophobia and racism accusations are extensions of negative campaigning. Although they are clearly unethical and destructive to the national fabric, those points are discounted relative to the necessity to save the planet from evil conservative deplorables.
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When the Dems were asked in first Dem debate what enemies were they most proud to have the first candidate answered the coal lobby. The second candidate said the National Rifle Association. Clinton after pondering some more settled on Republicans. Sanders said Wall Street and pharmaceuticals industry.
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She was proud that Republicans where her enemy. Of course, it was the politically correct answer as the trick was not to alienate any Democrats, which could be conceivably part of any other mentioned group. But we all know she meant it and she said so after the nomination in interviews and with the deplorables speech.
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Carrick: ” There are people who actually think the Clintons are mass murderers for example…”
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How many is “mass”? And, what if it’s just Hillary? Could the Clintons could keep individual secrets maybe? Does Hillary have less ambition or less of a temper than Putin? Do you believe the CIA ever assassinated anyone before the congress held hearings to stop CIA assassinations? Real questions.
MikeM: The USA Today counts, but your quote didn’t say the FBI was investigating Trump, which is what SteveF and others are claiming they are saying. What this quote says is, “This investigation matters because we need to know IF Trump, or any individual on his team, worked with Russia to do it or tried to cover it up after the fact.†(My emphasis.)
This doesn’t even come close to saying the FBI was investigating Trump. They aren’t even saying anything less obvious than “the sun rises in the morning.” Of course the investigation needs to be done. That’s a no brainer, and no hair splitting is required.
If you think that’s reality bending on my part, then I can see how you came to support the Reality Bender in Chief.
Ron, the Susan Rice story wouldn’t be a story except for Trump’s desire to find something to distract people from his own trash, and the willingness of so many of Republicans in Congress and their supporters in the press to wipe Trump’s butt for him.
That has nothing to do with what I was talking about though, which was really a speculation on why Trump is so fixated on Russia himself.
I’ll use the FBI’s definition for mass murderer, which is 4 or more.
Notably you can’t even talk about Trump for more than one paragraph before you’re forced to change the topic to Killary.
Just amazing.
Carrick,
“What this quote says is, “This investigation matters because we need to know IF Trump, or any individual on his team, worked with Russia to do it or tried to cover it up after the fact.†(My emphasis.)
This doesn’t even come close to saying the FBI was investigating Trump.”
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Not sure how that statement implies no investigation of Trump. Seems to me it says exactly that ‘this investigation’ (the one ongoing since last July) of Trump and his entire ‘team’ ‘matters’. It’s just like saying ‘we need to know if Hillary and her team were dealing access to foreign nationals in exchange for Bill’s exorbitant speaking fees while she was Secretary of State’, but then claiming that is NOT investigating Hillary. Bizarre. After 7+ months of ‘this investigation’ Comey states multiple times that Trump was not being investigated (presumably some on his ‘team’ were, since the FBI has been investigating something since July).
My (Comment #162779), addressed to Carrick: “Knowing the way you split verbal hairs when it suits you, I guess you will say that they did not actually say that Trump is under investigation. They only implied that either he is or ought to be.”
I guessed right.
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I find it fascinating how Carrick splits hairs when he needs to and insists on using sloppy language when that serves his purpose. For instance he claims that there are people who actually think the Clintons are mass murderers and claims that he is using the FBI definition of mass murder. But not even the wackiest right wing conspiracy nuts do that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_murder
Carrick,
From CNN today: “Instead of tamping down the issue, Trump has revved up public interest. Instead of asserting control of the FBI and other intelligence agencies, he now faces a probe led by a formidable independent counsel, Robert Mueller, the second-longest serving director in FBI history.”
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OK, so do you think a ‘probe’ of Trump isn’t an investigation?
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Headline from the NYTimes in March: “F.B.I. Is Investigating Trump’s Russia Ties, Comey Confirms”
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Could anyone read that headline and think the FBI is not investigating Trump? I don’t think so.
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The MSM has been beating the ‘FBI investingating Trump’ story for a long time. What got Comey fired was his refusal to state publically what he had told Trump and members of Congress multiple times: Trump was never under investigation by the FBI. This is the most destructive political witch hunt I have ever seen.
Carrick,
Jonathan Turley today: “CNN ran comments that the Comey testimony was nothing short of the Watergate tapes. The desire for some indictable or impeachable offense by President Trump has distorted the legal analysis to an alarming degree. Analysts seem far too thrilled by the possibility of a crime by Trump.”
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The MSM is wildly prejudiced and inaccurate about anything Trump, and most people can see that…. even a legal scholar who disagrees with Trump’s policies 100%.
This is a classic slow motion coup attempt. Flood the public square with lies and innuendos. Goad the victim into rage. Make the issue the victim’s rage. Ignore the exonerating evidence. Shout down or ignore any defenders. Comey’s testimony reads much more like a novel than testimony. I wonder who ghost wrote it? And the idea that asking a proven political player like Coney for “honest loyalty” is unethical much less impeachable is outrageous.
Carrick, I understand your point to have been that the thought of Clintons committing murder is so outrageous that it discredits any person’s sanity who would entertain such a notion. And, since many of Trumps defenders would entertain it from the current evidence available if researched, then this is an indication that Trump supporters have early signs of insanity (or are less intellectually adept than Democrats). I would like to dissect your logic. (And, in presenting the flaw I will refrain from extrapolating it as a symptom of liberal ideological propensity.)
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Assumptions:
1) If one Clinton were involved in a crime it would be shared with the family and perhaps close staff. False. Bill lied about his sex-capades with Monica and presumably he did it without HRC’s consent.
2) Rich and powerful people do not crimes because they have more to lose than common folk. False.
3) Murder for hire is so rare as to eliminate the fruitfulness in investigating it in a mysterious unnatural death. False.
4) Because paranoia is a mental illness and one of the symptoms is the propensity for imagining fanciful conspiracies, anyone who considers the possibility of a conspiracy is paranoid. False.
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I find the last point the most fascinating, and I think a lot of others do also since it’s at the core of countless movie plots. It provides cover, and thus opportunity, for such by making them taboo for investigation (or disclosure of the investigation).
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BTW, this is not a deflection but right on topic: acceptance of a Russian-Trump conspiracy vs. the acceptance of an Obama-IC conspiracy. As Carrick rightly points out we are talking about conspiracies. Each side now has to enforce consensus to discredit the other’s.
I had a post get moderated. Maybe Lucia can recover it. It beats the dead horse of whether an opinion about the need for investigation of Trump’s administration is the same as a statement of fact about the existence of an FBI investigation of Trump.
As I said in that comment, what I think got Comey fired was his refusal to drop the Russian investigation.
Given some of the crazy opinions given by conservative commentators on the right-wing news about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, there’s nothing amazing about seeing similar crazy opinions voiced by people like Jonathan Turley, who certainly is suffering from Trump Derangement Disorder.
There’s also nothing amazing that the balance of conservative to liberal commentators varies between networks. I find none of these people interesting enough to watch live, but do monitor the ones that I think aren’t total lunatics.
(I think Turley is deranged, as are Robert Reich and Dan Rather. They aren’t people I monitor, other than in the way you monitor a lunatic asylum.)
Hunter–this really is a big “nothing burger”. Trump is in no more danger of being removed from office over Comey’s testimony than I personally am in danger of being appointed the next President.
Comey’s moral failure is to refuse to state clearly on a timely basis that there was no investigation of Trump personally. He was fired for being a Pontius Pilate type of player. ” no crime here but go ahead and kill the pesky outsider.” And no Trump is not Jesus so don’t go there.The felony leaks and the FBI declining to take them seriously while egging on the Russian bs is enough to fire Comey. His inability to prevent Boston or San Diego was enough to fire him. His slow walking Hillary was enough to fire him. Now he presents his movie treatment style”testimony” to further egg on this dangerous theater. Eff him.
Carrick,
“I think Turley is deranged”
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Wow. From Wiki:
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I suspect some people would disagree with your analysis of Turley.
Carrick,
I have no idea where the post went!! It’s not in moderated or spam.
Lucia,
I suspect the Russians… or Trump. 😉
Perhaps it’s Hillary Clinton’s IT people.
Ron, the problem with the Clinton mass murderer theory goes way beyond simply the extreme nature of the theory. It goes to the absolute lack of credible evidence, whether it be the multiple criminal investigations of
FrankSeth Rich or Vincent Foster finding no evidence of criminal conspiracy.Given five different official investigations of Foster and the amount of collusion that would have been required to keep an actual criminal conspiracy quiet, the Killary crowd still thinks she was responsible for Foster’s death.
In the case of the Russians, well this actually happened:
Russian hackers with ties to the Russian government did hack the DNC, and they did provide emails to Wikileaks. We know these things as facts. It’s possible, though unlikely, the hackers were working without approval from key individuals in the Russian government.
And we know that numerous people associated with Trump’s campaign had contacts with Russian officials. Many of those contacts were misrepresented. Some of those people (Monafort, Flynn, Paige for starts) are probably facing legal action. Some of these people were targets of attempts by Russia to influence the Trump campaign.
None of this implies Trump did anything wrong himself (other than possibly poor judgement with the people he associated with). Nor do I know of any reason to cast suspicion on Trump himself. But clearly there are people associated with Trump who face legal jeopardy over their behavior during the campaign.
I can accept the latter because there are facts to back it up. I can’t accept the former because, the theory is bereft of anything that looks like real facts and requires laws of human behavior that exist in comic books or cheesy novels but not the real universe.
SteveF, to be clear, I think Tuley is deranged in his comments about Trump, I wasn’t questioning his pedigree. Robert Reich has a very good pedigree too, but he’s still nuts (in general).
Lucia-thanks for trying. This really is a dead horse, so they can have the last turn at beating it. I love the Clinton IT speculation. lol.
Carrick
I think the Clintons also introduce typos and spelling errors in my comments here, at Twitter and generally all over the web. Otherwise, my comments would always be impeccable.
Could be. It is now clear that every outlandish and irrational claim must be taken seriously, even in the complete absence of evidence.
SteveF, which claims are you referring to which are outlandish and irrational and lack any evidence?
Perhaps it’s Hillary Clinton’s IT people.
Hillary is not smiling. 🙂
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Carrick, your assertion that it’s only Trump’s people colluded with the Russians (without his knowledge) is both an unsound theory and a misrepresentation for the 24-7 Russian-Trump conspiracy binge.
Carrick,
“Some of those people (Monafort, Flynn, Paige for starts) are probably facing legal action. Some of these people were targets of attempts by Russia to influence the Trump campaign.”
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I agree some do face legal action…. either for tax evasion or the catchall of “saying something to a federal investigator which was not completely accurate”, even when not under oath. If prosecuted for anything other than tax evasion, I would bet they are never convicted. Too bad you are not a betting man.
Carrick,
“I think Tuley is deranged in his comments about Trump”
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Was he also deranged when he said Obama acted on multiple occasions to subvert the rule of law? Serious question.
Ron Graf, I never said “only”.
SteveF, if I were you, I wouldn’t be against charges against Paul Manafort, at least in the Ukraine.
Not completely accurate” is a bit different than “deliberately misrepresented.” For example, Flynn lied to the DIA about receiving money from Russia and Turkey.
I wouldn’t bet either way on this. Normally this meets the bar needed for prosecution. Given the current environment in Washington this could well morph into “tax evasion”. But that doesn’t mask the seriousness of what he actually did.
Re: Comey & Russia investigation
I read Comey’s prepared remarks about his interactions with Trump. There is zero, absolutely nada, in them that indicates any wrongdoing by Trump. (People could argue bad judgment. On that issue I am neutral.) I would add that I see zero wrong with the way that Comey handled the matter in the way described in the remarks. Trump and Comey simply have different views of what their relationship should be.
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The significance of the lack of evidence of wrongdoing by Trump is that it shows the biased and malevolent attitude of the Leftist media towards Trump. He has every right to ask Comey to lay off. Comey can resist. In the bigger picture, this is all a kerfuffle over nothing. It is not illegal to influence elections. (If the actions of Israel’s supporters in the US were examined through the prism of the idea that it is wrongful to work with a foreign government to influence US elections,I think that very interesting questions would arise.) Democrats are simply manufacturing an issue out of hate in their attempt to impale Trump in any way possible. The Left Wing media is working as an ally of the Democrats while falsely claiming to be reasonably objective. (See NYTs ads, laughably claiming that the NYTs is guided by the truth)
JD
Carrick,
I woulds say the media’s treatment of Obama was fawning, Clinton(s) not so much. They cut her little slack, but always made it clear that she was preferred (but flawed) over Trump. They report Clinton’s flaws, but obsess over Trump’s every move. It’s a standard confirmation bias thing I think.
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Clinton conspiracy theories do get out of hand. It’s like Trump, Clinton does a perfectly adequate job of making herself look bad so need to pile on.
SteveF: I haven’t seen those comments so it’s hard for me to judge.
Turley came across (at least when I watched him) as highly emotional and reflexive in his comments about Trump. It’s in that sense that I meant “deranged”. It’s possible Turley makes outrageous comments on CNN that pays the bills.
Ron Graf,
“I think it is natural tribalism, spawned by the lack of fear instilling national enemies.”
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Totally agree. Familiarity breeds contempt as they say. There is nothing for the left/right to unite over so they spend their free time throwing rocks at each other. It’s too peaceful for there to be peace, ha ha.
JD Ohio–thanks for the comments. I would say Trump’s requests certainly had a bad outcome. That speaks to the quality of his judgement.
Tom Scharf,
Well… Trump has some unfortunate moves.
I kinda like Melania. A first lady who pretty much sits back and practically nothing in public?! What a breath of fresh air!!
Mind you, I suspect Melania and I aren’t at all similar types and we would find little in common. Although if her mom handed down a good potica recipe, I’d try to make it. Potica is delicious.
Hmm… Maybe I’ll tweet her and ask her to post one?
Re: Media Bias
From AOL “Some legal experts said Comey’s testimony could strengthen any impeachment case in Congress to remove Trump from office built on an allegation of obstruction of justice.” https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/06/08/comey-accuses-trump-administration-of-lies-and-defamation/22132648/ No citations of the “experts” (I am sure there are some lawyers who did say what AOL is stating. It doesn’t mean that they really know what they are talking about. Don’t look at AOL as major news source. However, couldn’t miss it while checking some of my email accounts) No citations of any wrongdoing that Trump is alleged to have done. Appears to be based on the incorrect idea that Trump stopping an investigation, in and of itself, is obstruction of justice, which is clearly wrong. If Clinton or Obama was accused of the same thing, I am quite confident many people in what used to be the mainstream media would be explaining his executive role and what prosecutorial discretion is.
JD
JD Ohio (Comment #162805) ,
Yep. That’s how I see it.
Trump detractors and GOP opponents are trying to paint bad judgement as criminal. Mind you, that’s what politicians do if they think sturm und drang advances their political agenda, or at least curbs the other sides political agenda. That’s why bad judgement in a president is a very, very bad thing. But bad judgement is what this looks like.
Trump? Bad judgement. What. A. Surprise. (Not!)
I’ve decided to ask Melania for a family Potica recipe. If she publishes one, remember it was my idea.
Ron Graf:
Sorry but this mischaracterization doesn’t fly with me.
I have said absolutely nothing about Trump’s people colluding with the Russian government, and certainly not on the matter of Russian interference in the 2016 US elections. (I don’t even think this ever happened.)
Certainly Trump isn’t going to be aware of every meeting his staff members have, nor would necessarily be aware of the money that Flynn received from Russia and Turkey.
I don’t see anything inconsistent about that.
Added:
There is by the way, absolutely no reasonable doubt that the meetings occurred and that moneys from foreign governments were received (by multiple Trump staff members by the way).
I would say that the media’s excitement over Trump’s self inflicted trauma has ventured into glee a little too often. They love big stories and need to manufacture news when there isn’t any, but if anyone in the media is thinking removing Trump is a bad thing I’m not picking up on it. I have seen a few articles that state it would be bad in the sense that Pence may govern better etc. The least convincing speeches in history will be the “sad day for America” diatribes from the media that would be put out if Trump is removed.
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The bar to remove Trump is really quite high. It should be high for any President to start with and the right controls Congress. Congress has to be convinced and more importantly Trump supporters needs to be not just dissatisfied with him, but actively calling for his removal. Given the polarization and the reasons Trump got sent to DC in the first place, it is going to take a lot for this to happen. The establishment calling for his removal prematurely only validates Trump supporter’s views and hardens their position.
There is bad judgment, and then there is lack of experience. Trump having never been in government has come in and tried to do things “his way or the highway” and this has caused a lot of kerfuffle because he is doing things differently.
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The question is whether this different is bad judgment or not. Some clearly is bad, self inflicted wounds where nothing is gained.
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But what happens if he dutifully becomes DC experienced? He turns into an Obama / Romney / Clinton political robot that is nearly impossible to decode. Saying all the “right” things that the media expects to hear and the media die from boredom. I’m so sick of political robots that Trump is a nice change albeit not a dream candidate. I want politicians to change into human beings and for the media to stop holding them to an impossible unforgiving standard that just makes them fake wax statues that only resemble humans. I don’t like the stale rules of conduct.
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One part of experience though is learning what happens when you dump on DC veterans that run powerful agencies.
Lucia: I think the real “treasure” that Trump’s detractors are aiming for is painting him as having such poor judgement that you simply can’t trust him. Trump is helping them of course with things like the Comey firing and his mishandling of Obamacare repeal.
That would, I think, severely limit his capacity to accomplish anything significant, so that may be the real political goal here of his enemies, which are many (rather than his probably unobtainable removal from office).
Tom Scharf: I just want to see some of the real problems we are facing addressed. Bad judgement that prevents this from happening is a serious problem. Lack of experience also makes it more difficult, even if his followers find it sexy for him to be incompetent.
Carrick,
I am thinking maybe you didn’t understand what Turley wrote about Comey’s written testimony. Here is a link to USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/06/07/comey-testimony-no-obstruction-no-impeachment-jonathan-turley-column/102603050/
He said that nothing Comey relates about Trump is “obstruction of justice”.
From his prepared statement, Comey appears to think that the FBI is an independent agency. That might have been effectively true when J. Edgar Hoover was director, but it isn’t now and shouldn’t have been then. That’s insubordination. And, of course, that’s not the only time he’s engaged in insubordination.
Carrick,
“even if his followers find it sexy for him to be incompetent.”
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Nobody I know is happy about his many (obvious) mistakes.
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I certainly find nothing about his errors ‘sexy’. I find most all his ‘tweeting’ both foolish and counterproductive. They open him to the kind of relentless attack and exaggeration of his errors by the MSM which pleases only those who oppose his policy goals. He spends far too much time and energy fighting his political opponents and not enough time nominating people for judgeships and political appointments.
DeWitt,
“From his prepared statement, Comey appears to think that the FBI is an independent agency.”
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For certain. Congress didn’t help by setting the term of an appointment to 10 years… which I think suggests they wanted the FBI to be independent of the President. It is a wacky idea. There are only three branches of government in the Constitution, and Congress can’t create another by passing legislation. Executive functions are the sole responsibility of the President.
SteveF: “Congress didn’t help by setting the term of an appointment to 10 years… which I think suggests they wanted the FBI to be independent of the President.”
That is the opposite of the actual situation. The FBI director does not have a term of 10 years; he serves at the pleasure of the President. That is just like any other executive appointment with one big exception: he is *not allowed* to serve for more than 10 years without specific approval from Congress. That was done to prevent another J. Edgar Hoover, who acted like the head of a 4th branch of government.
The press has depicted the firing of Comey as extraordinary, but it was not. Since the term limit was introduced, there have been five FBI directors. Exactly one (Mueller) reached the 10 year limit; Congress granted him permission to stay in office for a couple extra years. One (appointed by Carter) would have reached the 10 year limit, but shortly before that happened he was appointed by Reagan to head the CIA. Two were fired (by Clinton and Trump) and one was forced to resign by Bush the Younger.
Comey had friend leak memo notes to NYT. My first thought was “he can’t do that”. Apparently he can or he wouldn’t have said it out loud. Comey isn’t going to say anything that has potential legal blow back because he is…ahem…experienced. It does seem a bit unseemly. Why not just release them himself? Not helpful for him.
SteveF—I had Jonathan Tuley and Jeffrey Toobin confused. Sorry. I’d plead old age, but name aphasia has been there with me since a kid.
Tuley’s comments that you linked look completely sane to me and pretty much reflect my non-expert opinion on this.
Re: Trump Claimed Bad Judgment
I don’t agree that Trump is guilty of bad judgment. I agree that there are two reasonable sides to the issue. Whether the FBI can in a practical matter be objective is worthy of serious debate. Much worse than Trump’s “bad judgment” is the media’s uninformed and often malicious criticism of Trump.
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On a related but not, identical subject, I agree that Trump made the right decision in firing Comey. Intrinsically, Comey is simply a loose cannon.
JD
JD,
There is no doubt that firing Comey was correct looking at it now. If you have an employee that is actively working against you and the goals of your company, they should get fired. Comey recording everything Trump said and leaking notes to the NYT shows his focus is not on America but on this petty dispute. I expect these so-called elite professionals to do their job irregardless of who is in office, in fact that is the very definition of professional. My perception is they are way too wrapped up in DC drama then looking for terrorists and hardening US infrastructure from foreign IT attacks.
Tom Sharf,
Sure. But deciding to take on something that impacts many other people when you have no experience is frequently bad judgement. It’s one thing to be a bit ambitious and willing to reach, but at a certain point, one hits over reaching much too much.
Trump put himself in a position for which he has little or no experience.
My theory remains that when he entered the race he never dreamed he’d win. Then, surprised he was doing well, he stayed in. Nevertheless, taking on the job of US president when one has practically no relevant experience while other people do falls in the realm of bad judgement.
Not necessarily. Lots of his bad judgement has nothing to do with being easy to decode. I don’t think his bad judgement in dealing with Comey falls in a category like that. I think due to lack of experience he doesn’t know the range of appropriate things he is allowed, he doesn’t have foresight in what can happen in DC and he ends up acting like the proverbial bull in the china shop. It’s blundering.
One could be not-a-robot without becoming a blundering bull in a china shop.
Someone did bring up a point that Comey was effectively trying to entrap Trump. Comey felt he was being pressured to drop the investigation of Flynn but * never actually told Trump * that Trump’s questions were inappropriate and then began recording everything Trump said to him which can be interpreted as building a secret case against Trump. It’s entirely believable that Trump just didn’t agree with Comey on the rules of engagement and Trump understood he was the boss of the FBI. Trump isn’t exactly subtle when communicating what he wants.
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AFAICT the most memorable thing that happened today was Comey admitting he leaked his documents to the NYT which makes him look like yet another partisan actor with his knife out.
Tom Scharf,
Honestly, I think Trump might be better off if he had been more direct.
When Comey told him he was not under investigation, he should have consulted with legal eagles and asked if them to judge the legal basis of the following:
Telling Comey that in Trump’s view, the FBI was a part of the executive branch and that as such, he could order the FBI to set aside the “protocol” of not telling people the president is not the subject of an investigation. Comey could have advised whatever he advised, but I suspect that the President can order them to not follow said protocol for reasons the President thinks important.
The President may judge wrongly. Carrick has listed good reasons why the FBI doesn’t ordinarily tell anyone whether someone is the subject of an investigation. But I don’t think FBI internal protocol, however well meaning or justified, overrides the fact that they fall in the executive branch. So: even if the President is ultimately wrong in his jugement, it seems to me that would be the Presidents call.
If Comey refused, the President could fire him for failing to follow orders. He could even state which specific one.
Of course maybe I’m wrong. That’s why I think Trump would need to consult a legal team and learn his basis.
But it seems to me that the FBI doesn’t have the authority to override an order like this which, after all, is not telling them to halt any investigation. It is not asking them to lie. It’s not even entirely clear it badly harms any investigation of Trump’s staff.
Even if it did harm some other investigation, my view is tough cookies. Lots of things happen that interfere with investigations. Presumably FBI agents wear big boy pants and can deal with inconvenient facts on the ground that might complicate their investigation.
If Trump had done the above, his actions would be entirely straightforward. Some people would have been upset– but so? There would be no slightly ambiguous questioning of Comey, no question he told Comey his position on the line of authority and so on.
So, in my view, part of Trump’s problem was trying to be cagey and play politics– just like any politician. But he bungled that attempt.
Tom
Actually, if Comey’s rendition of what was said at that table is accurate or close to, Trump was actually trying to be subtle. I think he may have been so subtle Comey misunderstood him. For example Comey write
Now: here, Comey clearly thinks Trump is trying to be subtle. I also think so. But I don’t think Trump was trying to encourage a patronage relationship. My guess is Trump as trying to get him to volunteer to resign.
I also think Comey tries to be overly clever, and I think he is hallucinating when he claims:
In fact, it’s rather odd thinking for Comey to both claim “it is
possible we understood the phrase “honest loyalty†differently, but I decided it wouldn’t be productive to push it further” and later think his meaning had been clear.
On this in comey
First: Why didn’t Comey explain this? I don’t expect anyone to answer that. But it seems to me Comey did not because he wants to be cagey and get to remain the “boss”, implementing his preferences over the Chief Executive and doing so by avoiding engagement. This worked for a time because Trump is inexperienced with this. That’s my view here– could be wrong.
Second: I get the reason for their reluctance. But it seems to me that the FBI and Department of Justice’s reluctance and their reasons, even if good, can legally be over-ridden by the Chief Executive. Who. Is. Currently. Trump.
I suspect Comey knew that if he came out directly and said they were ‘reluctant’, Trump would escalate to figuring out that he was going to have to order the behavior. But– not previously being the President– he thought he should use persuasion. That wasn’t going to work.
Trump erred either not recognizing this or not exercising his authority here. Comey wanted to be the boss of bosses and he was going to resort to every passive aggressive trick in the book to be there.
Did Trump mishandle this: Yeppers. But Comey looks like a passive-aggressive operator to me on this one.
Rubio asked Comey why he didn’t leak the “Trump not under investigation” part of the conversation and Comey said “he didn’t know”. If Comey leaked all the notes to his friends and the NYT saw them all, they seemed to have forgotten to report on that part.
JD Ohio
Absolutely.
Comey’s testimony is far too literary. It is a novelization, not a testimony.
It would seem that actually obstructing justice would be an important part of the charge. Comey didn’t halt anything, only vaguely understood he was being asked to, and went on. This all ends up with “I think I was being asked to halt an investigation and I didn’t”. Trump can simply respond, “I wasn’t ordering him to do that, and if I was it would have been crystal clear”. My best guess is that Trump was trying for a quid pro quo to help Flynn out with plausible deniability.
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The failure of Comey to not actually halt the investigation and to not attempt to clear up the question at hand is going to doom the obstruction accusation I think. Comey could have just asked if he was being ordered to do that and there wouldn’t be anything to talk about. He didn’t. End of case.
I can’t help wondering how a leaking FBI with a head who leaks is not in disarray. I guess Comey wouldn’t think so since it’s doing what he wants.
Comey wouldn’t say that Trump is not under investigation, but complied with Lynch’s demands to not call their investigation of Hillary an investigation.
Trump was not under investigation because it is not a criminal investigation, but a counterintelligence investigation. The target is Russia. Everyone else is incidental, and any interviews are for informational purposes, not to get prosecutions.
My guess is Comey was going to let this whole thing go, took notes for CYA, got unceremoniously fired and humiliated, and then had a temper tantrum. Part of Trump’s bad judgment is his desire for vindication, not just winning, and the humiliation of the loser. Realistically he is addicted to this type of drama and enjoys it.
lucia (Comment #162829): “Trump having never been in government has come in and tried to do things “his way or the highway†and this has caused a lot of kerfuffle because he is doing things differently.”
I think that is correct. A lot of people, me included, think that it is high time to do things differently in Washington and voted for Trump for that reason.
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lucia: “But deciding to take on something that impacts many other people when you have no experience is frequently bad judgement. It’s one thing to be a bit ambitious and willing to reach, but at a certain point, one hits over reaching much too much.
Trump put himself in a position for which he has little or no experience.”
Well, yes. No one has experience being President except ex-Presidents. I don’t see how being a Senator constitutes better experience than being a successful business man. It certainly didn’t seem to help Obama.
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lucia: “I think due to lack of experience he doesn’t know the range of appropriate things he is allowed, he doesn’t have foresight in what can happen in DC and he ends up acting like the proverbial bull in the china shop.”
OK, that is one way in which Obama’s experience was much better than Trump’s. He was familiar with the unwritten rules as to what the President is allowed to do by the establishment. If ignoring those rules is “bad judgement” then I voted for Trump *because* I was hoping that he would display monumentally bad judgement. So far, I am not disappointed.
Clintons are mass-murderers, there are many people who will accuse them of this under your definition 4 or more.
The Boys on the Tracks, if I am remembering right this was published in the Wall Street Journal and was pushed by Pat Robertson for awhile. I think it had something to do with drugrunning out of Mena airport. Not sure how many still believe this but it was big for the early years of his presidency. I think this is 2 boys.
Vince Foster 1.
Seth Rich 1
Ron Brown 1, found with bullet hole. However, you have to account for the plane crash, and you have mass murder by itself.
TWA 800, I think people just call it a coverup, either of a terrorist attack or an accidental Navy shootdown. At best the government was on high alert and failed. I’ll call this one 0.
Waco, some say Hillary was the deciding factor here. However, there is no real conspiracy theory. Let’s say 0 again.
Disappearing people- There was a list of various adversaries and compadres who dies ‘mysteriously’ that was circulating at the end of Clinton’s presidency. Dick Morris said that the lawyers involved in impeachment were talking about it too. I don’t remember how large the list was.
Chinese embassy bombing in Serbia. Accidental bombing that was to cover up their scandals.
I think all of these are still believed by some.
The FBI is in disarray (a state of disorganization or untidiness) is a “lie”? Those are opinions actually. If Trump believes the FBI is in disarray then it isn’t a lie, it is either being uninformed, having a different standard, or perhaps even being correct. Comey is defending his agency which is fine, he is expected to do so. He could have just said he disagrees with that assessment.
Comey is flat out lying about the disarray. Last fall there’s as a near mutiny over his bizarre sift glove treatment of Hillary when he decided that actual criminal behavior was not inevitable. He lies about his concerns over the leaks because he likely one of the leakers. He lies about his integrity when he allowed Obama to publicly prejudice the investigation into Hillary. And he lies about his caring for the nation by enabling this Russian bs to fester
Comey didn’t leak until after he was fired. It’s not clear that anyone else at the FBI leaked anything.
Trump opponents got nothing from Comey’s testimony because they oversold it. If they hadn’t been peddling Russia collusion, money laundering, prostitutes, secret server communications with a bank, etc., then Comey’s saying Trump tried to influence the Flynn investigation was potentially impeachment level.
I thought Comey leaking the memo was a bit bizarre, but good on him to confess to it. As to his making memos, that’s well known—remember Ashcroft?
Regarding Comey confirming that Trump wasn’t a target of the investigation:
Some of you guys have misplaced outrage here and seem to be operating under the misimpression that Comey took this knowledge with him when he left the FBI and only revealed it yesterday, and that’s the only reason we learned about it yesterday instead of earlier.
But actually:
• Obviously after Comey left, the acting director could have relayed this information.
• Sessions or Rosenstein could have been ordered it released, but didn’t.
• Finally, Trump could have ordered the DOJ to have it released after the first time Comey confirmed to him he was under investigation in February, but didn’t.
I will speculate that Fox News hasn’t even noticed that somebody else could have confirmed the absence of an investigation to the public.
General principle that applies to all organizations: It’s always easier to scapegoat a f***up that’s left than it is to deal with the f***ups that remain.
MikeN, the Killary list has grown long indeed. I blame too many DC Comic Universe movies (the Batman series in particular).
Here’s a body count list I found by googling, that was posted last year:
http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2016/06/killary-clinton-body-count.html
Pretty soon she’ll be up there with Ghengis Kahn. It’s funny as hell that people are blaming her for Waco and TWA 80.
Here’s one version of that . Ron Graf will want to buy the book.
MikeM
Sure. That’s trivially true. But being governor gives you experience as executive in an American government system. Being in Congress, the diplomatic corp and so on gives you experience with the way the Fed. gov. works. Trump comes in with bubkiss. This is a salient difference.
I absolutely do not think being a successful business man develops the skills involved in being Chief Exective of the US. That Trump clearly had not developed these skills tend to support my view rather than that of those who thought it might.
Carrick,
It’s not outrage, it is the selective release of information that gets to bias. If Comey only selectively leaked information to make Trump look bad, then he is not a neutral actor and his opinion of what he thinks he thinks he was told is colored either directly or indirectly. It’s a minor point. If it is a he said / she said then there isn’t a case here because the words themselves are ambiguous.
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One needs to look at this through both lenses, Trump actually guilty and Trump actually innocent. As far as the words go here, I don’t think you can discriminate with Trump’s behavior whether it is now more likely one or the other. His behavior can be plausibly explained by both. Also remember that the anti-Trump case involves a grand conspiracy that is bit hard to believe, but not impossible to believe.
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This is another of those really great cases where people’s prior assumptions end up equating to their conclusions. It is OJ Simpson all over again, although I would say the evidence there was a bit more damning. But I would say that based on my priors, ha ha.
MikeN
Oh? I’m not so sure about that. One NYT article says Comey authorized Witte to talk about things after he was fired. But Comey was certainly taking to Wittes before that:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/18/us/politics/james-comey-memo-fbi-trump.html?_r=0
Comey was fired in May. The discussion Comey is said to have had with Wittes in March aligns pretty well with the contents of “the leak”.
I will also point out that if Comey really had it in for Trump the whole time he would have halted the Flynn investigation and then assert it was an order. This would be a better case.
Lucia, this guy is at Brookings, not a newspaper. It wasn’t a leak, and he didn’t speak up until after Comey was fired.
Carrick
The second bit– that someone else could have confirmed it– is the reason I say Trump mis-managed this. I think he could have ordered any number of people to confirm this. He could have ordered Comey. That he seems to have attempted an indirect expressing of ‘hoping’ something in the presence of someone who was kinda sorta going to think that might be verging on an order but who was kinda sorta going to act like it was not… That was Trump’s bungle.
Lots of people bungle when dealing with passive-aggresive types. Comey seems to have a strong streak of that. But a strong executive who knew he held the authority for something should know how to deal with that. Trump evidently does not.
lucia,
It’s kind of funny you brought up Wittes. I randomly ended up at Lawfare yesterday and came across Witte’s rather tortured conclusion that Trump was never told he wasn’t under investigation, this even after Comey’s written testimony was released. It seemed to be a bit of an alternate universe explanation.
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“Put simply, this emphatically does not amount to Trump’s blanket statement that he was assured multiple times that he was not under investigation.”
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/initial-comments-james-comeys-written-testimony
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CNN actually reported Comey was going to testify he never told Trump that and then had to retract the story.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/comey-testimony-refute-trump-russian-investigation/
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“CORRECTION AND UPDATE: This article was published before Comey released his prepared opening statement. The article and headline have been corrected to reflect that Comey does not directly dispute that Trump was told multiple times he was not under investigation in his prepared testimony released after this story was published.”
MikeN
I didn’t say he was with a newspaper. I also don’t see how leaking information to Brookings rather than a newspaper makes it not a leak. And Wittes saying nothing until after Comey was fired doesn’t make turn a leak into not-a-leak.
Disclosure of information that security or protocol would ordinarily dictate as private is a leak whether the info was disseminated to a newspaper and whether or not the person who got the info decided to convey it to others.
I think the private meetings with heads of members of the executive branch are ordinarily considered private. A president ought to be able to have such conversations without the details being conveyed to the public. A person at Brookings is a member of the public. So in my view: this is a leak by the head of the FBI. It’s not illegal but that doesn’t make it not a leak.
By the way: this conversation in March would prove that when Comey was reluctant to pledge loyalty, it was likely because he had every intention of being disloyal. Because these sorts of leaks of private conversations with the President are certainly disloyal to the Office of the President.
>I also don’t see how leaking information to Brookings rather than a newspaper makes it not a leak.
If it’s with the intent of going into a Brookings press release or paper, then it’s a leak. If it is just talking to a friend, then it is not a leak. If the friend is a reporter, then it is arguably still a leak as you have expectation it would end up in a story. Maybe the President didn’t get as private a conversation as he intended, but it is unreasonably to say you can never discuss things with anyone you know.
Comey didn’t even tell him all the details, just that he’s trying to stay distant and ‘training’ the White House to butt out, Trump asked for loyalty was told in general terms.
I should have left off the ‘appears to’ qualifier in my earlier post about how Comey appears to think the FBI is an independent agency. He said it flat out. There is no such thing as a police force independent of the political system at any level in the US. The closest thing would probably be a county sheriff who is elected on his own rather than appointed. County sheriff’s have been known to abuse this independence.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-sheriff-commission-20140102-story.html
But Comey was appointed, not elected and the FBI isn’t a politically separate agency like a county sheriff’s office. Maybe they still yearn for the Hoover days.
MikeN,
Two people can keep a secret only if one of them is dead. If you tell someone who doesn’t have a need to know something, you’ve leaked it. It may or may not become public knowledge.
MikeN
In my book, disclosing the contents of private conversations with the President of the United states with a friend who regularly blogs about political goings on at a widely read “Lawfare” blog is a leak. I realize it might be tough on people who are in politics, but this conversation isn’t in the same category as having a heart to heart conversation about how you feel about your ageing ailing cat with your BFF from high school. This is a leak.
The fact that Comey later authorized dissemination only confirms this is a leak.
DeWitt,
I don’t think it would be improper for Trump to just come out and say the IC / FBI are not independent entities and they need to stop pretending they are. They need to understand the constitutional checks and balances and who is on that list and who isn’t. At the same time he can say he has no plans to change anything, but if they continue to misbehave with leaks heads will roll. Ahem…elections have consequences.
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I’m all for that. I also understand how that would go over in the current environment, with a massive thud.
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He can also direct them to immediately release any and all information they have regarding the Russian investigation. If I’m Trump I am sick of this sh** and they are pressing his hand. Let the world know what we got, sources and methods be damned. Everyone pretends there is something there, and if Trump wants the cloud gone, he can make them release the cloud.
Thinking further, the standard of ‘just talking to a friend’ ≠“not a leak” would mean that if Comey was in bed with his bff Svetlana, and while “just talk(ing)” to her mentioned this whole deal, without authorizing her to report it, then it’s magically “not a leak”. But it clearly is a leak, and a dangerous one if Svetlana turns out to be a Rooooosian agent. It’s a leak whether or not Svetlana’s people published the info at a blog, newspaper, twitter or kept it to themselves for strategic advantage.
Beyond that: Wittes writes blog posts published at a widely read Lawfare blog. He is a columnist. He may not be at the NYT, but with respect to disseminating information, bloggers at widely read outfits an publicize leaked information just as well and the NYT or Huffpo.
Nonsense. If someone has a security clearance, there are things the can never discuss with anyone they know. If you sign a non-disclosure and share with someone you know, you can end up with tort liability. In business, there is confidential information that if you share with others constitutes a leak.
So yes, you can call something “a leak” if they share it with someone who they just happen to know. Comey’s sharing private conversations with Trump with his a blogger is a leak.
Lucia, “The second bit– that someone else could have confirmed it– is the reason I say Trump mis-managed this. ”
….
The problem with this point of view is that much of the public at large and Congress would not believe the information if it came from anyone other than Comey.
JD
Lucia—I definitely think that Trump has bungled the entire Russia story, so it’s not just limited to his mis-reading of Comey. If he had wanted to keep the flames alive, he couldn’t have done it much differently.
Whether the disclosure to Wittes would a “leak” depends on whether Comey was authorized to disclose that information. I would guess that non-classified information (and not falling under Executive Privilege) pertaining to a conversation Comey had with the President would not be considered privileged.
There are also circumstances where Wittes would be authorized to receive certain types of privileged information. For example, if Wittes were on a contract (e.g., as a legal consultant) then Comey could share that information at his discretion. Wittes would in that case still be on the hook though, because non-disclosure of privileged information is usually part of the contracts you sign for this type of work.
Anyway it gets complicated.
Tom Scharf—regarding the leaks, I think a lot of them are internal to the Trump administration itself. Trump seems to think so too.
I think there are two main groups, the ex-military types on one side, and the Breitbarts on the other. I believe they have been leaking harmful inside information about the other group as part of an ongoing internal power struggle.
I really think Trump himself is ultimately responsible for many of the other leaks, either through details he’s divulged one-on-one to reporters, or because he’s so bloody sloppy in how he handles sensitive data.
JD Ohio—always a judgement call, but I think people would be a lot more likely to believe a definitive statement from the DOJ than they would the media. Also, Comey himself admitted he could have been ordered by the DOJ to divulge this information. As people have pointed out, a lot of his complaints about Trump really boil down to Trump not following the proper chain of command, rather than Trump asking for inappropriate things.
Wittes writes
https://lawfareblog.com/what-james-comey-told-me-about-donald-trump
Wittes seems to be the source of this odd definition of a leak. From now on I think I’ll call him Benjamin “Svetlana” Wittes.
Putin must be loving this. The Russian destabilization campaign, whatever it actually was, has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. What people don’t understand is that I doubt he or his spies cared who won the election as long as the election itself was tarnished.
Carrick,
Of course the details of a private meeting between Comey and Trump would be privileged under executive privilege if nothing else. Otherwise there would have been no need for it to be private.
In fact, Trump might have been able to prevent Comey from testifying about anything he did as FBI director under the doctrine of executive privilege. But Trump publicly elected to not do that.
DeWitt–honestly, this is what you get when you have a Reality-TV star running the country.
From discussions I’ve had, I don’t get the impression the Russians like this very much at all (it’s actually pushed the US-Russian relationship to the worst it’s been since the Cold War), though I know they’re glad that Hillary isn’t in power.
Considering the bits I saw and the highly prejudicial and obviously orchestrated manner of his presentation, as well as his prior deception where he claimed that there was no pressure, Comey is not only a source of leaks but likely orchestrated leaks for awhile. He seems likely to have kept the Russian bs going to have power over President Trump. We know he participated in whitewashing Hillary. His press conference was proof. Now we see him full of self righteous justification 0persecuting an innocent President just Roche could get an independent prosecutor. We are watching the deep state in action.
De Witt, This is the democrat party campaign to destabilize America, not the Russian.
DeWitt:
It’s not obvious at all to me it’s privileged. Comey wasn’t Trump’s lawyer, so there is no lawyer-client privilege.
According to this legal review, the two places where Trump could claim executive privilege are under matters of national security, and for protecting the privacy of certain types of White House deliberations.
This is neither of those.
From the fact he divulged the information while still working at the FBI, I would guess it would depend in this case on the exact statement of Comey’s contract and whether there are Federal regulations that apply to conversations of this nature.
I suppose Wittes is a lawyer and lawyers make arguments irregardless of the facts. He seems to be into a “black is white” argument. I don’t think I’ll ever read anything anything he writes again.
.
If Trump wants to have fun with this, he can direct the FBI to investigate Comey’s leak of executive privileged information. I assume he can do that. Trump isn’t afraid to escalate or hit back hard typically.
Carrick,
You read the article differently. Here’s the quote:
Most legitimate does not mean limited to. I would say that a private conversation of a subordinate with the President related to government business was privileged unless it could be shown otherwise.
The conversation of whether news media had been reporting Trump under investigation fell by the wayside. But, this national review article confirms they were:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/448459/donald-trump-fbi-investigation-chuck-schumer-elizabeth-warren
There are screenshots, headlines and so on. The NYT was among those with headline
“The New York Times March 20 headline: “F.B.I. Is Investigating Trump’s Russia Ties, Comey Confirmsâ€
Rachel Maddow
“Rachel Maddow March 24 headline: “Schumer: Wrong to vote on Gorsuch while Trump under investigation.†Schumer told Maddow that “to have a president under investigation, appoint a lifetime appointment, it’s wrong.â€
You can go to NPR to see evidence newsmedia were reporting Trump was under investigation.
Carrick,
I trust academia lawyers to be unbiased here as much as I expect HRC to blame herself for her loss. It is exactly this type of situation where academia’s opinion can reasonably be assumed to be untrustworthy. They may be correct but it is definitely not the first place I would look for an answer.
.
“protecting the privacy of certain types of White House deliberations” seems to be a loophole you can drive a truck through. Leakers should be prosecuted. If they can justify it, fine, but they need to justify it in court.
Tom Scharf:
Great. The argument that works with anything because it says virtually nothing. Find another source that disagrees with it if you don’t like it, but don’t diss it because you don’t like the conclusions.
DeWitt:
I agree with your nuance here about “most legitimate.” I’d be surprised that the President would’t need to clear a private conversation, but again it depends on the details of the conversation.
Lucia: Remember that the original context was Comey’s statement to Trump that Trump wasn’t the subject of an investigation.
Very likely, people associated with him still were and are (esp., Mike Flynn). If you are claiming Comey was saying they aren’t, that’d be real news.
So, sorry I don’t agree that these headlines show what you are claiming they show.
The NYTimes headline:
“F.B.I. Is Investigating Trump’s Russia Ties, Comey Confirms.” That says nothing about Trump being the target of the FBI investigation. Nor could I find any assertion in the body .
And: “Schumer: Wrong to vote on Gorsuch while Trump under investigation.” –that is just Schumer’s characterization of the investigation of course. I suppose people will bitch that a senior Senator gets quoted in the press now.
Lucia,
“You can go to NPR to see evidence newsmedia were reporting Trump was under investigation.”
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Yes, there and a hundred other places. I find it very strange that anyone could actually believe much of the MSM has not been blaring “Trump is under FBI investigation!” The left leaning bias of the MSM has been obvious to me since at least the Reagan administration; that bias is worse than ever since Trump became the Republican candidate last year.
Carrick,
No.
Go look at the voting patterns in every college town. Read a 1000 essays and open letters from academia pre-election about their preferences. What is the ratio of academics supporting Trump over those literally calling him Hitler? I think that number is close enough to zero to be zero. The bias is clear. Can they still write an unbiased viewpoint? Sure, but how can I tell when academia has TDS in spades?
.
All that blabber aside, the link is more useful since it was written in 2002, but I refuse to diminish my rant with that fact, ha ha.
.
I think it is unlikely Comey will face any legal jeopardy here, but the howls of indignation if he did would be quite entertaining.
Carrick,
Fair enough. Anyway, those are the headlines NationalReview came up with. So that would amount to the evidence for their reporting that.
On trusting academic lawyers…. Seems to me some can be trusted to be balanced. Others not so much. With respect to their blogging, some are discussing legal topics as legal topics. Those tend to be more balanced.
Others are blogging as political pundits or columnists. They tend to be less balanced. But not any less than many columnists.
SteveF:
If there are “a hundred other places” then you should have no problems finding one example. (I’m sure it must exists, but “hundreds” seems like the sort of exaggeration you guys, in an other context, are railing against.)
Lucia–the reason I brought this up to start with was because it was my perception that the right was claiming unfair coverage much more often than it seemed to me it was really occurring.
My comment above was that Trump was over-reacting to the coverage partly because he was relying on right-wing media to accurately characterize what the left were reporting. In other words, it’s possible that his over-reaction was created by mis-reporting by right-wing media.
What you’re provided is evidence for the veracity of my comment, rather than for the accuracy of right-wing reporting in this context. NRO certainly is making claims, but the claims don’t seem to hold any water.
Tom Scharf, what is interesting to me now is whether Comey perjured himself in his May 3 testimony. He might have broken a law or two there.
Carrick,
I think the leak occurred after that date? NYT article was May 16. Not clear when Comey actually gave anyone anything. Comey will claim it’s not legally a leak in any case. EDIT: I think we are talking about different things. Comey had testified he has never leaked anything recently, not sure of the date.
Comey is an artful liar. He has been leaking a long time. He was not some innocent virgin over come with outrage. He’s been dancing this for awhile. We now know that he knew there is nothing to the Russian bull shot. He just wanted a special prosecutor because he hates Trump.
Tom Scharf,
I think the point Carrick made has to do with whether there is anything illegal in disseminating the info. I suspect Comey will also lean on that– and he has a right to do that if the conversation is discussing legality.
I use “leak” more broadly– but perhaps my usage is wrong. In my view: I think people do expect a certain amount of voluntary non-disclosure of things and that expectation is fair in many circumstances. I would think that if the Office of the Presidency is to function high ranking officials must follow a protocol of not disclosing many conversations.
Which type? I hesitate to use the adjective “sensitive” because that has a specific meaning when we are dealing with “leaks”. But there is information that is “sensitive” in the more every day sense. For example: I might confide something personal to my mom, best friend or husband with the expectation they aren’t going to decide to disclose that to their mom, husband or husbands best friend and so on. If I’m pretty sure they knew I didn’t want others to know that info, and they disclose it, I might consider their behavior to be a sort of “leak”. If I discover the person I confided in does disclose, I might be angry. Maybe if I’m huffy I will express it… but whether or not I do, I will cease to confide in them.
But while I might call that a “leak”, that behavior of spilling my secret is not illegal.
So, maybe Carrick wouldn’t call it a “leak”.
That said: I do find it interesting that when characterizing it as “not a leak” Wittes came up with the idea that it’s not a leak if Comey told a friend who was not planning to report it. I don’t think that has anything to do with whether or not it’s a leak. In contrast, I can accept Carricks distinction which seems to be related to what th law says about the level of privacy.
Carrick (if I misunderstood you.. sorry. I’m not trying to speak for you. But I think you are focusing on the legal meaning of “leak” and I think of something broader.)
I think it’s find for people to discuss whether Comey did anything illegal. He may well not have done anything illegal. I still call it a leak. I just don’t mean to imply that makes the act illegal.
Carrick
Yes. And you have a point. On the other hand, headlines and tone do give impressions. So… well… it’s a bit in between. It’s easy to get the impression they were reporting Trump himself was under investigation, but as a matter of literal truth, they were not. You are right about that.
I like the definition that Google offers, “the intentional disclosure of secret information.”
I agree that covers a broad spectrum of disclosures, some of which rise to the level of illegality, and others which are mere acts of disloyalty.
On the issue of the press and “TRUMP UNDER INVESTIGATION!!11!!” lather, a trivial search reveals that there has been plenty of buzz. Here’s some links from March:
https://www.google.com/search?q=news+articles+trump+under+fbi+investigation&hl=en&biw=1600&bih=835&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A3%2F1%2F2017%2Ccd_max%3A3%2F31%2F2017&tbm=#q=news+articles+trump+under+fbi+investigation&hl=en&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:3/1/2017,cd_max:3/31/2017&start=0&spf=1496967902827
And I’d add that following some of the links in the Google search above it’s a mixed bag. Certainly many of the headlines imply that the President himself is under investigation. I have a hard time aligning that with Carrick’s perspective that it’s all an exaggeration from the right.
Lucia, I agree with Wittes’s definition. However, I am surprised that I used that defense that he is at Brookings and not a reporter, after reading his definition at his blog.
Comey testified that the New York Times story about Trump’s associates meeting with Russians was false. If he saying the meetings never happened, this is even more bizarre than I expected.
MikeN
I know. Because you posted it here before I read Witte’s who wrote it up before you posted.
But it’s an absurd definition of ‘leak’. If you think it’s not absurd, rather than telling me you agree with Witte’s definition, explain how giving a state secret to ones lover “Svetlana” would not be leaking.
After all: Svetlana is just your friend. She’s not a newspaper reporter. You didn’t authorize her to publish. That would appear to fully meet your and Witte’s definition of “not a leak”.
Sorry: but the zillions of people could agree with you that those conditions are what makes it not a leak. But it is utterly absurd.
For all the discussion about what is or isn’t a leak, the real question is why did Comey not call up the NYT himself and say he had a memo, and show it to them?
Why all the silliness with the law professor?
Carrick said “If there are “a hundred other places†then you should have no problems finding one example.”
Here you go:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/448459/donald-trump-fbi-investigation-chuck-schumer-elizabeth-warren
Alan Dershowitz on Non-Obstrction of Justice
… .
“Comey confirmed that under our Constitution, the president has the authority to direct the FBI to stop investigating any individual. I paraphrase, because the transcript is not yet available: the president can, in theory, decide who to investigate, who to stop investigating, who to prosecute and who not to prosecute. The president is the head of the unified executive branch of government, and the Justice Department and the FBI work under him and he may order them to do what he wishes.
As a matter of law, Comey is 100 percent correct. As I have long argued, and as Comey confirmed in his written statement, our history shows that many presidents—from Adams to Jefferson, to Lincoln, to Roosevelt, to Kennedy, to Bush 1, and to Obama – have directed the Justice Department with regard to ongoing investigations. The history is clear, the precedents are clear, the constitutional structure is clear, and common sense is clear. ” See http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/06/08/dershowitz-comey-confirms-that-im-right-and-all-democratic-commentators-are-wrong.html
To me the fact that there is a large amount of media coverage discussing the firing of Comey as though it is a legal wrong is evidence of very biased coverage.
JD
lucia (Comment #162888): “But it’s an absurd definition of ‘leak’. If you think it’s not absurd, rather than telling me you agree with Witte’s definition, explain how giving a state secret to ones lover “Svetlana†would not be leaking.”
A top Obama official (Petraeus) almost went to prison for doing that. He plead out and got a couple years probation and a big fine.
Kan–We already discussed the NRO article. What I am looking for are examples where the MSM media (not just bloggers) stated Trump is a subject of the investigation.
NYTimes:
“F.B.I. Is Investigating Trump’s Russia Ties, Comey Confirmsâ€
That’s accurate.
Salon: “The FBI is leading an investigation into Donald Trump’s connections with Russiaâ€
That’s accurate.
Atlantic: ““It’s Official: The FBI Is Investigating Trump’s Links to Russiaâ€
That’s accurate.
As Lucia says, it’s easy to get that mis-impression—I think especially if the author of the article primed you to expect to see that. I don’t doubt that there must be MSM news reports that mis-state the investigation. But, as far as I can tell, all of the examples given by the NRO article of MSM reports were accurate reporting.
Kan: “Why did Comey not call up the NYT himself and say he had a memo, and show it to them?”
.
Occam’s Razor says he originally intended this to be an anonymous leak, had second thoughts after he confirmed he couldn’t be charged and he might get caught, and then fessed up.
.
It is not exactly “honorable” to anonymously leak information to damage someone else. Comey is a media hero…this week.
Regarding leak—I would loosely use “leak” to describe any improper disclosure of information by a federal official to a person who has not been given the right to the access that information.
There’s an legal argument by Stephen Kohn in the Washington Post entitled Were James Comey’s leaks lawful? that I thought was worth a read.
Thesis statement:
An interesting counterpoint to Dershowitz’s argument (written in my opinion more like a legal brief arguing in favor of a client than an objective independent analysis) is this article in the NYT A Constitutional Puzzle: Can the President Be Indicted?
The obvious related example is the Paula Jones trial and the related unanimous Supreme Court ruling that “that a sitting President of the United States has no immunity from civil law litigation against him or her, for acts done before taking office and unrelated to the office.”
After the 8-0 ruling in the United States v. Nixon, it is plausible that if you brought a legal case involving criminal prosecution of a sitting president, that a Supreme Court would ultimately permit such an action.
I also think that the sovereignty granted to the president to fire at will people potentially investigating his actions have been overstated by Dershowitz and others. In the past, the Supreme Court has seemed reluctant to extend absolute sovereignty to the president in any matter where he doesn’t have direct constitutional authority granted.
Tom Scharf & Kan,
Comey provided the rationale yesterday during the hearing:
He said if he had given the memo directly to the NYT, it would have been “like feeding seagulls at the beach.”
This is starting to look exactly like a fishing expedition. The channels are now changing from Russia links to a seemingly desperate obstruction of justice that is barely related to Russia. We are now 8 months removed from the election with an IC and media hyperventilating to take down Trump and the Russia Conspiracy is starting to look like a cold case.
.
As I said right after the election, if we knew only one thing it was it wasn’t going to be boring.
Back to the topic of the Paris Agreement.
Having been shocked into feverish action by the unexpected election of Donald Trump as President in 2016, the Democrats will probably be successful over the next four years in fully mobilizing their voter base in support of an environmentally friendly slate of progressive candidates, thus gaining control of Congress in 2018 and taking back the White House in 2020.
Once they are back in power and in full control of the US Government, if the Democrats don’t enact a stiff tax on carbon in 2021; and if they don’t start using the full legal authority of the Clean Air Act to regulate all sources of carbon emissions — imposing what is in all practical effect a carbon fuel rationing scheme — then they can be rightly accused of being completely dishonest and hypocritical in claiming to be concerned about the dangers of climate change.
But what if my prediction is wrong and the Democrats don’t return to power in 2021; and the Republicans remain in control of both Congress and the White House into the 2020’s? In that case, an answer to the question of just how committed the Democrats actually are to pursuing serious GHG emission reductions will have to be postponed to another time.
Carrick,
Thanks for that. I find his explanation rather confusing and unconvincing. Using an indirect source is semantics.
.
“And though he readily admitted that he himself was an indirect source of that explosive information, he reiterated that he agrees with President Trump about stamping out another kind of leak: that of classified information.”
.
Rationalization: the action of attempting to explain or justify behavior or an attitude with logical reasons, even if these are not appropriate.
.
Someone should ask him if he thinks it is OK for his team to leak his every conversation in the most unflattering way possible.
Carrick: Paula Jones case
…..
From the first sentence of Wiki article you cited:
“Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case establishing that a sitting President of the United States has no immunity from civil law litigation against him or her, for acts done before taking office and unrelated to the office.”
….
This is civil litigation, not criminal. Has nothing to do with indictments or criminal activity.
I agree that the case law is not clear on indicting sitting Presidents. However, among the practical problems are: 1. What prosecutor will indict him [who can’t be fired] 2. How can you prevent the President from pardoning himself?
….
Again, as a practical matter, I would observe that it is preposterous to claim obstruction of justice for stopping an investigation with no associated criminal activity. (For instance, in contrast, Nixon paid hush money) I have seen lawyers making arguments that there is potentially a case against Trump. I would then ask them, or others, to cite one instance where a prosecutor or the superior of a prosecutor has been prosecuted for simply stopping an investigation.
….
Would also like records of Obama administration and others where AG, or maybe Obama, intervened to stop investigations and set policy. Be interesting to compare and contrast.
JD
Look, I find Trump’s tweets to be as ill advised as anyone, but here is a case where it does work.
.
WP Headline: Trump calls Comey a ‘leaker’ and claims ‘vindication’ after Senate hearing
.
How else is that framing going to get into an openly hostile media? The media cannot ignore it, as much as they would like to this particular time. Now if he could just control the other 99% of his tweets, ha ha.
So much for Comey as a man of integrity. He leaked confidential information that was damaging to Trump, but refused to publicly state the simple fact that Trump was not under investigation. So definitely putting politics above integrity.
.
With respect to Trump’s comment about the Flynn investigation, Comey told Congess “I mean, this is the president of the United States, with me alone, saying, ‘I hope’ this. I took it as, this is what he wants me to do.”
I see two possible interpretations of this. One is that Comey lied to Congress. The other is that he is the only person in America who thinks that Trump uses circumlocutions to avoid saying what he means.
Then, when asked by Feinstein: “Why didn’t you stop, and say, ‘Mr. President, this is wrong?’” Comey replied: “Maybe if I were stronger, I would have.”
So, by his own admission, Comey is not a man of integrity.
.
He seems to have directly lied about Sessions recusing himself. http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/comey-was-before-congress-to-indict-trump-instead-he-might-have-indicted-himself/
.
Then there is his disgraceful statement as to why he was fired “It’s my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation. I was fired, in some way, to change — or the endeavor was to change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted.”
If he had said it what way Trump wanted the investigation to change, that could be a damaging statement. But as it stands, it only provides fodder for misleading headlines without actually saying anything.
He then added: “The nature of the FBI and the nature of its work requires that it not be the subject of political consideration.”
Look in a mirror, Mr. Comey.
betablocker: “In that case, an answer to the question of just how committed the Democrats actually are to pursuing serious GHG emission reductions will have to be postponed to another time.”
No need. The Dems already established that in 2009.
Tom Scharf: “How else is that framing going to get into an openly hostile media?”
There are experts on communication who claim that is what Trump is doing with all his tweets. He who frames first, wins.
The likes of you and me only get to hear about his tweets via the media. But tens of millions of American get those tweets directly. They are composed to communicate with the “deplorables” not to impress the likes of us.
Beta Blocker,
I think they already proved this in 2009 when they had Congress (with a filibuster proof Senate) and the White House and failed to pass cap and trade. They were then routed in 2010 for this and other reasons.
.
Revkin at the NYT I think accurately called climate support “a mile wide and an inch deep”. Everybody is for it up until they need to actually sacrifice something. The PA were perfect because it required almost no sacrifice and gave the greens moral cover.
.
I don’t think you can convince middle America to make a financial sacrifice for the developing world or measurably increase their energy bills. The coastal elites preaching climate morality to the fly-over country rubes has only increased hostility. The democrats are not going to forget 2010 for a long time.
.
I do share the prediction that the right will suffer serious losses over the next 4 years. The pendulum is always moving. Winning is great but governing is difficult.
Interesting criminal aspect of Clinton v. Jones from Wiki — compare and contrast:
….
“More specifically, the Independent Counsel concluded that President Clinton testified falsely on three counts under oath in Clinton v. Jones. However, Ray chose to decline criminal prosecution… [because of other detriments suffered by Clinton]
….
We have clear perjury by Clinton and a decision not to prosecute or impeach Clinton. Nothing Trump has done is close to what Clinton did which were obvious and clear significant crimes.
JD
Carrick – Is Huffington Post a MSM media?
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Jason Linkins from Huffpo (and link in the already discussed NRO article)
.
“Nevertheless, we have a president under FBI investigation. How do you like that?”
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In the next paragraph he goes on with “You know, not for nothing, but back in my day (2016) there was a lot of consensus opinion-having that merely being the subject of an FBI probe was a disqualification for serving as the leader of the free world.”
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He would not say that Clinton was under investigation but was the subject of a probe. Clearly he is saying that Trump was the target of the investigation. you have to jump through some hoops to say otherwise.
I will take one second out and make this observation: If I was the head of the FBI and told I was going to lead investigations into both Clinton and Trump I would just self-immolate on the spot to save everyone else the time and effort.
Kan,
Clearly Trump is not under investigation, it is simply a “matter”, ha ha.
Carrick – the first line in the Salon article referenced is “The FBI is leading a multi-agency investigation into possible links between Russian officials and President-elect Donald Trump.”
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There is no ambiguity about Donald Trump being the subject of an FBI investigation.
Kan,
You are missing Carrick’s subtlety. The MSM is not investigating Trump, they are investigating the alleged links. Totally different things. Unless you are a normal person.
Surely, there is no need for me to insert /sarc tags in the above?
Tom Scharf—there are definitely elements of the investigation that are not fishing expeditions. Flynn in particular is in real legal jeopardy. Since the special prosecutor was appointed, the danger of it turning into a fishing expedition is very real.
Kan–Huffington Post is a blog. They discuss news articles as well as politics, but are not a news organization (digesters not creators). At best an opinion or analysis website.
As to this title: “The FBI is leading a multi-agency investigation into possible links between Russian officials and President-elect Donald Trump.†That is accurate.
Links could include investigations of Trump’s associates, and virtually any other thread that connects Trump to the Russians, so no it neither says nor implies Trump is the subject of an FBI investigation.
JD Ohio—I think Jones is relevant because prior to that people had generally thought sitting Presidents were immune from civil action. “A toe in the door.”
Whether a president could be sued for something he did as President remains an open question. Theoretically then, Trump could be sued for his decision on the NDAPL or his withdrawal from the Paris Agreements.
As a practical matter, I happen to all of these are terrible ideas.
Maybe they are permitted constitutionally, but I don’t see that they are protected constitutionally. So at least least, I would think Congressional statutes could provide blanket immunity to siting presidents as well as provide conditions under which that immunity could be lost.
On another matter, the President has resumed tweeting and I suspect he’s not vetting them with Kasowitz either. That was predictable.
MikeM:
Actually just links. Not alleged links.
If you want to say “The FBI is investigating Trump” then that’s how you say it.
“Links” include Trump’s associates and any other relationship between Trump and Russian officials, rather than Trump himself, so in fact they actually are different things.
I apologize for the English language not cooperating with your prior beliefs.
Re: Power of President to Pardon — Obama pardoned Puerto Rican Terrorist — Oscar Lopez Rivera
…..
López Rivera was tried in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in 1980–81. The charges included armed robbery and for being a recruiter and bomb-making trainer in the FALN.[14] López Rivera admitted committing every act with which he was charged, but declared himself a political prisoner and refused to take part in most of the trial proceedings.[16] In August 1981, Alfredo Méndez, one of those arrested in Evanston who had become an informant, testified that López Rivera taught him how to make bomb detonation devices and gun silencers. He also testified that the first bombing in which Méndez was to have taken part planned to target the hotel that housed the offices for the Democratic Party. Méndez stated that other bombings were scheduled to occur simultaneously in New York City, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C. Speaking on his own behalf during closing arguments, López Rivera stated, “Puerto Rico will be a free and socialist country” and denounced Méndez as a traitor.[14] López Rivera was convicted of “seditious conspiracy, use of force to commit robbery, interstate transportation of firearms and ammunition to aid in the commission of a felony, and interstate transportation of stolen vehicles”.[17]
The pre-sentencing report stated that López Rivera had been:[18]
personally involved in bombing and incendiary attacks across the country for at least five years prior to Méndez’s [sic] involvement and knowledge, has been a prime recruiter for members of the underground terrorist group, and has been a key trainer in bombing, sabotage and other techniques of guerilla warfare. ” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_L%C3%B3pez_Rivera
JD
This will never satisfy Trump’s partisan knob-polishers, but here’s a good definition of link from the Google:
link (n): a relationship between two things or situations, especially where one thing affects the other.”
Thus “The FBI is leading a multi-agency investigation into possible links between Russian officials and President-elect Donald Trump.â€
implies there is a multi-agency investigation into the relationships “between Russian officials and President-elect Donald Trump.”
Trump is a person rather a relationship, so there can be no ambiguity here: This statement does not say, nor can it reasonably be construed to say, that Trump is a subject of the investigation.
(The fact it leaves open the question of whether Trump is a subject is meaningless: It simply makes no assertion at all about whether Trump is a subject of the investigation, either way.)
Carrick: “Trump is a person rather a relationship, so there can be no ambiguity here”
Carrick once again demonstrates both his capacity to split hairs and his pretzel-like reasoning. In this case, by pretending that there is a difference between investigating a person’s relationships and investigating that person.
I suppose Carrick would claim that the FBI never investigated Hillary, they only investigated her actions.
Beta Blocker
The fact of Trump is that he changed facts on the ground for these future Dems. Obama also changed them, but Trump undid that.
What I mean by this is that by signing Paris without resorting to submitting it as a treaty, Obama attempted to single handedly change apparent obligations and commitments of the US. If not undone, that would mean that in the future, those who wanted to act would just at be continuuing what appeared to be established policy of the US. This would be easier for those who do want to enact regulations because they avoid individually pushing anything a fraction of their constituents might dislike.
By exiting the agreement, Trump has changed the situation. Now those who might want to rejoin Parish have to openly say so. Also: a future president who does want to join will realize that he probably does need to submit to the Senate otherwise, the agreement can just be undone by the next guy. In the meantime, because we are not bound by an agreement, those who want to use the “fact” of an international commitment in legal arguments justifying EPA regulations no longer have that. So things likely need to be done through legislation.
Obviously, if Trump manages to convert everyone in the US to voting for Democrats in Congress, the Senate and President, the Democrats will be able to accomplish many of their goals. I don’t know if that will occur.
>rightly accused of being completely dishonest and hypocritical in claiming to be concerned about the dangers of climate change.
FWIW: accusations of hypocrisy almost never change anyone’s mind about anything.
Is Flynn in legal jeopardy because of working for Turkey and not declaring it, or because he lied to the FBI? Why were they interviewing him in the first place? It was supposed to be a FISA investigation, not a criminal one, and they already knew what was said in the conversation.
Mike M. (Comment #162893)
Yes. What he did was both illegal and called a leak. Because the condition of giving something to “your friend” who is not a reporter and who you believe does not intend to turn it into a newsstory has nothing to do with whether sharing information is a leak.
It’s amazing that Wittes (a lawyer?!) wants to suggest those aspects make something that might otherwise be a leak “not a leak”.
The big difference between Comey’s leak and Petraeus has to do the fact the fact that the material Petraeus leaked was classified and so sharing was very clearly unauthorized.
If Wittes was focusing on that, that would make sense. But. He’s. Not.
Carrick,
“After the 8-0 ruling in the United States v. Nixon, it is plausible that if you brought a legal case involving criminal prosecution of a sitting president, that a Supreme Court would ultimately permit such an action.”
.
No, that is not likely to happen, for three reasons:
1) The president can require the halt of any prosecution (as Nixon and other presidents have demonstrated). He/she is not going to prosecute him/herself via the Department of Justice.
2) The president could simply pardon himself (or his cronies) at any time.
3) The SC justices can actually read the Constitution, unlike MSM ‘legal experts’ who appear constitutionally illiterate.
.
The Constitution is very clear: Congress can remove a president from office via prosecution of an impeachment bill… and conviction by 2/3 of the Senate. Nobody else, and no other way. Dershowitz is right.
Lucia,
“a future president who does want to join will realize that he probably does need to submit to the Senate otherwise, the agreement can just be undone by the next guy.”.
.
Sure, but in this case Obama probably just figured the chance of a Democrat president after him was pretty good, and that “established facts on the ground” 4 or 8 years after his departure would make reversal difficult. He for sure knew that submission of anything like the Paris accord to the Senate was pointless, so he had nothing to lose by trying the “executive agreement” route to bypass treaty requirements. As in most everything he did, he placed implementing his desired policies above political compromise, the law, and the Constitution.
.
I suspect the next Democrat elected president will do exactly what Obama did if the votes for a treaty are not there.
MikeN,
“Is Flynn in legal jeopardy because of working for Turkey and not declaring it, or because he lied to the FBI? Why were they interviewing him in the first place? It was supposed to be a FISA investigation, not a criminal one, and they already knew what was said in the conversation.”
.
Nobody is saying what he is in jeopardy for. My guess is that Obama officials had him “unmasked” so that they could make sure his communications were widely distributed within the Justice Department and CIA. Most likely, information from his communications led to an interview where the FBI asked him questions based on his intercepted communications… if he did not answer all questions honestly, then they could prosecute him for that. If his communications showed that he had not properly disclosed his work for Turkey, then they could prosecute him for that… and/or for not declaring the income from that work. Maybe all the above.
Carrick,
““The FBI is leading a multi-agency investigation into possible links between Russian officials and President-elect Donald Trump.†That is accurate.
Links could include investigations of Trump’s associates, and virtually any other thread that connects Trump to the Russians, so no it neither says nor implies Trump is the subject of an FBI investigation.”
.
That logical contortion must almost hurt.
SteveF, you’re smarter than this.
A relationship is an abstract object. Trump is a person.
Abstract objects cannot be people. This is fourth grade logic, something that Trump and his more ardent supporters are not good at.
Keep knob polishing if you must. Mike M could use some help.
Carrick,
“SteveF, you’re smarter than this.”.
.
And so are you Carrick. Virtually anybody who reads that is going to conclude “Trump is being investigated by the FBI”. It is only in your imagination that it is otherwise. Heck, ask people on campus if they thought Trump was being investigated by the FBI (at least before Comey’s recent testimony)… most of them will say “yes”, based on the MSM reporting.
> Most likely, information from his communications led to an interview where the FBI asked him questions based on his intercepted communications…
It was a FISA investigation, so he would not have been a criminal suspect. The interview is not needed since they already knew what he said. Andy McCarthy wrote about it at the time, suspecting that the whole purpose of the interview was to see if they could catch him in a lie.
JD,
The Oscar Lopez Rivera story gets much crazier.
“This year, the organizers of New York City’s annual Puerto Rican Day Parade, set for June 11, chose to turn the event into a vehicle for honoring López Rivera, the vicious Marxist-Leninist co-founder of a murder gang, by bestowing upon him the unprecedented title of “National Freedom Hero.—
.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448466/bill-de-blasio-about-face-puerto-rican-day-parade
.
After this was publicized they eventually changed their mind.
While I changed my mind about whether it’s a leak given he is a blogger, I don’t think talking to friends about non classified material is a leak. Shouldn’t the intent of the person speaking matter(or investigation)? There is a difference between giving your friend a memo to read to a reporter vs telling a friend don’t like the way Trump is operating, he needs to keep his distance from the FBI.
There is by the way a big difference with Petraeus, as was pointed out in the WaPo article I linked above.
Leaking of classified information is illegal, and therefore is not protected speech. As explained in that article,
Basically it’s freedom of speech. When you become a federal employee, you don’t shed your constitutional rights.
Carrick,
Here is the Guardian: “Donald Trump is under investigation for ties to Russia. What happens now?”
.
Do you also believe that says something other than ‘Trump is under investigation’. Really, this is getting weird.
Can those involved in the war on semantics just agree that the real target is Trump regardless of what is technically literally occurring at the moment? If this all ended with Flynn I don’t think we would have media hysteria and it would be called an investigation into Flynn. If I type “Trump Russia” into a Google search the number is so big that the internet crashes.
SteveF, It’s really quite simple. Fourth grade level logic in fact.
Unless a relationship or any other abstract object can refer to a person (a concrete thing), which it can’t, your interpretation is simply untenable. A link is not a person, and so investigating a link is not investigating a person.
A technical point here is that Comey never had his notes reviewed by anyone for whether they should be classified / government work product or not. This “unclassified” is an assumption and it might actually be true, but I’m not sure it is a fact.
MikeN (Comment #162919): “Is Flynn in legal jeopardy because of working for Turkey and not declaring it, or because he lied to the FBI? Why were they interviewing him in the first place?”
Fair questions. Although I knew that Flynn was supposedly in legal jeopardy, you made me realize that I did not know why. It seems that Flynn worked as a lobbyist for a Dutch company owned by a Turkish businessman. Some time after that Flynn’s lawyer warned him that it could be construed as working for the Turkish government (the businessman apparently has ties to Erdogan) and that Flynn should CYA by registering as such. Flynn did.
It does not seem to be at all clear that Flynn ever acted on behalf of the Turkish government or that he did anything illegal. It seems to me that if he did, he would have been indicted by now.
MikeN,
” the whole purpose of the interview was to see if they could catch him in a lie.”
.
Sure. But they can ask him anything, and catch him in a lie about anything…. FBI: “General, did you earn money from your work with Turkey?” Flynn: “Yes”. FBI: “Did you disclose that on both your tax returns and your declarations before assuming your job as security adviser?” It goes down hill for Flynn from there.
Can you imagine trying to sit an unbiased jury for a Trump trial? Ha ha.
MikeN (Comment #162930): “I don’t think talking to friends about non classified material is a leak. Shouldn’t the intent of the person speaking matter(or investigation)?”
A fair point. But we don’t need to speculate. Comey made it perfectly clear that his intent was that his friend pass the information on to the press.
Leaking confidential information is not the same as leaking classified information, but it is still a leak. Since Comey passed on a government document, rather than merely telling tales out of school, it is quite likely a crime. It certainly merits firing.
SteveF, yes I agree with that example. This got weird along time ago and yes I blame Trump.
But I will summarize what I said above, which is I was sure that examples existed where the MSM mis-reported that Trump was a subject of the investigation. However, having looked through the articles with a cool head, I doubted (and still doubt) there were hundreds of examples.
This headline “Donald Trump is under investigation for ties to Russia. What happens now?” does say erroneously that Trump was under investigation. (There are similar factual errors in the body of this article.)
Tom Scharf—I’m not sure there’s a singular motive for much of anything. People are more like cats. We sometimes go in the same direction, but there’s usually no coordination to it.
I believe semantics are important in this case. Words can cause wars after all.
It’d be a big story if Clinton won the election too, so it’s hard to put this all off on media hysteria about Trump. Russia interference with US elections, their targeting of members of a campaign to try and influence them, targeted hacking aimed at producing a particular outcome, are all big issues.
There’s no secret that the MSM don’t like Trump. Partly, he’s reaping what he’s sowed there, so not a lot of sympathy on my part there.
Tom Scharf (Comment #162933): “Can those involved in the war on semantics just agree that the real target is Trump regardless of what is technically literally occurring at the moment?”
I think that we all agree on that, with the exception of the person who thinks that the FBI investigates abstract ideas. As if they were a philosophy department.
Carrick,
You know, being a partisan knob polisher (BTW buddy: Really? Does your wife know you’re out in public with your knob in that sad state? Get a quick polish; won’t take a moment, only cost you a pittance…) as well as a denier, people need to take what I say with a grain o’ salt. Still, we’ve come from a fairly reasonable starting point:
to a place where knobs are getting banged up and knocked about mercilessly:
.
What was the deal with asking for examples, if this was the end point. You seem to be now saying it is impossible in principle for what you were asking for empirical evidence of before to be true.
.
Please do not feel compelled to stick my knob in a grinder over this. I’ve spent a lot of time rubbing extra polish into my knob and I’m feeling pretty protective of it frankly. If we could all agree to extend the same consideration and courtesy towards each others knobs that we harbor for our own for the remainder of this conversation, it might be that none of us will need any remedial polishing before the day is out – and I think we can all agree that making sure nobody requires knob handling is a goal we can all works together towards.
Best regards as always sir.
Oh. Already sorted out. Nevermind then; I’ll just pack up my knob shining kit and move to a different part of the airport.
Cheers.
Mike M, I’m afraid you’re be-clowning yourself now.
The FBI is the domestic agency responsible for investigation of espionage in the United States. So, not only are relationships abstract things, they get investigated as a matter of course by intelligence officers.
Mark Bofill, I have no clue what you’re on about or what you even thought I was saying.
Double martini lunch?
“Am I under investigation for incest?”.
“No, of course not. Not you as a person. It’s just your relationships and ties with your children that are under investigation”….
.
Steve F:”Really, this is getting weird.” Indeed.
Carrick,
.
Yeah, clearly. In addition to being a partisan knob polisher I’m a drunk. I’d forgotten why I quit engaging with you.
.
Thanks Carrick.
Regarding Russia there isn’t much to do about it. Obama told them to stop it and they didn’t. I doubt sanctions are going to help, and nuclear weapons aren’t yet called for. The real answer is to pay them back in kind, but…ahem…double down on it. There can then be an understanding to lay off each other after that. But Russia asked for it, and they should get it. I want to see polling stations melt down in Russia and for Clinton to somehow mysteriously win their next election.
Niels, thanks for illustrating the problems with highly imperfect analogies.
The Russia story is much broader than Trump or his current administration. One of the primary focuses is Russian acts of espionage. Another is on personnel who were with Trump during the campaign trail but aren’t in his current administration. And so forth.
If it had been a narrowly focused investigation like the sort you used in your analogy, then saying one could imply the other.
mark bofill:
Let me guess… it’s because you don’t have a sense of humor?
The really weird thing here is I hadn’t even addressed you and you hadn’t even been participating until your totally opaque comments. But whatever. If you are that thin skinned, maybe take up cricket.
MikeN
There may or may not be a difference. But you are mixing two things in one example. When determining whether what happened is a “leak” of any sort, the relevant difference is absolutely not the “intent” of the person speaking. It’s whether sharing the information is authorized or unauthorized. Your example has
(A) A person who is sharing clearly unauthorized info to a reporter and
(B) Sharing information that may or may not be unauthorized with a friend.
The first is a leak because it was unauthorized. The second is a leak if sharing is unauthorized. The reporter vs. friend distinction you and Wittes want to introduce is irrelevant to determining if it’s a leak.
If Witte’s theory that it wasn’t a leak was based on the idea that the sharing of that info was not unauthorized he might be correct or incorrect. We could just figure out in what sense sharing was authorized.
But Witte’s doesn’t make that distinction which would be relevant. He tries to hang the distinction on the “friend/reporter” issue.
Sorry, but the theory that the distinction is based on whether the material was shared with a friend vs. reporter is beyond wrong. It’s like suggesting the distinction of “leak vs no-leak” is be based on whether you were wearing red or green when you divulged. It’s obviously not based on that. It’s based on whether divulging is authorized or not.
Trump, he is the master media manipulator at times. Never a dull moment. This has actually turned into a reality TV show.
.
“Trump also twice declined to confirm the existence of White House recordings of the conversations.
“I’ll tell you about that sometime in the very near future,” Trump said.
Asked again, Trump said: “I’m not hinting anything. I will tell you over a very short period of time.”
.
What’s the press going to run around speculating on now?
Tom Scharf,
“Can those involved in the war on semantics just agree that the real target is Trump regardless of what is technically literally occurring at the moment?”
.
Absolutely. Trump has been the target of the MSM since before he was nominated but became the presumptive nominee. Since the election targeting Trump has become an all consuming obsession. It started with the breathless reporting of “recounts” in sates Trump won narrowly, reporting of claims of Russians had “hacked” voting equipment, “reporting” on how electors might reverse Trump’s win, and endless “analysis” of how everything Trump said was wrong. Since inauguration, it has only become worse. Really, the MSM has behaved much worse that Trump… and that is saying quite a lot. More troubling is the apparent effort to sabotage Trump in the final days of the Obama administration and by Obama holdovers. ‘Sore losers’ does not do it justice.
Tom Scharf:
I think this may be a problem too. I have to clear anything I publish from DOD contracts. It’s hard for me to imagine that the DOJ is less stringent.
Comey is a political appointee and doesn’t have the statutory protections of civil servants who are whistleblowers. So I’m still not certain he didn’t break laws or at least violate regulations.
Cnn
Oh. He’s going to be coy. Sheesh.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/09/politics/trump-news-conference/index.html?utm_content=bufferb9783&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Actually, I hope there are tapes. 🙂
Luca—here’s the way I’d put it: If Witte is “just a friend” or colleague of Comey, then sharing the information would amount to a leak. If Witte is on the DOJ payroll as a legal consultant, then Comey might be authorized to share the information with Witte.
But what if Witte was serving as Comey’s legal counsel? Witte couldn’t legal divulge the information without Comey’s permission (and he didn’t).
After Comey was fired, he wouldn’t be governed by departmental regulations, and he could then legally direct Witte to release the information. In the case, it wouldn’t really be a leak, would it?
Adding 1 + 1 here is that Trump has tapes that dispute Comey’s testimony under oath. You aren’t paranoid if everyone is actually out to get you. Unfortunately with Trump after you add you need to also multiply by zero.
.
If there were tapes, Trump would selectively release them, and the usual suspects would fall all over themselves demanding all the tapes. I imagine Trump’s secretary will accidentally erase parts of them.
Carrick
I agree that if Witte is on the DOJ payroll, it might not be a leak. Also: if the discussion was under attorney/client privilege it might not be a leak.
I would consider it one. But I think you wouldn’t. Because you don’t consider sharing that stuff unauthorized and I do. I sort of consider certain stuff as being unauthorized by informal rules too and I think you seem to only be concerned about formal regulations.
What is true is that after he quits or is fired, rules whose only consequence is getting fired can’t really apply in the sense that he can’t be fired. But in my view, that doesn’t unbind him from certain informal rules. I consider a certain amount of “spilling the beans” to be leaking even after a formal rule doesn’t apply. (Mind you, the leak might be justified, it’s not illegal, or a tort. I’m discussing semantics here. I think think semantically the word “leak” applies because the dissemination is unauthorized.)
Anyway,
it’s clearI think that some stuff is still a leak after you leave a job. Certainly if the material was classified, leaving the job would not be relevant. If you gained trade secrets as part of a job with non-discloure part of the condition, sharing after you left the job is still a leak.But anyway, Comey appears to have shared info with Witte in March, one or two months before he left the job.
The thing is: while hypothetical facts you mention (i.e. DOJ payroll, lawyer/client confidentiality) are relevant, they aren’t included Witte’s theory which is the one I criticize as unhinged. Wittes definitely does not hinge on the question of whether Comey was still an employee of the FBI, it does not bring up the lawyer/client confindentiality issue (wittes is not Comey’s lawyer), it does not bring up the hypothetical that Wittes might be on the DOJ payroll. (I think Wittes is not on the payroll). Witte’s theory is he and are long time friends– not even very close ones– and Comey just told him stuff over lunch when they are shooting the breeze.
Witte’s theory as expounded in the article is that the two friends sharing info over lunch is “not leaking”. Period. That aspect is irrelevant. If you shared classified info with a friend over lunch, that’s a leak. Your friendship and desire to shoot the breeze is irrelevant to the analysis. It’s whether the sharing is authorized or not.
Lucia:
I’m not actually sure I wouldn’t. It would depend on the nature of the material I guess and whether the person who gave it to me had a right to expect it to remain confidential.
And it’s still not clear to me even in this case that Comey didn’t violate the law let alone government regulations, IF he didn’t get prior approval from the DOJ before releasing the memo.
But we don’t actually know that he didn’t get approval.
To follow up that chain of thought, I am fairly certain he’s in contact with Mueller and that Mueller cleared his prepared statement. Given Comey’s discussion went beyond the contents of the memo, it’s possible that Mueller cleared the release of the memo too, at least ex post facto.
This is, as I’ve said before, a very muddled affair. It’s part of why this cloud is going to linger for a while.
But I absolutely agree with your assessment of the argument Witte put forth. It’s absolute rubbish. There are various reasons why Witte might be withholding the real reasoning behind the release, so I don’t know how much to read into this.
Steve F said: “My guess is that Obama officials had him “unmasked†so that they could make sure his communications were widely distributed within the Justice Department and CIA.”
Talk about leaks. The leaking of the Flynn-Kislyak phone conversation transcript was a crime.
I would imagine everyone (unauthorized) in the chain of a secret document getting released to the press is guilty regardless of what anyone was thinking at the time. The ex-head of the FBI considered the legal aspects of this carefully before he admitted to leaking.
.
I doubt Mueller coordinated with a fired Comey. Another word for that might be collusion. That would be dangerous for Mueller, there isn’t any need for him to have Comey testify or get involved with it.
Carrick
Witte’s written quite a bit. My take is Witte is a friend of Comey and is probably not entire objective. I won’t hunt down the link, but, for example Witte discusses this bit
Witte seems to harbor the delusion is the only way to understand what Comey says Trump said is the way Comey understood it. But even reading the way Comey described it, my first reaction to this was, “Huh?! You thought he wanted you to ask for your job!?!?!!!!! He was inviting you to quit!” Moreover, I would guess Trump probably thought he was being very nice and giving you time to get your resume together, look around, and then explain that you’ve found something that better suits your current needs or desires.
Trump is a bull-in-the china shop. He doesn’t look good to me. And I think he’s breaking stuff and dropping lots of manure. But he’s there because some voters wanted a bull in the china shop. I didn’t want him there.
That doesn’t make me a fan of Comey or Witte…. I’d like to see then as far from governance as we can get them.
Tom Scharf—This is my understanding:
Comey is almost certainly going to be a witness in Mueller’s grand jury. So Comey would am most certainly need to coordinate what he could speak about publicly so as to not taint the jury.
Not trying to feed the conspiracy theorists, but the word collusion is maybe appropriate. I suspect that Mueller has more loyalty to his fired friend that he does Trump. I’m not saying Trump is in trouble here, but he needs to start listening to his legal counsel before he steps in it too far for him to muddle his way out of.
Carrick,
Sure, but Comey needs to be very careful as well if Tump has a recording of one or more conversations. Perjury before a grand jury is a felony, and Comey knows that.
Lucia—interesting take.
I didn’t read Trump’s meeting with Comey to be particularly innocent in nature. I think if Trump had wanted Comey out, he would have just sent Comey on his way. If Trump had a private dinner with Comey, it’s because Trump wanted to discuss an arrangement of some sort with Comey that was to Trump’s benefit.
This is not meant as reading anything nasty towards Trump. My perception is, these sorts of people are very focussed on where they are going to… So it’s not so much them trying to trample people underfoot that they leave behind as it is expecting the laggers to have the good sense to move out of the way or get squished.
My opinion of Comey is also not very high. I think Trump should have been fired Comey the day he took office. I think Trump misjudged Comey at the start and took him for somebody significantly higher in caliber than what amounts to an over-promoted PR guy. My theory is Trump felt some fledgling loyalty to Comey for Comey “doing the right thing” at the end.
SteveF:
Agreed. His testimony before Congress also qualifies for that (esp. the May 3 testimony, which occurred before he suspected he was being taped).
That said, I don’t think Comey is very intelligent, so the possibility that he perjures himself is real, in spite of having been warned.
I would imagine everyone (unauthorized) in the chain of a secret document getting released to the press is guilty regardless of what anyone was thinking at the time.
In the generality, yes, but…
The Press itself gets off scot-free, per the famous Pentagon Papers case. (Ellsberg, the actual leaker, was prosecuted…but his case was dropped due to government misconduct.)
The statutes I know require knowledge or intent or at least reason to believe…so it’s possible for a person to be involved and escape due to an innocent frame of mind. (Not, “I thought it was important for the public to know,” but “I had no way of knowing that stuff was classified.”)
Carrick
Or not.
Interestingly, I also think Trump was trying to get something he wanted and he wanted to optimize it. He might have preferred Comey quitting to outright firing him especially if he anticipated people might interpret the firing as his interfering with an investigation. Or, being from the business world, his past experience is that work relationships serve a purpose. When they no longer do, you ease out of them and let others ease out knowing that you may need to do business with them later. By giving Comey an opportunity to save face and retain status, Trump might think could avoid an enemy– and that’s what he would prefer.
I’m not seeing this offer as a pure favor. But still… it’s more “be nice so he’s less likely to stab me in the back later”.
The fact is, there are lots of possible ways to interpret what Comey reported. There are even in Comey’s report which is naturally colored by Comey’s reaction which tends to make the way it’s related more favorable to Comey’s interpretation than it otherwise might be.
My interpretation of Comey is also not high. I also think Trump should have fired him much, much sooner.
Carrick,
You’re coming very close to logic chopping with your distinction between investigating links and investigating a person.
Reporter: “Is OJ Simpson being investigated for murdering his ex-wife and her lover?”
Police: “No we’re only investigating possible links between OJ and the murders.”
DeWitt, it’s amazing to me how many people are having trouble with simple logic here.
Look at my reply to Niel’s very bad analogy. It covers your extremely bad analogy too.
DeWitt—The other thing that I’m wanting to explore here—how would you guys, who are objecting to the wording of the various reports, want the MSM to report it instead? Actual question.
Not reporting the story isn’t a valid option. It’s newsworthy. And pro-Trump propaganda version isn’t another option.
It’s completely valid to say there are links between Trump, Trump’s organization and the Russian officials who allegedly attempted to interfere with the election. That doesn’t imply Trump murdered anybody.
It may cause some people indigestion to see it described in those terms, but, to me, there’s nothing misleading or disingenuous about that description.
MikeM, there are two leaks. One was when Comey had someone read his memo to the press. The other is several conversations he had with a friend who is also a blogger, that didn’t get revealed until after he was fired.
Lucia, authorized by who? Comey, Trump, someone else?
Carrick,
You would be well served to avoid the expression ‘you guys’ when you are responding to individuals.
Mike N
Are you referring to lucia (Comment #162959) ?
Carrick: “DeWitt—The other thing that I’m wanting to explore here—how would you guys, who are objecting to the wording of the various reports, want the MSM to report it instead? Actual question”
… .
I have no problem with some coverage. However, it is the incessant/lynch mob piling on that I object to. For instance at the top of the NYTs opinion page today, there were 5 stories on Trump/Comey and one story on what a terrible boss Trump is. It is ridiculous. For instance, Obama pardoning an unrepentant terrorist is as big a story as the Comey story, but I saw nothing about it at the time it occurred. Comey should only be a moderate story not a huge story.
JD
Yes that one. You appear to be saying the conversation has to be authorized by DOJ or perhaps the other side of the conversation, Trump.
Now is probably a good time to remind everyone underestimating Trump can backfire spectacularly. Teflon Trump. He probably has a Waterloo waiting somewhere but it’s probably going to be from someone who takes him seriously.
Carrick,
How about a prominent statement in the stories that there do not appear to be direct links to Trump himself, since there aren’t. Otherwise I agree with JD Ohio that we’re getting multiple front page stories above the fold that aren’t news.
Obviously Neils and I disagree that our analogies are bad, much less very bad. I think they’re right on point.
JD Ohio,
Well, that was a ‘good terrorist’, terrorizing people for good leftist values, while Trump and all his deplorable voters are the scum of the Earth… wait, no… lower than the scum of the Earth.
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The MSM is run by a bunch of dedicated leftists. There is no way they can report ‘news’ without grotesque spinning and distortion. Heck, they can’t even report the barest of plain facts without distortion.
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Get used to it; the ‘journalism’ schools are run by wacko leftist professors who think all political questions reduce to nothing more than the endless conflict between oppressors (that be you, dude!), and the oppressed (that be everyone who is not like you); they will work to make sure they graduate only dedicated leftists to maintain future control of the ‘news media’. Public defunding of all non-techical ‘education’ is the only appropriate response.
DeWitt,
“Obviously Neils and I disagree that our analogies are bad, much less very bad. I think they’re right on point.”
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Agreed, you’re both exactly on point. The entire exercise is focused on getting rid of Trump, not on accurate reporting.
Carrick,
“It may cause some people indigestion to see it described in those terms, but, to me, there’s nothing misleading or disingenuous about that description.”
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The willful misrepresentation of facts generates in me more a combination of incredulity and nausea that so many people seem to willing to railroad Trump without evidence of any kind. Trump
is a jerk, and has a long personal history that proves it. Trump makes horrible choices (and tweets) which are self-defeating if he wants to advance the policies he supports. But the suggestion he has colluded with Russia to steal the election and undermine the US is supported by not a shread of evidence. It is all garbage, nothing more.
Carrick (Comment #162972): “how would you guys, who are objecting to the wording of the various reports, want the MSM to report it instead? Actual question.”
Speaking for myself, there are three different issues here. One is about you, not the media. You made the ludicrous claim that the press has not been saying that Trump is under investigation. You have been proven wrong, but refuse to admit it. Instead, you claim that I, and others here, do not understand your idiotic argument, even though we plainly do.
Second, as JD has explained, there is the issue of the press piling on.
Third, there is the false reporting. Trump was never under investigation. Trump’s relationships were never under investigation. The press has insisted on reporting rumor as fact. The only investigation that is a fact is the possibility of Russian meddling. Responsible reporting would be limited to that, perhaps with some mention of the allegations, identified as such, that some members of the Trump campaighn might be involved.
MikeN,
No. I’m not saying that. I was engaging a hypothetical Carrick brought up which involved situations where Comey’s discussion with Witte would be authorized. Those situations are hypothetical, but Carrick asked for example “What if Witte was Comey’s attorney and has attorney client privilege?” and “What if Witte worked for the DOJ?”
In those cases, the discussion between Comey and Witte might be authorized even though discussion with a friend would not absolutely not be authorized. Because in one case, it’s the right to an attorney and the other it’s a coworker at the DOJ.
But neither of those cases apply to the Comey-Witte conversation. They also aren’t teh justification Witte gave for his “not a leak” theory. (Witte’s justification is nutso.)
One of the best things Trump can do for us is to simplify federal taxes. Something like Herman Caine’s 9-9-9 would be great but with weasels like Ryan in leadership positions I am not holding my breath.
When people talk about submitting one’s income tax return on a postcard I love it. In my imagination hundreds of thousands of drones (IRS people, CPAs, tax attorneys and on and on) will have to find real jobs.
gallopingcamel,
It appears tax simplification is not going to happen.
A moratorium on tax tinkering is the next best thing. Obamacare and Dodd-Frank have proved the government is incapable of competent one-party reforms. (See, I don’t lay it just on Dems.) The best hope is to shrink government, balance the budget, enforce the laws we have and follow the constitution.
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BTW, I did not see anyone mention that Comey testified the central core of the blockbuster NYT article in Feb was false when questioned by Sen. Collins. Then Sen. Langford followed up and asked him if he would agree the article was almost completely baseless. Comey agreed. That article was the base for the 100 stories of Trump (or Trump’s people) being in the cross hairs.
http://www.businessinsider.com/comey-new-york-times-story-russia-inaccurate-2017-6
Comey apparently thought his private notes were his own property. It’s amazing that the head of the FBI didn’t know FBI (or common confidential workplaces) policy or the Records Act, especially after the Clinton email investigation. Lucia is absolutely correct, the leak is based on the lack of authority to disclose. Comey certainly had no such authority after being fired. Trump could make an example of him if he wants to. Would that be good? I suppose only if Trump has tapes that prove Comey a liar. Otherwise, Trump would have to stay neutral and let DOJ pilot that call since it would look too much like personal revenge if he ordered prosecution for the leak. It’s a travesty that the Clinton’s and Comey’s get away with the stuff that others go to jail for.
Ron Graf,
If he’d kept them in a diary at home, I think they would have been. But “memo to file” sounds like something filed at work and distributed. Seems to me that would make it a work product.
Willis Eschenbach writes about Comey’s leaking of memos:
https://rosebyanyothernameblog.wordpress.com/2017/06/09/your-work-product-isnt-yours/
I’m not going to comment on willis’s interpretation of law (because I don’t know.) But he posts
My highlighting.
And the FBI employment agreement.
Maybe it will turn out he had authorization to disclose to the NYT– through his friend. That would be interesting. I guess we’ll see.
Lucia,
I suspect Comey did violate the letter of the law. Nobody is going to prosecute him for it.
Steve F:
The situation is more or less exactly the same in Denmark/Europe – heck, the journalists and in turn the huge majority of academics and intellectuals copy and repeat information from the American MSM, NYT, WP, CNN etc as if it was a gospel. Independent thought is as rare as water in a desert.
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The Austrian political philosopher August Friedrich von Hayek who recieved the Nobel Price in Economic Sciences in 1974 offers an explanation of the omnipresent leftist bias of intellectuals (and journalists):
– F Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism
SteveF,
WRT to what’s been discussed above. There are three things:
1) Whether what he did was literally illegal.
2) Whether he will be prosecuted and
3) Whether the word “unauthorized” applies to the disclosure.
I agree with you that he probably won’t be prosecuted. However, I think #3 applies to whether giving the memos themselves is “a leak” under Carrick’s definition which requires them disclosure or dissemination to be “unauthorized” in a somewhat formal way.
To my (non-lawyer) eyes, this does seem like this:
1) The memo to file itself is a document prepared for the FBI while Comey was an employee of the FBI. So it is an “FBI files […] acquired by virtue of my official employment” . I think this is so even if he both created and acquired the file.
2) While working at the FBI Comey could not disclose or disseminate that memo unless he specifically obtained a determination the info could be disclosed.
3) ” I will surrender upon demand by the FBI, or upon my separation from the FBI, all materials containing FBI information in my possession.” means when he left the FBI, he should have surrendered that document. So once gone from the FBI, he isn’t permitted to even have that memo.
Currently, he either disseminated it before he left the FBI, (which seem to be not allowed) or he kept it when he left the FBI (which seem to be not allowed) and then disseminated material he wasn’t allowed to keep.
Something certainly appears to be “unauthorized” here. So I think this indicates “unauthorized disclosure” and hence, a leak.
But there may be other caveats I’m not getting.
Ron Graf (Comment #162988): “Comey apparently thought his private notes were his own property.”
lucia (Comment #162989): “If he’d kept them in a diary at home, I think they would have been.”
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Even if that were so, which it isn’t, the memo would still be FBI property since it contained information obtained in the course of his work. I say this on the basis of lucia’s Comment #162990 quoting the FBI employment agreement:
“2. All information acquired by me in connection with my official duties with the FBI and all official material to which I have access remain the property of the United States of America. I will surrender upon demand by the FBI, or upon my separation from the FBI, all materials containing FBI information in my possession.”
That seems pretty clear to me.
What is becoming very clear is that Comey did not consider direct political interference by Obama/Clinton tolerable.
Lucia: “But there may be other caveats I’m not getting.”
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The only thing not covered expressly in the laws cited is the allowance for accidental disclosure. Comey eliminates this question by giving details of his intention to: 1) leak the memo to his friend, 2) instructing the friend to give it to the NYT, 3) hope that it would initiate the appointment of a special prosecutor, which it did.
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The special prosecutor would now have the logical call on the prosecution of Comey’s leak. But the fact that Comey and Mueller worked together in the past should require Mueller to recuse himself from that authority. It should go to the AT, Jeff Sessions.
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Hayek: “…This leads one to be favorably disposed to the central economic planning and control that lie at the heart of socialism.”
The flaw in the logic of socialism lies at this: Being more educated than the 90% does not mean one is more intelligent than the 90%, and it certainly does not mean one is informed enough about another’s life circumstances, vocation or aspirations to make decisions for them. And, even if it did, making decisions for others has the negative consequences of removing the other from self-responsibility and depriving them of that dignity.
MikeM,
Yes. I think you may be more right than I. My thought was formally filing something as a “memo for file” certainly makes that memo FBI property. It really doesn’t matter what it contains. The document is FBI property.
On the clarity, there is a later thing with specific list of items that can’t be shared. One might argue “all” means all items on that list and then say that this memo for file isn’t on that list. But I think such an argument seems tortured for a number of reasons including the fact that if the rule goes that way, members of the FBI could write a memo for file and then immediately disseminate it to all and sundry, telling all and sundry it’s an FBI memo. The FBI clearly couldn’t function if that were allowed. So it seems to me the list has to be a list that one needs to be reminded of, but it’s not to be interpreted as the only thing you can’t disseminate. In that case, the “all” in the stuff I quoted does mean “all”.
But I also know my reading of this thing withoug pouring over the full legal document… well… I could easily overlook something. But this does seem relevant to the issue of was disclosure of the memos authorized. It looks to me like the answer is likely “no”.
Liberal icon, NYT foreign affairs editorialist and author, Thomas Friedman I once saw on CSPAN during a Q&A reflecting on whether the US invasion of Afghanistan was in hindsight a wise decision. Friedman pointed out that the new roads were deteriorating or being intentionally undermined as fast as they could be laid. Freedoms from the Taliban meant that opium production was at an all-time high. He went on and rattled off a half dozen other foreseen negative consequences for the intervention and then reflected on “nation building” in general. “After many years of study and reflection I’ve come to the conclusion that although intervention can force people to stop doing bad, it can’t force them to do good.”
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Without realizing it then or now Friedman is the embodiment of the famous quote attributed to Churchill:
hunter
What makes that clear? I believe it certainly could be. But I’d like to know what evidence you actually have.
My impression is Comey is a man who very, very, very much wants to run the show. He wants to dictate how Trump and likely anyone interacts with him. Lots of stuff he writes can be viewed different ways. But one possible way to view his “concern” about the what Trump was doing and how was that Trump wasn’t doing things the way Comey wanted Trump to do them.
So, in the memo, Comey tells us how he periodically explained to Trump why the way Comey wanted Trump to operate was the “best” way. But when testifying, Comey agrees that Trump had the authority to fire him, tell him to lay off Flynn and so on.
Comey was certainly not giving Trump full and complete advise on how to accomplish what Trump wanted to accomplish. In fact, he was misleading Trump -saying he’s look into what they can do about laying off the Flynn investigation when he had no intention of looking into any such thing nor of laying off. Given the sort of expected relation between the Chief Executive and an important employees in the Excutive Branch (i.e. FBI director) you would tend to expect more accurate and full advise. I mean… really… “misleading” was a rather tame term. One could easily call telling Trump he was “going to look into it” when he had no intention of looking into it lying.
Honestly, I imagine Comey wouldn’t want Obama or Clinton to “interfere” with whatever Comey wanted to do either. That seems consistent with his other actions. But I’d like to know which evidence you have that this is so.
Re: 18 U.S. Code § 641 “Whoever embezzles, steals, purloins, or knowingly converts to his use or the use of another , or without authority, sells, conveys or disposes of any record, voucher, money, or thing of value of the United States… .”
… ..
I have always instinctively felt that it was very clear that Clinton had no right to convert or place emails under her personal control. This statue makes clear that that is the case. The use of the term “convert” is very important because it has a very specific legal meaning. It is referring to the concept underlying the tort of conversion, which deals with the unauthorized use or exercise of control over the property of another. Clinton clearly violated this statute. Comey has committed a minor violation of the statute, but still a violation. Sort of strange that no one in Obama’s department of justice appeared to have any familiarity with the statute. Wonder if the statute of limitations has run.
JD
The NYT stands by its Feb 14 story that Comey testified was “almost entirely wrong.”
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Priebus was responding to a leak that he had asked the FBI to refute the NYT claim after he was informed by high IC officials that it was false. I remember Priebus being accused in the same manner Trump was being accused of interfering or obstructing justice. If Comey’s testimony is accurate on this point Priebus was in fact attempting to promote justice. If Trump had good reason to believe Flynn was not a Russian agent or had compromised himself then his remark of that to Comey was in the same vein as what Priebus did.
” If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 35, you have no brain.”
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How does this claim square with the socialism being associated with intellectualism? The answer is that blindness is independent of intellect. This is the same reason that no MSM lawyer guests or legal academics saw “conversion” in 18 U.S. Code § 641 applying to Clinton’s making a personal email server. People often don’t find what they don’t look for.
“So once gone from the FBI, he isn’t permitted to even have that memo.”
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This might explain why Comey didn’t leak the memo himself. Instead he concocted this story that he had already given the memo to his friend before he left the FBI and then his friend leaked it “later”.
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I don’t know the timing of when Comey gave his friend the memo. If he claims it was before he left the FBI then this thing is starting to smell a little. It’s a minor point in the grand scheme.
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Realistically if “boy scout” Comey has exposed himself, he should be made to sweat. He looks like just another partisan DC actor who cares a lot more about DC inside baseball than protecting the country.
Carrick,
The link you supplied above is from an activist.
Were James Comey’s leaks lawful?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/06/08/were-james-comeys-leaks-lawful/?utm_term=.7536f83be71d
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It’s crazy in the “anyone can be a whistle blower” generalization. He left out extremely important parts of whistle blowing. Specifically you must first attempt to go through proper channels. Otherwise go to jail.
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Reality Winner isn’t a whistleblower — or a victim of Trump’s war on leaks
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/06/08/reality-winner-isnt-a-whistleblower-or-a-victim-of-trumps-war-on-leaks/?utm_term=.8d6833071fa1
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The facts in Comey’s case are different, but the impression the first article gives is that anyone can disclose anything if they feel it is important enough. We can ask Reality Winner about that in her jail cell.
Tom Scharf,
Maybe. But if Comey’s goal was to get an independent counsel appointed, you would think he’d know that the story would come out.
Anyway, Comey giving the memo to the friend while Comey was still at the FBI would seem to be equally unauthorized.
It’s hard to see how this dissemination doesn’t fall into the category of “unauthorized”, and so it would seem to correctly be called a “leak”. Online, I’ve seen some defend it was not a leak because the material was not classified. But the word “leak” isn’t restricted to classified material. It’s used more broadly than that– and that’s true even if I use it even more broadly that some others (like Carrick) seem to.
I’m making a last comment on this then move on (/applause I’m sure). Thanks to everybody for your comments. It’s been interesting to see how differently different people react to the same sequence of words.
If a person expects the media to have a particular bias,it’s not really surprising to seem that they are going to fight tooth and nail for interpretations like “the FBI is investigating links between Trump and Russian officials” must clearly be saying that Trump is a subject of the investigation. And anybody who seems it differently clearly must be wearing a reality-distortion hat.
(I’d say a similar thing will happen with liberals–they are obviously expecting Trump to be corrupt, and are consciously looking for confirming evidence.)
JD Ohio—Here’s how I see it: We have a free press, which for the most part, is for-profit. Because they are typically seated in large towns, which are traditional liberal areas, it’s perfectly natural that the stories they cary cater to a liberal audience. Similarly, the few cities that are conservatives bastions, like San Diego or Tuscon, end up having conservative papers.
The only place I really object to bias being present is NPR, which is paid by public funding, and shouldn’t be propagandizing one side, but it clearly does.
Anyway, the clearest exposition of this I’ve seen is from the first public editor of the New York Times, Daniel Okrent:
Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?
His answer is “OF course it is.” The whole thing is worth a read, but my favorite paragraph is this:
Anyway, the stories they cover or headline are going to have a liberal bent…this is self-selecting. Stories you think are important aren’t the ones that sell that paper, and stories that give you heart-burn are more likely to be front page.
I don’t think there’s any huge problem with bias, as long as the newspaper clearly labels what their bias is. The trouble is when people end up self-selecting newspaper or cable news outlets, so they end up reinforcing just one viewpoint. I think this is contributing to the polarization we’re seeing. In the age of information, it seems that people are typically using fewer sources than they used when they had fewer choices.
DeWitt Payne:
Another related problem is the level of plagiarism in the MSM. A lot of these stories begin as AP Press stories, and get republished ad infinitum, with only minor tweaks to add “local color”, and often without any attribution to the original news source. Anyway, this results one particular write-up getting massively amplified through the resulting plagiarized local stories.
To the other point, honestly I think the real story is above their heads.
I wonder how many people are even aware the FBI investigation of Russian “links” isn’t focused just on criminal behavior for example. One of the FBI’s biggest missions is domestic counter-intelligence. So even when somebody is a “focus” of the investigation, like Jared Kushner, the interest might only be “what are the techniques the Russians used to attempt to recruit this person.” Even being a focus wouldn’t necessarily imply they were being investigated for criminal activity.
I’d like the press to spell that out better too, because it’s not fair to people who’s only “crime” is Russian intelligence officers became interested in trying to manipulate them. None of this becomes “collusion” until you have willing participants on the US side. Good luck finding that spelled out in the press.
[With the exception of Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who I think is facing real legal jeopardy, criminal activity that I expect will be uncovered by members of Trump’s campaign are things like perjury and mis-reporting of income, things that may fall under “prosecutor digression” and probably won’t even result in indictments.]
That is all.
Lucia,
Yes, There has been a lot of talk about “norms” with respect to the independence of the FBI, but then the media goes super technical to the letter of the law for obstruction charges. It’s almost impossible to find references that Trump had the authority to simply command Comey to drop the case in the vast majority of articles.
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Everything with corruption charges hinges on whether Trump had “corrupt” intent even if the final judgment was he was commanding Comey to drop the case (which is weak tea).
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It’s just partisan threading of the needle either way.
Ron Graf,
NYT: “found no evidence that any prior reporting was inaccurate”
Note the double negative. It is not saying it was accurate. This is how our best and brightest use misdirection.
Carrick: “Anyway, the stories they cover or headline are going to have a liberal bent…this is self-selecting.”
….
What you are saying is true to a point but misses one very important additional point. The NYTs is so self-delusional that in its various ads it claims to be reporting the “truth” not ideologically slanted articles. See for instance, http://thehill.com/media/320787-new-york-times-launches-major-ad-campaign-the-truth
….
I don’t have a problem with people expressing their ideological viewpoint. I do have a problem with people being so self-delusional that they consider their ideological viewpoint to be the truth.
JD
Tom Scharf
There is little way for them to know if the story is accurate. As Comey explains: Those who know what is really happening aren’t talking about it; those who don’t know are. If that is true, the NYT could have several “sources” none of whom know what is going on all confirming each other.
Hunter said: “What is becoming very clear is that Comey did not consider direct political interference by Obama/Clinton tolerable.”
But he did find it tolerable. He did nothing to stop it, or to remove himself from it.
Steve F: “I suspect Comey did violate the letter of the law. Nobody is going to prosecute him for it.”
An all too frequent occurrence these days. Which raises the question, why have letters of the law at all. Let’s just allow an authority to be arbitrary in their judgement of right and wrong.
Kan thank you for catching my bad typo. The point I managed to mangle is that Comey rolled over in favor helping democrats to get by on multiple occasions. Enough times and significantly enough to raise questions if him obstructing justice. Yet a mere question and expression of opinion from the Republican President is enough for him to contrive a way to force an independent counsel on the Republican. How Comey is a corrupt player in this. He is not an impartial law enforcement professional.
Carrick,
Applause….ha ha.
The NYT likes to have it both ways, they claim they have two sections, the news side and the opinion side with a firewall in between. The NYT rarely lies to promote what is obviously a liberal agenda. It is clear to me that they take fact checking seriously with occasional errors. This lets them believe they are straight shooters with “all the news that is fit to print”, and more importantly it lets * their readers * believe it too.
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But they are very smart people, and they have a conscious or unconscious agenda. If you want to know which way a media operation points, the best place to look is what anecdotal stories they report on. If you can find any anecdotal stories at the NYT or other left leaning MSM outlets about illegals, blacks, or gays behaving badly, you are looking harder than I am. But if a white guy calls someone a slave at Starbucks it is national news:
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Man goes on racist rant at Starbucks, calls black man a slave
http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/09/us/racist-rant-chicago-starbucks-trnd/index.html
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If a story is big enough and clear enough they will all dutifully cover the facts. What the headline is and what page the story is on and what paragraph to report certain facts on is essentially an editor’s job. I have seen the NYT “bury the lead” many times into paragraph 9 or put an article on page A16.
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The NYT didn’t even report ClimateGate for two weeks after it happened and then declared it wouldn’t report on “stolen emails”, a laughably inconsistent standard for the NYT. Climate coverage is so biased I could go on for hours…they all hit the fainting couches when Bret Stephens wrote what is a tame column about it.
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There are counterexamples. Terrorism is something the left would realistically like to minimize as it serves the right’s agenda. They still cover it breathlessly.
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A recent example is the Russia links and Comey’s testimony. The “news” that there still aren’t any Russia links and the director of the FBI told Trump he wasn’t under investigation 3 times was dropped like a lead balloon after it was covered for 10 months straight like it was Watergate. Yes, they reported it, but what are 90% of the words and stories about….”I hope” and obstruction.
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Benefit of the doubt. If someone accused Obama of something (sicking the IRS on conservatives) the mentality is innocent until proven guilty. With Trump (Russian collusion) it is guilty until proven innocent.
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Where to look. The WP said it had 20 reporters investigating Trump during the election. I doubt they were asking people if they thought Trump was more like Lincoln or Roosevelt.
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How is it that a hyperactive media never even knew Clinton had her own email server for years and years? They aren’t looking very hard.
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Clinton emails was first reported in 2013.
http://gawker.com/5991563/hacked-emails-show-hillary-clinton-was-receiving-advice-at-a-private-email-account-from-banned-obama-hating-former-staffer
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The NYT exposure came in March 2015 after the Benghazi investigation (witch hunt) uncovered it again. I would bet my life it was leaked to the NYT’s first either by Clinton herself or sympathizers to get it framed correctly before others got it (that ended up backfiring).
Carrick, I agree with some of your summary but disagree in particular with this:
Although it’s fine and expected to have big city tabloids exploiting an audience it’s not OK if you claim to be a paper of record like the NYT, WP and LA times.
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Tom Scharf, I find it amazing that it is still being reported that the NYT was the first to uncover HRC email server, almost as amazing as the MSM not picking up on Benghazi after the contractors (heroes) on the ground went to Fox News while swallowing whole Mike Morell (CIA) talking points drawn for Susan Rice to spread on all the news shows.
Tom,
The NY Times is in the business of selling leftist drivel to an audience who laps up as much leftist drivel as possible. Fair enough; any honest effort to present an unbiased story, even on the news side, would never be accepted by their readers (note all the cancelations of subscriptions over the mildest of columns written by a fairly toasty ‘luke-warmer’!). The Times doesn’t want to lose readership. So if there ever were Times reporters who would play news stories straight, they have long ago been driven out or found a different career option. The only rational thing to do with the Times is set your expectations very low… and don’t pay any attention to what they report.
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I fortunately have relatives who read the Times every Sunday, so I never run out of newspaper for wrapping up fish guts…. and in truth, I can think of no better use for the Times.
Ron Graf,
The worst part about Benghazi was the initial attempt to blame it on some 4th rate YouTube movie. I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but it fits nicely with the mentality on some college campuses that “hate” speech like that movie needs to be banned. Thank God (or Allah) that the 1st Amendment is not anywhere near as malleable as some SJW activists wish it to be. We just need some college administrators to understand that as well.
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Middlebury president writes and entirely reasonable essay in the WSJ today:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-right-way-to-protect-free-speech-on-campus-1497019583
SteveF,
I read the NYT mostly to know what the left is thinking on subjects, and to constantly remind myself that they still don’t know what the right is about, ha ha. Talk about the world’s most uncharitable interpretation. If you get out of culture war subjects, it is decent, but they tend to try to make everything about the culture wars.
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Here they tie Comey’s treatment by Trump with that of being a victim of sexual harassment, written by a theater critic.
James Comey and the Predator in Chief
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/opinion/james-comey-and-the-predator-in-chief.html
JD Ohio—I don’t think the NYT is necessarily delusional. The line that it’s reporting the truth was probably created by an advertising firm… so I’ve viewed it as a gimmick, and not an attempt at truthful portrayal of the product they are selling.
Tom Scharf overall good comments. I think Andy Revkin had decent coverage of it. That article is just four days after the original leak.
I haven’t seen a claim that they didn’t want to cover it due to the emails being stolen. Can you find that and post it?
Ron Graf: Keep in mind the media are for profit. I like your idea in principle, but in a market driven economy, they don’t always have the luxury of staying on the high ground ethically.
Added: Tom I don’t find the NYT horrible, but they aren’t the first paper I look at. I look at their versions of stories because I like looking at multiple perspectives and they are less likely than some to plagiarize.
The story you linked was a commentary by Nicole Serratore, and it was covered in multiple newspapers. The NYT publishes a broad range of commentaries (less so than they used to unfortunately). But I wouldn’t use a commentary written by a free lance as evidence of bias in a newspaper, especially if they allow dissenting opinions.
Comey did not leak any memos to Wittes. The general idea in the memos is what he told Wittes(or so Wittes claims.)
Carrick,
I followed Revkin for years, he is pretty reasonable overall, he’s gone. Revkin was writing a blog, it wasn’t covered by the news team, and the NYT was one of the very last outlets to cover it. ClimateGate was a big story. It ended up changing climate science for the better with improved accountability and data sharing. Climate media coverage has gotten decidedly worse due to an activist monoculture in almost all media outlets.
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Here is Revkin discussing not publishing emails
https://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/private-climate-conversations-on-display/?_r=0
MikeN,
We now have the FBI regs which includes
Detals of what hhappened in the meeting is information acquired by virtue of my official employment it is also related to FBI files. It is definitely “related to” the contents of the Memo to File which Comey wrote and deposited in the file.
Witte’s would appear to be an ‘unauthorized recipient’ of that “information” and appears to be even if he wasn’t given the Memo.
That conversation was leaking.
Carrick,
My Alzheimers is kicking in, Revkin wrote on it almost immediately, but they wouldn’t publish any actual emails excerpts, which was the entire story.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/opinion/06pubed.html
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For the record here is the NYT not having any issues printing hacked emails later
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/us/politics/hillary-clinton-emails-wikileaks.html
Tom Scharf—I read the public editors commentary. I actually think the distinction between public emails and private ones is legitimate. But the emails were copied from a public email server run by a public university. I don’t think those can be construed to be private emails.
So I don’t buy the argument. It smells like more a legal concern manufactured by a lawyer to appease a client.
I would guess the newspaper is replete with examples where it published without permission private emails.
lucia, thanks for digging all that up on the FBI regulations. Very interesting.If it’s an unsanctioned disclosure, then it’s a leak.
Tom Scharf—I discovered a later article on WaPo which has an updated at the bottom:
So Comey leaked (in my opinion of course) illegally (with the caveat that the DOJ did not sanction it), and he does not have appear to have protected status.
Carrick,
My reading suggests it is. But the lawyers might snag the whole thing and interpret it better.
I’m trying to unpack things we know. The following are just bread crumbs to keep track:
Feinstein & committee write Comey’s “friend” for copy of memo
https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=press-releases&id=1ECCF24B-B0ED-4785-8125-711875DD6BF3
Contains links to letters to FBI and assorted history of the committee trying to get stuff.
Carrick,
I should also add: Willis dug it up. I just read his tweets and found it that way. Twitter is a good place to find stuff– real, fake and real-but-misleading.
Carrick,
Unless evidence is produced showing Comey either 1) outright lied multiple times during his testimony, or 2) he is a serial child molester, or 3) both, nobody is going to prosecute him. He skates under the ‘too big to jail’ rule.
Lucia,
Willis did, but law professor Johnathan Turley wrote a column shortly after Comey’s written statment was released and drew the same conclusions, referencing the same statutes and condition of employment rules. I don’t know who wrote first, Willis or Turley. 😉
In either case, Comey almostly certainly is theoretically in jeopardy, but still, nobody is going to prosecute Comey over trying to damage Trump…. that makes him a hero to half the country.
What I mean to convey is that I didn’t do much digging. I got it from Willis. I don’t know if Willis got it from Turley or found it himself. But anyway, Carrick thanked, me. It’s nice to be thanked. I should go thank willis. 🙂
Lucia,
“It’s nice to be thanked.”
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Thank you for hosting this blog…. and not allowing rhetorical questions.
SteveF: “He skates under the ‘too big to jail’ rule.”
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So is there any place for “professional courtesy?” Is such a thing corrupt at its core? I am sure a lot of officials and lawyers would like to know. The founders gave a too big to jail clause for the President. I believe the reason was to keep opponents from attempting to paralyze the government. Does any of that trickle down?
SteveF,
I agree with you that legal jeopardy is theoretical.. We have been discussing whether the disclosure was a “leak”. All that requires is “unauthorized”. (Although, I am running across articles that try to say it’s not a “leak” if it’s not classified or illegal and it’s clear they mean criminal. But that’s nonsense. The word “leak” applies to any disclosure that is unauthorized. That doesn’t necessarily mean criminal. You or I could have a contract– violation wouldn’t amount to anything criminal, it’s civil. A disclosure that is unauthorized in the civil sense is a leak.
I go further can call things leaks when the lack of authorization is merely “tradition” or “violation of norm”. But not everyone goes that far. That’s ok.
But here: here, we don’t have to go so far as my definition. This appears to be at least a violation of FBI employment agreement. That’s enough to make it a leak. And since FBI is a fed office it appear t be against the law which looks like it escalate to “illegal leak”.
So… looks like a “leak” to me.
Will Comey be charged? Almost certainly not. Not even if he’s guilty.
I have no particular problem with prosecutorial discretion. But it would be rather ironic that COMEY isn’t charged for that reason while, somehow the issues with Trump wanting investigation of Flynn dropped would also be legit if we recognize that Trump is, ultimately, boss of FBI and has just as much right to said discretintion. (Even if he is a poo-poo head and you hate his ass like I do.)
Exposing private emails while working for the taxpayer is controversial, I come down on the “I paid for it, I get to see it” side. Ultimately they just start communicating via outside channels as Clinton did.
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The bigger matter is scientists (not just climate science) who work on taxpayer funded grants that refuse to share their data with other scientists or refuse FOI requests. There is no justification for this from a taxpayer’s point of view. I get it that they consider this part of their ongoing blood, sweat, and tears career effort and don’t want to give it to others for free, but the taxpayer wants to see the most efficient progress possible with their funds.
Comey might get charged if they try to bring “Trumped up” charges against Trump over “I hope”. The thing Trump has going for him here is they didn’t charge Clinton for some clear letter of the law violations, and if they refuse to even look at Comey it’s going to start looking rather partisan.
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If the FBI then goes after the president on some letter of the law violations that are “get in his head” judgment based, it will infuriate half of America. Most analysts agree he can’t be charged while in office but it would be used as a basis (excuse) to impeach if the left gets control of Congress in 2018.
Lucia: “…Trump is, ultimately, boss of FBI and has just as much right to said discretion.”
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Loretta Lynch was also Comey’s boss. Did Comey have the right to refuse the attorney general’s (his direct report) requests? I think the answer is it depends on content. If the directive is deemed improper the answer would be “yes.” Is a request to change the FBI’s messaging on HRC emails an improper favor to the HRC campaign? I think one could argue “yes.” Is Trump’s giving a character reference for Flynn while under investigation proper? Maybe.
Trump might be smarmy, but the head of the FBI openly leaking stuff to the NYT just doesn’t look good. My faith in governmental institutions hasn’t improved since Nov 8th.
Lucia,
“Even if he is a poo-poo head and you hate his ass like I do.”
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Please don’t hold back. Tell us what you really think.😉
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I would never suggest Trump doesn’t have many character flaws, and I understand why it seems few eople actually like him. For me, Trump was purely a hold-your-nose vote, and most others in the Republican primary field were far more competent (and likeable). But they were not on the ballot last November. My vote for Trump was actually very selfish: I could not have endured listening for 4 years to Hillary speeches; having my teeth drilled without novocaine would be much easirer to take.
>Detals of what happened in the meeting is information acquired by virtue of my official employment it is also related to FBI files. It is definitely “related to†the contents of the Memo to File which Comey wrote and deposited in the file.
So would explaining what type of coffee he had in the morning at the FBI.
There is further detail after the signature page.
PROHIBITED DISCLOSURES
Employees shall not disclose the following types of information to unauthorized recipients…(I’ve removed some of them)
Information protected from disclosure by the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended;
Information that is classified or the disclosure of which could harm national security;
Information that reveals sensitive law enforcement, … techniques…;
Information that would reveal grand jury material…
Information that would tend to reveal the identity of a confidential source…
Information that relates to any sensitive operational details or the substantive merits of any ongoing or open investigation or case;
Information pertaining to wiretaps or intercepts, electronic communications (including storage mechanisms), or foreign intelligence…
Any other information the disclosure of which is prohibited by law, Executive Order, or regulation; or Any other information that the FBI would have discretion to withhold from disclosure pursuant to civil discovery obligations, the Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act, or any other statute, law, or regulation.
Willis applies the last provision(to the NYT leak), so any conversations with the President cannot be relayed to anyone. I think it is an enormous stretch.
For the second time in 9 days, CNN fires someone for their anti-Trump behavior
CNN Drops Reza Aslan Over His Vulgar Criticism of Trump
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/09/business/media/cnn-drops-reza-aslan-following-vulgar-criticism-of-trump.html
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It’s pretty amazing these people don’t know any better.
@Lucia,
The smart money is with you when you say “It appears tax simplification is not going to happen.” Maybe tax cuts won’t happen either in which case forget about growing the economy by 3% per year. However, we have all underestimated Trump on many occasions……..
I was sure that Trump would not “Pull Out of Paris” but he surprised me and maybe you too.
The Lame Stream Media continues to underestimate Trump. He makes them look like idiots time after time but they still have not figured out what he is doing.
Look at how the Comey bombshell turned into a dud as Lisa Frank explains here:
http://www.thetribunepapers.com/2017/05/24/trump-dropped-the-hammer-on-comey-part-1/
Trump was able to provoke the media with a couple of tweets knowing he would be proven right once again. Trump has nothing to fear from the media given their inability to figure out that they are being played.
Trump’s real problems are his lukewarm “friends”. They are not as predictable as the media. You don’t see Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell or Paul Ryan fighting for the Trump agenda, much less for Trump himself.
I have high hopes for the “Freedom Caucus”. They are not fair weather friends…..they supported Trump from the start.
Trump is an innovator. Nicolo Machiavelli explains the travails of such people in Chapter VI of “The Prince” published in 1532:
“Those who by valorous ways become princes, like these men, acquire a principality with difficulty, but they keep it with ease. The difficulties they have in acquiring it rise in part from the new rules and methods which they are forced to introduce to establish their government and its security. And it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them. Thus it happens that whenever those who are hostile have the opportunity to attack they do it like partisans, whilst the others defend lukewarmly, in such wise that the prince is endangered along with them.”
Thus you have the lukewarm GOP wilting under attacks from the establishment (DEMS, RINOs, banks, media, academia, big business, judicial activists and on and on). Against such powerful opposition it will take at least a year for Trump to gain control but after that he will win a second term with ease.
SteveF,
Oh. I understand. As much as I shake my head at Trump and wish Thor would fling his hammer and take him out I never wish Hillary was President.
Galloping.
We’ll see what happens with taxes.
Ron,
Trumps “hope” about Flynn may or may not have been improper. But, generically, he still has at least as much right to exercise prosecutorial discretion as Comey or Lynch.
FWIW: I’m not going to assume Comey or Lynch always correctly exercised prosecutorial. But there are some (and I’m not suggesting you) who seem to believe that Trump has no right to exercise prosecutorial discretion. In fact he has. And, absent evidence of his exercising corruption when exercising it, his discretion goes.
So far, I haven’t read any evidence to support an accusation that Trump has corrupt motives in wanting further investigation into Flynn dropped. Generally those who try to may the case seem to think the “evidence” the request was corrupt was merely that it was made. Or the want to just ignore that the request is not obstruction of justice unless the motive was corrupt.
Neither of those approaches make the case that Trump did anything wrong. Doing “X” is not evidence that “Y” was the motive for doing X, particuarly when there are many possible motives for doing X.
Mind you: The lack of evidence he had an impure motive, is not evidence he didn’t have one. But our justice system doesn’t work that way. Someone has to identify the specific impure motive and find actual evidence Trump had that motive.
Lucia, this thing is not over. Flynn could have been directed by Trump to set up a back channel, which in any other presidency would be shrewd statecraft, but in the current environment would be circumstantial evidence of collusion.
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Also, we are waiting to know if Trump has a tape of the private meeting. If Trump does and it shows Comey’s testimony to be colored even mildly it would lead to the following:
1) Comey prosecution.
2) Re-energizing Trump supporters.
3) MSM vilification of Trump for nefariously entrapping Comey.
4) Chill deep state actors.
5) Impress the heck out of geopolitical chess-master Putin.
Ron Graf,
Unless said tapes, if they exist, showed blatant outright lies in Comey’s testimony, he will never be prosecuted for anything.
WRT tax reform (and every other substantive issue): Democrats in Congress are using the investigating-Trump/Russia-all-the-time strategy to delay action on the substantive issues. Same as delaying for as long as possible Trump’s nominees. They probably figure that if they can delay any real changes in taxes, health care, etc. until the 2018 elections, then they may gain control of at least one chamber, and so be able to block all changes for the remainder of Trump’s term. The faux hysteria in Congress about Russia is utterly dishonest; Democrat leaders have known for months that the FBI was never investing Trump for collusion with Russia, but have continued the beat the “stolen election” drum without stop. It seems they are both dishonest and incapable of shame.
Ron
I didn’t say it was over. I am hoping for tapes. I’ve always wanted to be a bug on the wall, and tapes are the next best thing.
I have no theory about which version of the story the tapes will support. Both men are yucky.
Tom Scharf:
I’m fully on the side of “if the emails relate to work you are doing for the public, and it doesn’t contain classified or confidential material, the public owns them and has a right to view them.” (There’s some emails of mine published in a book, so this isn’t a theoretical on my part.)
I’m curious what it is that people are trying to hide, when they don’t want them seen (well, not with the climategate stuff, it’s obvious some of these people were acting in poor faith even before we saw their emails).
Carrick,
I suppose that people just don’t want to be embarrassed by their emails. I’m sure I have written things in emails that I would not want published. I think the issue is really two-fold: Personal information (‘my wife is suffering terrible depression’) is sometimes going to find its way into work emails. People would never want that kind of information published, even if the email really is ‘owned’ by your employer; I think that desire is perfectly understandable. The second is that they don’t want anyone to see the ‘warts and all’ information: the kinds of things that were common in the UEA emails. One would be hard pressed to read those emails and not conclude there were some very unscrupulous actors involved. My take is that you simply should not put anything in a work related email that you would not want your employer to read. In the case of publicly funded reseachers, the employer is the public… so public employees should never put anything in an email which they would not want the public to read. Act in good faith, and you will have nothing to hide.
SteveF: I do think personal emails, even sent from a work computer, should not be considered public. Those would fall under “confidential”. Similarly, discussions about future projects and other privileged information (like performance of students working under you).
The UEA emails went beyond simply the usual warts, that is problems with software that people were trying to step around, that weren’t as reliable as they needed to be. These should be shared because they speak to the reliability of the work.
But generally this is a good prescription: “public employees should never put anything in an email which they would not want the public to read”. If you want to vent about a colleague use a different medium, because it actually is informative to see how animus affects the character of scientific rebuttals.
The recommendation I give is “always write work emails as if there’s a person looking over your shoulder. ” Once you send the email, you’ve lost any personal control of who can ultimately see that email.
Carrick,
The problem with screening personal emails is can you trust the one who redacts? HRC’s self filtering was very untrustworthy. Given the opportunity the usual suspects would purge their embarrassing climategate emails. I don’t want to know about somebody’s colon exams.
Ha ha. Don’t expect this poll result to get much coverage.
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Select the two most important issues to you:
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Healthcare – 45%
Economy – 39%
Immigration – 21%
Environment – 18%
Way Things Work In DC – 12%
Trump / Russia – 12%
Social Issues – 11%
Guns – 8%
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Trump / Russia 12% (Clinton Voters 26%, Trump Voters 2%, 3rd party – 11%)
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To make this more explicit, only 1 out of 4 Clinton Voters put Trump / Russia in their TOP TWO issues.
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As expected, the HuffPost isn’t going out of their way to highlight this. Paragraph 20:
“Few Americans rate the story as a top worry. Just 12 percent of Americans picked President Trump’s relationship with Russia as one of the two issues they find most important”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/poll-americans-trust-james-comey-over-trump_us_593c4814e4b0b13f2c6b1b69
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The inside the beltway / outside the beltway disconnect is stark.
Tom,
And what do progressives carry on about: Trump/Russia, social issues (transgender rights, micro-aggressions, subconscious racism, etc), climate, and gun control. And they wonder why they keep losing elections.