I’ll be participating in a competition next week. I’m on pin-and-needles for an odd reason. I don’t have any idea how I am going to do because my doctor diagnosed a physical problem I didn’t suspect. In retrospect, I know that ailment was making my dancing sub-par. And I was in the weird position of “knowing how to do more”, but “not being able to sustain anything”. What was the ailment? Hypothyroid.
While untreated, I was often very tired. (The complaint that motivated checking my thyroid was that I worried I would fall asleep while driving.)
Treatment with levothyroxine fixes the symptoms which is beneficial to my dancing and a multitude of ways I never would have expected (and I won’t to into). But, of course, bad habits I was unable to correct didn’t get corrected instantly. So I’m in a weird place where I can do things I didn’t do, but I need practice time in my “new state”.
I do feel sorry for my two dance teachers who had to deal with a student who can’t sustain energy, has trouble responding to leads, yada, yada. One of the teachers noticed the difference in these things less than 24 hours after I took my first pill! But owing to how recently I was diagnosed and my teachers competition schedule which involved a week long trip to Blackpool England, my amount of practice time in the “new state” is limited. So, maybe actually having energy and so on will allow me to reign victorious over all the other women of a certain age dancing in my events. Or maybe lack of practice or tallent…. We’ll see. (Either way, doesn’t really matter.)
Anyway, I realized I hadn’t bragged about one of my teachers and his wife. They won Professional Rising Star American Smooth at the nationals last year. After you win this, you can’t compete it again. It is the second highest level for winning in the US. Professional American ___ category__ is the highest. I couldn’t find a video of the national championships, but there are local championships all year. You can see Vlad and Brianna dancing Tango and Foxtrot below. Vlad is 111 and Brianna is in the green dress.
I think you will agree I lucked into getting him as a teacher. I’ll be dancing pro-Am with him this upcoming Thursday and Friday. He’ll probably do his best to drag me to the finish line (just like the pros on Dancing With the Stars.)
Open Thread. Do feel free to ask things about Ballroom Dance, (like: What is “Professional Smooth”? ) but as always, straying is entirely acceptable.
Take care. Is needing the levothyroxine long-term or will this problem work itself out?
Russell,
It’s probably long term. It’s one tiny pill a day. The changes are amazing. Admittedly, I’m reporting from a sample of 1 and my interpretation is not double blind. But… amazing.
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As I told my teachers: If this is placebo effect, bring it on!
OMG! This is an exact duplicate even the voice… “This is not Morgan Freeman – A Deepfake Singularity”
https://youtu.be/oxXpB9pSETo
Best of luck, Lucia.
I tested a lot of people for thyroid problems over the years but the pick up rate for hypothyroidism is fairly low.
Response can be quick or slow but two friends of mine had massive improvements in their life quickly with treatment.
There are tests for the actual T3, T4 levels and a TSH [Thyroid Stimulating Hormone] which goes to high levels in thyroid deficiency and returns to normal when well.
All in all a new lease of life.
Well congrats Lucia! Great to hear you got that sorted out and have more energy. I’m a little jealous honestly. I could use more energy for sure. I’d have it if I’d make some time to exercise I bet. Oh well.
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Good luck on your competition! Does your competition involve American Smooth? What is that exactly anyway, I googled it briefly but didn’t quite get a single consistent answer.
Levothyroxine was a life changer for me. Hope it works just as well for you.
angech
I had two of those. My TSH was sky-high. The T4 (I think) was just on the inside edge. The doctor thought that and the constant tiredness was sufficient to try the levothyroxine.
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After I took it and googled, I realized I had some of the other symptoms. (Not all of them though.)
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There are things that have changed that are not on the symptoms list. But you can hardly expect: “Has stupendous difficulty identifying the ‘real’ signal in an ambiguous lead during social dancing.” And so on.
mark,
Yes. My combination involves American Smooth and American Rythmn and some “club dances”.
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As for what is “American Smooth”. To understand, you must first know that there are two major competition “styles” for what you might consider “ballroom” dances ( Watlz, Tango, Foxtrot and two more.) These are International-Standard and American Smooth.
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From what I understand, “International Standard” was first standardized by teachers in Europe (mostly Germany and the UK). The teachers had sort of decided competitions would be great for marketing, and they came up with rules for what was allowed and what was not. The main way to recognize a couple is dancing this is they will be in closed hold— which is to say, ladies left hand on mans shoulder, mans right hand on her back. Other two hands clasped together.
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American Smooth was first developed by people promoting social dance as a business model. These people were Fred Astaire and Arthur Murray. They came up with a style that allows people to sort of get dancing tolerably well even if they weren’t yet stupendous. Oddly, once it’s done at a very, very high level, this is also a very expressive style (and when you see below, you will likely recognize that it makes sense Fred Astaire was one of the promoters of this style.
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Below, you’ll see a “dance off” with two couples. Both are dancing foxtrot. The couple in blue is dancing “American Smooth”. The other couple is dancing “International aka Standard”.
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[Is] the sequence of dance moves choreographed or improvised by the couples on the spot?
In pro competitions and even most pro-am, the competitors use choreographed routines. It’s a weird balance because you still need to do the lead and follow because to do things properly needs energy to transfer between the couples. They aren’t just each dancing their part independently while looking like a copule.
Plus, s**t happens on the dance floor. But the dancers in these routines have definitely choreographed a routine. Good leads (and follows to an extent) need to make decisions to change things when something goes awry.
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Likely, the partners worked out quick choreography when they switched.
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Of the four dancers here, I’ve met David Hamilton who is dancing lead for the American Smooth couple. He lives in Tennessee and coaches. He’s a very nice guy.
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Social dancing on the other hand is definitely lead-follow. Jim is at his now and will be away until late Sunday. I’ll get asked by other guys at the studio party. No way will I know in advance what they are going to lead. Let me tell you… levothyroxine magically turned these guys into much better leads.
Mark,
I should add, that the entire choreo is made up of “elements” which are often called “figures”. There are books describing standard figures, and ballroom dancers learn these. Both choreography and social dancing will involve assembling figures.
The dance levels for pro-am competition get called “closed or open Bronze”, “closed or open Silver”, “closed or open Gold”, “Open” and sometimes “Rising Star”. The Closed Bronze competitions require the dancers to stick to figures in a “bronze-syllabus” which are more “beginner” figures. Open-Bronze allows any figure you like, but you enter it if you are “Bronze level” (whatever that might mean.)
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WRT to “Open” with no metal, that’s higher than if you read “Open Bronze”. They can do any figure they like– though there are still rules so that Waltz isn’t the same as Foxtrot. (Well, one is danced to 3/4 music and the other 4/4. But still.).
Thanks Lucia. That’s really interesting. I had no idea dance was so complicated (although in hind sight, I don’t know why I didn’t realize this in the first place).
~grins~ I’ll bet!
mark,
There are certain competitions called “jack and jill” which are definitely not choreographed. You enter solo. They organizer pull names out of a hat, and you dance with whoever you are assigned to dance with. This is popular in West Coast Swing. Here’s a recent WCS jack and jill final. It is not choreographed. I don’t know if they won.
This is Jim’s teacher at a WCS jack and jill’s contest. It’s not choreographed.
That is amazing.
Lucia, mike m.,
You both expressed an interest in this topic:
June 1. “Russian anti-Putin partisans said they were conducting a raid on the town of Shebekino a little over four miles across the Ukrainian border in Belgorod province” article includes a video of fires:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/01/anti-putin-partisans-shell-russian-town
To verify, I co-located it on the NASA fire map and indeed the little town has had a dozen or so fires in the last two days. Screenshot:
https://twitter.com/rklier21/status/1664842829816901633?s=20
Further confirmation, A Ukrainian “Defence Worker” that I follow, Maria Drutska, has a video post from the Russian Volunteer Corp fighters in the town. She has been a fairly reliable source in the past.
https://twitter.com/maria_drutska/status/1664161275591442433?s=20
Note the Russians acknowledge shelling the invaders so the cause of the fires is anybody’s guess.
Scary times: https://unherd.com/2023/06/why-putin-will-use-nuclear-weapons/
Yes. very scary.
SteveF (Comment #221860): “Scary times”.
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The article never seems to actually explain why Putin will use nukes. It is just a bunch of assumptions. It is not at all clear that nukes would advance Putin’s objectives.
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From what little I know of such things, it seems that tactical nukes are mainly useful as defensive weapons due to the difficulties of advancing into areas that have been nuked and of having such areas in one’s rear.
Mike M.
You are correct. It’s still scary.
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To some extent, war is always scary.
Yes, that is all speculation on nukes, nothing new there. Ukraine is escalating a bit with directs attacks further and further into Russian territory. I speculate that is just to instill some fear into the locals, a mass civilian casualty event inside Russia will change the game, not that they don’t deserve a little of that themselves.
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Russia losing is definitely scarier than Russian winning. Putin won’t behave rationally when the locals start rising up.
What do all you defenders of freedom think of the rash of states banning child sexual mutilation [aka gender-affirming care for minors]? Shouldn’t this be a matter between a patient and his or her [or its] doctor?
And you certainly don’t want the parents mucking things up by being informed.
Map of 18 states with bans:
https://twitter.com/rklier21/status/1665031079017734147?s=20
Russell Klier (Comment #221865),
Sarcasm? Always hard to tell on the internet.
Mike M.
“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but the highest form of intelligence.”
– Oscar Wilde
Sarcasm is my default mode. I do not need the (Sar) modifier.
Russell,
Good Sarcasm may require a high form of intelligence. However, it is a poor form of argument. Especially if it come in the form of sarcastic rhetorical questions.
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I invite you to answer your own questions. I’ve been lax about the rule for rhetorical questions: But that is the rule. If you ask on, you should answer it.
I think surgery and medications of this kind for minors should de illegal. I think any discussions of transition with a minor without the knowledge of the parents should be a crime.
(No sarcasm, and it was painful)
I can’t say if Putin using nuclear weapons is likely, but it is obviously possible.
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The almost endless “Ukraine will win” rhetoric, combined with drone attacks on Russia’s leadership (Kremlin) means the use of nuclear weapons becomes more likely. If Putin is facing a significant advance by the Ukrainian military in the east and southeast, it seems to me more likely he will ‘go nuclear’ to stop it.
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Do the USA and Europe really want to get into a nuclear exchange with Russia? Because if Russia uses nuclear weapon to win agains the Ukraine, then we could either accept that, or run the risk if a holocaust. Scary times indeed.
Russell,
I agree. And I don’t think that restriction is a problem for “defenders of freedom”. We’ve always had restrictions on minors due to the fact that humans need to mature from the time they are babies due to when they are adults. Maturation is an ongoing process, and fuzzy. But we need a legal boundary and the current one for full adulthood is mostly 18 yo. Except drinking which is 21.
We do sometimes have certain rights kick in or remove certain protections at earlier ages. but 18 is sort of “the” age for most rights.
I don’t see not allowing people to undergo irreversible surgery or medical treatment for anything other than objective deformities or injuries before 18 as a major problem for liberty. (Cleft pallet? Sure, you fix that.)
> certain rights
Implicitness extends beyond rhetorical questions.
Hi Willard.
So what?
Willard… sure. I didn’t give a list of rights or protections. As I mentioned, drinking rights kick in at 21, not 18.
The list of “certain” rights varied:
* the age when one had the right to marry without parental consent used to vary a a lot from state to state. It’s now largely 18.
* the right to drive (after testing) is still 16 in my state.
* right (or protection) depending on how we view it to work is different for those under 16 and those above that. Those above 18 can work more than 8 hours a day, more than 6 days a week and more than 48 hours a week. (You decide if that is a right or protection.)
* in Illinois at least, truancy laws apply to minors with different things applying at different ages. Also, those less than 21 have a right to enroll in k-12 provided they didn’t graduate.
* 21 is the minimum age to buy a gun in Illinois. (I don’t know if that will persist given gun-rights court cases in the pipe-line. But I suspect if 21 gets thrown out, some age limit will be allowed.)
* Juveniles (<18) are generally charged in juvenile court and if convicted go to different prisons.
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There are quite a few age based rights and/or protections. Common marker ages are 14, 15, 18, 20, 21. But 18 is currently a "biggie". I'm unable to give a full list. The notion that juveniles can have different rights or protections from adults is not, itself, remotely novel. The only question is what is the correct age for a specific right to be given to a person? People can differ on the answer, and the answer can be different for different questions.
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But you can't just suggest that calling the full list "certain rights" is being uninformative. Most readers will be aware of several rights that are age based even if you, I or others might not be aware of what the full list is.
Lucia,
Yeah, there are always incomplete ideas at the boundaries of what we express – things that are not relevant to the point we are trying to make.
For example, perhaps I relate a story about something I discussed at breakfast, but I fail to mention what I had for breakfast. Hmm, it wasn’t relevant to the point, but I could remedy it anyway and say. But then perhaps I’ve failed to detail where I ate breakfast, or what time. I could fix that. Still, I’ve neglected to mention whether or not I enjoyed the food. …
So what.
Mark,
Yes. I did chose to be implicit about the rights that kick in with age because I assumed most people know there were a number that did. Having grown up passing through them, I was very aware that I couldn’t get a driver’s license before 16. But I’m glad to list them if asked (either implicitly, as Willard did, or directly).
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My issue with rhetorical question is they often try to make a rather long argument implicitly. What that argument is usually not obvious. And if the reader assumes they meant X, the writer of the question will claim they meant something else. So it’s confusion.
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Maybe people didn’t understand what the “certain rights” were. I’m glad to elaborate.
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I’m actually very happy willard is commenting– he’s actually helping me find problems with my plugin which for the time being should be called the “Ron moderation plugin”. But I hadn’t deleted willards parameters and his two comments have helped me find issues.
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(I’ll be happy to take willard out of the plugin if he wants. But…well… for now, I have to admit to taking advantage of the convenience that his comments are testing some issues. I fixed a “upper/lower case” issue just now. If he wants to post longer comments, I’ll take him out of it though….)
That is rather charitable of you. Ok.
~grins~ I’d feel more justified in complaining to him that the terseness of his responses renders his point impenetrable if he was able to make longer posts. But I doubt it’d make any difference ultimately.
Yes. Currently, he is in the moderation list. I think he knows he is because I think I thanked him for helping me test a new feature. He’s certainly smart enough to know that implies he is still on the list.
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We certainly can’t criticize him for posting terse comments when he anticipates being moderated. (I don’t want to discuss the two bugs his recent two comments identified. Willard never committed the unspoken sin of intentionally trying to work around the plugin. But others might, so revealing too much about the bugs might help them.)
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Let us just say
* “in_array($word, $array)” is different from “in_array(strtolower($word), $array)”. And
* DateTime objects differ from unix time.
I should add: Willard has expanded my vocabulary.
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He used the word “JAQing” around– “just asking questions -ing ” around. Which I love. (I suspect he may have coined it? It’s a great word. ) He also used the word and phrase “peddling” and “playing the ref”. They are great terms for describing annoying debating tactics at blogs.
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You can see I asked him the definitions at the end of this post:
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2023/03/13/the-origins-debate/#comment-218454
The main issue here is about parent’s rights in my opinion. The thinking among some activists was to allow minor transitions without informing the parents, and that was level 10 off the rails. There are plenty of bad parents out there, but there are also plenty of bad “officials” who make up crazy rules such as not informing the parents.
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If it has to be resolved by legislation, so be it. That this was a crazy idea should have been obvious from the beginning. The worst part is it makes people rightfully paranoid about what else these crazy people are doing in the name of our children. It turns out that if you turn over 100 rocks a couple of them are going to be crazy rocks, that is the essence of our civilization.
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You have to keep the militant activists far away from your cause once progress has been made and some goals achieved.
Lucia,
Actually RationalWiki attributes the term JAQing to Marquis de Carabas in 2002. Of course for all I know Willard might also be Marquis de Carabas.
Shrug.
mark,
I didn’t look it up. Should have. Thanks.
Alright. I’ll behave.
mark… I went on a hunt to find other things. I recall “sea lioning” which is also here:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions
That one always drove me wild, because the name seemed so arbitrary. I mean, sea lion. Seriously. How do people come up with these names.
I give Willard credit. ‘Climateball’ is a good one. Memorable, pertinent and comprehensible.
[Edit: Maybe there are well known attributes of actual sea lions that make this term obvious. I know squat about sea lions, so..]
Sadly, doesn’t look like Ron is going to answer the questions, but I would have to say that I found 13
“Do you think we should “make [abortion] laws restrictive enough to nudge [pregnant or non-pregnant women’s] behavior in what the collective agrees is a beneficial direction”?”
pretty interesting. (Others were simple “no” from me)
In one sense, it seems to be a case of more general ” Do you think we should make laws tough enough to nudge behaviour in what the collective agrees is a beneficial direction?” Which of is what the collective does all the time (prisons limit individual liberty of those do things that the collective thinks are bad). There were 2 interesting bits to me.
Should this be decided by the majority (which I guess is the key point in Supreme court overturning Roe.v.Wade – abortion isnt a right)? This is certainly a viewpoint that I have sympathy for as this seems to be key point of democracy.
And the second point is what behaviour might restrictive laws be trying to alter? Apparently not abortion itself so how much is it tut tut about sex outside marriage, and belief that if you do it, then you should suffer the consequences (though apparently only the woman suffers the consequences, not the man)?
Phil,
Do you have kids, out of curiosity?
Mark – sure, one of each.
Thanks Phil! It was just the ‘suffers the consequence’ talk that made me wonder.
Mark, could you explain further? Just to be perfectly clear, I am totally against a restrictive abortion law where the primary framing of it is to make a women suffer the consequences of illicit sex.
Explain further? I wasn’t engaging your point; I stay out of the abortion debate. I was merely curious if you had children because of the way you phrased your post.
This said, perhaps it’s not about the collective nudging anyone, but rather finding the proper line between the Mom’s rights and the developing baby’s rights.
Can I add this though. Are there really any significant number of people left anywhere in this day and age who care about unmarried people having sex? I rather doubt it. I’m sure there are some. I doubt there are enough to bother about.
Mark, I agree with you on ” finding the proper line between the Mom’s rights and the developing baby’s rights.” That is what abortion debate should be about rather than undertones on sexual morality. With so many special cases and differing individual circumstances, I would hope for a fairly broad line. Ie edge cases decided by panel with broad guidelines.
Thanks Phil. Likewise, I am all for keeping the law out of the bedrooms of consenting adults. I don’t think adults should be ‘nudged’ regarding their sexuality either, provided their activities are constrained to other living consenting adult human beings and not conducted in public.
You know what? Maybe I am wrong. This is 10 years old, but:
Maybe I’m full of cheese whiz. It’s been known to happen.
[Edit: Maybe I am wrong about Are there really any significant number of people left anywhere in this day and age who care about unmarried people having sex? I rather doubt it., in case it wasn’t obvious.]
mark bofill,
Not many people in the US think sex between unmarried people should be criminal. A few may. We stopped enforcing laws against nonmarital sex long before they were eliminated. Even adultery is not pursued much in the US though I think some laws may still exist somewhere. I know some states have alienation of affection laws. But really, the number of people who think sex between consenting adults should be crimimilized in any situation is rather small.
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Some people in other countries think it should be illegal. But even in those countries, sometimes the laws are ignored. (My understanding is prostitution is rampant on big cities in Quatar.).
Mark, I haven’t seen much of this debate for a long time, but I noticed then that if someone raised the fairly negative consequences of severely restrictive abortion laws on the woman then you could guarantee that some anti-abortionist would blurt out something like “should have kept her legs closed!”. I get the impression that the attitude is still common, but those holding such views are more likely to try and couch their objections in more “acceptable” arguments.
Phil,
I would have the same follow on questions. Would the behavior you want to nudge be “Be more careful about birth control?” or “Abstain if you don’t want to get pregnant?” Or “make decisions about abortion in greater haste just ‘cuz we want you to hurry up and decide”? or “increase the birth rate?”
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But to ask those we need to know if someone really wants to use the time limit for abortion to nudge any behavior at all.
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Ron did bring up the notion of setting the legal time limit for abortion to nudge some sort of unspecified behavior the “collective” wants. (I found “collective” an interesting choice of words btw.) So it strikes me as fair to ask if he really means it. If the answer is “no”… then he has been misunderstood. Because it would be odd to bring it up if you think ‘nudging’ women’s behavior is something we need to think about if you don’t think that’s a good, fair, or rightful mechanism to nudge..
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If the answer to the “nudge” question is “yes” we can explore further. But for now, we really only need a yes/no answer to see if Ron was misunderstood and learn if he really thinks that it is. If it’s no…. there is no point in discussing more.
Phil
I should add: this is precisely where the allusions to “war on women” come up. Ron complained people used this (though no one here did so.)
Bot of the reason for laws to make the consequences of pregnancy harder on women is “tut-tut you had sex”, and nudge them to not have sex, that’s one of the elements people who use the “war on women” are accusing abortion opponents of pushing. So if this is a reason for pushing it, it is ridiculous to complain people then perceive you as “waging a war on women”. Yeah… it’s an evocative slogan. But that’s what it’s implying– no one is implying someone is rounding up women and shooting them.
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Likewise if the reason is to increase the supply of babies for couples who want them, or for “the collective”, that is going to be seen as thinking it’s ok to treat women as “baby factories” who must produce for the benefit of others.
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But it’s not worth getting into that until we know if Ron really thinks these should be considered when setting the time limit on abortion. Maybe he has been misunderstood and his answer is no.
Phil
Yes. In overturning Roe v. Wade and it’s progeny, the court rules abortion is not a legal right guaranteed by the Federal constitution. That returns it to legislatures.
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Whether the federal government can make a law about that would remain to be seen.
As currently aligned, most social and fiscal conservatives have been saying the federal government is (or should be) limited, so consistency would dictate they view this as not a federal issue. That would mean not pushing a any federal law on abortion, whether pro or anti. (Though I’m not a social conservative, I lean toward less federal powers. So I’m against a federal law in either direction.)
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Many liberals (both social and economic) liberals support broader federal powers. So consistency could allow them to be for a federal law that applies uniformly across the country. But in that case, they would want the law to be the one they “like”. (If any such federal law passes, that’s going to be a big “states right-federalism” case. The discussions will involve words like “commerce clause”. )
Phil
I too have heard and read people say that. I don’t know how common it is. But it is out there.
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This is different from advocating criminalizing sex, but it does seem to be a desire to punish sex or “nudge” people to not have sex. And the “nudge” involves penalizing women much, much more than men.
Yeah. I withdraw my questioning of this. Just my bubble I guess.
Phil Scadden (Comment #221890): “I am totally against a restrictive abortion law where the primary framing of it is to make a women suffer the consequences of illicit sex.”
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I have never heard that framing other than from pro-abortion people.
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Conservatives do point out that individuals should accept the consequences of their actions. And that pregnancy is a foreseeable consequence of sex. And that there are ways to prevent that consequence, some more reliable than others. And that the baby is a totally innocent human being. And that none of that depends on whether the sex is inside or outside of marriage.
MikeM
I have. My mother-in-law when she was alive. Some guys I knew in college. It may not be common. But it’s not non-existent.
Sure. But some people assume that only unmarried women want abortions. So if they say something about keeping legs crossed and also assume she is unmarried, then the sentiment is related to controlling unmarried women.
There is a correlation between being staunchly against abortion and also being against pre-marital sex. The Catholics are even against contraception. It’s a different moral framework, not too popular now, but it was very popular decades ago. Maybe popular is the wrong word. These people get to vote like everyone else.
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Abortion isn’t a right as the US Constitution is written, and it certainly wasn’t likely the founders wanted it to be a right back then. Whether it should be a right is another story. I’d vote for it to be a right.
Tom,
There is definitely a correlation. Voting for what you believe is fine; that’s why we vote.
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But also, if we are debating or trying to explain a position and persuade, what that position actually is matters. And since, politically, reasons underlying those position extend to adjacent matters, those discussing positions want to know what the reasons for the position actually are.
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So I think it is legitimate to ask whether or not a persons position is that we can or should make abortion illegal in order to nudge a person into some sort of other behavior? Or at least it is legitimate if that person says something that suggest they might believe it is a reason. (Otherwise, honestly, I wouldn’t think to ask it.)
And if they think ‘nudging’ is legitimate then, then we can move onto what behavior we are trying to “nudge”. We do know one of the behaviors some people might be trying to nudge is avoiding premarital sex because many of use have meet at least one person who wants to do that. (e.g. My mother-in-law). And we know entire religions who want to nudge that behavior. (e.g. Roman Catholics. My mother in law was a Roman Catholic. ) That doesn’t mean their reason for being pro-life is they want to nudge abstinence. But the only way to know an individual’s position on using abortion as “the nudge” is to ask the individual.
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Now, I wouldn’t if “nudging” is their reason if they didn’t say something to suggest it is their reason. Because I don’t think using abortion as “the nudge” is a widespread position. I think most people who are pro-life hold that view because they consider terminating the pregnancy to be murder– they don’t hold that view because they want to punish women or “nudge” people. I could be wrong– but I think Mike M’s perception that no pro-life people hold the “nudge” view is likely because few do. Few enough that he thinks he’s never heard any pro-life person express it. And if he knows a lot of pro-life people and no one ever said it, he’d be reasonable to infer that none of them think “nudging sexual behavior” is a reason to set abortion policy.
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But the “nudge” view not zero. Right here on this blog, Ron brought nudging up as a reason to consider when setting the legal time limit for abortion. He did so without specifying what behavior he wants to “nudge”. So we have reason to suspect Ron might want to use abortion law to “nudge” some sort of behavior; otherwise, there is little reason for Ron to bring the idea up. Or we have reason to believe Ron thinks some group of people somewhere think nudging behavior is proper motivation for setting abortion policy. Maybe he does think that; maybe he doesn’t. But we can’t know– because Ron won’t answer a direct question on this.
Many people debate because they want to persuade. Abortion isn’t a topic where the success rate is very high because the fundamental issue is difficult to give compelling and falsifiable arguments. If people want to explain their positions or want to understand the positions of others that is fine.
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Arguments that women should bear the burden of abortion bans isn’t usually based in bias against women or other moral preening, but in a bias for the baby’s life. This is a difficult trade off. That a lot of people also believe in (but don’t practice, ha ha) strict sexual moral codes is really irrelevant to the main argument. That they get fringe benefits of making people think harder before unprotected pre-marital sex is a bonus for them, but not the main thrust.
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As we know, Ron favors the shotgun approach to debate.
Tom Scharf
Sure. The problem is bringing up what is only a “fringe benefit” as a justification can be a loser argument because (a) some people don’t consider that a benefit and (b) some people see it as a burden. (And it may actually be a burden to the people who see it as such.)
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I mean…. I know there are politicians who put in red camera lights because the “fringe benefit” is they get kickbacks from the company who sells the traffic cams, but most people don’t see that as a great thing. (Yea… happened around here.) In fact, some people don’t even like the justification of “raise revenue from traffic tickets.” Others do.
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Meanwhile: “reduce accidents that have actually been occurring when people blow the light” is an acceptable justification. It’s seen as a direct benefit– not “fringe”.
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Not being willing to state what you consider the benefit is a problem when debating. (And, almost needless to say, the mayor who got kickbacks for red camera lights didn’t bring that up as the fringe benefit when persuading the town to install them. 🙂 )
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If we are debating the red light cameras or abortion, the actual justifications matter.
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Well… yes. And, at least here, other than Ron no one suggested “nudgeing” for some change in unstated behavior, which we can only speculate would be some sort of “fringe” benefit. ‘Cuz, like the mayor who got his red lights, he doesn’t say what the benefit might be.
There was a study that showed no accident reduction from red light cameras. There was a slight increase in accidents because people were braking very hard at the intersections to not run the light and causing rear enders. Not sure I trust any study in this area though.
.
I believe Chicago also got caught shortening the yellow light time in order to increase revenue as well.
Chicago Quietly Allows .1 Second Shorter Yellow Light Tickets, Makes $8 Million
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/10/chicago-shortens-yellow-lights-ticket-standard-makes-8-million-off-new-tickets.html
-14.5. RCP
I thought settling the debt ceiling might put a floor under the drop but no.
Bad policies.
Multiple chickens coming home to roost and Jill away overseas.
Only Jimmy Carter stands in his way.
–
Might even see a Kennedy running as a Democrat again.
The summer is heating up
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“ The long announced Ukrainian counter offensive has started. New Ukrainian units, never seen before, have come to the front. ”
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“ Attacks happened all around the front. In the north towards Belgograd, to the east and, with the most forces, towards the south. There was so far little to no success in any of the attacks.”
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“ The daily report by the Russian Ministry of Defense list as Ukrainian losses over the last 24 hours 910 soldiers, 16 tanks, 33 armored combat vehicles/infantry fighting vehicle and some 30 trucks.”
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“ Yesterday the Ukrainian forces seemed to be battalion sized combat groups. According to Russian MoD 8 UkrAF battalions was involved in offensive operations SE of Mala Tokmachka (1), at the Vremivka salient (2) and East of Vuhledar towards Velikonovoselovka (3). The fighting was intense, but on most places Ukrainian forces was turned back, mainly by intense Russian artillery and air attacks. On some places UkrAF succeeded in capturing a couple of hundred meters. ”
.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/06/ukraine-launches-its-counterattack.html#more
angech (Comment #221912): “I thought settling the debt ceiling might put a floor under the drop but no.”
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Total number of people in the RCP average polled since Biden signed the bill: Zero.
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It will be a couple weeks before we know if there was any effect.
Tom,
If the reason for putting them in is to reduce accidents, then the study is relevant. If they are put in for the fringe benefit of a kick back to the mayor, not so much. 🙂
This is, btw, the story on the mayor and kickbacks for red light cameras:
https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2022/5/23/23138720/tony-ragucci-oakbrook-terrace-safespeed-red-light-camera-scheme
12 F-35’s takeoff in rapid succession a few days ago in the UK.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq1NNF_Ex9Y
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The F-35 is much maligned but we will see how it all plays out in the next few decades. The development costs went crazy but that is par for the course with these kind of programs.
.
The F-16 was first flown 49 years (!) ago, 4600 have been built with about 3/4 of those exported, it’s the most sold fighter jet ever. They blew the F-16 budget by 3X and it’s “innovative” fly by wire system had lots of problems in the beginning. F-16’s are what left a sonic boom trail yesterday in DC tracking down a private plane which had likely depressurized and left everyone onboard unconscious.
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It’s unclear other countries can afford large numbers of F-35’s, but there really isn’t much competition at the moment.
Re Tom Scharf (Comment #221918)
” F-16’s are what left a sonic boom trail yesterday in DC tracking down a private plane which had likely depressurized and left everyone onboard unconscious.”
________
Depressurization probably was the cause. Don’t know what caused that. Can’t recall if depressurization ever happened to a large commercial jet.
Same thing killed Payne Stewart the golfer. They just keep flying until they run out of fuel.
Tom Scharf,
The plane keeps flying, but everyone on board is almost certainly already dead when the plane finally crashes. Here is the weird thing: programming an autopilot to automatically descend (quickly!) on depressurization to an altitude where people wouldn’t die seems not all that complicated. But I have never heard of that function being programmed. Heck, the autopilot could even inform air traffic control of the emergency descent.
Depressurization of commercial flights has happened many times. That is why they have masks for supplemental oxygen.
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I don’t think they ever figured out why Payne Stewart’s pilots never used the supplemental oxygen.
I am late to the discussion on hypothyroidism, but I will relate my experiences with the condition.
My hypothyroidism was found accidently by a skin specialist as I had no symptoms related to tiredness. Actually I saw no differences when I went on a levothyroxine regime. My condition was diagnosed as Hashimoto’s syndrome which is an auto immune disease whereby the body is destroying the thyroid. I stay on the medication since my condition is likely to get much worse without it. The dosage has been increased only once.
I had another mainly non symptomatic related problem with my heart which was found only after I told my doctor that I had indigestion when exercising after eating. After a triple-by-pass I no longer had that indigestion problem and maybe a little more energy.
I think one of these days or years something will take me out permanently and they will say he never saw it coming.
My two cents worth on Willard type posting and best reactions to it.
I see these discussions and postings more at Climate, Etc. whereby there is a technical thread from which most readers and posters could gain information and insights, but a poster or sometimes more come on to change the subject of the thread and get into personal exchanges that have nothing to do with the subject matter. Those exchanges tend to dominant and drowned out technical and pertinent posts. In fact those latter comments get ignored in favor of the former.
I think the baiting at Climate Etc. in some cases can be deliberate and intentionally disruptive, while here I think it is more a matter of extending the discussion beyond the point of agreeing to disagree.
My best counter is to ignore those posts, but to be effective it would require a concerted effort to ignore by more that one non participant. I do remember early in the history of posting where a post could be approved by the participants and see emotional personality rants get huge approval ratings and reasonable thought-provoking ones get few.
Yes, the “engagement” factor gets promoted on all social media sites. It didn’t take long for them to learn that inflammatory posts bring viewers in and for them to highlight them. It turns places into emotional sewers for the most part. Some people feel very passionately about certain things and just can’t stop themselves from trying to correct the Internet.
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Social and media sites would be better for readers if they didn’t measure the responses to posts and then amplify. However it’s a business and you can’t really blame them for trying to survive in a tough environment.
Tom,
And a lot of what makes blogs fun is discussing things.
Moderating is difficult, and contentious. It has to be done though.
I have a question, maybe somebody here can suggest an answer.
.
The destruction of the Kakhovka dam has caused massive flooding on the Russian controlled left bank of the Dnieper river. Some maps have been provided by ISW:
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-7-2023
It seems that the flooding has destroyed much of the Russian fortifications.
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Huh? People have known since ancient times that you build forts on high ground, not low ground. Blowing up dams as a military tactic is not new, the Russians have experience with that from both sides. So my question is: Why on Earth did the Russians build fortifications on the flood plain, rather than on high ground overlooking the flood plane?
Defense in depth. Main line of defense for both sides are on high ground
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Both sides have been in a low grade conflict over the islands in the river channel. It’s these troops that were forced to withdraw from the rising water.
Ukraine offensive making very little progress with very heavy casualties.
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Video of Ukraine assault moving into minefields without leading with mine clearing units. Why? They have them and these mine fields have been there for quite a while. Reminiscent of Soviet WWII penal units ordered into minefields to clear them by overrunning them with their bodies.
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Military Summary For 2023.06.08
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQmvc7qwd9o
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Also
First Leg of AFU’s Offensive Has Begun
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/first-leg-of-afus-offensive-has-begun?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1351274&post_id=126527868&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
Most analyses I have seen suggest there appears little reason for either side to sabotage the dam. One suggested possibility is damage from shelling which compromised the integrity of the dam, leading to a failure when the water level rose a couple meters above normal level.
Steve
I lean towards structural failure from previous Ukraine shelling also. Ukraine is on record of wanting to damage the gates to reduce Russian control of the water flow, but I seriously doubt they wanted to entire dam to go.
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Most of the farmland on both sides of the river turns into an arid landscape without water from this reservoir. Back to dry farming and praying for rain.
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If either side deliberately blew up the dam, it would be shooting themselves in their own foot. The negatives very much outweigh any positives for both sides in such an action.
It is extremely difficult to destroy a dam with shelling or bombs. You need a confined blast. So either sabotage or an underwater explosion right against the dam, as could be done with a torpedo or bouncing bomb. Not something that can happen without intent.
.
Maybe the Russians mined the dam just in case, and the explosives were accidentally detonated. Maybe the Russians blew it up on purpose with callous disregard for their own troops. Maybe the Russians had a “Charge of the Light Brigade” moment and sent an accidental order to blow up the dam or botched communication to the troops downstream.
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Blowing the dam does have defensive value. Even after the water goes down, the mud will remain for quite some time.
The Russians didn’t need to blow the dam to flood the river valley. They controlled the water gates that could flood the river at need.
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Ukraine had a problem with Russia controlling the dam water gates. If Ukraine wanted to do a river assault crossing, Russia could open the flood gates and drastically effect such a crossing.
.
With the dam gone, Russia no longer has this option. Militarily, there was no benefit for Russia blowing the dam.
Ed Forbes (Comment #221933),
Nonsense. Opening the gates would hardly flood the river and the flow would quickly decrease as the water dropped a few meters. And it could be stopped if the Ukrainians seized the dam.
As it is, the flood plain below the dam will be nearly impassable for some time.
Blowing dams for that purpose is not a new tactic. To claim that there is no military advantage is silly.
The timing does seem strange. As you say, it would seem that the time to blow it would be when the crossing was starting or capture of the dam was imminent. Which lends support to the idea that it was a screw up.
Mike “ To claim that there is no military advantage is silly.”
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Wow…..where did that come from?
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If it was somehow related to
“ With the dam gone, Russia no longer has this option. Militarily, there was no benefit for Russia blowing the dam.”
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I stand by the statement
MOAB re Trump.
Launched too early.
Things will get ugly from here on in.
Doubt there is any body here or in USA with any sense who feels this particular prosecution is warranted and justified, though happy to hear if I am wrong.
– Whar really irks is that the Republicans already knew it was coming and will succeed..
Proof?
The large number of nobodies nominating believing Trump is gone.
The DOJ can pretty much kiss my a**. They let HRC walk, they will likely let Biden walk, they let all the BLM rioters walk. Shoplifters don’t get charged. Car jacking and theft is pretty much treated as a property crime. They threw the book at Jan 6th rioters and now Trump. I just don’t see equality before the law. What I see is “my political opponents are not above the law, but my political allies are”. It’s entirely possible Trump is guilty of something here, but this actually is the weaponization of the justice department. It’s not going to go over well, it’s going to help Trump. The only thing that can save the DOJ from being viewed as an instrument of a banana republic is throwing Hunter Biden in jail.
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I want Trump to go away, but I am truly sick of this stuff. When Trump and his allies are the target, the standards are different.
These people need to get out of politics. I literally cannot wait to hear the Very Serious People lecture us on how they also very seriously considered the Biden case(s) but decided there wasn’t enough there to charge anyone.
comment in moderation?
Tom,
Yep. I suspect political persecution is actually Trump’s best chance of being re-elected. If they keep it up they might actually get him back into office.
Tom Scharf (Comment #221937): “It’s entirely possible Trump is guilty of something here, but this actually is the weaponization of the justice department.”
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Indeed. Hillary was guilty of far worse than Trump.
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I am now pretty much a one issue voter. Who is best to clean out the DoJ, FBI, and the rest of the Deep State? If that does not happen soon, the Republic will be over and the Constitution will be worthless paper.
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Part of me would love to see Trump reelected so that he could run roughshod through the Deep State, which has clearly been proven to exist. But that is not the best approach. A frontal attack will likely not be nearly as effective as a careful undermining and dismantling. Everything Trump would do will be depicted as personal grievance and an attack on Democracy. Cleaning house will likely require someone who is perceived as being clean.
It is not at all clear to me that prosecution of Trump will help him get the nomination, but if well played it should help the Republican nominee (whether Trump or someone else) in the general election. That will be doubly so if accusations of Biden corruption can be made to stick.
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In the short term, Trump will get a boost in the polls since people will want to express support for him against obvious political persecution. But that does not mean that those people will vote for Trump in the primaries.
Mike,
I think some number of people will consider exactly this question you posed:
and some number will decide Trump is the answer to the question. A large number, a small number? In the primary, in the actual election? I think these are harder to answer.
Maybe voters will have sense and understand what you said here:
and agree with it and not vote Trump. I am skeptical of this. I think if Republican voters thought like this, Trump would not already be leading in the polls for the nomination.
But my position is essentially unsupported speculation and opinion for sure.
mark bofill (Comment #221942),
I think your first two points are sound and we do not know which group is larger. The indictments *might* help Trump, but we can’t assume that they *will* help Trump.
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But I disagree when you write: ” I think if Republican voters thought like this, Trump would not already be leading in the polls for the nomination.”
Polls are about opinions, voting is about decisions. They are not the same thing although there is a lot of overlap. And most people have not thought much, if at all, about the primaries and don’t know much about any candidate other than Trump.
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Aside: Do 30% of Democrats really think that RFK Jr. or Williamson are good choices for President? I doubt that 30% know enough about those two to actually make an informed decision. The Democrat polls are not about those two, they are about Biden. And 30% feel strongly enough to name anybody but Biden in a poll. That does not mean they will vote that way. At this point the polls do not mean the same thing that they would on the eve of a vote.
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Similarly, the Republican polls are not mainly about Trump vs DeSantis or Scott or whoever. They are about Trump. Period. Most Republican voters still support Trump even if they think someone else would be a better nominee. The indictments make some of those more likely to express that support when polled. At this point the polls do not mean the same thing that they would on the eve of a vote.
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Disclaimer: Do not confuse me with someone who actually knows what this all means.
———
p.s. – In the case of RFK Jr., I think it possible that as people learn more about him, his support might go up. Especially if DoJ and Biden corruption becomes a big issue.
Thanks Mike. Your points are well taken.
It won’t.
It won’t.
I do not see individual personalities or character making a difference in the 2024 Presidential elections. It will be decided by which party gets the better turnout. That will in turn be determined by how well the Republicans emulate the Democrats past efforts in running up the early voting totals and use of vote harvesting. Abortion and Never Trump could be also be factors.
Voters have gotten more comfortable with character deficiencies in their politicians and that starts with a low past bar for politicians in general.
Capabilities of politicians to mentally handle their office is no longer a major issue as long as they follow the party line. The term useful idiot comes to mind with emphasis on idiot.
I’m not entirely convinced it’s a red/blue thing more than it’s just a DC bubble. I don’t think these people understand America as much as they used to. Things like endless claims of misinformation that sometimes translates to “they won’t believe our lies and motivated reasoning about predicting future events, it’s clearly their fault because they are morons. We need to stop their ignorance through administrative force”. At some point I will choose to be governed by morons over the condescending group in DC.
Babylon bee is naturally having fun with this. I think this one is my favorite:
https://babylonbee.com/news/trump-indicted-on-7-counts-of-not-hiding-classified-documents-behind-a-corvette
It’s a toss up between this one and the one where Trump selects Hunter Biden as his running mate to get the DOJ to stop investigating him.
Tom Scharf (Comment #221947): “I’m not entirely convinced it’s a red/blue thing more than it’s just a DC bubble.”
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Indeed.
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The arrogance of the Democrat Party is astonishing. They think they can elect an obviously senile, corrupt old man as President. They think they can use federal law enforcement for blatantly political purposes. They think they can bully people into saying that mutilating children is A-OK. Etc.
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Basically, they have concluded that they can fool 51% of the people all of the time. Sadly, they might be right.
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I hope they are wrong. If not, it will be a choice between armed revolution and grovelling submission.
This is Mericuh! No groveling submission is in the cards. That I have faith in.
Federal criminal convictions require a unanimous jury. Trump’s trial will be held in Florida….. presumably in Palm Beach County. I’m thinking that may be a high hurdle for prosecutors.
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I am actually surprised the DOJ went forward with this case. Trump is an asshole, of course, and he behaved (as always) badly. But Hillary was never prosecuted over classified material, in spite of hundreds of classified documents on her unsecured personal email server, and in spite of willfully thwarting a subpoena for the emails on that server (the famous ‘bleachbit’ scandal). Merrick Garland is simply execrable, worse even than Eric Holder…. which is not easy to do.
Thanks Mark
mark bofill (Comment #221948)
Babylon bee comments made my day
As usual, the Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the most contentious cases of the term, including whether states have standing to force the administration to enforce existing laws, whether Colorado can force a “creative” business (website development) to work on gay weddings, whether Biden can simply cancel student load debts by executive order, and biggest of all: can universities and colleges use very different admission standards for students of different races.
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Next three weeks will be interesting.
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The Court told Alabama to create a second black-majority congressional district, a result which was not expected.
angech,
I’m just back from a competition. There was a comment in moderation!
MikeMEd ForbesMike have explained a military benefits to Russia. All you did was explain a particular one didn’t exist in addition to those. Do you still stand by the claim there is no benefit?
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Because to support your claim of no benefit, you need to show MikeM’s benefit is not a benefit (and moreover, there are no other benefits.)
angech
I absolutely know some people in the US who think this is warranted. They even have some sense.
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That doesn’t mean it’s entirely warranted nor that most people who think it is. Very few people, especially wrt Trump think “But…. would other people be indicted for a similar offense?” People rarely think about prosecutorial discretion at all. And even if they do, Trump is still an exception. And the latter makes some sense (not full sense, but some) because high level politicians are often treated differently in all regards.
markboffil
The title nails the issue. And I haven’t been reading the news, so I wasn’t sure what he was indicted for…..(Competitions are encompasing. What with the hair…. the nails…. the being on the floor watching others dance when I am not.)
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But yeah…. why not the other people will be the question?
(And it will be a question even for people who think Trump is guilty and of this charge)
I want this to help other republicans though. This indictment certainly doesn’t make me want Trump. In fact, the incident of him having those things doesn’t make me admire him and I think he acted badly. Likely illegally.
So he probably is guilty. But…. Corvette..
lucia (Comment #221955): “MikeM
Do you still stand by the claim there is no benefit?”
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This appears to be addressed to me, but it should be addressed to Ed Forbes since he claimed no military benefit to blowing up the dam.
MikeM
Yes. Sorry…. I’ll edit.
Thanks Lucia, my fault I think as I misspelled my name.
It is very hard to fight City Hall.
Trump seems toast.
Why all the others are running now.
With him out it will be an open field of the usual tossers.
–
I have been bitten before locally where we voted in a town councillor who promised to inject a bit of life into the council.
It did not work out.
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If he does survive it will remind of that American play our theatre group just put on .
12 Angry Men.
And of course the usual outcome of such railroadings, To kill a Mocking Bird.
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I certainly think the Australian concept of a Fair Go, should resonate in the USA even if is currently moribund.
angech,
I’m sure the problem was the misspelled name. The blog is now aware of both spellings. 🙂
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We have the concept of Fair Go. But…. as I said, politicians are treated differently (in both directions) all the time. It’s not as if there is no case against Trump. Or…. that it’s clear Trump is worse than the others (though he may very well be.)
.
There are plenty of people who will think this indictment is absolutely spot on. And others who will think… well… ok….
The argument of “But Biden” or “But Hilary” isn’t going to resonate that much. And the argument of “he didn’t mishandle documents at all…” Well, I think he did mishandle some. Or it sure looks like he did. His lawyers will need to rebut those charges.
I doubt “but Hilary” or “But Biden” is going to go well.
I read the allegations. It is indeed possible Trump was singularly worse. In the way Trump is often worse. He may well have taken mishandling to a higher level. And he’s a subordinate acting under Trump is also charged.
.
In terms of arguments those who love Trump will advance when saying we should nominate him, what the fuller story does show us about Trump:
* No. Trump will not be able to clean out “the deep state”. His discretion is terrible and he can’t tell what is effective and what is not. His view of who is “the deep state” is just “whoever is against him”. And his view of what is right is “whatever I want to do.” In the indictment, he’s not just storing these in the closet, nor just storing in a risky way, he is actively sharing information.
* No. Trump will not be able to hire “the best people”. He will have even more trouble hiring people during a second term than a first. Anyone who thought the only danger with working for Trump is being fired or stepping in deep political doo-doo will know that it’s that they might be indicted. And that will be because they may be asked to do things that are likely or arguably illegal. (This indictment just adds to the Jan 6 event of trying to pressure Pence to do something many people– including Pence– thought illegal.)
These things remain to be shown. But I bet they are true. Whatever one might think about the balance of the indictment, Trump is clearly not fit for the office.
Mike: “ Nonsense. Opening the gates would hardly flood the river and the flow would quickly decrease as the water dropped a few meters. And it could be stopped if the Ukrainians seized the dam.”
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That statement is “total nonsense”. The gates would be possible to raise the water to a dangerous level for a river crossing and Ukraine had tried and failed to seize the dam.
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Yep….I stand by my statements:
“ The Russians didn’t need to blow the dam to flood the river valley. They controlled the water gates that could flood the river at need.
.
Ukraine had a problem with Russia controlling the dam water gates. If Ukraine wanted to do a river assault crossing, Russia could open the flood gates and drastically effect such a crossing.
.
With the dam gone, Russia no longer has this option. Militarily, there was no benefit for Russia blowing the dam.”
Trump was indicted mostly for the differences in his and Biden’s cases. That is a bit telling toward where this is going. As you may recall, when Trump simply had possession of classified documents that was enough for him to be charged according to the governing class. Once Biden was found with similar documents then a search was on for how the cases were different. So the thread has been put through the needle … they believe they will have plausible deniability with their argument on prosecutorial discretion. The problem is nobody trusts them now and only people inside the bubble will believe they reached that conclusion without bias.
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At least so far it looks like they will hold the trial in Florida, even if it is one of bluest counties. If there aren’t at least 4 Trump voters on the jury then I will not consider this an honest attempt at justice. If they move the trial to DC or NYC then as far as I am concerned the DOJ can burn to the ground and I won’t miss it.
Lucia,
Yes. The funny Babylon bee link notwithstanding. This does appear to be different.
There is a point where it’s possible that Trump has been behaving stupidly enough (for example, if he has been discussing contingency plans to attack Iran with people without clearances) to actually merit this prosecution, despite any questions of political persecution. If the allegations I’ve heard are correct, they do seem to go a good step beyond the situations people like to compare this to. At least that’s my view. I’ve been too busy to follow as closely as I’d like as of so far, hopefully that’ll change soon.
MikeM
When I read that my thought was: “Screw up would tend to suggest the Russian did it.”
Now:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-security-service-says-it-intercepted-call-proving-russia-destroyed-2023-06-09/
Hmmmm…. if a Russian soldier did say that, it does point to a screw up. By the Russians.
mark boffil
Yes. If the allegations are correct, Trump has been behaving worse. There is no reason to follow this minute by minute, we’ll certainly read more as it unfolds. Best not to make up ones mind. But at least what has been alleged is more than the sort of carelessness which seems to be sadly common with politicians.
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I do know stories of nonpoliticians who were careless and they didn’t get indicted. Lose their jobs? Yes. But not indicted.
https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-says-russia-admits-blowing-up-nova-kakhovka-dam-call-intercepted/
This is Molfar https://www.molfar.global/en/home
I have no idea if they are reliable, unbiased yada yada…
Ed Forbes (Comment #221963): “If Ukraine wanted to do a river assault crossing, Russia could open the flood gates and drastically effect such a crossing.”
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That is true. Blowing the dam took away that option. That does not mean that there could be no purpose to blowing the dam.
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It is not clear that the dam was blown at the optimum time. Even if the time was poorly chosen, that does not mean the Russians did not do it. It will make the river crossing much more difficult for quite some time. It might have stopped the Ukrainians from doing something they were about to attempt. Or that the Russians thought they were about to attempt. Maybe Ukrainian commandos were about to gain control. Maybe the explosives were accidentally detonated or detonated in response to a mistaken order.
.
There are many possibilities. You can not reasonably claim that they do not exist.
——-
p.s. – You have me feeling snippy. Ukraine would want to effect a crossing. Russia would want to affect the attempt.
mark bofill (Comment #221965): “If the allegations I’ve heard are correct, they do seem to go a good step beyond the situations people like to compare this to.”
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The allegations are unlikely to be outright false, but they are likely presented with spin so as to put Trump in the most unfavorable light. The documents that Trump mishandled might well be no big deal.
.
This whole thing was started by a bureaucrat trying to boss around a former President. Once the FBI had an excuse, they left no stone unturned in finding questionable behavior by Trump.
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We have no idea what “normal” behavior is relative to such documents. We were told that Trump was beyond the pale just by having such documents. When that was found to be untrue, they shifted to more detailed accusations. We don’t know how important the documents were or what others have done with similar.
.
The FBI and DoJ are using secrecy as a weapon against Trump and to protect Clinton and Biden.
Let’s see: While under control of Russia, water level builds to highest recoded level, to the point where villages upstream of the dam flood. (17 ma 2023)
In May 2023, the water level in the reservoir reached its highest recorded level and it appeared that water had started to flow over the top of the dam.[26] The raised water level caused some nearby villages to flood.[27] The rise appeared to be the result of Russia keeping too many gates closed.[26]
While the water is at this very high level, the dam experiences an “internal explosion” flooding villages in Ukraine and leading tends of thousands of Ukrainians being in the flood zone. Livestock, owned by Ukrainians are killed.
In addition to that, this may deprive the Ukrainian nuclear power plant of cooling water, causing Ukrainians to have power shortages.
Wikipedia presents the evidence for Russian vs Ukraine responsibility. It’s almost funny…. Five paragraphs discussing reasons why it’s likely done by the Russians. One, extremely weak one suggesting why it could be Ukraine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_the_Kakhovka_Dam
One of the paragraphs on it being the Russians
The paragraphs in why it might be Ukraine amount to “Russia accuses Ukraine”.
Could it have been Ukraine? Sure. Occam’s razor says Russia.
Will this be helpful to the Russians in the long run? Probably not. But they are having difficulties right now.
MikeM
Yes. The allegations are the allegations and presented by the party indicting Trump. Well hear the defense eventually. Or sooner…. given Trump is Trump and may not listen to lawyers telling him to stfu.
They must provide evidence during a trial. So, someone thinks the evidence they can unveil is strong enough. We’ll all see if it is or not.
MikeM to Ed Forbes
Mike is clearly right on this. There are plenty of reasons Russia might see a military advantage to blowing the dam.
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They may not have blown it. But plenty of possibilities. To claim there were none is such a ridiculous overstatement that it’s just laughable.
According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), 🙂
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“ In addition to that, this may deprive the Ukrainian nuclear power plant of cooling water, causing Ukrainians to have power shortages.”
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You must not realize that the nuclear power plant in question is occupied by Russia and it has almost been completely shut down due to Ukraine shelling of the plant. No electricity from this plant has been going to either Ukraine or Russian territory for quite sometime now.
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I also don’t see any reference to the fact that Ukraine opened wide the gates to the dam they control upstream prior to the dam failure.
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Ed
It probably doesn’t matter. Dams are generally spaced sufficiently far apart that the operation of one dam cannot affect the water level at the other.
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The level of water in the Hanford reach cannot be affected by dams. And it’s kept that way. For…. reasons….(And not ecological ones.)
Ed Forbes (Comment #221974): “No electricity from this plant has been going to either Ukraine or Russian territory for quite sometime now.”
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It seems that there are conflicting reports as to whether 5 or all 6 reactors had been shut down.
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Ed Forbes: “Ukraine opened wide the gates to the dam they control upstream prior to the dam failure.”
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Any evidence?
Ed
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-switched-standby-russia-installed-official-2023-05-22/
Ukraine restores power to Russia-occupied nuclear plant
Without water, the nuclear fuel can’t be kept cool. The plant will become irreperably damaged. This will deprive people of electricity.
It is true that that this means they will continue to be deprived where as otherwise, it could be restored. But the loss of cooling water harms Ukranians long term.
MikeM
That’s because the 6th reactor has been shut down…. turned on…. shut down.
Also
https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-164-iaea-director-general-statement-on-situation-in-ukraine
From what I hear and surmise about the charges against Trump I think a reasonably strong case against him has been built. It is rather easy to say that the case is politically motivated, and even if it was, one has to look at the evidence and if it shows Trump knowingly violated the law and obstructed justice he needs to be prosecuted like any ordinary citizen. That H. Clinton got a free pass should have no bearing on this case, otherwise we could establish the precedent that politicians in general should be given a free pass, i.e. putting them above the law.
If anything politicians who operate using monopoly government coercion should be held to a higher standard than the people they rule over. If that starts with Trump, and Biden is next, there will be no tears from me.
Ken Fritsch (Comment #221979),
So what “justice” did Trump obstruct?
MikeM
The indictment is here
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/06/politics/annotated-trump-indictment-dg/
You can read what’s alleged.
Obviously, we haven’t heard the defense.
It doesn’t make sense to ask us what the verdict will be before we hear the trial and the evidence from both sides.
None of the charges are “obstruction of justice”. So I don’t know why you are asking that.
Ok… I stopped scrolling. You can read the additional 6 charges. That should answer which justice Trump is alleged to have obstructed. We’ll hear more evidence from both sides later.
I randomly happened to visit this site today, and I saw this comment:
And I can’t help but ask, what exactly is it Hillary Clinton allegedly did that is worse than what Trump has allegedly done? To me, this seems like a pretty straightforward factual issue. Regardless of whether allegations about either person are true or not, I can’t think of anything Clinton was accused of doing that’d compare to what Trump is accused of doing.
So this isn’t a rhetorical question. It’s a straightforward and simple question. What is it Clinton (supposedly) did that is worse than what Trump (supposedly) did? I’ve followed both topics. As far as I know Clinton wasn’t accused of anything remotely comparable to what Trump has been accused of. As such, I’d like to know, what is it I am supposedly missing?
As a quick follow-up to my previous comment and the central question it contains, I want to stress this narrative:
Appears to be a near-total fabrication. By all accounts on the record, Clinton had nothing to do with the questionable “bleachbit” decision. According to the claims on record, the company responsible for managing Clinton’s server failed to properly delete e-mails from her server when they persisted past their expiration date. As far as the record indicates, Clinton had no knowledge of this failure, nor did she have any involvement with the decisions made by an employee of that company who discovered this lapse after the e-mails became a topic of interest. That employee did testify to engaging in post-facto deletion of e-mails his company policy said should have already been deleted, but nothing on the record indicates Clinton had any knowledge of or involvement with any of this process.
If anyone has any evidence Hillary Clinton actively engaged in or was otherwise involved with this employee’s action, I’d be interested to hear it. But as far as I know, nothing on record in any way indicates Clinton willfully did anything regarding this particular issue. By all accounts, or at least all those on record, she was not even informed of anything related to this. If there’s evidence to the contrary, it’d be helpful if people could provide it.
If this is true,it’s funny:
https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-tank-leopard-blew-up-tractor-2824d17105d3cfb875a5306acd2c9089
“Russia claims it blew up advanced Ukrainian tank, but video shows its helicopter attacked a tractor”
Brandon,
https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/09/clintons-e-mail-scandal-stinkier-stinkier-documents-destroyed-after-subpoena/
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She got away with it, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t guilty.
Brandon Shollenberger (Comment #221983): “And I can’t help but ask, what exactly is it Hillary Clinton allegedly did that is worse than what Trump has allegedly done?”
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Hillary had classified documents on a home brew server where our enemies could probably read them. Trump had paper documents in a residence guarded by the Secret Service.Hillary’s documents dealt with active issues, as such they would have been much more damaging than cold files. It is unlikely that anything Trump kept actually mattered much.
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Hillary’s home brew server was set up for the explicit purpose of circumventing federal records laws. That law does not apply to the President.
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Hillary destroyed records, likely including evidence. Trump merely withheld records that he arguably had the right to withhold.
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Hillary likely did more than we know of since no proper investigation was done. Whereas with Trump the FBI put the screws to everybody who might know something.
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Trump seems to have committed process crimes. But I don’t think those should count when opposing a corrupt process, which is what he was doing. An exception would be irreversible acts, such as destroying records. Trump does not seem to have done that although he is accused of contemplating doing so. So far as I know, that is not a crime.
Trump lawyers state that Trump was charged with obstruction of justice. Also it appears that there are willing witnesses that will testify to incriminating statements by Trump.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-biden-administration-has-informed-my-lawyers-that-ive-been-indicted-2023-06-08
SteveF:
I get you may feel it is reasonable to post a link with no input of your own, that people should read what someone else wrote to try to figure out what point you may be trying to make. But you’re wrong. Sources are great for providing information and extra content, but they’re no replacement for actual conversation. If you can’t respect people enough to say what you think, you really shouldn’t bother responding to them.
Mike M:
I think your response speaks volumes. Your claim this law doesn’t apply to the President is patently false, but it also doesn’t matter. The simple reality is Trump *knew* he had a bunch of classified documents in his possession *after he left office* and intentionally refused to return them, doing everything he could to hold onto them. He was not President at the time of anything he’s accused of having done. Even if the law didn’t apply to the President like you claim, that would be completely immaterial as he was not the President.
Moreover, according to the indictment, he *showed* those documents to people who knew weren’t allowed to see them. According to the latest indictment, he even said he knew material was classified and he *regretted* not declassifying it before leaving office. No law exempts a former president from requirements not to keep classified documents they have no right to possess much less allows them to show such documents to people they know don’t have any sort of security clearance.
Quite frankly, there is no factual aspect to the narrative you’re trying to spin. Heck, just look at your claim Clinton’s e-mails supposedly contained far more serious/dangerous information while Trump’s documents contained unimportant stuff. There is no factual record to support such a claim. In actual fact, the record suggests the opposite. I’ve followed both cases in some detail, and nothing I’ve seen supports what you claim. This isn’t to say what you claim couldn’t be true. If you have evidence supporting the claim, I’d be willing to look at it. But to make such a bold, factual claim that contradicts everything i know about the public record on these issues while doing nothing to try to support it seems bizarre.
Put simply, in terms of facts, what you say just seems made up.
Brandon Shollenberger (Comment #221989): “If you can’t respect people enough to say what you think, you really shouldn’t bother responding to them.”
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Don’t be a jerk. You asked a question, implying that you wanted to learn something. SteveF provided a link with information. He is under no obligation to respond in any particular manner other than to be polite.
Brandon,
I did say what I think: she got away with it.
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You said I posted a “near total fabrication”. The link was to show it was not. I am no fan of Trump; he is a fool and a remarkably unpleasant person. I wish he would disappear from public life.
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But I am no fan of politically motivated prosecution choices, and the DOJ sure seems to have adopted politically motivated prosecution cases.
Brandon Shollenberger (Comment #221990),
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I did not say that Trump did nothing wrong. You asked why what Hillary did was worse, I explained it to you.
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The Secretary of State is subject to the Federal Records Act, the President is not. There is a separate Presidential Records Act, but it gives the President a lot more leeway.
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My claim about seriousness was as to what is likely. Of course, we don’t know; the facts are hidden behind a veil of secrecy.
Brandon,
We will never see the contents of the classified documents, so we will never be able to judge how important they are. As to showing classified documents to unauthorized people: guess how we know there were classified documents… that’s right, investigators found copies on a laptop which was later seized from the husband of one of Clinton’s assistants. The guy who was being prosecuted for sex offences against minors.
Lucia,
These don’t look like farm tractors: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-awards-medals-after-claiming-hits-leopard-tanks-us-bradleys-ukraine-2023-06-11/
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Could be from a fabricated video, so impossible to say for sure. The first casualty is always the truth.
Steve F,
No. They don’t. 🙁
Brandon,
It is fine to post a link to a reasonable length news article or opinion column that directly addresses a question asked. That’s what SteveF did.
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What’s lazy is to just proactively post links, write the equivalent “see this” without saying what point the person is trying to make. And then, the link turns out to be podcast more than 20 minutes long– and no info is given on what minute the readers are going to pay attention to. Those are one version of rabbit hole links.
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Steve, there have been a number of misidentified targets as Leopards early in this Ukraine offensive. Understandable as these targets were high on everyone’s list and everyone wanted to be the first to get the kill of a Leopard.
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The tractor was targeted at several kilometers and vid quality was very poor. Combined with the pilots wanting to see a Leopard, they “saw” one. Photo analysis later disputed the hot take from the pilots who only had seconds at the moment of contact.
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Other early mistaken Leopards were the French wheeled tanks. These are said to look remarkably like a Leopard from bad drone vid directly overhead.
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The last several days have seen a number of confirmed Leopards kills as your post pointed out.
Brandon Shollenberger,
Your isolated demands for rigor are showing. With Clinton it needs to be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, statements “on the record” are assumed to be facts. Trump has also made many statements on the record which I assume are not given the same treatment. Trump’s a known liar, but so is Clinton. The lot of them are disreputable.
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If you can’t connect demands for Clinton to retain records quickly followed by an employee discovering he needs to beachblit a server drive full of email without backing it up and without talking to the people whose email is on the server … then fine. You need to apply that same standard to everyone, or else you are just another partisan screaming into wind.
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Clinton ran her own server to keep prying eyes away from her activities, but I suppose official statements are to be believed, whatever they are. She was under constant political attack so it is understandable, but that doesn’t make it legal. The bulk of sensitive documents that were recovered connected to that server were found on recipients machines, not from her cooperating.
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Whether there was enough evidence found to be actionable is a judgment call, but you are confusing a judgment call of “not proven” with innocent. As with everyone, you probably believe plenty of things about Trump that have not been proven.
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The game now is to evaluate the delta between Trump and Biden/Clinton cases and make that difference actionable in a partisan view, and leaving the commonality as prosecutorial discretion. Trump is his own worst enemy and invites this stuff so I have little sympathy for him, but I also recognize a years long campaign of political persecution when I see it. This is all par for the course in DC, until the DOJ starts being part of team persecution. The partisan standard was “possession of classified material” was actionable right up until the moment they found documents all over Biden’s facilities.
Brandon’s history here is to do a drive-by, get feedback he doesn’t agree with, then loudly announce all this discussion is not worthy of his precious attention, then leave.
I really wouldn’t want to be driving around in any tank on a modern battlefield without air cover.
SteveF (Comment #221994):”We will never see the contents of the classified documents, so we will never be able to judge how important they are.”
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True. But most classified documents given to decision makers are not that important and the ones that are important age quickly.
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The most important stuff would seem to be technical info that does not need to be circulated outside of well defined groups. Blueprints for weapons systems. Computer code for weapons or surveillance. The identity of foreign assets. Sources and methods. By and large, such info is never seen by policy makers.
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I would think that the policy information of greatest value is what is about to be done or what might be done. Such info quickly loses value. I think the other big concern of such info would be if an eney accesses a sufficient quantity to support data mining.
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So with that in mind, there is little likely hood of harm from any documents that Trump (or Biden or Pence etc.) kept. That would not be so if the Russians or Chinese were accessing Hillary’s server in real time.
Mike,
Would you provide evidence to support these assertions?
Mike M
I imagine Trump would have been given whatever he was directed to see. He may have asked to be given extremely important technical stuff even if that was very technical material he couldn’t digest.
Lucia,
Yes. I didn’t think anybody had the authority to refuse to let the Commander in Chief see whatever information he wanted to see on the basis that the information is secret or classified, but I might be mistaken.
It’s going to be important to a sane President to know the high level capabilities of military systems to assess whether a miltary action might be successful. The Pentagon will certainly give their high level opinion but opinions like whether they would be able to obtain air dominance is probably going to be backed up with “because systems A,B,C have capabilities X,Y,Z which we believe will carry the day”.
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They would also need to approve or deny specific military actions based on a knowledge of these systems. So I think they will get exposed to high level capabilities, but won’t be reviewing schematics. This high level knowledge is very valuable though.
lucia (Comment #222004): “He may have asked to be given extremely important technical stuff even if that was very technical material he couldn’t digest.”
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Yeah and he *might* have demanded that all his briefings be translated into Russian. Both about equally likely.
mark bofill (Comment #222003): “Would you provide evidence to support these assertions?”
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That most are not all THAT important is indicated by the volume of classified docs being so large that they can’t keep track of them. That the really important ones mostly age rapidly is just common sense.
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I would hope that special care would be taken with anything critically important that won’t rapidly become obsolete.
Thanks Mike. I disagree, but I thought I’d ask on the off chance you had something [edit: had something I considered] solid and persuasive supporting this.
Mike M.
I don’t think bout are about equally likely. I think one is likely based on his personality. The other is unlikely, also based on his personality.
Barr says, “if the allegations the former president willfully retained hundreds of highly classified documents are proven true, then “he’s toast.”
I think Trump is toast based on what I have seen, unless he can plead not guilty by stupidity and arrogance.
Re Mike M. (Comment #222002)
“The identity of foreign assets. Sources and methods. By and large, such info is never seen by policy makers.”
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If foreign governments find out what we know, then they may try to find out why we know, thus putting informants (foreign assets) at greater risk of being discovered. Fear of being discovered may make informants less likely to inform, which weakens our intelligence.
OK_Max (Comment #222012): “If foreign governments find out what we know, then they may try to find out why we know, thus putting informants (foreign assets) at greater risk of being discovered.”
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That is true. But with details stripped from reports, which is what policy makers usually get, they would likely need a lot of such information. They are not going to get that from the sorts of lapses that people have been getting excited about.
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mark bofill (Comment #222009):”I disagree, but I thought I’d ask on the off chance you had something [edit: had something I considered] solid and persuasive supporting this.”
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And I expect that you have nothing solid or persuasive to support your disagreement. That is a big problem with secrecy. It demands that we trust the people in charge. At this point, I don’t see why anyone would trust them.
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A minor piece of evidence to support what I suppose: The Discord leak (over which such a fuss was made) had little if anything that was not already public knowledge. Biden admitted as much when he said the leak had little of consequence and was not contemporaneous.
On the subject of government secrecy and leaks, I found this to be interesting and informative:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/04/25/the-intelligence-leak-shows-us-nothing-new-or-surprising-about-ukraine/
It appears in the complaints against Trump that he was very much into protecting secret government documents – at least early in his presidency. Of course, he could have been talking out of both sides of his mouth.
Mike,
I’m not the one making a specific claim about the importance of the intelligence contained in classified documents politicians get ahold of. Our positions are not symmetrical.
Brandon Shollenberger (Comment #221983)
June 11th, 2023 at 12:45 am
“I randomly happened to visit this site today, and I saw this comment:”
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Welcome back Brandon.
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Mixed emotions.
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Perhaps we could do a self investigation of our reasons for interacting with others and the type of interaction we seek.
Also what we offer to the other people we communicate with through our interaction and approach to the site and its contents.
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I should go first.
I think I am gifted with some knowledge and am important.
Obviously on my part this is a false insight but, what the heck, it feels good.
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I have tried to discover my reasons for blogging and in my case it is to communicate the right approach to any and all subject matter to help other people improve.
Deluded again? Yes.
Tendentious? Yes
Nit picking? Yes.
Boring and Pretentious? Yes.
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So why do I persist knowing all this?
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Heck. I want to be liked.
I want to be respected
I want to talk to people about technical stuff and life which I can partly get at U3A but not with family and friends.
My know it all attitude gets an adequate take down at sites like these where there are people with real knowledge, KF as an example but many others.
Mainly I want to learn.
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I want to be liked and respected but stay true to myself?
This is my dilemma.
Ultimately my false belief in my know it all attitude has been a great drag on my two stated desires.
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Good to see you out commentating a little.
Cut the others some slack, perhaps, or not.
Have a good day.
mark bofill (Comment #222016): “I’m not the one making a specific claim about the importance of the intelligence contained in classified documents politicians get ahold of. Our positions are not symmetrical.”
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Fair enough. It seems I overstated my case in order to make a point and in so doing obscured the point I was trying to make. So please permit me to restate.
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I think that we can NOT assume that the information in Trump’s documents was any big deal. My impression is that that assumption is widely made. It might be so. But I think it more likely that it is not.
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Also, I think it more likely that Hillary exposed critical information if only because it was more likely to be timely. But I have no way of knowing if that is true.
SteveF:
I read your link, and I have no idea how you conclude it shows what you said is true. Nothing in that link indicates Clinton willfully thwarted a subpoena as you claimed. So I’m faced with a dilemma. Do you think the piece shows Clinton willfully thrwarted a subpoene? My impression is, yes. But if so, you’re wrong; that’s not what it says. On the other hand, maybe you realize the article doesn’t say that and intended some other meaning when you shared the link. If so, I don’t know what you intended and can’t hope to respond to it.
I get that article uses tons of bad arguments and mafia-style rhetoric to try to suggest the idea you boldly stated as fact is true. However, there’s no factual basis for the idea. The facts are quite simple. Clinton was subpoenad. Her staff contacted the tech guys after this. After this, one techie deleted e-mails which had inadvertantly been stored longer than the retention policy said they should have been. He’s testified he did this of his own accord, without any prompting from Clinton or her staff. The article you shared agrees on all of these points.
In no way does that fact pattern show Clinton willfully thwarted a subpoena. If you think it does, or if you think the article you linked to shows other relevant facts that do, I have no way to know. The way I would is if you bothered to state what information you think supports the conclusion you stated as fact (and perhaps why). Until then, as far as I can tell what you said is a near-total fabrication.
I think there are many ways we might possibly gauge how important documents are without viewing them ourselves, and we have in fact seen some of the classified material in Clinton’s case. But even if that weren’t true, your idea would seem to preclude stating as fact the documents in Clinton’s case were more damaging than the ones in Trump’s case.
Mike M.:
To be clear, you said:
You’re now claiming there are multiple laws, not one law, and you’re saying one of those laws doe apply to the president despite having previously said none do. That would seem to suggest I was right in claiming your initial comment on this issue was wrong.
However, it is also completely irrelevant. Nothing Trump was indicted for involves his time as president. Trump was indicted for his actions after his term as president ended. I pointed this out to you before, but for whatever reason, you’re simply ignoring this basic fact. Whether the president is or is not subject to record keeping laws has nothing to do with this case. This case is about a civilian willfully retaining and refusing to return classified documents when they have no legal right to keep them.
Tom Scharf:
You may find it interesting to talk about me as a person, but I do not. If you genuinely think I’ve exhibited hypocrisy/double-standards or anything like that I’d be willing to examine any examples, but otherwise, I’ll just say I think you are very wrong in what you think of me and leave it at that.
Sorry for the quadruple post, but it looks like the edit I submitted to my response to Mike M. did not go through. I noticed almost immediately my mistake of having misread his earlier comment as indicating there was one relevant records law not multiple and tried to fix it but can’t. Not sure if there’s a known issue with editing not working, but I thought I should mention it.
Brandon,
I look at the circumstantial evidence (summarized in the article I linked, but many other sources available), and in totality it strongly suggests that Clinton had the hard drive on her at-home server wiped clean, even while it was under subpoena. Note I did not say that could be proven, only that I honestly think she directed or approved of the wiping of the hard drive in spite of it being under subpoena. Believe it or not, politicians and their minions tend to lie with considerable frequency.
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The jury didn’t think OJ should be convicted of killing his estranged wife and her boyfriend with a large knife. That doesn’t mean he didn’t. I’d guess a jury in Florida, with some Republicans on it, has a good chance of hanging on every count. If that happens, it won’t mean Trump didn’t do anything he is accused of. I does mean that juries have discretion on who to convict. A bit like the DOJ has prosecutorial discretion on choosing who to charge…. and who not to charge.
On the subject of OJ, I came across an interesting theory the other day.
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OJ Simpson Conspiracy Theory: Did O.J. Simpson’s Son Kill Nicole Brown And Ron Goldman?
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https://www.yourtango.com/2020339443/oj-simpson-conspiracy-theory-jason-simpson
SteveF:
To be clear, you did not say you *think* Clinton did this. You offered no caveats or qualifications to indicate it was a mere opinion. You said it as a matter of fact. Had I not commented, the idea this was anything other than a universally accepted fact likely would not have come up at all.
Leaving that aside, the simple reality is you’ve done basically nothing to indicate your claim was valid. To start, you offered nothing of your own to support your claim. Then when I described the fact pattern of the situation, you did not contest anything I said about it. The impression that gives is we both agree on what the facts are. If that’s correct, I have absolutely no idea how you interpret those facts to reach such an unsubstantiated conclusion. You’ve made no effort explain how you do, and quite frankly, the conclusion seems absurd to me.
So again, I say, your claim about Clinton’s e-mails being deleted (at her behest to willfully thwart a subpoena) appears to be a near-total fabrication. I can see no basis for it, and it appears you’re not interested in offering one.
Brandon,
“I can see no basis for it, and it appears you’re not interested in offering one.”
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I suspect your eyesight is not very good. I provided a link with a long list of damning circumstantial evidence; there are many others available, but I am sure you are aware of that. Can you see that the series of events leading to the deletion of emails at least suggests Clinton had both the means and motivation to have the server wiped? Probably not, and that’s fine with me. I suspect my evaluation of your opinions is about like your evaluation of mine. I swore off conversing with you long ago. I do so again. Cio.
SteveF (Comment #222026): “a long list of damning circumstantial evidence”
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For the likes of Brandon, when it comes to Hillary or Biden, anything short of a written, signed confession does not even qualify as evidence. Whereas any rumor or accusation against Trump is presumed to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
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SteveF: “I swore off conversing with you [Brandon] long ago. I do so again.”
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I second that.
Can someone explain to me how the Espionage Act can be used to charge a person who never provided information to an enemy?
I see similarities between supporters of Democrat and Republican politicians who have violated rules and laws. There is a tendency to use previous violations by politicians of the other party to justify their party politician violations being forgiven. Or looking at their parties politicians actions as being merely a matter of a politician being a politician while the other parties politicians actions are evil and subject to prosecution. This sets a precedent for putting politicians above the law, at least from the view of a large portion of the voting public. In my view it is all part of partisanship in protecting politician misdeeds being more like the fans rooting for their favorite sport team.
Currently the apparently favored method of partisan reactions is to ignore the misdeeds or worse of the favored party and concentrate on the other parties similar problems.
I also emphatically disagree with the frequently used rationalization that convicting politicians for their misdeeds is somehow undemocratic in that the politician can be voted out of office and that the politician was initially democratically elected. This again puts the politician above the law as it would be applied to the common person who already faces the coercive force that government lends to politicians. Further, the conviction of the common person has more severe ramifications than that of a politician losing an election. Even politicians who were voter rejected for misdeeds or worse can find lucrative employment with a media, business or government dealing organization.
Mike,
Reuters can explain it:
emphasis added.
mark bofill (Comment #222030),
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Thanks. I remain skeptical. I have been trying to find an answer to my question and have learned a few things but still have much to learn.
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One is that the Espionage Act applies only to national defense information, not all classified information. Courts have repeatedly ruled that the former is narrower than the latter and Congress has refused to expand the definition. The Reuters article does not seem to make that distinction, which leads me to question its reliability.
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Furthermore, the Espionage Act criminalized providing defense information to an enemy. Making secrets public might well qualify but simply possessing them should not, at least absent a clear intent to provide them to an enemy. The idea that mere possession is criminal seems to be an “innovative” interpretation that was not applied much, if at all, until the Obama administration.
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I am not aware if that interpretation has ever been subjected to judicial scrutiny. It seems that the pattern is that the government charges someone then bullies them into a plea bargain, so there is never anything to appeal. I think that won’t work with Trump. I have seen a confident assertion that if it ever gets to SCOTUS, they will toss it. I have no idea if that prediction is likely to be accurate.
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So my tentative answer to my question is that the Espionage Act can be used to charge Trump by means of a questionable interpretation of the law that might not survive judicial scrutiny.
Mike,
I don’t understand why you say this.
I think this is the text of the act here. I see a bunch of clauses joined by ‘or’ modifiers. Two of the clauses say this:
(e) at least says nothing whatsoever about an enemy. I don’t actually read (d) mentioning an enemy either.
I’m not good at deciphering legaliese though, so maybe it’s understood? I don’t know how that works.
mark bofill (Comment #222032): “(e) at least says nothing whatsoever about an enemy. I don’t actually read (d) mentioning an enemy either.”
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Indeed. The other clauses say “for the purpose aforesaid” which seems to be “with intent or reason to believe that the information to be obtained is to be used to the injury of the United States”. That was my impression of the entire law. Both those two clauses don’t say that. But then the preamble says the purpose of the law is to deal with “disloyalty”, which is not the case with Trump or most of the other recent victims of that law.
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It is as if “disloyalty” now means not doing as you’re told rather than acting against the interests of the United States.
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I am also no good at legalese. I can see where (d) and (e) might be interpreted very strictly (in which case Trump is likely screwed) but it is not clear that is how those clauses were meant to be interpreted. So I guess we will have to wait for SCOTUS to tell us what it means.
Since Trump has lots of support in Florida, and
It takes only one vote to result in a hung jury,
a conviction seems unlikely. On the other hand,
a conviction might help Florida’s governor get
the GOP nomination, which could be appealing
to some jurors.
MikeM
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It would be odd indeed for those writing (d) and (e) to specifically leave out “for the purpose aforesaid” from (d) and (e) when they know to specifically include it in (b) and (c). My reading is that (d) and (e) describe something you can’t do at all. Not even if you have some different purpose.
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Do you have a link to the preamble? I don’t see it here:https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=3&psid=3904
The original seems to be here:
https://iowaculture.gov/history/education/educator-resources/primary-source-sets/americas-involvement-world-war-i/espionage
I don’t see a preamble.
Based on the documents that appear in the charges, it appears that if Trump had simply returned the documents in his possession, the prosecution would have used discretion in deciding to not charge him. Instead he is apparently in voice memos miming that documents be disappeared.
MikeM, I do not think you realize the fool you are attempting to defend. He has apparently incriminated himself. He has said some of the very most beautiful ever statements for a prosecution.
Ken
Heh.
SteveF:
No you did not. You provided a link which described the same fact pattern I described, only with lots of extra, mafia-style language with the hope rhetoric would serve in place of evidence or logic. Factually speaking, what I’ve said and what your link says are the same. You chose not to dispute anything I said about those facts or offer any way in which one would interpret the facts to reach the conclusion you reached. Instead, your approach is:
You’re alleging a conspiracy in which multiple people committed felonies without providing any explanation of what the motivation or method would be. The only basis you’ve offered is a set of facts which are completely explained by the “official” account of events. You’ve offered no reason to suspect that “official” account is untrue, failing to address it in any way. In fact, when challenged on your narrative, you’ve refused to say anything yourself to support your claims at all.
Is it possible Hillary Clinton engaged in a conspiracy with multiple people committing felonies to delete e-mails there’s no evidence she even knew existed? I guess. But given there isn’t a single fact to even suggest she knew those e-mails existed, I’d say anyone alleging such a conspiracy has a lot of work to do to support their claims.
Mike M.:
It’s interesting to me you make bold factual claims that are patently false, try to pretend you didn’t make them when called out, then choose to walk away from the discussion while insulting the person who pointed out you made false claims. If you think the fact I don’t believe Clinton engaged in a conspiracy to delete e-mails there’s no evidence she knew existed means I’m somehow too biased to respond to, I don’t know what to tell you. What can I say? I don’t believe in conspiracies without evidence.
To be clear, it appears everyone agrees what the facts of the case are. Clinton had her private server, which was wrong, and it was supposed to only retain e-mails for X days (I think 60) like is common practice. E-mails were inadvertently kept longer than that because the people she hired to manage them screwed up. She got subpoena’d. She contacted the people she had hired about this. An employee there deleted the e-mails that should have never been stored in the first place. That employee testified he did so of his own accord, without instruction, and everyone else involved testified they didn’t know about his actions.
Those are the facts. As far as I know, they are not in dispute. To claim the conspiracy people like SteveF believe in, one must assume a bunch of extra facts that do nothing to explain anything we know. To start, how did Clinton know e-mails were saved when the retention policy said they shouldn’t have been? I guess one could believe the tech who discovered the mistake told her (directly, or through other people who’d then have to be part of the conspiracy), and she somehow convinced him to commit a felony for her then lie about it despite intense public scrutiny. But what fact does that narrative explain that’s not explained just as well by the “official” account?
Mind you, I don’t even know what this conspiracy would have been intended to cover up as nobody seems to say. The e-mails that got deleted weren’t even supposed to exist. And from what I can tell, Clinton would have been far better off if the e-mails hadn’t been deleted. I can’t imagine why Clinton would engage in a conspiracy with people she didn’t know to commit felonies to delete e-mails when their deletion would only seem to hurt her. If nothing else, the idea she’d give some random tech guy blackmail material on her for this seems implausible.
I’m not saying the idea Clinton had those e-mails deleted on purpose is impossible. I just don’t see any facts to support the idea, and there are a ton of questions people promoting the idea don’t seem interested in answering. Instead, they just seem to insult people who question the many holes in their narrative.
Brandon,
“the fact I don’t believe Clinton engaged in a conspiracy to delete e-mails”.
Interesting how a purported belief an be turned into a discussion.
As opposed to an actual belief.
If one looks at innocence look no further than this
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“Combetta is an IT professional who helped manage Clinton’s private server and then invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination rather than testify before a Congressional Oversight committee ”
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Now how would you handle this if you were him, Brandon.
Take your time.
You deleted the emails for your company forHilary.
You have a complete immunity from prosecution.
You are asked if you did it and you plead the 5th.
_
There is no conspiracy of course, all you have to do is say yes or no and go home.
Complete immunity.
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It is interesting to assess logical chains of thought is it not?
Particularly from those who start with a belief system that disallows half the positions.
angech:
I’m afraid it’s difficult to respond as you’re apparently asking me to address an out-of-context quotation you haven’t provided a source to. As such, it’s difficult for me to understand/verify the details of your factual understanding of what you’re referring to.
That said, I watched the Congressional hearing in which Paul Combetta asserted his fifth amendment right. The Congressman asking him questions had not seen any immunity agreement, and in fact was relying purely on public reporting of such an agreement existing. Given even the people making the arguments you appear to be trying to advance didn’t know that such an agreement existed, much less what the details of the agreement might be, I can’t realistically comment on the issue. Immunity agreement come with limitations. Even if Paul Combetta reached some agreement with the FBI (or whoever else), that doesn’t mean he’d be free to testify in front of a congressional hearing without risk, legal or otherwise. Even during that hearing, the members of Congress stated they didn’t know if he had or had not waived his fifth amendment rights. Of particular note, having an immunity agreement doesn’t mean one has waived fifth amendment protection.
As far as I know, it is simply false to say Paul Combetta had “complete immunity.” I have not seen any factual record to support such a claim, and the people who asked him to testify stated themselves they did not know that to be true. Given you offer no source for your claims/quotation, I can’t say much more. Personally, I do not think it is remarkable someone might cooperate with the FBI, DoJ or similar groups yet not want to cooperate with a political hearing they (apparently) have no legal obligation to participate in.
Assuming the “official” account of things were true, I would likely behave exactly as Paul Combetta did in that congressional hearing as that is the standard legal advice anyone in that situation would likely receive.
In case anyone wants to see for themselves what we’re talking about, here’s the hearing Combetta showed up at. Of note, nobody at the hearing questions his right to plead the fifth:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?415141-1/hillary-clinton-email-investigation#
I’m afraid it’s difficult to respond as”
“I can’t realistically comment on the issue.”
“I’m afraid it’s difficult to respond as you’re apparently asking me to address an out-of-context quotation you haven’t provided a source to.”
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Face your fears, Brandon.
I give you permission to respond, permission to comment, Immunity if you desire.
The quotation is one of many on the case events.
Naivety is not a useful trait when you are a very good computer user.
Copy the quote, paste it in a search engine and voila.
Except you already know all this.
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Thank you for the link to Combetta.
Everyone will appreciate that.
As well as demonstrating part of your true skill level.
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The test was merely to see if you were open to a simple conjecture.
To notice a possible mote in the eye.
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Is there any part of the conspiracy theory that you do not have a politically correct skeptical science answer for?
Just one?
Give it a try
angech, I’m not sure why you tell me you give me permission to respond as that’s not a thing I need or something you’re in a position to offer, but in regard to you saying this:
The simple answer is, “No.” If you can’t be bothered to offer the source of a quotation you provide, it is not anyone else’s responsibility to do research to try to find the source of your (supposed) quote. If you want people to look at something, you can tell them where to find it.
These feel like rhetorical questions, which the rules of site forbid. Assuming they’re not though, I would wager there is probably not anything I do not have a “politically correct skeptical science answer for,” whatever that phrase could possibly mean, as when the reality of a situation is clearly one thing, it tends to be easy to have answers to any question regarding that situation.
Brandon
You asked what Hillary had been accused of without specifying by whom. Like this:
Steve gave you a link listing accusations and discussing circumstantial evidence related to those.
You are now complaining that the accusations aren’t well supported or the article contains “mafia-style language”.
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But SteveF is correct that she has been accused of those things.
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It’s true the article uses colorful language. But you are a bit off the mark in suggesting it’s ” in place of evidence or logic.”
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It’s an accusation. The case is highly circumstantial. There are portions that are speculative and suggest inferences that are uncertain. That doesn’t make it “not logical”. It makes it speculative– and possibly incorrect.
The polite answer is thanks angech for that suggestion.
Not that simple I guess.
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Taking no responsibility is a two way street but that’s your and my responsibility and cross to bear.
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I believe you are well acquainted with the site rules in the past and therefore should be more exact in your comments.
I note that feeling like is quite distinct from being.
I sense a lot of evasiveness here. (GPB).
–
Anyway thanks for responding.
angech, lucia,
Please stop feeding the troll.
“… without providing any explanation of what the motivation or method would be”
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How obtuse can a person possibly be who professes to have great knowledge of an event? Well, since I have to answer rhetorical questions, very obtuse. So Brandon, you can write a 1000 words on this subject but can’t even fathom what that motivation was? At all? It needs to be spelled out to you like a 5 year old?
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You aren’t arguing in good faith. Since you can’t seem to think of this yourself or apparently have never, ever, seen this anywhere, she was likely attempting to cover up the fact she was running a private email server against the rules, or probably at that point just attempting to minimize the damage after it was discovered and have some minimal plausible deniability. This must be quite the revelation to you, ha ha.
I would add that if Trump was as skilled a politician and a professional battle hardened liar like the Clintons were, he would not be indicted right now. All career politicians end up like this, you can’t survive in that environment otherwise. It’s not exactly shocking that this character flaw would eventually bring Trump down.
Lucia, more precisely, I asked “what exactly is it Hillary Clinton allegedly did that is worse than what Trump has allegedly done?” Given Trump has been indicted for obstruction of justice, I think it’s questionable her being accused of thwarting a subpoena by having e-mails deleted would qualify. I’m not sure there’s an objective answer to that.
I think there are portions that are beyond “speculative.” As far as I can see, the idea Clinton willfully thwarted a subpoena by having e-mails deleted explains no facts better than the “official” account while raising numerous questions and problems nobody has been able to answer. For instance, nobody seems able or even interested in explaining how Clinton would have known those e-mails existed at all. Similarly, nobody seems able to explain why she could have believed deleting them would have been better than letting them be collected. Are there possible answers to issues like this? Maybe. But almost nobody appears to even be trying to provide them.
Tom Scharf (Comment #222050): “It’s not exactly shocking that this character flaw would eventually bring Trump down.”
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I find it hard to detect sarcasm online. I am guessing that the “character flaw” is that Trump lacks the professional politician’s skill at lying?
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Trump strikes me as the sort who would cheerfully punch you in the nose (shocking!) but would never stab you in the back (a fundamental skill of most politicians).
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Trump also strikes me as the sort who refuses to be bullied or to placate a bully. Whereas most politicians will placate a bully and wait for a chance to land a sucker punch.
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Looked at that way, it is not surprising that when the Archivist tried to use the FBI to bully Trump, he responded with defiance.
————
p.s. – I am not saying that Trump does not lie. I am saying that his lies tend to be obvious exaggerations rather than the smooth gaslighting of the polished politician.
Have not been following the legal aspects closely, but found this article interesting.
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“.. it would be rather critical to consider the importance of the Presidential Records Act of 1978. That is the statute that made presidential records the property of the government (previously they were understood to be the personal property of the President or former President). But in making presidential records the property of the government, the act contained this rather important carve-out (22 U.S.C. Section 2205(3)):
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Notwithstanding any restrictions on access imposed pursuant to sections 2204 and 2208 of this title . . . (3) the Presidential records of a former President shall be available to such former President or the former President’s designated representative.
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Somehow the indictment that has been issued does not anywhere mention this section.
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So by the clear words of this statute the ex-President is absolutely entitled to have “access” to the “Presidential records” generated during his own term, and also he can further legally provide access to whoever he designates as his “designated representative.” So how could Trump fit the element of Section 793(e) that he had “unauthorized possession of, or access to” the documents in question, whether classified or not? And, since he has the complete ability to make people his “designated representative,” how can he have given access to the documents to people not “entitled” to receive them ?…”
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https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2023-6-10-thoughts-on-the-federal-trump-indictment-its-shockingly-weak
Tom Scharf, I think it’s interesting you made derisive remarks about my behavior almost as soon as I showed up here then post with a behavior like this:
But leaving aside any issues with things like civility, it appears you wrote all this to say Clinton’s motive in having e-mails deleted would be one of two things: 1) To cover up the server’s existence; 2) To minimize damage “after it was discovered.” The first of these supposed motivations would appear to be insane as the server had already been discovered before the e-mails were deleted. Claiming I’m acting in bad faith for not considering this motivation seems strange as I think even a five year old would know you can’t hide evidence to prevent something from being discovered if it’s already been discovered.
For the second motivation you suggest, it’s difficult for me to see how having e-mails which were supposed to have been deleted well before be deleted would minimize any damage or create any deniability. It wouldn’t change anything about what would or would not be learned about her use of that server or the legal issues involved with it. By the time the e-mails were deleted, Clinton already knew people had learned of the server and how she had used it. Deleting e-mails wouldn’t affect anything about that.
As far as I can tell, Clinton would have been better off if those e-mails had either been deleted when they were supposed to (long before the subpoena) or not been deleted at all. And had she even known the e-mails existed (which I doubt), I suspect she’d have reached the same conclusion. The only reason I can come up with Clinton would have engaged in a conspiracy involving multiple people committing felonies to delete those e-mails would be if there was something in the e-mails which needed to be covered up.
And again, I want to stress, Clinton could not possibly have hoped to cover up the existence of the server by having those e-mails deleted as people already knew about the server. She had already made public statements about it. Your first proposed motivation is simply insane.
Ed Forbes:
That someone might be allowed “access” to records does not mean they are allowed to keep those records for themselves. The law requires presidents turn material over to the National Archive which will then store it and handle who is and is not allowed to access it. According to the indictment, Trump was indicted because he refused to turn the material over even when told to, lied about possessing it and actively attempted to hide it from the government.
Moreover, there are other laws that matter than just the Presidential Records Act. For instance, there are many laws about how confidential material must be handled. Those laws cover things like where such material can be stored, reviewed and discussed. These laws are not superseded by the Presidential Records Act.
Branden “ That someone might be allowed “access” to records does not mean they are allowed to keep those records for themselves. ”
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Please point out the section that supports this view. You are now grasping a bit without foundation.
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All Presidents since enactment of the noted statute have “keep” presidential records for themselves. Your statement fails on its face.
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Ed Forbes,
You can check out this article
https://www.lawfareblog.com/united-states-america-v-donald-j-trump-and-waltine-nauta
RB, a good general reference to what happened, but generally weak on the actual laws involved that matter.
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1st issue to get past is if Trump had the legal authority to possess the documents. There are a number of laws pertaining to a President’s authority and this is my only area of interest on this issue as yet. Everything else is meaningless until this is established.
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As I said, I have not been following this closely due to the fact I consider this a purely political prosecution and I have zero tolerance of anything the MSM produces.
“I find it hard to detect sarcasm online. I am guessing that the “character flaw” is that Trump lacks the professional politician’s skill at lying?””
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You have to wonder why career politicians mostly end up exactly the same with their evasions and manner of speaking. There must be strong incentives to behave like that. Trump does not behave like that, but he may be finding out the hard way why others end up like the Clintons and everyone else. Everyone has their knives out up there and if you leave an opening then you will likely pay the price. Trump broke that mold and has survived so far, but he is pressing his luck.
Ed Forbes:
I an unaware of presidents keeping presidential records themselves as you claim. Can you cite any examples/provide any evidence of this? It would seem to contradict what both the law and what the National Archives says. The law says:
And the National Archive has issued a statement about Trump’s situation saying:
It even directly contradicts your claim all presidents keep presidential records for themselves when leaving office as it explicitly says Obama did not:
https://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2023/nr23-016
Brandon “ I an unaware of presidents keeping presidential records themselves as you claim.”
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Have you been living in a cave the last number of months? I ask this because of all the x politicals in the news going through the records they took with them for classified documents. Biden stored his documents, which included classified, in the garage with his Corvette.
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Ed Forbes
I think you are over interpreting that clause (3). “Made available” doesn’t mean “gets to keep”, “gets to hide” nor “gets to deny the existence of”. The books at my public library are “available” to me. I can check them out and return them.
A good (short) summary of where things stand at the moment.
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Ukrainian Summer Offensive Update 13/06/23
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV4goEO3ZPc
Lucia, with the number of x presidents and VP’s having retained documents, and NO pushback from anyone going back decades, I kind of think this answers the basic question as “yes”, they can retain documents.
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It’s not the question of keeping documents ( copies if not original) that is the main issue as I see if. The question is how the various laws on classified documents interact with Presidential exceptions to these laws.
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I don’t know the answer to this issue and have seen little in-depth legal arguments published on this. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in court.
Ed Forbes,
You are advancing irrelevancies. That presidents have been allowed to keep some materials doesn’t mean the presidents get to chose to keep anything and everything. The archivist can insist somethings are given up. The archivist only has to “make them available”.
Sure. And you are intrepreting “made available” incorrectly.
Ok… so I guess you aren’t standing behind your previous statement which involved pointing to “clear words” and concluding “absolutely entitled” to …. Of those were real questions? The looked rhetorical– as if you thought you’d made some sort of convincing claim.
As it happens, I think we’ve given you the answer to how Trump could fit the elements of Section […] and so on.
“ As it happens, I think we’ve given you the answer to how Trump could fit the elements of Section […] and so on.” 🙂
.
Now that’s funny.
.
Personally I am waiting to read the legal briefs submitted to the court.
.
Ed Forbes:
Biden is not a president who has left office so he is not an example “of presidents keeping presidential records themselves” as you say always happens. As far as I know, none of the other examples you obliquely refer to involve presidents who have left office either. Similarly, as far as I know none of these cases involve presidential records. That’d make sense since the people involved weren’t presidents when they took that material with them.
Are you perhaps conflating “presidential records” with “classified material”? The two are very different things. Most presidential records are not classified, and most classified material is not a presidential record.
Since Ed Forbes and many others seem to be trying to claim Trump is being targeted for behavior that was commonplace, that what he did is no different than what people like Biden and Clinton have done, I feel it might be worth pointing out just how incredibly different Trump’s behavior was. Beyond the refusal to return classified material, lying about it and trying to hide it from the government, the indictment alleges he intentionally showed the material to people he knew weren’t allowed to see it. When giving an interview to a writer, the indictment says he had the writer read a classified document containing a plan of attack on another country. The discussion which followed this contained:
In the same discussion, Trump even made it perfectly clear he knew the material was classified, contradicting his lies in which he said he had declassified the material:
People like Biden, Clinton and Pence cooperated with the government in attempting to return material They even voluntarily allowed the government to search their property to look for classified material. They made no attempt to resist returning material they weren’t supposed to have. That’s why they didn’t get prosecuted.
The indictment makes it clear the reason Trump was indicted is he not only did the opposite of what everyone else did, he actively went out of his way to show classified material to people he knew weren’t allowed to see it. Nobody else did anything like that.
I think Ed Forbes raises a legitimate issue as to the Presidential Records Act.
Above, mark bofill (Comment #222032) provided this link to the Espionage Act: https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=3&psid=3904#:
It would seems that (d) and (e) are the operable bits. The important part of (d)seems to be “fails to deliver it on demand to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it”. Who might that be. It all but one case, that would presumably be the person’s superior. But who is it for the President? The Archivist? Is he really put above the President? The SCOTUS decision in the Clinton sock drawer case would seem to say not.
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For (e), the key seems to be “proper place of custody”. Again, the interpretation of that for an ex-President would seem to depend on the interpretation of the Presidential Records Act.
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I do not know the correct interpretation. I am only pointing out that it is not so obvious.
——–
Addition: Does the Presidential Records Act say anything specific about defense materials?
Brandon “ Biden is not a president who has left office so he is not an example”
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You really have not read the statute have you. The statue is written specifically for both the President and the VP.
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§2207. Vice-Presidential records
Vice-Presidential records shall be subject to the provisions of this chapter in the same manner as Presidential records. The duties and responsibilities of the Vice President, with respect to Vice-Presidential records, shall be the same as the duties and responsibilities of the President under this chapter, except section 2208, with respect to Presidential records. The authority of the Archivist with respect to Vice-Presidential records shall be the same as the authority of the Archivist under this chapter with respect to Presidential records, except that the Archivist may, when the Archivist determines that it is in the public interest, enter into an agreement for the deposit of Vice-Presidential records in a non-Federal archival depository. Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to authorize the establishment of separate archival depositories for such Vice-Presidential records.
(Added Pub. L. 95–591, §2(a), Nov. 4, 1978, 92 Stat. 2527; amended Pub. L. 113–187, §2(a)(2)(C), Nov. 26, 2014, 128 Stat. 2005.)
Just finished the expansion of the last portion of my backyard misting system to cool my patio area for the summer. It was up for last summer, but I added a couple of additional misters.
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https://www.amazon.com/CANPUMP-Pressure-Commercial-Misting-Fogging/dp/B08CF1W52K?ref_=ast_sto_dp
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It is amazing!
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Between the patio cover, shade cloth, and the mist system, my central CA 105F summer afternoons in the backyard are now actually pleasant.
Ed Forbes:
You explicitly said, “All Presidents since enactment of the noted statute have “keep” presidential records for themselves.” I questioned this claim, saying I was unaware of any “presidents keeping presidential records themselves as you claim. Can you cite any examples/provide any evidence of this?” Both you and I were clearly referring to presidents who had left office and (supposedly) kept presidential records afterward.
Getting snippy because you chose to change the topic while pretending you didn’t is bizarre. You said Group A did something. I as for an example. You provided an example from Group B. I pointed out B is not A. It might be worth discussing the behavior of Group B in addition to the behavior of Group A, but you presenting Group B is Group A is wrong.
MikeM
Sorry.
Thanks.
You are right again.
Mike M.:
As before, you’re still pretending Donald Trump was president at the time of the issues in question. He was not. He was a civilian. That said, I’m not sure what argument you’re making here as it’s basically wrong to say the person entitled to receive the material “would presumably be the person’s superior.” That’s not how the government handles classified material. There are people and groups specifically tasked with such matters.
You seem to have imagined some strange process that doesn’t exist so that you can draw an analogy to your your imagination to suggest Trump wouldn’t need to hand this material over because he was the president… after he had stopped being president. None of that is in line with what the laws say.
It is in fact obvious. The law is clear. The National Archive has explicitly stated what the law requires. That’s why Trump and his lawyers did not dispute the requirements of the law when they could have made legal challenges to the subpoena they were served. As for the “proper place of custody,” that’s a red herring. If it weren’t though, I’d suggest the proper place for custody would not include things like a ballroom stage. Or Trump’s bathroom. Or the truck a person without security clearance moves boxes in.
Defense materials, specifically? I don’t think so. It does, however, say a number of things about classified material. And all of them are in line with the fact the National Archives is who would be responsible for storing that material.
Ed Forbes,
Yeah. Swamp cooling works well in dry climates.
I first saw a fine water spray cooling system in Phoenix many years ago at a hotel pool-side bar. Spray nozzles were mounted above the covered edge of the bar area. Outside the spray line (late June): 105F. Inside the spray line: 73F. Quite amazing.
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Don’t know if it is common practice, but in dry regions, swamp cooling the air going to an air conditioning outside unit ought to substantially reduce AC electrical cost, since pumping refrigerant gas against a 105F+ condenser coil is a lot harder than against a 75F condenser coil.
My AC is a swamp cooler, as is the norm in Albuquerque.
Mike, Steve, Ed,
Yep. Swamp cooling: good thing in dry climate. Borderline useless Illinois. Having been in Florida: don’t waste money even trying.
I can attest that there are no swamp coolers down here, but the AC adaption rate is probably 99.8%.
First People Sickened By COVID-19 Were Chinese Scientists At Wuhan Institute Of Virology, Say US Government Sources
The three scientists were engaged in “gain-of-function” research on SARS-like coronaviruses when they fell ill
https://public.substack.com/p/first-people-sickened-by-covid-19
By Schellenberger, Taibbi, Gutentag.
“Now, answers increasingly look within reach. Sources within the US government say that three of the earliest people to become infected with SARS-CoV-2 were Ben Hu, Yu Ping, and Yan Zhu. All were members of the Wuhan lab suspected to have leaked the pandemic virus.”
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So, as usual, there is this: “According to multiple U.S. government officials interviewed”. Anonymous sources, so YMMV.
My wife and I many years ago visited close friends in AZ who once lived in IL and had a swamp cooler for AC in AZ. We normally stayed in hotels and not people’s houses but our friends insisted we stay over night with them. My wife and I were up most of the night because it was too hot to sleep. In the morning at breakfast the friends asked if it were too cool for sleeping. My wife and I had, with great effort, to stifle a laugh and told them no. The remainder of the vacation with them was on the road and we slept in motels/hotels with AC, of course. The friends were and are probably the nicest people we knew/know and we never discussed the issue with them.
That day the temperatures were between 110 and 115 F outside and very dry and I spent much of the day outside without feeling that uncomfortable.
I’ve lived in the southeast my whole life and I never even knew swamp cooling was a thing until now. [Edit: Unless it’s come up here before and I just forgot. Always possible]
I believe Trump’s legal problems will revolve around his obstruction of justice dealing with subpoenas. This has little or nothing to do with what I see being discussed here. He is damned by his own words in this matter.
I think the government operates far too much in secrecy, gets convictions for the wrong reasons and too often applies laws in an arbitrary manner. Having said that I think a potential way out of this mess is too insure that these problems are applied in spades to the politicians who are most responsible for them. Trump being the jerk that he is makes him a prime target for starting that process with him. I can only hope it establishes a precedent. We are far too forgiving of our politicians and their deceitful words and actions.
Tom Scharf,
What a surprise. Those virology researchers must have all gone to the wet market at that same time and purchased live pangolins for dinner. Or, maybe they caught the virus at work from someone who had recently been to the wet market. Or any number of other ways.
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Humor aside, it seems to me almost certain the virus was produced at the Wuhan lab and sloppy practice allowed it to escape in the form of sick researchers. Gain of function work on viruses needs to completely stop; IMHO, it is utter madness.
Ken Fritsch,
“We are far too forgiving of our politicians and their deceitful words and actions.”
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Seems ‘we’ are a lot more forgiving of some than others.
Ken Fritsch:
100%. If Trump had simply returned the documents when subpoenad, there’s zero chance he’d have been indicted. He’s only being indicted because he refused to return the e-mails when asked, refused to return them when subpoenad, hid classified documents from his lawyers to cause them to lie to the court for him while actively moving classified documents around to keep anyone from finding them.
I know some people are trying to spin a narrative about Trump being singled out because other people had documents they shouldn’t have had but didn’t get in trouble. They’re going, “Why Trump and nobody else?!” But the answer is simple. Everyone else did what they were supposed to do when they found they had such material in their possession. Trump didn’t. Trump did everything he shouldn’t have done.
Put simply, Trump is only facing criminal charges for this because he was too stupid/egotistical/whatever to do anything to avoid being charged with crimes for his situation. He had every opportunity in the world to avoid being prosecuted just like Clinton, Biden, Pence and anyone else in a similar situation. He just refused to take any of them.
It seems that Trump is saying he turned over the documents he knew about, but not the ones he did not know about, which were scattered among a huge number of boxes.
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I have no idea how that works. It is totally plausible that he had docs he did not know about, just like Pence and (supposedly) Biden. But he surely would have some responsibility to look for them. How much is he required to do? I note that it took a search by the FBI to find some of Biden’s documents. Last I heard, we still don’t know if Biden has classified docs in the U Delaware cache.
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Of course, if the docs mentioned on the tape recordings were not turned over, the argument won’t fly at all.
MikeM
Sure. But the testimony in the affidavit will be something he will need to explain.
Yep. Trumps tendency to blab, complain, post…. etc are going to cause him problems in this criminal case.
(They were always problems in a president, which some of his supporters don’t grasp.)
Mike M.:
If this is something Trump has said, it is a blatant lie if what the indictment says is true. The indictment says Trump did many things to intentionally hide documents, even from his own lawyers. For instance, in one case his lawyers told him they were going to do a search for any documents subject to the subpoena, telling him what day the search would be. The day before Trump had dozens of boxes of documents shipped off-property so the lawyers wouldn’t see them.
The difference is Biden invited the FBI to do the search instead of doing it himself. That’s a perfectly normal thing to do because when you find out you have classified material that you shouldn’t, you want to create as much distance between yourself and it as possible so you don’t inadvertantly screw things up more than they already are.
These cases are nothing alike. That was pretty obvious before the indictment was unsealed, but now that anyone can see what Trump is accused of, it is beyond dispute. Unless the indictment against Trump is filled with tons and tons of lies, Trump’s case is infinitely worse than that of someone like Biden or Pence. According to the indictment, he was showing classified material to people he said he knew weren’t allowed to see it.
At a minimum, nobody but Trump would be stupid or egotistical enough to think they could say things in the form of, “Here’s this thing that’s so secret you’re not allowed to see it, Take a look!”
Lavrentiy Beria : “Show me the man and I will show you the crime “
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“… CNN: “The entire genesis of that G7 conversation was tied to your predecessor, who is about to launch another campaign. How do you reassure them that if that is the reason for the questioning that the former president will not return, that his political movement, which is still very strong, will take power in the United States?”
Biden: “We just have to demonstrate that he will not take power if he does run, making sure he — under legitimate efforts of our Constitution — does not become the next president again.”
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“.. Exactly nine days later, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of Jack Smith as Special Counsel to investigate Trump’s role in J6 and his handling of the classified documents. It is highly likely Garland succumbed to intense White House pressure after President Biden set public expectations that Garland should take the decisive actions of a prosecutor.”
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https://tippinsights.com/bombshell-from-2022-biden-hinted-at-using-legal-means-to-prevent-trumps-potential-return-to-power/
The difference in the covid origins case now is that they have named names. This can now be falsified by simply asking these people or whatever else can be done to verify the story. It narrows down this aspect significantly. We shall see what happens, but a good indicator of media bias is when the legacy media is handed information on a silver platter like this and they don’t even bother to investigate or report on it at all. I’m skeptical because anonymous government sources usually means “people with a clear agenda” and have started discounting all those stories much more than I did ten years ago.
Ed Forbes:
Statements like this baffle me because it seems like they could almost only be intentional misrepresentations. The implication of a statement like this is clearly that Jack Smith was appointed to lead an investigation in reaction to Biden’s statements (or other pressures), an idea which hinges upon the investigation starting with Smith’s appointment. That’s just not true.
There had been a criminal investigation going on long before Smith was appointed. Smith was simply appointed to be a special counsel leading the investigation that had been ongoing for quite some time. Moreover, the point of appointing a special counsel is they are more independent, meaning someone like Garland or Biden would have less means of influencing the investigation with a special counsel at the head of it.
The idea putting someone who has more independence at the head of an ongoing investigation is somehow bowing to the whims of Biden to start an investigation into his opponent seems bizarre to me. If a special counsel hadn’t been appointed, the criminal investigation would have kept going just the same. The only difference is it’d have been more susceptible to outside pressures.
Seems pretty clear to me
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“We just have to demonstrate that he will not take power if he does run, making sure he — under legitimate efforts of our Constitution — does not become the next president again.”
Ed Forbes, yesthere are many legitimate efforts under our Constitution which could be used to try to prevent a person from becoming president. For instance, voting. Unless you can offer some particular reason why the words themselves support such a conspiratorial interpretation as opposed to a more mundane one, I think resorting to such an extreme interpretation says more about you than the person who made them.
That said, I think what matters the most is the facts involved not how a single remark someone made could potentially be interpreted. In this case, there was a criminal investigation underway for quite some time before Biden made the comment in question. Then, a week after Biden made that comment, Donald Trump announced he was running for president. Two (three?) days after that announcement a special counsel was appointed with the Attorney General stating:
The narrative you provided, and the link you posted, seem to completely ignore the more timely and more crucial event, that Trump announced his candidacy despite it obviously being important. Special counsels are intended to exist as a more independent entity primarily due to (if only perceived) conflicts of interest. There was a criminal investigation into Trump (and others) going on. He announced his candidacy for president. This created a clear source of (if only perceived) conflict of interest. As such, having a special counsel appointed to take over the criminal investigation that had been going on for quite some time was all but necessary.
I get the link you posted contains a narrative that intentionally misrepresents the facts to pretend Jack Smith was appointed to launch a criminal investigation, but that is simply false. The investigation was well underway. All that happened was the completely normal and expected action – once Trump announced his candidacy, a special counsel was appointed due concerns about (if only perceived) conflicts of interest.
If Garland hadn’t appointed a special counsel like he did, the same people spinning the narrative you’re relying on now would be ranting and raving about how improper that was. Because it would have been.
“Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”
Re Ed Forbes (Comment #222099)
June 15th, 2023 at 3:04 pm
“Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”
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Who do you mean Henry II is here, you are Brandon?
Ed Forbes:
I have a serious question for you. I imagine you’ll refuse to answer like you’ve refused to address everything inconvenient for you thus far, but I’m going to give it a try. At the time Jack Smith was appointed as special counsel, the criminal investigation into Trump (and others) was well underway. The only thing the appointment of Smith changed was who was in charge of it.
Given that, my question to you is simple. Do you think the criminal investigation into Trump (and others) would have been more fair/impartial if a special counsel had not been appointed to lead it? If so, why?
OK_MAX, Biden has been the point in my last number of posts.
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Biden with his comments is very much playing the role of Henry II in trying to rid himself of Trump.
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As to Brandon, I find his long winded posts somewhat amusing, though I admit I only quickly skim them.
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Most of the discussions online regarding Trump vs Biden can easily be distilled down to a single paragraph, or even a single sentence.
Brandon, a short and to the point response which I am happy to respond to.
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My response is still Biden, through the DOJ, was looking for ANYTHING, no matter how trivial to get Trump.
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This entire episode is strictly political
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The quotes from Lavrentiy Beria and Henry II captures the entire case against Trump
The DoJ and the FBI have been corrupt for years now. I have zero confidence in anything the DOJ says these days.
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The FBI’s case against Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn is one that stands out. The FBI engaged in malicious prosecution for the single reason of hamstring Trump.
From 2020
“ the Justice Department unsealed FBI files revealing agents discussed their motivations for interviewing him in the Russia probe—questioning whether they wanted to “get him to lie” so he’d be fired or prosecuted, or get him to admit wrongdoing.”
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The entire Russia investigation has been shown to have been totally corrupt with its entire basis to “get” Trump. The current investigations of Trump is more of the same.
Ed Forbes:
I understand you may not like longwinded responses, but it takes time and space to correct your bizarre and blatantly false factual claims. The fact it takes more effort to correct untruths than to carelessly spout them off is unfortunate, but that’s just how things work.
Then… would you? Because you haven’t. I asked you a very simple question. You’ve chosen not to answer it. Again, the question is simple. Do you think the criminal investigation into Trump (and others) that had been going on for quite some time before Jack Smith took charge would have been more fair/impartial if Smith had not been appointed as special counsel? If so, why?
You posted conspiratorial ideas about why Smith was appointed, but as far as I can see, his appointment could only work toward the opposite of what you tried to claim.
Ed Forbes, Trump’s indictment stems primarily from Trump’s own stupidity and not any special efforts by the opposition.
That predicament should make Trump unelectable alone.
Biden’s family profiting from his position of influence as Vice President and, as the Hunter’s laptop indicates, Biden’s own involvement should
be investigated in great detail as should any slow walking of the matter by the current administration.
As neither a fan of Trump or Biden or, for that matter, most politicians I hope both cases are thoroughly adjudicated with absolutely no considerations of favoring going easy because of their political attainments or potential electorate reactions.
Meanwhile I find the defenses presented by citizens on both sides of these issues as over the top or more in the vein of a sports fan rooting for their team against the enemy team. Some of the rationalizations are laughable.
Re: lab leak, the Occam’s argument is that it is an article by Taibbi, one of the sloppiest journalists around and therefore has a <20% chance of being right. In any case, there is a lot of compelling evidence from a paper published last year that the breakout was centered around the Huanan wet market. https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1668239114037067776
We will find out whether the declassified IC report has anything new to add since October 2021, but I am doubtful.
Ken Fritsch:
This is something I find fascinating as I support effective policies. I think most issues in politics don’t come down to moral or philosophical disputes. I think most issues are simply a matter of many different groups with many competing interests trying to negotiate the best outcomes for themselves. There are some “big picture” questions that do involve morality/philosophy/whatever, but I think those are the exception not the norm.
Given that perspective, supporting Donald Trump seems insane to me. Trump is an ineffective idiot. He sabotages himself constantly, and even when he doesn’t, he has no coherent plans or specificized goals. Had Republicans gravitated so strongly to any other candidate, they could have accomplished almost any agenda they wanted.
And now? Trump did basically everything he could to get himself convicted over these documents even as the “system” bent over backwards to give him every out imaginable. His supporters claim he’s being singled-out, but the truth is he’s been given more leniency than anyone else in the country. Had Trump been any less idiotic/narcissistic/whatever, he’d have had zero chance of facing criminal charges.
My personal campaign against Trump would be, “Let’s stop supporting stupidity!” Or if I wanted to use nicer phrasing, “Let’s vote for people who can get things done!” Regardless of what political views anyone holds, the simple reality is Trump is ineffectual.
It can be simultaneously true that they are out to get Trump as a political vendetta, weaponizing the DOJ, AND Trump was dumb enough to allow them to do so with plausible deniability. Trump could have kept his mouth shut and handed back the files, he could have conceded a lost election. Character strengths (refusal to back down) and flaws (doesn’t know a lost cause) at the same time.
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There is ample evidence they are out to get Trump by any means necessary, but the legal system has in fact protected Trump more often than it has persecuted him. There are legions of people who would have put Trump in jail by now if they had their choice. This reality cannot be ignored both ways.
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As for politicians getting treated differently than normal people, there is * some * justification for that. Imagine a corrupt person who really hates you following you around all day / every day looking for any minor slipup to prosecute. Jaywalking! Didn’t renew their driver’s license in time. Suspect tax deductions! HOA violations! Lots of people lining up with likely false accusations, see Kavanaugh or Tara Reade. This falls into the realm of the process is the punishment. Plenty of that going on in politics, and turbo-charged against Trump. The reality is charges against politicians from opponents with an agenda need to be scrutinized more heavily.
Ken Fritsch (Comment #222106): “Trump’s indictment stems primarily from Trump’s own stupidity”.
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I am not buying. Trump built a multi-billion dollar business empire. He became a global celebrity. He launched a campaign for President in which he staged a hostile takeover of the Republican Party. He won a general election campaign in which few thought he had a chance. He governed effectively (especially as regards foreign policy) in the face of massive opposition both within government and from the press. He bent the Republican Party to his will and radically altered American politics for the foreseeable future.
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And now we are to believe that Trump is so stupid and/or so unable to control his emotions that he is dysfunctional? I am not buying.
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Trump has a purpose and a plan in what he has done. I am not saying that he is playing four dimensional chess or that his actions have been flawless, only that there must be a rational basis. It does seem to be an extremely high risk course of action, but Trump has always been willing to take risks. And I admit that I do not see his end game.
A weaponized DOJ looks like the Barr/Durham investigation, with Barr’s active involvement and resignations of top deputies. Four years and millions of dollars later, this turned out to be a dud and led to two charges unanimously rejected in court.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/26/us/politics/durham-trump-russia-barr.html
The virology area is incentivized to blame this on a natural source. One can only imagine how that area of study would be changed if they were responsible for a global pandemic that killed millions. My guess is they would be effectively banned from working with live viruses for at least a decade.
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We may never know the answer, but given the uncertainty most groups are defaulting to the answer that is most convenient for their future. Even if this was from a natural cause it has exposed some pretty sloppy practices in this area that I don’t think people take seriously enough. I’m inclined to globally ban GOF experiments en masse if it was my decision. It’s way, way, more dangerous than nuclear power which is scrutinzied much more heavily.
Mike M.:
In which he managed to drive almost every business he ever ran into bankruptcy while needing to be given tons of money from his father, multiple times, just to get/keep going. Prior to running for president, the only businesses Trump didn’t manage to fail at were what, ones where he licensed his family name and his Apprentice television show?
Trump likes to boast about how great a buisnessman he was, but the reality is he failed at almost every business he attempted. Trump have been richer if he didn’t touch a single business and instead just took the money his father gave him and invested it in a standard, low risk stock portfolio.
This is a bizarre claim as even if you like the things Trump’s administration accomplished overall, it is laughably absurd to claim he “governed effectively.” He screwed up so many things during his term, including in the foreign policy you give special attention to. Killing the Iran nuclear deal for no value? Starting a trade war with China that accomplished nothing while causing tons of harm to the American economy (and damaged relations between the countries)? Blowing up the NAFTA trade deal with Canada and Mexico just to replace it with the USMCA that was basically the same deal? Abandoning our Kurdish allies to die in Syria? Betraying the Afghan government to cocede to the Taliban? Buddying and sucking up to Kim Jong-un and Putin to give them legitimacy while denying their atrocities (for instance, saying Putin isn’t a “killer”)?
Trump’s foreign policies were almost universal failures, and his domestic policies fared barely any better. Most of successes his administration did have (such as appointed a ton of federal judges) were mostly done by his staff and other Republicans with him barely being involved.
I think it is incredibly fascinating people like you say admit they don’t know why Trump is doing what he’s doing yet are confident he has some unknown plan that’ll make it all make sense. Trump has had months and months to explain why he’d do something as absurd as refuse to return classified material when told to. He’s had forever to explain why he showed classified material to writers and other people who lacked security clearance. He’s had all the time in the world to explain why he lied to his lawyers, the courts and the FBI about possessing these classified documents.
I’ve been seeing people insist Trump has some grand plan and purpose since before he took office. It still hasn’t manifested. I have to wonder when these people think it will.
Here is an interesting piece on problems with the Trump indictment:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/16/six-reasons-dojs-legal-case-against-trump-is-seriously-flawed/
Of particular interest is that he explains why the Presidential Records Act might make it problematic to prosecute on the basis of the Espionage Act. However, he does not specifically address the issue of Agency Reports.
Re: Tom Scharf (Comment #222113)
Agree that we may never have certainty on this. Reading between the lines here, the IC seems to be obtaining its information from social media also. So, the three researchers could very well have been the focus of online discussions based on papers and thesis published.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/06/25/1027140/lab-leak-alina-chan/
I cannot resist commentating.
It matters little what derogatory comments people make when under pressure because it is being under pressure that causes people to make derogatory comments and abandon their civility both to the persons they are conversing with, and unbeknownst to them, the persons, (read Trump) they are conversing about.
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Proof is the Biden RCP polls heading south again.
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I despair in that women’s rights will suffer if a Republican Conservative De Santis type gets up.
And there are now hundreds running proving that the party RINO’s,
Or swamp republicans, are out on force knowing Trump is gone.
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Still the tide has turned.
A neap De Santis or king Trump tide appears to be on the way.
Only a Lincoln/Kennedy style event or a massive new scandal will avert it.
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Let’s go (********), with some more derogatory comments and opinions which, I have to say, become more comical by the minute as the heat goes up.
Mike M.:
I won’t go into any detail since I expect you’d ignore any substance anyway, but to be clear, that article is written in a way which makes it seem like the author is being willfully obtuse. He says many things based on the premise he doesn’t know an answer that anyone who examined the topic in any detail would. Multiple things he said could be answered by simply reading the indictment he claims to be addressing.
Of particular note, the idea the Presidential Records Act in any way creates issues with prosecuting someone under the Espionage Act is bizarre. This author and many others are effectively saying, “This law which says Trump wasn’t allowed to possess these documents makes it more difficult to prosecute him under a different law which also says he wasn’t allowed to possess these documents.”
The fact Trump blatantly violated one law does not, in any way, make it more difficult to prosecute him for breaking a different law as well.
RB (Comment #222112)
June 16th, 2023 at 12:39 pm
I do not agree. The Durham report pointed to some mighty partisan and wrongful actions by the FBI. I do not see where convictions are required to make that point.
Interesting that the love affair with the FBI has gone from the Republican party to the Democrat Party. The Republicans were blind and wrong formerly and now the Democrat Party is blind and wrong. I see no need for secret government agency that cannot be reformed because – well, it is a secret.
Authoritarian governments need and have agencies like the FBI whereas -although none exist – a libertarian one would not. Unfortunately, like many government agencies and programs, once a history is established, the mantra is: we could never get along with them – even when they fail to live up to their original expectations.
So, Tom the answer is to remove the laws for, or better, the enforcement of the laws that some private individual might be wrongfully or revengefully accused of violating. I think it is better to keep these issues separate. Surely being wrongfully accused of violating one law or rule does not make one immune from prosecution when they do indeed violate a law. Trump is a case in point. He very incorrectly will attempt to use his victimization on Russia-gate to immunize himself in the document case.
Ken Fritsch (Comment #222119)
June 16th, 2023 at 6:16 pm
It obviously should have been, “never get along without them” and not “never get along with them”.
Mike M. (Comment #222111)
June 16th, 2023 at 12:23 pm
Don’t take my word for it. Take Trump’s words for it.
Ken,
I agree with you. It doesn’t make sense to use Russiagate to justify making Trump immune from other laws.
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We should be able to see that something needs to be fixed to correct Russiagate and still pursue Trump if he violated other laws.
Just as a reminder, despite all the talk about Russiagate being… whatever, the investigations into those accusations proved beyond any dispute Russia tried to interfere with the 2016 election to help Trump and the Trump campaign welcomed such interference. It also proved a number of Trump’s associates/staff committed crimes and that Trump would happily engage in criminal obstruction of justice. It’s clear an investigation was merited, even if one thinks the investigation(s) we got wasn’t fair or proper.
As an aside, if you do things like openly ask Russia to interfere with an election, you have little room to complain if people then want to investigate you for colluding with Russia.
Trump made the Federal bureaucracy his enemy, calling it ‘the swamp’ long before winning election; it was in fact why he won election. That enemy has made his life complicated for 8 years, and they are not going to stop. Trump has acted badly and stupidly at every turn (he is, after all, an asshole), making it easy for ‘the swamp’ to pursue him legally. But pursue him they have… with malice and often using questionable means.
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I doubt many of Trump’s supporters believe that he should be prosecuted, and see that prosecution as evidence of two separate systems of justice at the DOJ (one for friends and another for enemies). So it seems likely he will be running for re-election during his criminal trial. I hope DeSantis can win the nomination, but with the inditement that is looking ever less likely.
Kenneth, Steve,
I agree.
SteveF (Comment #222125): “Trump has acted badly and stupidly at every turn … making it easy for ‘the swamp’ to pursue him legally.”
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I think there are two ways to look at that. When the feds (IRS, FBI, EPA, etc.) put you in their sights, the prudent thing to do is to comply. The problem with that is that Leviathan grows stronger and more arrogant while the populace becomes more oppressed and afraid. Failure to comply starts to be seen as stupid and self-destructive.
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The other view is that Leviathan must be opposed if the Republic is to survive. Trump is doing that, which makes him a hero to many and a pariah to others. Maybe his chosen path is due more to ego than strategy, maybe it is a foolish choice that is doomed to fail where a wiser path might succeed. Even so, I think it easy to see why he remains popular.
A chimp is put in a cage. There is no food other than a big bunch of bananas hanging from the top of the cage, out of reach. But there is a stepladder in the cage. After a little consideration, the chimp positions the ladder so that he can reach the bananas.
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When he does, he is blasted with a stream of water from a fire hose until he gives up his attempt to get the bananas.
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Then a second chimp is put in the cage. He looks at the bananas, the ladder, and the soaking wet chimp sitting glumly in the corner. He picks up the ladder to get at the bananas.
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When he does, he is blasted from a fire hose until he gives up his attempt to get the bananas. Then the first chimp gets blasted from the fire hose.
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A third chimp is put in the cage. The process repeats, with all three chimps getting blasted from the fire hose.
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Now with three sullen, wet chimps sitting glumly in the corners, a fourth chimp is put in the cage. He looks over the situation with some puzzlement, then goes to pick up the ladder.
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The fourth chimp is promptly attacked by the first three.
For a contra-view on the Durham report, there are also arguments for why a full-scale and not preliminary investigation was warranted; and that Durham was also a political actor.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/notes-durham-report-reading-diary
On account of the silencing of Manafort with a pardon, we will never find out what plea deal he struck, but the interactions with Russians were plenty including Manafort sharing data with Kilimnik. Based on the number of convictions that Muller got, the FBI instincts (concurred by the IG) in launching a full-scale investigation may have been justified. What the common man faces with the FBI is very different from what VIPs do, even a Trump.
Mike M
Sometimes metaphors are useful. Often they are not. You are invited to state your point directly. Until then, I’m not going to assume I can guess it.
I see simularitis in the partisan rationalizations of the apparent wrong doings of one’s own party. I say a pox on both your houses.
The point I am making is that politicians are specifically targeted by their opponents, and when their opponents have the reins of power then they can misuse that power to target their opponents for political gain. Alternately they can allow people on their side to get away with bad behavior. Justice can be as corrupt as the other sectors.
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This is not an argument there are no boundaries or that Trump didn’t deserve to eventually be prosecuted (NYC is excessive, this latest is Trump begging to be prosecuted).
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I don’t know the history of pardons, but Presidents are probably given this power in part to correct politically motivated prosecutions by a foreseen time of corrupt justice.
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Tara Reade claiming sexual harassment from Biden decades ago is not the same as her claiming it from her boss yesterday. Claims that Kavanaugh is a gang rapist decades ago didn’t randomly appear right before his hearings. These are politically motivated claims that could be true, should be at least casually investigated, but need to be dismissed if there isn’t compelling evidence. Their purpose is not justice, but political damage. The standards are different.
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You cannot tell me that the Hunter Biden case is not being treated differently because of who he is. This case would never be handled at the highest levels of the DOJ otherwise. Giuliani would not end up with the hard drive of a random citizen. Hunter is being targeted, but may still be guilty.
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Where Ken and I may or may not agree is what is “fair” treatment in these cases. I want to see them prosecuted in the same manner as normal citizens, including the non-prosecution of normal citizens. The NYC case is an example of pretty clear inventions of new ways of prosecution specifically for Trump. The documents case I don’t know about prior cases but as long as he is being handled the same as others than I am fine with it.
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I am also not a fan of “process crimes”. Lying to a government agent, obstruction, etc. This is mundane and happens routinely when guilty people deny their behavior, don’t hand over the murder weapon voluntarily, etc. Again, as long as people are being charged equally for the same crimes then that is OK. But when some people are selectively charged with process crimes (and sometimes only process crimes) and others are not, then that is a miscarriage of justice in my view.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equality_before_the_law
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There is an inherent conflict with equality before the law and people being targeted that is hard to sort out. Are you being prosecuted like a normal citizen? Are you being investigated equally like a normal citizen? The answer is to not target people, but what are you to do when political opponents constantly make accusations? Don’t ignore accusations, but have a higher than normal threshold for proceeding.
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The Jan 6th protesters and the Portland protesters were clearly given different standards that do not seem to be justifiable under the law. Non-violent offenders in Portland were not prosecuted. The laws are not written such that your political cause is determinant of an outcome in a protest arrest. Juries decided for Jan 6th, but were never given that opportunity for Portland.
I see the Russiagate goalposts have moved from “Trump is a Russian agent” to “We were probably justified to open an investigation”, ha ha. The FBI did itself no favors here and it will take at least a decade to rebuild trust. The endless anonymous leaks to the media and simultaneously sternly adhering to an official no-comment mentality while the case was incredibly weak all along earned the distrust of the citizens.
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I don’t know what the right answer is here, but when a false narrative is being embraced by the media the FBI might have a duty to dampen the hysteria. Otherwise they will suffer the consequences to their reputation.
Ken wrote: “I say a pox on both your houses.”
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The irony is, you only get the option to pox one house. Your pursuit of justice only leads to a more insidious injustice.
Ken Fritsch:
I can’t help but wonder at how disturbingly similar the rationalizations I see people offer for Trump’s actions are to the rationalizations I saw people make for Michael Mann’s behavior. I could take direct quotes from responses I got ages back when I wrote at length about Mann, change a few words/names and post them as comments about Trump and nobody would bat an eye.
I guess it’s not that surprising since Mann and Trump are kind of the same person in terms of personality type and moral fiber. Mann is just a bit less shameless and a bit more competent.
Durham’s conclusion was that a preliminary investigation was warranted in his opinion, and not a full-scale one but that a full-scale investigation was not illegal. The preliminary investigation, in light of subsequently discovered evidence, will very likely have morphed into a full-scale one. The IG on the other hand concluded that a full-scale investigation was justified.
There are a bunch of preceding cases described that Durham looked at in this context that support this view. This is where the failed conviction comes into play. He tried to link Danchenko to Charles Dolan to the Clinton campaign. The jury unanimously rejected his claim.
According to an article in USAtoday, Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s former White House Communications Director, believes Trump is “stressed” over charges and will drop out of the race for GOP nomination.
I think it unlikely Trump will drop out unless his health fails.
Maybe Scaramucci was alluding to Trump’s health.
OK_Max,
Unfortunately, I think the same.
I remember I boasted to you once I’d never had a misfire. That’s no longer true. Have you noticed a decline in the quality of target ammo out there in recent times? I used to think Winchester ammo was decent stuff.
OK Max,
Since Scaramucci is no longer a confidante of Trump his bconjectures carry very little weigh.
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Since the Russia collusion has been proven to be a hoax by Hilary, all those slinging mud by promoting false Russian collusion tropes, not you, Max, are , like Scaramucci, hoping to gain some attention through obfuscation and false self vindication.
–
Barr, Bolton and Kelly, what it is like to have true friends supporting you.
Showing their true colours is another sign of the swamp at work.
They would not do it if they thought he had a hope.
angech:
The grammar of this statement is awkward. Are you saying this claim has been proven by Hillary? I’d assume not. I’m guessing you mean it’s been proven this is a hoax created/caused by Hillary. Either way, the claim is false. Even if one believes the “hoax” narrative, that narrative doesn’t claim Hillary was some mastermind behind it.
That said, it was certainly not a hoax. It’s beyond dispute Russia tried to interfere with the 2016 election. It’s beyond dispute Trump’s campaign welcomed, and even invited, such interference. It’s beyond dispute members of Trump’s campaign actively tried to work with Russia to create such interference. It is beyond dispute Trump and his campaign engaged in criminal obstruction of justice to try to cover these facts up.
Remember, there are tons of concerning facts that are not in dispute. For instance, Paul Manafort gave documents to Konstantin Kilimnik then lied repeatedly about that, even to investigation (obstruction of justice). Nobody denies this. Kilimnik is likely connected to Russian intelligence. People on Trump’s staff gave documents to a guy who was likely working for Russian intelligence agencies. That is worrying. It should be investigated. Trump’s campaign actively sabotaging the investigation into it should worry everyone. This is not a hoax.
Did Trump (personally) “collude” with Russia? It seems not. Did his campaign attempt to “collude” with Russia? Yes. That the Trump campaign may not have succeeded to any significant extent in it attempts to “collude” with Russia doesn’t make anything a hoax. That’d be like saying it’s a “hoax” to claim there was a conspiracy to commit murder just because the murder itself failed. That’s wrong. Failing to succeed at something doesn’t mean you didn’t attempt to do it. Trump explicitly invited Russia to interfere with the election. People on his staff seem to have cooperated with Russian intelligence agents. He and his staff committed crimes to try to sabotage the investigation into these issues. These claims are all facts that are not in dispute.
If nothing else, the fact a number of people, including on Trump’s staff, wound up in jail due to this investigation would seem to suggest the investigation was merited.
angech:
Trump blatantly committing crimes for which he’s thus far been completely unable to offer any legal defense. To get mad at “friends” who won’t blindly defend those criminal actions, when Trump’s own lawyers haven’t offered any defense, is absurd.
I remember how each time a scientist spoke out, even mildly, to criticize Michael Mann and suggest he had done things wrong. People always presented it as a betrayal, that somehow they were showing their “true colors” by speaking up. It’s almost identical to what people are doing with Trump.
Demanding blind loyalty in all things is obscene. This is not a healthy reaction. It’s cult behavior.
“Demanding blind loyalty in all things is obscene.”.
Ethics I am happy to discuss.
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You are stating that loyalty is a bad thing.
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I made no reference to demands or blindness just a reference to the fact that true friends are supportive.
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You then load your personal biases onto my innocent statement and make a pejorative statement out of it.
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I think most people admire staff who support their President and America which these clowns did not.
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The only persons from whom blind allegiance is demanded are gods.
Are you saying that blind obedience is a sin?
Interesting take.
angech:
This would seem to be an obvious lie. You clearly indicate you know I referred to “blind loyalty” not “loyalty,” yet you say I am “stating that loyalty is a bad thing.” Qualifiers matter. But hey, maybe there’s some nuance or grammatical distinction you’re trying to make that doesn’t render this an obvious lie.
Being supportive does not mean you deny the crimes a person has committed. You can support a person despite their crimes. For instance, I can tell my brother, “You committed crimes and are going to go to jail, but I’ll visit you and do what I can to make the sentence as minimal/tolerable as possible.” Being supportive of my brother doesn’t mean I have to pretend he did not take a gun to a drug deal.
To that end, people like Bolton and Kelly have not been disloyal. While they have been critical of the crimes Trump has committed, they have still shown a general tone of deference and even support for Trump. As far as I know, they have not attacked him. They have not condemned him as a person. They’ve simply acknowledged that he has created a situation for himself which appears indefensible. Doing so in no way shows disloyalty.
When John Cook blatantly lied in publications about what the results of his consensus study said, some scientists said that was wrong. They were called disloyal. When Mann lied in publications about what the statistical verification tests he performed for his studies said, some scientists said that was wrong. They were called disloyal. When Trump lied about intentionally retaining classified material then showing it to people who had no clearance to see it, some Republicans said that was wrong. They are now called disloyal.
People make mistakes. People do bad things. Their friends can support them despite that. But any true friend will tell you when you’ve screwed up. They’ll tell you you need to deal with the mistakes you’ve made. Anyone who would instead lie and pretend you haven’t screwed up is not a true friend. They’re a sycophant.
Re mark bofill (Comment #222139)
June 17th, 2023 at 4:29 pm
OK_Max,
“Have you noticed a decline in the quality of target ammo out there in recent times? I used to think Winchester ammo was decent stuff.”
_____
I haven’t used any in a couple of years, so I don’t know if quality has gone down. Rather than the ammo, the problem could be a dull firing pin. Just a guess.
Max,
Could be. People have also suggested maybe factory grease still in the gun. I hadn’t cleaned it before I took it to the range that time, so maybe. I’ve cleaned and gone shooting with it several times since and haven’t had a problem, but then again I haven’t bought Winchester ammunition again, so I don’t know.
Anyway. Thanks.
Mark Bofill, FWIW, nobody I know seems to have brought up the idea of ammo quality having dropped these last few years. There’s been a lot of talk and complaint about the increase in price, but nobody (that I’ve spoken to) has said anything about a change in quality. That’s obviously not dispositive, but I thought I’d mention it. In terms of personal experience, all the ammo I’ve used has been older since I tend to stockpile so I can’t speak from personal experience.
A friend of mine is a gun dealer though (well, technically his uncle is the dealer but he does parttime work at the shop) so if you’d like, I could ask about any specific line of ammunition. It could be that specific companies/lines have cut on quality even if most have not.
Thanks Brandon. It was Winchester target ammo, 9mm, maybe a couple months ago. There was probably more specific identifying info than that (grains and such) but I’ve forgotten the details. Anyway, I know Winchester had a recall a year ago on some of their 9mm ammunition. I can also find older postings talking about problems. I’d be interested in hearing from your friend what he thinks about it.
[Edit: Also, if you don’t mind, ask what he thinks about New Republic ammo. That stuff has been hit and miss for me as well]
Skimming through the Trump indictment, it seems to me that there is a lot of window dressing.
.
It makes a big deal about how the documents were stored during the first few months at Mar-a-Lago, before a storage room was cleared out for them. It tries to make it sound like there were boxes and boxes of classified documents that could be readily identified as such. But the reality was that there were hundreds of thousands of pages of papers with a few hundred classified docs scattered among them. And they seem to have no evidence that Trump was aware of any classified docs until after the boxes had been moved to the storage room. So that seems no worse than the documents that Pence had and not as bad as Biden’s.
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Much has been made of the “attack plan” on “Country A” and map of “Country B” that Trump knew had not been declassified. But after describing the tapes, in which Trump said he had just come across them, those documents seem to disappear from the indictment. They do not seem to be listed among the 31 documents that are the basis of the indictment. I infer that they were among the 60% of the documents that Trump voluntarily sent to archives in early 2022. So they are not evidence that Trump kept documents that he knew had not been declassified.
I think it was this stuff.
Feb 2023: Past SARS-CoV-2 infection protection against re-infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)02465-5/fulltext
Figure 4, Natural immunity outperform vaccines
.
Wow, now this is a very interesting discussion which could only happen now. A discussion with high level actors on natural immunity from a critical point of view:
https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2023/03/08/understanding-the-impact-of-natural-immunity-to-covid-19-on-u-s-health-and-politics
“Well, I think it’s interesting. And, you know, at the time we thought that that position from CDC was somewhat extreme in thinking that there wasn’t protection. I think that that if you look at the contrast to what the many governments in Europe at the time were saying, there was a pretty big difference, that most of the scientists in Europe advising governments were accepting past infection as is equivalent to vaccination in terms of people being able to go out, go to restaurants, etc.
…
I also think the motivation here was probably well-meaning, that CDC was worried that talking about natural immunity would distract people from getting vaccinated. And so that sort of fed into the situation.
…
So this concept of intention, people having good intentions, but not necessarily having the data to back up their intentions, In my mind, that’s the definition of politics in a pandemic.”
.
The later discussion of why natural immunity was not an exclusion from the proposed mandate was fascinating (in a bad way), basically “we can’t trust people to tell us the truth”.
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They still won’t talk about natural immunity in the US, it’s the Voldemort of covid. This article is one of the very few I have seen that addresses this directly. This is why I won’t trust public health next time around. Their primary goal was not information dissemination, but short term control of public behavior. We had 70% of the country infected and they won’t even talk about the protection from that. Public health and agency spokespeople simply can’t be assumed to be agents of science.
.
The reason I started looking into this was the proposed vaccine mandates under penalty of job termination for those already infected. Highly improper. After 100M’s of infections and trillions spent on covid, the US official line still is “we don’t really know, get vaccinated”.
Mike M.:
Again, we’re at the point it seems someone is intentionally lying. The indictment against Trump repeatedly refers to him making comments where he directly states he was aware documents he had were classified. I’ve provided direct quotations where he explicitly told people documents he possessed were classified even as he showed people those documents. Somehow, Mike M. pretends to be unaware of these quotations.
I don’t see how anyone could possibly skim through the indictment yet reach such a conclusion which directly contradicts many things the indictment says. Regardless, this is a basic, factual issue. And it is an issue where anyone with basic reading comprehension would see what Mike M says is utterly baseless. Could he have maybe closed his eyes and intentionally refused to see the things he claimed not to find? I guess. But that is literally the only way anyone who actually glanced at the indictment would not find what he claims to be unable to see.
The indictment makes it explicitly clear, on multiple occasions, Donald Trump knew the material he had was classified and nothing he had any right to possess. It does so in multiple ways, including quoting Donald Trump saying so himself. Anyone who claims to have looked at the indictment yet not see this would seem to be lying.
mark bofill:
I sent my friend a short message asking him if he has heard any feedback/rumors on ammo quality for Winchester ammunition recently, and I’ll report back if I hear anything interesting. That said, I thought I should mention that for a couple years now I’ve heard people talk about that brand (New Republic) negatively. I have no personal experience on the topic so I can’t say a lot, but I do know I’ve heard several people tell me to avoid that brand as it is (according to them) overpriced and not particularly good.
Small sample size and lack of direct experience means I’d advise taking things with a grain of salt. But still, I’ve heard multiple negative reviews of the brand over the last couple years. It’s definitely not a brand I’d prioritize buying.
Tom Scharf,
Yes, Immunity from an actual infection is far greater that immunity from a vaccine. Obvious for over a year.. The scandal is that the (idiot) powers that be have absolutely refused the address this reality. May they burn in hell for a very long time.
Re Tom Scharf (Comment #222152)
June 18th, 2023 at 12:29 pm
The reason I started looking into this was the proposed vaccine mandates under penalty of job termination for those already infected. Highly improper. After 100M’s of infections and trillions spent on covid, the US official line still is “we don’t really know, get vaccinated”.
________
Being infected with covid doesn’t mean you can’t be infected with it again, nor does it mean vaccines can’t prevent a reinfection. It just means you aren’t as likely to be reinfected.
Thanks Brandon.
OK_Max,
Yes, but I don’t know what your point is. Both the vaccine and natural immunity are poor with infection protection since omicron. Natural immunity is still better but they both basically are bad. Read the Lancet study. Most of the other studies show similar things.
.
The point being that if you didn’t know this already, it’s a failure of public health to properly inform the public of data that has been known since delta. The vaccine offered better protection against the original strain, but has gotten steadily worse since delta. Hybrid protection is still the best, but natural immunity is doing the heavy lifting in that combination.
.
Another somewhat humorous thing that several studies have shown is that vaccines actually confer negative protection after 4 months against omicron infection, the unvaccinated were less likely to get infected than the vaccinated. There are probably reasons for that that aren’t biological (for example many of the unvaccinated may have been previously infected and didn’t know it) but when you hear euphemisms like “neglible” protection from the vaccine against infection after 4 months, they literally mean near zero, or less than zero.
Brandon Shollenberger (Comment #222145)
Could I politely ask you.
Please stop hedging your comments.
Please stop making untrue statements in the middle of your gish gallops.
–
Let us start with your words and my response.
“Demanding blind loyalty in all things is obscene.”.
Ethics I am happy to discuss
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I then got to the gist of the matter taking out your nuances.
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“You are stating that loyalty is a bad thing.”
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I did this by taking out your all or nothing nuances
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This seemed to hit a nerve with your response.
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“This would seem to be an obvious lie.”
Qualifiers matter. there’s some nuance or grammatical distinction you’re trying to make that doesn’t render this an obvious lie.”
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Really?
With or without your quibbles your statement said that loyalty is a bad thing ( obscene).
Remember this was proposed by me as a discussion on ethics that I initiated.
Not as you have tried to turn it into a discussion on the rules and ethics of having arguments.
Not sure how many of the tricks you tried to pull in this one little statement but accusing the other side of lying and changing the subject to your terms rank highly.
You get an A+ on that score.
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Let us put the record straight.
Ethics is an individual’s take on moral matters.
You cannot make up someone else’s ethics for them.
You can only view them through your own ethical prism.
Loyalty is a quality which transcends ethics.
As such blind loyalty is the most treasured of all loyalties.
In fact it is what true friends, lovers and partners give unceasingly and unhesitantly.
Is loyalty obscene?
Obscenity is one’s own personal ethics at work.
As is your choice of argumentative techniques above.
The choice of it as a descriptor, rightly or wrongly, reflects back on the person choosing to think of and then use that word.
Perhaps you would like to reflect on that?
Nah.
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By the way how do you square this statement
-“You clearly indicate you know I referred to “blind loyalty”
With the immediate contradiction in your own words.
“I made no reference to demands or blindness just a reference to the fact that true friends are supportive.”
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Oh well, nuances I guess and grammatical distinctions like I meant it when I said it but I did not say what I meant?
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What is wrong with this comment?
“To that end, people like Bolton and Kelly have not been disloyal. While they have been critical of the crimes Trump has committed, they have still shown a general tone of deference and even support for Trump. As far as I know, they have not attacked him”
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Two small things.
Brandon in his all or nothing approach leaves out the words allegedly nearly every time .
Until convicted by a court it is alleged crimes .
He is not the judge and jury predetermining what has happened.
Secondly he must live in a parallel universe if he pretends to not have seen the many attacks committed on him by these two men, not to mention Mr Barr.
PPS otherwise you are doing a reasonable job of commentating at the moment. The old you not the new new.
The science with Covid became politicalized by the government in the US. The government thought, like it frequently does, that its citizens cannot handle the truth.
Unfortunately there were many citizens that were willing to follow the lead of the government without question. I find that a disturbing trend. Governments know that calling a situation an emergency will create more obedient followers. Unfortunately governments are great at creating emergencies and some politicians would like to see them on a constant basis.
I do not know whether citizens will continue to need a crisis to better obey or that sufficient crises will condition them to be more obedient without a crisis.
KenFritsch (Comment #222160)
June 18th, 2023 at 6:35 pm Edit Delete
The science with Covid became politicalized by the government in the US. The government thought, like it frequently does, that its citizens cannot handle the truth.
Unfortunately there were many citizens that were willing to follow the lead of the government without question. I find that a disturbing trend. Governments know that calling a situation an emergency will create more obedient followers. Unfortunately governments are great at creating emergencies and some politicians would like to see them on a constant basis.
I do not know whether citizens will continue to need a crisis to better obey or that sufficient crises will condition them to be more obedient without a crisis.
Another fine day for the banking sector.
.
SVB Customers Who Lost Their Deposits Remain on the Hook for Loans
https://www.wsj.com/articles/svb-customers-who-lost-their-deposits-remain-on-the-hook-for-loans-5df7963b?st=5st6wrkvot7517r&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
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Asian customers had their off shore SVB deposits seized by the US and now the US is forcing them to pay off their loans, and will not allow them to use the seized assets to do so.
Tom….
Honestly… sort of funny
Investment firms didn’t know their deposits weren’t protected. firms. Funds were “unaware”.
.
Slick talkers. “Movers and shakers”….
And the rule these ” movers and shakers” didn’t know about is long enough standing that due diligence should have “uncovered’ it.
Tennis great, Novak Djokovic, who was chasing the record for the most major tournament wins was infected with Covid in June 2020 and Dec 2021 and was not allowed into the US as late as March 2023 because of the US government vaccination rules for foreigner entries. This is the kind of government bureaucratic nonsense that is evidently readily forgiven by many citizens and is another disturbing sign for the future of the US.
The sudden change from a $250,000 federal deposit insurance limit to no limit in special cases was invoked via the Systemic Risk Exception. In other words, in a crisis, however defined, anything goes for the government.
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12378#
The uninsured depositors in the US branches were rescued rather arbitrarily while those in foreign branches were not. There are no rules when laws give the administration state carte blanche on their responses. Some of those involved get lucky (and maybe anticipated they would) and some do not. This is no way to run a business and, of course, our government is far removed from the forces to which businesses are exposed.
Failure of government bank regulation causes a problem and government comes to the rescue at the expense of the taxpayer and/or those using the banking system.
Ken Fritsch,
And the worst part was that by March of this year a multitude of studies had already shown that actually getting sick with covid (Djokovic had covid twice!) was clearly more protective than the vaccines. It is the worst thing about the left taking control: no rule, no matter how provably stupid, no matter how damaging, and no matter how ridiculous, will ever be voluntarily reversed. I loath government of the left.
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Now that the leftist government of Lula has returned to power in Brazil, the requirement for visa’s for US citizens has been re-instated. The left is a PITA.
Re: Ken Fritsch (Comment #222165)
I agree that this was bureaucratic nonsense that made no sense particularly when there are no restrictions in America. But there is lots of room for skepticism that he was infected twice, with evidence provided by Serbians who analyzed the test confirmation codes. He did get the Serbian government to issue a statement attesting to their validity without offering explanations for the discrepancies.
Re Tom Scharf (Comment #222158)
June 18th, 2023 at 5:34 pm
OK_Max,
“Yes, but I don’t know what your point is.”
_____
Tom, I’m sorry. My comment was based on misreading your post.
BTW, vaccine for omicron strain XBB.1.5 is supposed to be available this fall.
Kenneth,
I agree this is no way to run a business.
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But I still have to chuckle a little at “investment firms” and “private-equity funds” (not “naive individual investors”) who picked a branch in the Cayman Islands for some reason (likely a business one involving taxes… or something) get bent out of shape because they weren’t bailed out on the same basis as investors who put money in a US based bank. And I’m even more amused when the law had made it clear they weren’t insured at all.
.
I get that they would wish to have manna fall on them from heaven they way it did on people situated differently. But my sympathy is… not much. And I sort of have to laugh at these “sophisticated” investors.
The last omicron vaccine was no better than the original, or barely better. Let’s hope this one is more successful. I think it might be a fundamental issue that omicron reproduces too fast and is more in the nose for the vaccine protection to kick in quick enough and prevent infection, or some such reason. They don’t seem particularly confident that infection protection is viable anymore, at least they don’t talk about it much.
Tom,
I’m not getting another vaccine until it’s for a different strain. Even if it’s the “wrong” strain, it doesn’t make sense to keep getting vaccinated for the same strain over and over.
.
I understand they are working on vaccines that use something other than the spike to try to make it cover more strains.
.
I’d still get it if it merely gives you a “head start” once the virus got past your nose. But… needs. to. cover. different. strain.
This is discussing trying to get vaccines that work on more strains
https://news.mit.edu/2023/creating-versatile-vaccine-take-on-covid-19-0309
The law also made it clear US investors weren’t protected, until those with political connections started whispering “systemic risk” to the politicians and made me pay for it.
Tom,
Well… The investors in the US based banks had some insurance. Just not as much as they eventually got. I think the line should have been held at only covering the amount insured.
But sure. The line wasn’t held. They got more than they deserved. That still doesn’t make me sympathetic to the Cayman Island investors.
I was reading that Joe Biden’s federal tax returns are “made public”, but that he hides all sources of income (along with his wife) using ‘pass-through’ S-corps (he likely is the only shareholder). So in reality, Biden does not disclose the source(s) of his income at all. He refuses to disclose the S-corp tax return. His income from his S-corp was almost $10 million in 2017. Pretty good for someone with no marketable skills.
SteveF:
I don’t know how writers can make claims so blatantly false. While it’s true Biden used a normal corporation setup to reduce his tax burden, that in no way means he “does not disclose the source(s) of his income at all.” He filled out and publicized financial disclosure forms used by members of the government to allow the government/public to check for conflicts of interest. These have itemized lists of his sources of income. A person might be able to argue the itemized lists are inadequate in some way, but it is trivially easy to find them so to claim Biden doesn’t disclose the sources of his income at all in absurd. Whoever tells you stuff like this in whatever you were reading is either incompetent or lying to you.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190709194252/https://go.joebiden.com/page/-/vpdocs/Biden%20-%20OGE%20Form%20278e%20(FEC%20FILED).pdf
Quick word of caution. You’ll need to copy-paste the link I posted above not click on it as for some reason the site isn’t including the .pdf extension when it makes it into a hyperlink.
Hunter didn’t report $1.5M of income and avoided $100K in taxes and was given a misdemeanor charge. I’m not sure how that compares to other people being charged with a similar crime. I don’t think they generally put people in jail for this but those numbers seem pretty high for a misdemeanor. I’m no expert on tax law.
.
The gun charge is immaterial. Half of NYC and Chicago would be in jail if they took that law seriously.
I don’t understand how a third party presidential candidate cannot be successful in this environment. What is stopping this from happening?
It might be interesting to compare the income reported by Biden on his OGE disclosure forms and the 1120-S amount reported on his 1040 return. Although I doubt if the big guy were hiding any income it would be in any obvious manner. He has lots of wealthy and knowledgable friends who could help him successfully accomplish the deed.
Hunter’s income from foreign contacts and art products as related to their worth stemming from his father’s position and influence are probably as fair game or more so than Trump’s Russiagate. His laptop contents would appear to be more tangible evidence than that garnered by the FBI for Russiagate.
My guess is President Biden knew early on getting entangled in his son’s businesses was a bad move, so I don’t expect much to happen here unless it was a long time ago
Biden was entangled in Hunter’s influence peddling throughout his time as VP. Roughly one meeting a month with Hunter’s partners or clients. Not to mention taking Hunter along on Air Force Two to facilitate his international dealings.
SteveF (Comment #222177): “I was reading that Joe Biden’s federal tax returns are “made public”, but that he hides all sources of income (along with his wife) using ‘pass-through’ S-corps (he likely is the only shareholder). So in reality, Biden does not disclose the source(s) of his income at all.”
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Indeed. While Joe was out of office, the Bidens reported $17M in income of which $13M was passed through S corporations. No details have been disclosed of where that money came from, either on personal tax returns or Biden’s financial disclosures. Maybe one or two million was from book sales, but almost all of the S-corp income is unaccounted for. The S corp tax returns would be needed for proper disclosure.
My source: https://thefederalist.com/2022/04/06/joe-bidens-released-tax-returns-dont-explain-millions-in-income-where-did-it-come-from/
Ken Fritsch:
I compared both documents for ~5 years of records, and as far as I can tell, there didn’t appear to be anything unusual/sketchy. Both sets of documents seemed to line up appropriately while showing values perfectly in line with what one would expect. That obviously doesn’t prove there was nothing shady happening with his finances as it’s difficult to prove a negative, but as far as I can tell, there’s no basis for questioning his finances at the moment.
This is difficult for me to believe because despite how much hype (some) Republicans have given to the Hunter Biden topic, most of the more severe accusations seem to come with no evidence at all. Specifically in terms of his laptop, multiple Republican led investations stated they found no evidence of wrongdoing. If the Republicans hyping this narrative have spent years talking about it yet can’t even convince their fellow Republicans, I find it difficult to believe they have much of a case.
It doesn’t help these people are often blatantly dishonest. For instance, Republicans in Congress explicitly requested documents listing tips the FBI received about Hunter Biden but not the documents showing what the FBI concluded about those tips. They then breathlessly reported the allegations made in those tips while making absolutely no effort to explore their veracity.
I’m not saying there’s nothing to any of this. But if there is anything to it, the people advancing the argument are doing a terrible job of demonstrating it. Again, even the Republican led investigations into Hunter Biden’s laptop said there was nothing there.
Mike M:
This is the sort of borderline delusional posting style I find bewildering. As I mentioned before, anyone who made the slightest effort to find out if “details have been disclosed of where that money came from” would find out Biden has provided itemized lists of the sources of his income. I even provided a link to one such list for one year of his income. Mike M. is claiming these details have never been provided a mere half dozen comments after a copy of a document with those details was provided.
I get he may mindlessly accept claims he reads on the internet if likes what they say despite how easy it is to disprove them. I get he may adamantly refuse to read my comments because he dislikes me and how I tend to correct his many factual misstatements corrected. But at a certain point, it starts to seem intentional. If it’s not on Mike M’s part, then at least on the part of the author of the piece he linked to.
Anyone who did the slightest bit of research into this topic would know his claim no details about the source of the money have been provided is false. That neither he nor anyone involved in the editing/publication of his piece bothered to do that little amount of research speaks volumes.
While Biden was out of government he is not required to complete OGE disclosure forms. Brandon, can you link to those years for Biden whereby he disclosed his income sources in the manner of the OGE form or other means?
Brandon Shollenberger (Comment #222187) is a bald faced liar. The disclosure forms show that millions came from an S-corp. No details about where the S-corp got the money.
Mike M,
Unless Biden discloses the S-corp pass-through returns, his ‘disclosers’ of where the money came from are jokes. He and his wife created the S-corps with only themselves as shareholders…. nothing like an S-corp where there are multiple shareholders. The “I incorporated myself” S-corp is just a way to take advantage of the tax code, to hide the actual sources of income, or both. Itemized lists of numbers mean nothing; he should show the damned S-corp returns. That world be full disclosure. Everything else is BS.
Ken Fritsch:
I believe I can provide links to a financial disclosure form for every year except 2019. I know I’ve seen links for every other year so it’d just be a matter of finding the right ones. I posted the 2017 one above, and I believe this is the 2018 one:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190709194252/https://go.joebiden.com/page/-/vpdocs/Biden%20-%20OGE%20Form%20278e%20(FEC%20FILED).pdf
The Whitehouse website has a page for the ones from 2020 on. I’m not sure there’s anything comparable for 2019. Biden reported under a million dollars in income that year though, with less than $100,000 coming from s-corporations.
If people want to dig into the various documentation we have to look for issues/discrepancies, I say have at it. But as far as I can tell, we have itemized lists of Biden’s sources of income for all but maybe one year, and in that year we’d be lacking such a list for under $100k. If people want to say there’s an issue here, they’re going to need to do more than just pretend the documentation doesn’t exist.
(Personally, this all seems like a red herring anyway as I think if Biden were going to try to hide income, he wouldn’t use s-corporations to do it.)
Brandon,
Your link provides a signature page for a disclosure form, nothing else. If you search for more, you end up being sent to Joe Biden’s campaign fundraising page.
Mike M.:
Calling me a liar over something so basically factual seems rather strange to me. Anyone can check the link I provided and see it clearly does provide details about where the s-corporation got its money. It lists a ton of speaking engagements (as well as his royalties) and how much money was given to Biden’s s-corporation for them.
SteveF:
I double checked both links I posted, and both bring up full documents for me. If they’re not working for you, my guess is there’s something going on on your end. If you keep having troble, I can upload the files somewhere else and see if that helps.
Brandon, do have some links supporting in detail the information above.
Also your link leads me to a page asking to donate to the Democrat party. I do not donate to political parties since it would only encourage them.
Tom Scharf (Comment #222181)
“I don’t understand how a third party presidential candidate cannot be successful in this environment. What is stopping this from happening?”
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Good question.
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Both parties would unite against a third party and it would need to rais an enormous amount of money in just 6 months.
Those rich enough to do it, Musk,Gates the best known of a hundred fabulously rich candidates who could do it would the attention too unwanted
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Kennedy , De Santos, Newsome,Haley or some late emerging dark horse
Kennedy is interesting. He has the bearing, the charisma and the name. It comes across in his photographs, like the Canadian and French leaders. Does he have the message to beat Biden or any policies that are right wing enough to attract Republican votes.
When Trump goes Haley will surge.
The links posted by Brandon from webarchive open up fine. If you go to gojobiden.com, however, you might be led to the actblue site. BTW, the signature page is the first page of the pdf.
Ken Fritsch:
THe links I posted are to archived copies of documents saved by the Wayback Machine. You’ll only see a page asking to donate if you instead go to the URL the archived copies were originally taken from. The site changed at some point so what was archived will not be there now. This may also be true for this link, to the interim report published by a Republican “investigation” last month:
https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Bank-Memorandum-5.10.23.pdf
It contains largely the same set of allegations many of the same people made in a 2020 report. I don’t have a link to that one offhand, but it’s been reported about plenty of times so it should be easy to track down. For one example of coverage:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/23/us/politics/biden-inquiry-republicans-johnson.html
Of note, neither of these reports give much (if any) focus to Hunter Biden’s laptop and do not claim to have found proof of wrongdoing on it. Beyond that, the fact that after three years they’ve made basically no progress and are largely repeating the same claims is… odd. At least, if the people behind them have honest intent. Even back in 2020 there was strong pushback from colleagues of these people pointing basically accusing the “investigations” of being a scam.
https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/imo/media/doc/200923_FullReport_PetersHSGACWydenFinance.pdf
I tried to give broad links since I’m not sure exactly what you’d be interested in, but if you’d like more specific/narrowly focused sources I can provide those as well.
Brandon,
Frankly, I would rather roll in a fire ant nest than discuss politics with you. I’m going to content myself with saying for the record that my silence should not be misconstrued by anybody as agreement.
I hope you don’t take offense at this, since offense wasn’t my intention.
Anyway.
mark bofill:
This comment seems a bit odd as I think almost nothing I’ve said has been a discussion of politics. I’ve mostly been talking about relatively straightforward factual questions, mostly insofar as they relate to alleged/potential criminal activity. I don’t think I’ve said much, if anything, about political views or policy ideas.
I only commented here because I happened to check the site one day at random and noticed people seemed to be posting factually untrue claims that were going uncontested. That bothered me as I think everyone ought to be able to agree to a baseline set of facts. As such, I decided to try correcting some of the false, factual claims I saw people post. I had and have no interest in discussing politics here.
That said, even if you don’t want to discuss politics with me, I would hope you’d at least point out any factual mistakes you might notice I make.
Brandon,
Nah. Sounds like work. 🙂 Maybe. We’ll see.
mark bofill, well, nobody seems to be pointing out any factual errors I’ve (supposedly) made. Mike M. did call me a liar over one factual claim, but he did that over the contents of a document anyone can look at to check. Other than that though, people seem not even be claiming I’ve gotten facts wrong.
Given that, it’s hard not to conclude I’m right. I get people have no obligation to respond even if I am wrong, but people have responded many times. Heck, you responded just to tell me you don’t want to respond. And others have been eager to respond to make personal attacks. It’s hard to imagine people would behave like this if they actually had information to discredit anything I’ve said.
Brandon,
Not at all. It’s unpleasant to argue with you, that’s all I think it indicates.
Brandon, your links provide me with no new information. They give partisan views from both sides of the matter of the Biden family’s financial gains from foreign entities. It would appear that more information is forthcoming and recently uncovered.
Wonder how the Durham report will go down.
Will anyone listen?
mark bofill
Or they aren’t even reading it.
Or they think the subject isn’t worth spending time engaging.
One should never jump to the conclusion that people not rebutting you means your arguments or evidence are either invincible or even sound. They might be… or not.
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You can read my telling David Young, more or less the same thing:
https://rankexploits.com/musings/2023/open-thread-may-17/#comment-221504
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(And note: David stopped telling us how splendid all his arguments with his “links to primary sources” were after this:
https://rankexploits.com/musings/2023/open-thread-may-17/#comment-221525 )
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I don’t know whether your comments merit someone finally engaging them in the same way (partly because I’m still in the ‘not really reading them’ state. Partly because I think there is little new here and it’s not worth really engaging these specifics. And partly, I don’t want to spend the time to figure out what the full position is. ) But you really shouldn’t jump to conclusions about what people “not rebutting” means.
Lucia,
Yes. There is that.
Ken Fritsch:
I’m confused by your response here. You say the links I provided “give partisan views,” but you asked me to provide you information about the results of Republican led investigations. Of course I gave you links to partisan views. That’s what you asked for. I gave resources to help show what Republicans leading the investigations claim to have found to show even they don’t claim to have found the things (some) people here believe have been found.
As for the idea it “would appear that more information is forthcoming and recently uncovered,” you can believe that if you want. However, the people promoting that idea have been saying the same things for three years now. I think that makes their claims dubious. Regardless, the simple reality is multiple Republican led investigations have stated they’ve found no evidence of wrongdoing in regard to Hunter Biden’s laptop. (Or at least, they’ve said they’ve investigated his laptop yet reported no results indicating wrongdoing.) That’s the claim I’ve made. I think the links I provided support that claim. If you think they don’t, I’m happy to delve into things further/provide other resources.
mark bofill:
I find it unpleasant to be repeatedly insulted by people who actively refuse to address the points I make, but that’s just how things be.
lucia:
I think you’re missing part of the point I made. I get people may not wish to respond to someone for any number of reasons. I don’t think a lack of response is inherently indicative of anything. However, as I said to mark bofill, “I get people have no obligation to respond even if I am wrong, but people have responded many times.”
There’s a difference between someone not responding for whatever reason and that person responding multiple times while not claiming any factual mistakes. Had mark bofill said nothing to me here, I would not have taken his silence as indicating anything at all. That’s because him not participating in a discussion is very different from when someone like Tom Scharf makes repeated comments insulting me yet fails to allege even a single factual error. Or why he then failed to explain why he claimed Hillary Clinton would have deleted e-mails to cover up the existence of her private server weeks after she made public statements about that server.
My point was not that anyone had any obligation to respond to me. My point was that if the people posting to claim I’m wrong offer such weak “evidence” or “arguments” to show I am wrong, it seems likely they do not possess better options.
The Biden disclosure forms give details of income in addition to the millions received from the S-corps. No details on the S-corp income. Above, I provided a link discussing that.
Brandon,
https://xkcd.com/386/
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Good luck fixing the internet, you may find that the effort to repair people’s thinking with what you believe to be facts, rather than conclusions and opinions, will be a bit frustrating. When you lead off with the “fact” that nothing nefarious could have possibly occurred with HRC’s wiped server it doesn’t help much. Why would I possibly waste my time arguing about that? You cannot think of any reasons HRC would wipe her server? Really? OK, fine with me.
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The argument style you employ is that of a confrontational defense attorney, which is to never concede anything, not admit to any ambiguity or evidence against a claim, force the opposition to prove everything they state with external sources (which you may summarily dismiss, mafia style). It’s tedious to debate like that, so many choose to simply ignore it.
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I don’t have to do homework for you, nor does anyone else. You are free to believe what you want, and other people are free to believe what they want. This isn’t a court a law, it’s an internet forum full of opinions with some based more in reality than others which changes subject to subject. Some of the discussion is interesting, some isn’t. I engage with things I find interesting. It’s not important that we all agree to a set of baseline facts for the purposes of a forum like this. Many things are simply unknown and cannot be proven.
I’ve been running a single shareholder s-corp for decades for my business. It’s not all nefarious. A lot of people use LLC’s now. Maze’s of shell companies do imply something untoward might be happening, but it may also just mean people want to keep their identities hidden for non-nefarious reasons. We know that people donating money to some causes or efforts can damage them publicly so they want to keep this hidden, and in this day and age I think some people make things private reflexively by default. Even taking money from people like Epstein can prove damaging decades later. The problem here is the accusatory forces at play, but I don’t blame anyone, especially public figures, for hiding things.
There is nothing nefarious about an S-corp. A couple dozen intertwined S-corps, as used by the Biden crime family, is a different matter.
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The issue with Biden’s tax returns and disclosures is that he claims he is being “transparent” when most of his income is via an S-corp. The sources of that income are not disclosed. Legal, but the opposite of transparent.
Tom Scharf:
Aye. The use of s-corporations is completely normal. Many people do use them. If you start getting a bunch of different shell companies involved that may be suspicious, but in the Biden’s case there was just one s-corporation per person in the marriage. The stated purpose of each corporation was to centralize the payments from book royalties/speaking engagements. THat’s a completely normal thing.
The only real issue I can see is the use of s-corporation can let people reduce their tax burden. In a sense, you can use s-corporations as a “loophole.” But even if you dislike the fact such a “loophole” exists, I don’t think it’s fair to criticize anyone for using it. Everyone wants to pay as little as possible in taxes. I think even if we want a “loophole” closed, we’d all use it until it was closed. I know I would. I might say a “loophole” is bad and ought to be closed, but if it lets me save $10k, I’m going to use it every year until it does get closed.
Mike M.:
As far as I can see, nobody has claimed there are a “couple dozen intertwined S-corps… used by the Biden crime family.” Every allegation and article I’ve seen has said the Bidens used exactly two s-corporations, one for each spouse within the marriage. Can you name any third s-corporation you think is involved?
As I said before, the financial disclosure forms Biden provided do in fact list the source of income from his s-corporation. The company was set up to handle his booy royalties and speaking fees, and those are all listed in the financial disclosure form he provided. o you deny Biden disclosed millions of dollars in things like speaking fees handled by his s-corporation in those documents? I know you called me a liar for saying he did so, but… are you standing by that accusation?
This may be a major source of the income in 2017, along with book royalties and speaking engagements.
It’s legal for politicians to get rich out of office using their perceived influence. Hiring them as consultants or lobbyists because of their inside track to influential people is standard practice. The Clintons basically having a pay to play scheme with their foundation can be done legally as long as people aren’t stupid. Trump can’t pull that off because of his big mouth. There are limits of course, but I don’t know where the legal lines are. My guess is Biden can get plenty rich using standard speaking fees and so forth that he wouldn’t need to resort to shady schemes from his son. It’s possible in a moment of weakness to help his son he did something dumb that he might regret.
Tom Scharf:
To be clear, you insulted me for not understanding what the alleged motivation Hillary Clinton would have for erasing e-mails. You then mockingly stated I ought to have known her reason for doing so would be to cover up the existence of the server despite the fact the e-mails were deleted weeks after she publicly discussed her use of the server. So yes, you can say:
But the fact you may not find it interesting to discover your position requires a timeline that is completely incoherent does not in any way excuse you from dealing with facts like… Clinton could not have had e-mails deleted to cover up the existence of a server weeks after she publicly talked about her use of that server.
Brandon, which claim have you made? The one in the first sentence or the one in the parenthesis.
The Hunter Biden investigation has been ongoing for 5 years and even with the recent developments it has not completed.
The link below indicates that the lap top contents will be used by the House of Representatives to investigate Hunter Biden.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hunter-biden-laptop-data-analysis/
Biden would not have had to receive any compensation from Hunter Biden’s foreign operations for the involvement of Joe Biden to be nefarious. If Joe Biden’s involvement enriched family members to the exclusion of himself, I really do not see how that would make him blameless.
Ken Fritsch:
My initial claim was, “Specifically in terms of his laptop, multiple Republican led investations stated they found no evidence of wrongdoing.” I then clarified, “Of note, neither of these reports give much (if any) focus to Hunter Biden’s laptop and do not claim to have found proof of wrongdoing on it.” This clarification was due to the fact I realized there was a distinction between them failing to report a positive result as opposed to reporting a negative result.
Yes, some Republicans have been pushing these “investigations” for years. I do not doubt the laptop will continue to be used to push for further “investigations.” However, thus far, the people hyping this narrative have provided no useful results at all. This is well-demonstrated by the fact even many of their Republican colleagues in Congress don’t buy what they’re trying to sell.
They’ve had the laptop’s contents for years. They’ve been crying “cover-up” for years. They’ve been “investigating” for years. They’ve found nothing significant and accomplished basically nothing for years. To me, that would seem to suggest they’re barking up the wrong tree. To me, it seems like Lucy with the football. Especially since, as I said before:
As an example, you may have heard reporting about there being audio recordings of Hunter BIden. That reporting is based on Republicans specifically requesting documents with unverified tips but intentionally not requesting any documents regarding what the FBI concluded about those tips. Plenty of Republicans hyped the story about these supposed recordings, yet at the same time a number of them openly acknowledge we don’t know if the recordings even exist. Because all the story ever was, was, “Some guy said there were these recordings, and we made absolutely no effort to verify his claims before reporting on them.”
Could there be something to the Hunter Biden narrative? Sure. But if there is, the people hyping that narrative have provided basically nothing to show there is. Instead, they’ve done a lot of things that call their reliability into question.
Ken Fritsch (Comment #222219): “Biden would not have had to receive any compensation from Hunter Biden’s foreign operations for the involvement of Joe Biden to be nefarious. If Joe Biden’s involvement enriched family members to the exclusion of himself, I really do not see how that would make him blameless.”
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Not merely nefarious or worthy of blame. Criminal under federal conspiracy laws.
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The Republican investigation is only a few months old (since it required control of at least one body of Congress) and has been impeded at every turn by DoJ and the FBI. Nevertheless there is a large body of evidence against the Biden Crime Family. Here is a good summary:
https://americanmind.org/salvo/scammer-in-chief/
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Some excerpts:
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My takeaway is that Hunter has clearly committed multiple felonies and that a very strong circumstantial case could be made that Joe was part of a conspiracy to profit from those crimes.
Mike M.:
Again, we have Mike M. posting blatant factual untruths. Republicans investigated this issue and published results years ago. They did not need a change in political climate like he claims. This is easy to demonstrate as we can look at the report Republicans published in 2020, three years ago:
https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/HSGAC%20-%20Finance%20Joint%20Report%202020.09.23.pdf
If people want to believe this story is more than a partisan nothingburger, that’s fine. But we should at least be able to agree on basic facts. For instance, if Republicans led congressional hearings/investigations and published reports in 2020, then their investigation is not “only a few months old.” Similarly, Republicans could not have needed “control of at least one body of Congress” to perform investigations if it perfomred those investigations years ago while it did not have control of one body of Congress.
Of course, Mike M. is also the person who denied the Presidential Records Act even existed so… I guess denying the existence of previous investigations isn’t surprising. Some people’s approach appears to be to deny everything inconvenient then insult anyone who challenges their claims.
How about the years Biden was out of office between Vice President and President when not required to file disclosure forms?
Brandon Shollenberger (Comment #222223)
June 21st, 2023 at 3:16 pm
Brandon, you appear to indicate here that an investigation that does not initially end in an indictment or some lawful action is over for all practical considerations. The investigation you linked does provide circumstantial evidence of wrong doing. It might be better to discuss that evidence.
Lucia, if you not are off dancing again, I have a question about the professional dancers I see in the video you provided and I have seen on television. They appear to be in great physical shape and more visually obvious with the ladies since they show more of their bodies. I suspect they get in that shape by doing more than dancing and if so what would a typical workout be?
Ken Fritsch:
You asked this before. When you did, I provided Biden’s 2018 financial disclosure form, pointed out I had already provided his 2017 form previously and mentioned his 2020 and later forms were available via the whitehouse website. As I said then, “I’m not sure there’s anything comparable for 2019. Biden reported under a million dollars in income that year though, with less than $100,000 coming from s-corporations.”
I do not believe anything about my answer will have changed since the last time you asked this question.
Of the two “investigations” I referred to, one resulted in the publication of a report then ended. It was finished. The “investigation” definitely stopped. As for other example I referred to, I discussed a bit of what the investigation concluded in an interim report it published. That report does indicate what results the investigation has reached, even if it may reach new/additional/further results in the future. If my stating what the investigation has reported it has found implied the investigation could not possibly find anything in the future, I apologize. There are lots of details and nuances to these things.
I try to balance precision with not being extremely longwinded, but that may not always work out ideally.
If you would like to discuss any evidence the investigation in question may have provided, I’d be more than happy to. However, I would remind you this fork of the discussion came about from a discussion of what Hunter Biden’s laptop shows. In that context, that investigation does not claim to have found anything suggesting wrongdoing.
There may be other evidence worth discussing, and I’d be happy to engage on those points, but in regard to the topic of Hunter Biden’s laptop, these investigations simply do not claim to have found evidence (on it) indicating wrongdoing.
Ken,
I don’t know what a typical work out would be! That’s David at his peak. It was at least a decade ago. He’s not in that great shape now.
I know Vlad watches what he eats. He lifts some weights, but not too much because he bulks up and he wants a slim look. (He used to do body building, and by bulk up I mean “Arnold Schwarzenneger”!)
Many of the dancers lift some weights. Running is a potential problem because you don’t want impact stress etc.
Brandon, the links to Biden’s financial disclosures did not work for me. I can independently get some of Biden’s OGE forms on a quick internet search and probably more if I searched further. When asked, I recall you saying that when you compared Biden’s reported S Corporation income from his 1040 form and his itemized financial disclosures on the OGE form that the amounts were closely in line. This link from a partisan source indicates that for 2017 and 2018 that was not the case. I could check this out on my own, but since you have already done the work, it would be of interest to see your calculations for those years.
Maybe the forms were amended as the article dates from August 2020.
The statement below might shed light for me on the OGE forms for Biden in the out of office years.
https://bankler.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Bidens-Tax-Returns-TaxNotes-8-24-20.pdf
William Barr on the Trump indictment
https://www.thefp.com/p/bill-barr-the-truth-about-the-trump
“Knowing him, it was an act of self-assertion merely to gratify his ego.”
“I believe there is a double standard. And I have spoken out repeatedly about it when I was attorney general and since. … But while the double standard is real, responding to Trump’s indictment by repetitively invoking this grievance is essentially a dodge. It sidesteps the real questions raised by Trump’s behavior. ”
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Ummm, yeah. Trump’s probably going down on this one, perhaps he needs to negotiate for a change.
Tom,
Thanks for that link.
It may well be that Trump’s ego and stubbornness are factors, but I think that there must be more than that. According to the indictment, Trump had 337 documents with markings. Of those, he voluntarily turned over 197 (nearly 60%) to the Archives, 38 were turned over in response to the subpoena, and 102 were seized in the raid. So why did Trump treat the documents differently? I think that any attempt to guess Trump’s motivation and/or justification would have to account for that.
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There is a lot that we don’t know that might turn out to be important.
The ‘My Boxes’ theory is a compelling theory although fans have always thought that there is 4D chess involved in his actions.
https://reason.com/2023/06/13/the-my-boxes-theory-is-all-you-need-to-explain-trumps-behavior/
It could also be that at the back of his mind, he has leverage in mind, like with the Milley document.
If Trump had a history of rational behavior then I would say the chances of him having an unstated and legitimate reason to keep these documents might be likely. He has a right to be paranoid people are out to get him, and he might be keeping dirty laundry for leverage because he believes he is being persecuted unfairly. It could be a game of chicken here which would also explain the DOJ’s patience trying to get these files back. If so, Trump could plea bargain this thing out and the government might concede to avoid embarrassing disclosures. Total speculation.
RB (Comment #222233): “The ‘My Boxes’ theory is a compelling theory”.
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No it is not at all compelling. It predicts that Trump would have kept *everything*, which is contradicted by the facts.
The NYT covers the recent lab leak info:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/21/us/politics/covid-pandemic-lab-leak-intelligence.html
Near the end of the article:
“Recent news reports have unearthed new information about researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology who became sick in 2019. The news reports suggested that one of them could be patient zero. The information about the sick workers was first discovered at the end of the Trump administration. By August 2022, however, intelligence analysts had dismissed the evidence, saying it was not relevant. Intelligence officials determined that the sick workers could not tell them anything about whether a lab leak or natural transmission was more likely. Intelligence agencies view the information about the cases neutrally, arguing that they do not buttress the case for the lab leak or for natural transmission, according to officials briefed on the intelligence.”
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Wow, that is a laughable analysis. One could ask a few probing questions here instead of being a government stenographer.
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As far as I know, almost every media organization has not even bothered to ask the named scientists for their version of events. I don’t anticipate they will get answers, but I do expect the media to at least report they were unresponsive to inquiries.
I could not have said it better than Bill Barr says it here – even though I have tried many times.
Finding Trump’s reason for doing what he did with the documents would have to take into consideration his psychological problems.
I am attempting to determine who should be considered the more ignorant: the intelligence officials or the NYT.
The infections might not be defining by the single event, but should be considered relevant in consideration of other information.
For completeness, the WSJ did a credible report on this:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-funded-scientist-among-three-chinese-researchers-who-fell-ill-amid-early-covid-19-outbreak-3f919567?st=payc4sgcrgas02v&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
“Hu and the other two researchers didn’t respond to emailed requests for comment. The Wuhan Institute of Virology said that it had nothing new to say about the researchers and declined to comment further. The Chinese Foreign Ministry didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment.”
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Ken
Yeah. I mean…. his motivations aren’t necessarily what others would consider normal.
The Supreme Court has not yet released opinions of most every contentious case of the term. If I have counted correctly, 19 cases remain. Maybe they figure if all the controversial opinions are released at the same time, then the outrage meter on the left will max out briefly at 11 (out of 10!), then subside.
Ken Fritsch:
The issue you’re running into is likely due to something I mentioned in a comment after posting the first link, “Quick word of caution. You’ll need to copy-paste the link I posted above not click on it as for some reason the site isn’t including the .pdf extension when it makes it into a hyperlink.” If you look at the links, you’ll see the underlining stops before the .pdf but you need to include the .pdf extension. No clue why the site mangles them like that, but the links should work fine if you copy-paste them in their entirety instead of clicking on them.
Something to keep in mind about those financial disclosure forms is they do not cover the same time periods as a tax return will. There are other issues as well, such as how an s-corporation will receive money some amount of time before that money is given to the people who own it meaning payments in a previous year can wind up being income in the current year. As a result of stuff like this year-by-year comparisons can be pretty complicated.
To simplify things, what I did was tally up the reported income from across the different years’ disclosure forms and compare that to a tally of the income reported to the IRS over those years. Someone more knowledgeable than me on financial report could certainly do a better job, and I did find “discrepancies” when I tried comparing things one year to one year. But when I looked at the total amount of income over a 3-5 year period, the numbers matched up reasonably well.
SteveF,
I know. I google SCOTUS news pretty regularly.
Lucia,
One surprising thing about the opinions that have been released so far: There are few 6/3 conservative/liberal splits on the more ‘legal detail’ issues, with Sotomayor being in the majority on more cases than any other justice. Many splits of the votes would have been difficult for me to predict.
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I expect that will change quite a bit for the remaining cases, where the issues are, for lack of a better description, important to many people… important because they involve individual liberty and the extent of government power, especially executive power.
Ok… gotta love this…
“Schools Lack Constitutional Obligation to Try to Keep Students from Having Sex in the Parking Lot”
https://reason.com/volokh/2023/06/23/schools-lack-constitutional-obligation-to-try-to-keep-students-from-having-sex-in-the-parking-lot/
I’m guessing this won’t be appealed all the way up to SCOTUS.
Lucia,
Have to be among the dumbest parents in the country…. who hired an even dumber lawyer. Can’t keep your teenage son from wanting to have sex? That is your problem, not the school’s. I expect when he turns 18 they may be a little disappointed with what happens.
Re: Tom Scharf (Comment #222239)
Ben Hu is apparently the person second from right (seated) – picture taken in Jan 2020.
https://twitter.com/flodebarre/status/1672252422687797249
Perhaps uncharacteristic for China well before former State dept investigator and “lab leak” proponent David Asher got into the fray.
lucia, the one argument the parents made which doesn’t seem inherently laughable to me is they said the school let their student skip class periods during the last week of school, and they were not informed. Apparently that’s a thing the school has allowed for years, and I don’t think it’s inherently wrong to feel a policy like that needs to be disclosed.
I don’t think the sex part matters in that regard though. I think it’d be a potential issue in any number of cases. For instance, suppose a student skipping got in some sort of accident because they weren’t in class because the school told them they didn’t need to be. From the parents’ perspective, the school was supposed to be acting as the custodian for their child. If it was instead going to let them wander unsupervised, that’s probably something the parents deserved to know.
I don’t think that’s a strong basis for legal action, but at least it doesn’t seem laughable on its face.
Fortunately, the judge had the good sense to find the case laughable on its face. Mostly because it is laughable on its face, as most anyone with an once of common sense would immediately recognize.
School negligence was not apparently part of the case initiated by the parents, but would appear to me to be their only avenue to a legitimate one. The parents evidently thought they had bigger fish to fry.
I doubt that a teenage boy’s sex drive can be adjudicated away.
Brandon,
Perhaps. But that’s a legal theory that, perhaps, their lawyer should have looked into. Maybe he did, told them it was a “hail mary” pass, but they wanted to spend the money on the case anyway. Turns out, there is no basis in law for that.
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We now have an entertaining case to chuckle at.
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Ken
See (https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.utd.134718/gov.uscourts.utd.134718.30.0.pdf )
It seems they did allege negligence. That’s part might continue in the state court
Ken Fritsch, my impression is they did raise negligence in a fashion in their filing but the claim got dismissed because they offered no case law on the issue. From the article:
I don’t know how much of a legal basis that argument could hold if argued well, but to me it seems reasonable for parents to demand schools inform them of when they’re allowing students to leave. It came up for a silly reason in this case, but imagine if a school had an unofficial half day for 12 year olds and didn’t tell the parents. That could easily lead to problems.
To me, the idea schools need to inform parents of minors when they’re letting those minors leave school seems reasonable.
Oh, as lucia shows it turns out the parents raised a negligence claim directly rather than just indirectly like in the section I saw. I think the concept in both claims is largely the same, but it is good to see they raised the issue directly.
Lucia, thanks for the clarification.
Brandon Shollenberger,
It seems they get to continue their negligence claim, but in State court.
The claim and the defense seem to involve state law, so I think the feds rightly didn’t really address that and remanded it. The language by the federal judge sounds like they might not be impressed by that claim. I mean “novel interpretation ” and ” provided no caselaw” sound like “your argument doesn’t sounds like a winner to me.”
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But he thinks it’s better for Utah to resolve. So that claim remains live– just not in Federal court.
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I’m not a huge fan of days in school with no teaching. But it was the last day. It sounds like this has been going on a long time (“tradition”.) The school probably would be well advised to have something a little more structured while providing kids a last opportunity to discuss grades. (There’s a remote possibility of error in the grade yada, yada…)
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I’m curious to hear what happens next– but not curious enough to follow avidly.
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Hope the kid wore condoms and the girl didn’t get pregnant.
Developments in Russia today: The Wagner mercenary group (25,000 and well equipped) appears to be in rebellion against Putin, and have taken control of the city Rostov-on-Don, where Russian military command for the war in Ukraine is based.
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The head of the Wagner group has complained about Russian military leadership and tactics for a long time, claiming their incompetence has cost the lives of many of his mercenaries. He wants far more aggressive tactics than Putin.
Lucia,
The Federal judge stated:
“The Does have raised an admittedly novel interpretation of the Utah GIA that should be resolved by a state court rather than a federal court.”
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GIA stands for the government immunity act (http://ucip.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Governmental-Immunity-Act-1.pdf) which generally shields government and its employees in Utah from civil actions; the plaintiffs argue the GIA only applies to individual government employees and officials, not to the government itself. Which sounds a bit contradictory for something called the “Government Immunity Act”. The Federal judge dismissed the Constitutional claims ‘with prejudice’, and is highly skeptical of their state claims about the GIA. The case is IMO utterly ridiculous.
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The girl probably didn’t get pregnant, or the parents would have raised that issue.
SteveF:
I don’t believe this is accurate. The court ruling says the parents argued the law “does not immunize the Alpine School District form liability” (typo in original document). To me, that doesn’t seem to be arguing the law doesn’t apply to the government. To me, that seems to be arguing the school district is not a governmental entity.
For comparison, consider the Reedy Creek district in Florida that’s been the center of so much dispute these last couple years. It’s a special district similar to how school districts are. Would it be immunized by a law like the Utah one? To me, it seems the parents are saying no, special districts are not government entities.
I have no idea how to judge that argument, but it does seem they are saying something isn’t part of the government rather than saying the government is not immunized by the law.