We the undersigned call on every new candidate as well as incumbents running for elected office at every level of government to support the policies and principles reflected in the following list of demands:
#Support efforts to cut the military budget by 50% as a first step in reducing military spending, and reallocate government expenditures to fully fund social programs to realize individual and collective human rights in the areas of housing, education, health care, green jobs and public transportation;
#Oppose the militarization of the police and specifically the Department of Defense 1033 program that transfers millions of dollars' worth of military equipment to local police forces;
#Promote the closure of the more than 800 foreign military bases and the ending of U.S. participation in the white supremacist NATO military structure;
#Call for and work to close the U.S. African Command (AFRICOM) and the withdrawal of all U.S. military personnel from Africa;
#Demand that the Department of Justice document all instances of the use of lethal force by domestic police officers and agencies against non-white populations as demanded by various United Nations human rights treaty monitoring bodies;
#Commit to passing resolutions at every level of government that commit the U.S. to upholding international law and the United Nations Charter, and to opposing all military, economic (including sanctions and blockades that are acts of war) and political interventions in the internal affairs of sovereign nations regardless of the political party controlling the office of the presidency; and
#Sponsor legislation and/or resolutions at every level of government calling on the U.S. to support the United Nations resolutions on the complete global abolishment of nuclear weapons passed by 122 nations in July 2017.
I could largely agree with this list of demands, except that I wouldn't call NATO a "white supremacist" organization; however, I do believe that NATO should have gone out of existence after the Soviet Union, the nation-state that NATO was created to oppose, collapsed.
In regard to reducing the Pentagon budget, I refer the approach of Randall Forsberg, who created two closely-related models of military force structures to meet the security needs of a world without a peer military threat to the U.S., and then get down to that structure over a ten-year time period.
I could also quibble with the capability of the Justice Department to investigate "all" instances of use of lethal force, and whether we should close all of the more than 800 foreign military bases, as a few might survive a priority-based listing system.
Yet, overall, I believe this list of demands put into effect, would create a safer, better world.
ADDENDUMS:
*The Washington Post reported last month that a confidential review of Trump's decision to withhold military aid to Ukraine turned up hundreds of documents that reveal extensive efforts to generate an after-the-fact justification whether the delay was legal.
*The Post-ABC News poll released on December 16th, showed 71% want White House aides to testify in the Senate impeachment trial, and almost two-thirds of Republicans agree. 55% said the House proceedings were fair, versus 38% who said they were unfair.
*Vice President Mike Pence has classified his September 1st call to Ukraine President Zelensky. He has said he might lift the classification. Gordon Sondland has testified that Pence was aware of the withholding of military aid before the call to Zelensky.
Friday, December 27, 2019
Thursday, December 26, 2019
War Is the New Normal
Excerpts from an article in the December 9, 2019 issue of The "PeaceWorker." The author is William J. Astore, retired lieutenant colonel, who has taught at the Air Force Academy, the Naval Postgraduate School, and the Pennsylvania College of Technology. The article is entitled "American Exceptionalism Is Killing the Planet."
War is our new normal. America's default position on global affairs, and peace, some ancient, long-faded dream. And when your default position is war, whether against the Taliban, ISIS "terror" most generally, or possibly even Iran or Russia or China, is it any surprise that war is what you get? When you garrison the world with an unprecedented 800 or so military bases, when you configure your armed forces for what's called power projection, when you divide the globe --the total planet -- into areas of dominance (with acronyms like CENTCOM, AFRICOM and SOUTHCOM). commanded by four-star generals and admirals, when you spend more on your military than the next seven countries combined, when you insist on modernizing a nuclear arsenal ( to the tune of perhaps $1.7 trillion) already quite capable of ending all life on this and several other planets, (sic) what can you expect but a reality of endless war?
Think of this as the new American exceptionalism. In Washington, war is now the predictable (and even desirable) way of life, while peace is the unpredictable (and unwise) path to follow. In this context, the U.S. must continue to be the most powerful nation in the world by a country mile in all death-dealing realms, and its wars must be fought, generation after generation, even when victory is never in sight. In our politics today, it's far better to be seen as strong and wrong than meek and right.
Never-ending war weakens democracy while strengthening authoritarian tendencies in politics and society. In an age of gaping inequality, using up the country's resources in such profligate and destructive ways offers a striking exercise in consumption that profits a few at the expense of the many.
The delusional idea is that Americans are , by nature, winners and that our wars are therefore winnable. No American leader wants to be labeled a "loser." Meanwhile, such dubious conflicts, such as the Afghan War, now in its 18th year, continue to be treated by the military as if they were indeed winnable, even though they visibly aren't.
American society is almost completely isolated from war's deadly effects. We're not being droned (yet). Our cities are not yet lying in ruins (though they're certainly suffering from a lack of funding).
Unnecessary and sweeping secrecy prevents one from knowing and resisting what one can't essentially know about. Learning its lessons from the Vietnam War, the Pentagon now classifies (in plain speak, covers up) the worst aspects of its disastrous wars. This isn't because the enemy could exploit such details -- the enemy already knows -- but because the American people might be roused to something like anger and action by it.
Long ago an unrepresentative Congress ceded to the presidency most of it's constitutional powers when it comes to making war. These duly elected representatives are largely captives of the military-industrial complex.
Despite our size, we are a remarkably insular nation, and suffer from a serious empathy gap when it comes to understanding foreign cultures and peoples or what we're actually doing to them. When our globetrotting troops,when not fighting and killing foreigners in battle, often stay on vast bases, referred to in the military as "Little Americas."
The U.S.military is also a major consumer of fossil fuels and therefore a significant driver of climate change. Meanwhile, the Pentagon, like any enormously powerful system,only wants to grow more so,but what's welfare for the military bases isn't wellness for the planet.
There is, unfortunately, only one Planet Earth, or Spaceship Earth, if you prefer, since we're all traveling through our galaxy on it. Thought about a certain way, we're its crew members, yet instead of cooperating effectively as its stewards, we seem determined to fight one another. If a house divided against itself cannot stand, as Abraham Lincoln pointed out so long ago, surely a spaceship with a disputatious and self-destructive crew is not likely to survive, no less thrive.
In other words,in waging endless war, Americans are also, in effect, mutinying against the planet. In the process, we are spoiling the last, best hope of earth: a concerted and pacific effort to meet the shared challenges of a rapidly warming and changing planet.
Unfortunately, for America's leaders, the real "fixes" remain global military and resource domination, even as those sources continue to shrink on an ever-more fragile globe.
If America's wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen prove anything, it's that every war scars our planet -- and hardens our hearts. Every war makes us less human as well as less humane. Every war wastes resources when these are increasingly at a premium. Every war is a distraction from higher needs and a better life.
Despite all of war's uses and abuses,its allure and temptations,it's time that we Americans showed some self-mastery (as well as decency) by putting a stop to the mayhem. Few enough of us experience "our" wars first-hand and that's precisely why some idealize their purpose and idolize their practitioners. But war is a bloody,murderous mess, and those practitioners,when not killed or wounded, are marred for life because war functionally makes everyone involved into a murderer.
We need to stop idolizing its so-called warriors. At stake is nothing less than the future of humanity and the viability of life, as we know it, on Spaceship Earth.
War is our new normal. America's default position on global affairs, and peace, some ancient, long-faded dream. And when your default position is war, whether against the Taliban, ISIS "terror" most generally, or possibly even Iran or Russia or China, is it any surprise that war is what you get? When you garrison the world with an unprecedented 800 or so military bases, when you configure your armed forces for what's called power projection, when you divide the globe --the total planet -- into areas of dominance (with acronyms like CENTCOM, AFRICOM and SOUTHCOM). commanded by four-star generals and admirals, when you spend more on your military than the next seven countries combined, when you insist on modernizing a nuclear arsenal ( to the tune of perhaps $1.7 trillion) already quite capable of ending all life on this and several other planets, (sic) what can you expect but a reality of endless war?
Think of this as the new American exceptionalism. In Washington, war is now the predictable (and even desirable) way of life, while peace is the unpredictable (and unwise) path to follow. In this context, the U.S. must continue to be the most powerful nation in the world by a country mile in all death-dealing realms, and its wars must be fought, generation after generation, even when victory is never in sight. In our politics today, it's far better to be seen as strong and wrong than meek and right.
Never-ending war weakens democracy while strengthening authoritarian tendencies in politics and society. In an age of gaping inequality, using up the country's resources in such profligate and destructive ways offers a striking exercise in consumption that profits a few at the expense of the many.
The delusional idea is that Americans are , by nature, winners and that our wars are therefore winnable. No American leader wants to be labeled a "loser." Meanwhile, such dubious conflicts, such as the Afghan War, now in its 18th year, continue to be treated by the military as if they were indeed winnable, even though they visibly aren't.
American society is almost completely isolated from war's deadly effects. We're not being droned (yet). Our cities are not yet lying in ruins (though they're certainly suffering from a lack of funding).
Unnecessary and sweeping secrecy prevents one from knowing and resisting what one can't essentially know about. Learning its lessons from the Vietnam War, the Pentagon now classifies (in plain speak, covers up) the worst aspects of its disastrous wars. This isn't because the enemy could exploit such details -- the enemy already knows -- but because the American people might be roused to something like anger and action by it.
Long ago an unrepresentative Congress ceded to the presidency most of it's constitutional powers when it comes to making war. These duly elected representatives are largely captives of the military-industrial complex.
Despite our size, we are a remarkably insular nation, and suffer from a serious empathy gap when it comes to understanding foreign cultures and peoples or what we're actually doing to them. When our globetrotting troops,when not fighting and killing foreigners in battle, often stay on vast bases, referred to in the military as "Little Americas."
The U.S.military is also a major consumer of fossil fuels and therefore a significant driver of climate change. Meanwhile, the Pentagon, like any enormously powerful system,only wants to grow more so,but what's welfare for the military bases isn't wellness for the planet.
There is, unfortunately, only one Planet Earth, or Spaceship Earth, if you prefer, since we're all traveling through our galaxy on it. Thought about a certain way, we're its crew members, yet instead of cooperating effectively as its stewards, we seem determined to fight one another. If a house divided against itself cannot stand, as Abraham Lincoln pointed out so long ago, surely a spaceship with a disputatious and self-destructive crew is not likely to survive, no less thrive.
In other words,in waging endless war, Americans are also, in effect, mutinying against the planet. In the process, we are spoiling the last, best hope of earth: a concerted and pacific effort to meet the shared challenges of a rapidly warming and changing planet.
Unfortunately, for America's leaders, the real "fixes" remain global military and resource domination, even as those sources continue to shrink on an ever-more fragile globe.
If America's wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen prove anything, it's that every war scars our planet -- and hardens our hearts. Every war makes us less human as well as less humane. Every war wastes resources when these are increasingly at a premium. Every war is a distraction from higher needs and a better life.
Despite all of war's uses and abuses,its allure and temptations,it's time that we Americans showed some self-mastery (as well as decency) by putting a stop to the mayhem. Few enough of us experience "our" wars first-hand and that's precisely why some idealize their purpose and idolize their practitioners. But war is a bloody,murderous mess, and those practitioners,when not killed or wounded, are marred for life because war functionally makes everyone involved into a murderer.
We need to stop idolizing its so-called warriors. At stake is nothing less than the future of humanity and the viability of life, as we know it, on Spaceship Earth.
Monday, December 23, 2019
Green New Deal for Nuclear Weapons
The following is excerpted from the September 2019 issue of the "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists." The article is entitled "We need a Green New Deal for nuclear weapons."
The Green New Deal is a progressive response to climate change, because it's a solution commensurate with the scale of the problem. It also has a coherent vision for its implementation that is equal parts optimistic and realistic. Meanwhile, the arms control community is largely trapped in damage-control mode, valiantly resisting President Trump's efforts to build dangerous new nuclear weans and withdraw from critical nuclear agreements. Environmentalists are playing offense, while the nuclear community is playing defense.
Most progressives would argue that the answer is global zero -- a nuclear-free world. However, that is a long-term solution. Just as the Green New Deal does not immediately see a fossil-fuel-free world, a progressive nuclear policy cannot immediately see a nuclear-free one.
This does not mean, however, that progressives should be satisfied with occasional and incremental nuclear policy tweaks. By applying core principles of the Green New Deal -- international cooperation, reductions, transparency, and justice -- to nuclear weapons, progressives can begin to craft a plan that seeks to ambitiously and coherently restructure U.S. nuclear policy.
The Green New Deal aims to make the United States "the international leader on climate change." In similar fashion, a progressive nuclear policy should seek to place the United States at the forefront of global disarmament efforts -- acting as an international leader in nuclear transparency, diplomacy, and reductions.
President Trump has foolishly undone earlier diplomatic successes by killing off successful arms control treaties --including the Iran nuclear deal and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which banned an entire missile class -- and threatening to terminate President Barack Obama's New START, the treaty that caps U.S. and Russian deployed strategic nuclear arsenals. Nevertheless, a progressive nuclear policy should begin by emulating and expanding upon specific policies from not only the Obama era, but also from the Trump administration.
In a similar vein, the United States should immediately end its bellicose rhetoric toward Iran and attempt to pick up the shattered pieces of the Iran nuclear deal. These efforts might require targeted sanctions relief ad economic inducements to convince participating countries to return to the table in good faith.
With regard to other nuclear powers -- particularly Russia and China -- the Trump administration has embraced great-power competition and gung-ho militarist policies that will drag the world deeper into a renewed arms race. Instead, the United States should engage with Russia to reconstruct the INF Treaty, with both countries returning to compliance; immediately extend -- and try to expand -- New START; pursue arrangements to reduce military tension; draw up a long-term plan to include China and other nuclear-armed states in the arms-control process; and finally ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
The Green New Deal suggests that U.S. technological expertise can be leveraged to help other countries achieve Green New Deals of their own.This can be mirrored in the nuclear policy space. Just as the United States could become the leading exporter of renewable energy technology, it could also emulate the "just transition" envisioned in the Green New Deal,which seeks to smoothly reorient workers toward low-carbon jobs; in the nuclear context, such a transition could result in weapons manufacturers using their expertise for disarmament --placing an emphasis on warhead dismantlement and verification, rather than on production.
Reductions. Committing to ambitious climate change goals (net-zero carbon emissions by 2050) is a critical component of the Green New Deal,and one that should also be translated to the nuclear space. For both threats, progressives must take steps to physically reduce the causes and enablers of the crisis at hand -- for climate change,it's carbon emissions for nuclear weapons, it's the weapons themselves. Over the next decade, the United States will spend nearly $100,000 per minute on its nuclear forces -- that's a tremendous amount of money that could otherwise be spent on priorities like infrastructure, health care, education, and fighting climate change.
First on the chopping block should be Trump's new nukes: a planned nuclear sea-lunched cruise missile akin to the one retired by the Obama administration for its lack of military utility and a "low-yield" warhead (the name obscures the fact that it's still one-third the size of the Hiroshima bomb that killed more than 100,000 people). These "flexible" weapons could make a nuclear strike even more tempting for military planners, making future crises all the more dangerous.
The current plan to replace nearly every weapon in the U.S. nuclear arsenal was actually enshrined under the Obama administration. As experts from Global Zero have argued, the majority of these replacements are unnecessary and could be phased out under a new nuclear posture favoring minimum deterrence over war fighting.Under this new posture -- and ideally alongside reductions by other nuclear-armed states -- the United States should dramatically reduce its bomber and submarine forces,and completely scrap its intercontinental ballistic missiles,which are irrelevant in a post-Cold-War era and are largely maintained to appease missile manufacturers and members of Congress where the missiles are based. Additionally, the United States should vow never to use nuclear weapons first -- a position supported by the majority of Democrats.
The United States should also be prepared to make concessions regarding its ballistic missile defenses, which -- despite being rudimentary at best and useless at worst-- are key drivers of the arms race. This is because other countries, particularly Russia and China, fear that expanded U.S. defenses might one day render their nuclear arsenals useless.
The Green New Deal is a progressive response to climate change, because it's a solution commensurate with the scale of the problem. It also has a coherent vision for its implementation that is equal parts optimistic and realistic. Meanwhile, the arms control community is largely trapped in damage-control mode, valiantly resisting President Trump's efforts to build dangerous new nuclear weans and withdraw from critical nuclear agreements. Environmentalists are playing offense, while the nuclear community is playing defense.
Most progressives would argue that the answer is global zero -- a nuclear-free world. However, that is a long-term solution. Just as the Green New Deal does not immediately see a fossil-fuel-free world, a progressive nuclear policy cannot immediately see a nuclear-free one.
This does not mean, however, that progressives should be satisfied with occasional and incremental nuclear policy tweaks. By applying core principles of the Green New Deal -- international cooperation, reductions, transparency, and justice -- to nuclear weapons, progressives can begin to craft a plan that seeks to ambitiously and coherently restructure U.S. nuclear policy.
The Green New Deal aims to make the United States "the international leader on climate change." In similar fashion, a progressive nuclear policy should seek to place the United States at the forefront of global disarmament efforts -- acting as an international leader in nuclear transparency, diplomacy, and reductions.
President Trump has foolishly undone earlier diplomatic successes by killing off successful arms control treaties --including the Iran nuclear deal and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which banned an entire missile class -- and threatening to terminate President Barack Obama's New START, the treaty that caps U.S. and Russian deployed strategic nuclear arsenals. Nevertheless, a progressive nuclear policy should begin by emulating and expanding upon specific policies from not only the Obama era, but also from the Trump administration.
In a similar vein, the United States should immediately end its bellicose rhetoric toward Iran and attempt to pick up the shattered pieces of the Iran nuclear deal. These efforts might require targeted sanctions relief ad economic inducements to convince participating countries to return to the table in good faith.
With regard to other nuclear powers -- particularly Russia and China -- the Trump administration has embraced great-power competition and gung-ho militarist policies that will drag the world deeper into a renewed arms race. Instead, the United States should engage with Russia to reconstruct the INF Treaty, with both countries returning to compliance; immediately extend -- and try to expand -- New START; pursue arrangements to reduce military tension; draw up a long-term plan to include China and other nuclear-armed states in the arms-control process; and finally ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
The Green New Deal suggests that U.S. technological expertise can be leveraged to help other countries achieve Green New Deals of their own.This can be mirrored in the nuclear policy space. Just as the United States could become the leading exporter of renewable energy technology, it could also emulate the "just transition" envisioned in the Green New Deal,which seeks to smoothly reorient workers toward low-carbon jobs; in the nuclear context, such a transition could result in weapons manufacturers using their expertise for disarmament --placing an emphasis on warhead dismantlement and verification, rather than on production.
Reductions. Committing to ambitious climate change goals (net-zero carbon emissions by 2050) is a critical component of the Green New Deal,and one that should also be translated to the nuclear space. For both threats, progressives must take steps to physically reduce the causes and enablers of the crisis at hand -- for climate change,it's carbon emissions for nuclear weapons, it's the weapons themselves. Over the next decade, the United States will spend nearly $100,000 per minute on its nuclear forces -- that's a tremendous amount of money that could otherwise be spent on priorities like infrastructure, health care, education, and fighting climate change.
First on the chopping block should be Trump's new nukes: a planned nuclear sea-lunched cruise missile akin to the one retired by the Obama administration for its lack of military utility and a "low-yield" warhead (the name obscures the fact that it's still one-third the size of the Hiroshima bomb that killed more than 100,000 people). These "flexible" weapons could make a nuclear strike even more tempting for military planners, making future crises all the more dangerous.
The current plan to replace nearly every weapon in the U.S. nuclear arsenal was actually enshrined under the Obama administration. As experts from Global Zero have argued, the majority of these replacements are unnecessary and could be phased out under a new nuclear posture favoring minimum deterrence over war fighting.Under this new posture -- and ideally alongside reductions by other nuclear-armed states -- the United States should dramatically reduce its bomber and submarine forces,and completely scrap its intercontinental ballistic missiles,which are irrelevant in a post-Cold-War era and are largely maintained to appease missile manufacturers and members of Congress where the missiles are based. Additionally, the United States should vow never to use nuclear weapons first -- a position supported by the majority of Democrats.
The United States should also be prepared to make concessions regarding its ballistic missile defenses, which -- despite being rudimentary at best and useless at worst-- are key drivers of the arms race. This is because other countries, particularly Russia and China, fear that expanded U.S. defenses might one day render their nuclear arsenals useless.
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
Trump: a Serial Abuser of Campaign Finance Law
There is a fear that finding President Trump not guilty of abuse of power in the U.S. Senate will cause him to revert to and possibly even expand on the abuses of power he has displayed in the past. In the area of campaign finance law, Trump has already displayed a pattern of illegal behavior.
Leaving aside the payment of "hush" money, in which either Stormy Daniels or Karen McDougal could have derailed Donald Trump's presidential campaign in its latter stages by revealing their respective relationships with him, the pattern of violating campaign finance law began with Trump's televised appeal to the Russian government that if it is listening, please try to find Hillary Clinton's missing 30,000 emails, and the media would appreciate it. Trump's pattern of violating campaign finance law continued when he tried to justify the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting, attended by three top campaign officials, that "everybody" would have taken the meeting; also, he described getting "dirt" on Hillary Clinton as legitimate "opo (opposition) research."
The pattern continued when in an Oval Office interview with George Stephanopolos, President Trump said that if he had information that a foreign entity had negative information about a political rival, he would take a call and then decide if he would report the call to the FBI or some other governmental entity. Knowing Trump's practice of seeking advantage of a political opponent by any means necessary, if one foreign entity had a dump truck load of dirt, and another had only a thimble's full, which call would Trump be most likely to report? Hint: it would not be the dump truck load of dirt.
Finally, coming to Trump's public request to China to investigate the Bidens because Hunter Biden served on the board of a Chinese company, and the demand made to Ukraine to link investigations to a White House visit, and the release of military aid/security assistance to the 2016 presidential election, these are further indications of Trump's lack of respect for campaign finance law. This linkage is bribery under 18 U.S.C. 201 (b), a quid pro quo as referenced in that statute, and a violation of campaign finance law by exchanging an action of a foreign entity, investigations of the Bidens and Ukraine's possible meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, with a "thing of value," dirtying up a potential 2020 election political opponent, Joe Biden.
Leaving aside the payment of "hush" money, in which either Stormy Daniels or Karen McDougal could have derailed Donald Trump's presidential campaign in its latter stages by revealing their respective relationships with him, the pattern of violating campaign finance law began with Trump's televised appeal to the Russian government that if it is listening, please try to find Hillary Clinton's missing 30,000 emails, and the media would appreciate it. Trump's pattern of violating campaign finance law continued when he tried to justify the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting, attended by three top campaign officials, that "everybody" would have taken the meeting; also, he described getting "dirt" on Hillary Clinton as legitimate "opo (opposition) research."
The pattern continued when in an Oval Office interview with George Stephanopolos, President Trump said that if he had information that a foreign entity had negative information about a political rival, he would take a call and then decide if he would report the call to the FBI or some other governmental entity. Knowing Trump's practice of seeking advantage of a political opponent by any means necessary, if one foreign entity had a dump truck load of dirt, and another had only a thimble's full, which call would Trump be most likely to report? Hint: it would not be the dump truck load of dirt.
Finally, coming to Trump's public request to China to investigate the Bidens because Hunter Biden served on the board of a Chinese company, and the demand made to Ukraine to link investigations to a White House visit, and the release of military aid/security assistance to the 2016 presidential election, these are further indications of Trump's lack of respect for campaign finance law. This linkage is bribery under 18 U.S.C. 201 (b), a quid pro quo as referenced in that statute, and a violation of campaign finance law by exchanging an action of a foreign entity, investigations of the Bidens and Ukraine's possible meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, with a "thing of value," dirtying up a potential 2020 election political opponent, Joe Biden.
Tuesday, December 17, 2019
GOP False Statements in the Impeachment Hearings
Ranking minority member Davin Nunes's opening statement in the hearing on Marie Yovanovitch, ousted ambassador to Ukraine, was what he called the complete transcript of the April 21 call between President Trump and Ukraine's President Zelensky. Nunes's reading consisted entirely of congratulations for the election victories of the two leaders and invitations to visit one another. Nunes's reading contrasted sharply with the White House readout of the April 21 call, which said that the two leaders discussed "implementing reforms that strengthen democracy, increase prosperity, and root out corruption." The only reasonable explanation for the differing versions is that the White House wanted to impart substance to the April 21 call, and the rough transcript that Nunes read avoided a future problem of deception when the full transcript saw the light of day. It is the case that in both the April 21 and July 25 calls, the word "corruption" was not mentioned.
Throughout the Yovanovitch hearings, the Republicans used 55 days as the length of time the military aid was withheld. This corresponds to July 12, when the Office of Management and Budget acknowledged the directive from Trump to freeze the aid, although no reason had been given for the freeze; however, the White House had originally announced the release date as February 28, Thus, instead of withholding the aid for under two months, it was actually withheld for about six and a half months before the actual release date of September 11.
President Trump had contended that top officials in the Ukraine government had been saying that Yovanovitch was a bad ambassador, so it came as a surprise how Zelensky reacted when Trump said the following in the July 25 call:"[Yovanovitch was] bad news and the people she was dealing with were bad news, and I just wanted to let you know that." Zelensky replied: "It was great that you were the first one who told me that she was a bad ambassador because I agree with you 100%." Zelensky knows that Trump can elevate his standing in the world, so he doesn't want to get on his bad side by contradicting him, but no one in his government was bringing him bad news about Yovanovitch.
A major talking point by Republican lawmakers, other party officials, and Trump surrogates, is that Ukraine officials didn't feel pressured about the aid not arriving, and maybe not even knowing about the freeze. Laura Cooper, the deputy assistant of defense, the point person on the military aid, testified that the Ukraine officials she was in contact with, raised serious concerns about the freeze. In the exchange of text messages in August and September, Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Zelensky, sent on August 8, an article headlined "Trump Holds Up Ukraine Military Aid Meant to Confront Russia." The article was sent to Kurt Volker, U.S. special envoy to Ukraine. It also strains credulity to argue that Ukraine officials -- and the Ukraine public, for that matter -- felt no concern during the 194 days between the scheduled day of aid release on February 28, and the actual September 11 release.
Rep, Devin Nunes (R-CA) and others, perhaps) contend that President Obama sent little more than "blankets" to Ukraine. Obama and Congress provided $600 million in security assistance, according to a 2107 Congressional Research Records Service report. A 2015 Defense Department news release said that Obama had pledged 230 Humvees, along with unarmed aerial vehicles, counter-mortar radars, night vision devices, and medical supplies to Ukraine. He also signed into law the Defense-managed Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, and between fiscal year 2016 and fiscal year 2019, Congress appropriated $850 million. The fiscal year 2019 portion is what Trump blocked. It is certainly proper to argue that Barack Obama didn't do enough to assist Ukraine. It is not proper to claim he did virtually nothing.
Finally, President Trump had blocked the shipment of Javelins, anti-tank missiles, to Ukraine for "a week or two" in 2017,when the Ukraine judicial system was mulling over criminal charges against Paul Manafort for his unwelcome involvement in Ukraine governmental matters.
Throughout the Yovanovitch hearings, the Republicans used 55 days as the length of time the military aid was withheld. This corresponds to July 12, when the Office of Management and Budget acknowledged the directive from Trump to freeze the aid, although no reason had been given for the freeze; however, the White House had originally announced the release date as February 28, Thus, instead of withholding the aid for under two months, it was actually withheld for about six and a half months before the actual release date of September 11.
President Trump had contended that top officials in the Ukraine government had been saying that Yovanovitch was a bad ambassador, so it came as a surprise how Zelensky reacted when Trump said the following in the July 25 call:"[Yovanovitch was] bad news and the people she was dealing with were bad news, and I just wanted to let you know that." Zelensky replied: "It was great that you were the first one who told me that she was a bad ambassador because I agree with you 100%." Zelensky knows that Trump can elevate his standing in the world, so he doesn't want to get on his bad side by contradicting him, but no one in his government was bringing him bad news about Yovanovitch.
A major talking point by Republican lawmakers, other party officials, and Trump surrogates, is that Ukraine officials didn't feel pressured about the aid not arriving, and maybe not even knowing about the freeze. Laura Cooper, the deputy assistant of defense, the point person on the military aid, testified that the Ukraine officials she was in contact with, raised serious concerns about the freeze. In the exchange of text messages in August and September, Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Zelensky, sent on August 8, an article headlined "Trump Holds Up Ukraine Military Aid Meant to Confront Russia." The article was sent to Kurt Volker, U.S. special envoy to Ukraine. It also strains credulity to argue that Ukraine officials -- and the Ukraine public, for that matter -- felt no concern during the 194 days between the scheduled day of aid release on February 28, and the actual September 11 release.
Rep, Devin Nunes (R-CA) and others, perhaps) contend that President Obama sent little more than "blankets" to Ukraine. Obama and Congress provided $600 million in security assistance, according to a 2107 Congressional Research Records Service report. A 2015 Defense Department news release said that Obama had pledged 230 Humvees, along with unarmed aerial vehicles, counter-mortar radars, night vision devices, and medical supplies to Ukraine. He also signed into law the Defense-managed Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, and between fiscal year 2016 and fiscal year 2019, Congress appropriated $850 million. The fiscal year 2019 portion is what Trump blocked. It is certainly proper to argue that Barack Obama didn't do enough to assist Ukraine. It is not proper to claim he did virtually nothing.
Finally, President Trump had blocked the shipment of Javelins, anti-tank missiles, to Ukraine for "a week or two" in 2017,when the Ukraine judicial system was mulling over criminal charges against Paul Manafort for his unwelcome involvement in Ukraine governmental matters.
Monday, December 16, 2019
Catching Up on Trump's Lies
President Trump had Russian Foreign Minister Sergi Lavrov in the Oval Office on the same day that the Articles of Impeachment were unveiled in Congress. It is unclear as to who invited Lavrov to the Oval Office, as the White House announced the visit only a day before he came, and Russia had previously made known the visit was coming. Nonetheless the optics were bad, as Lavrov and the Russian ambassador to the U.S. were in the Oval Office shorty after James Comey was fired as the FBI director. It was in that earlier meeting that Trump said the firing of Comey "lifted a cloud" from himself.
Trump has said that he warned Lavrov not to interfere in the 2020 U.S. election; however, when Lavrov was asked by a reporter if Trump made the warning, he answered that elections were not discussed. Of course, Lavrov could be lying, but Trump has a much stronger demonstrated penchant for lying.
When Trump made his visit to be with U.S troops in Afghanistan, he said that talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government would resume soon. Both the Taliban and the Afghan government denied that talks were imminent. Trump also falsely described the prior negotiations as being between the Afghan government and the Taliban,when the government had previously been left out, at least until an agreement had been reached.
After the conclusion of the meeting of NATO leaders, Trump said he got the NATO countries there to pony up another $530 billion in their defense budgets. No such meeting to increase defense budgets had been held; also, the leaders have legislatures that must approve any increases in defense spending. The goal for NATO countries to commit 2 percent of their GDPs to defense spending was set years ago, and remains the goal.
President Trump has described world leaders as laughing behind their backs at former president Barack Obama. Even if that were true, Trump received similar televised treatment by four world leaders scoffing at him. England's Boris Johnson, France's Emmanuel Macron, Canada's Justin Trudeau, and the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, were in a group, when Johnson asked Macron "Is that why you were late?" Macron had been challenged by Trump earlier in the day. Trudeau chimed in with "He [Trump] was late because he takes a 40-minute press conference off the top. You just watched his teams' jaws drop to the floor." The four then dissolved in laughter.
Earlier in the day, Trump had asked Macron if he would like to receive some "ISIS fighters." Macron replied: "Let's get serious."
Trump has said that he warned Lavrov not to interfere in the 2020 U.S. election; however, when Lavrov was asked by a reporter if Trump made the warning, he answered that elections were not discussed. Of course, Lavrov could be lying, but Trump has a much stronger demonstrated penchant for lying.
When Trump made his visit to be with U.S troops in Afghanistan, he said that talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government would resume soon. Both the Taliban and the Afghan government denied that talks were imminent. Trump also falsely described the prior negotiations as being between the Afghan government and the Taliban,when the government had previously been left out, at least until an agreement had been reached.
After the conclusion of the meeting of NATO leaders, Trump said he got the NATO countries there to pony up another $530 billion in their defense budgets. No such meeting to increase defense budgets had been held; also, the leaders have legislatures that must approve any increases in defense spending. The goal for NATO countries to commit 2 percent of their GDPs to defense spending was set years ago, and remains the goal.
President Trump has described world leaders as laughing behind their backs at former president Barack Obama. Even if that were true, Trump received similar televised treatment by four world leaders scoffing at him. England's Boris Johnson, France's Emmanuel Macron, Canada's Justin Trudeau, and the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, were in a group, when Johnson asked Macron "Is that why you were late?" Macron had been challenged by Trump earlier in the day. Trudeau chimed in with "He [Trump] was late because he takes a 40-minute press conference off the top. You just watched his teams' jaws drop to the floor." The four then dissolved in laughter.
Earlier in the day, Trump had asked Macron if he would like to receive some "ISIS fighters." Macron replied: "Let's get serious."
Friday, December 13, 2019
Data From Americans for Tax Fairness
Donald Trump and the GOP said their $2 trillion in tax cuts would pay for themselves. Instead, they're ballooning the national debt and using that as an excuse to try and make deep cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, education and more.
In a new chartbook (https://americansfortaxfairness.org/goptaxscamanniversary2/) by Americans for Tax Fairness titled "Trump-GOP Cuts Failing Workers and the Economy," we take a look at eight key promises (ahem, LIES) made by Donald Trump and congressional Republicans that were used to scam the American people and ram their tax breaks through Congress.
In 2017, we were told repeatedly that the giant, unpaid-for tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations would increase jobs, pay for themselves, give every family a big raise and really hurt rich people like Donald Trump. The evidence says otherwise.
REALITY: The richest 1% are getting an average tax cut that's 75 times more than the average tax cut of the bottom 80% -- $50,000 vs. $645.
REALITY: Donald Trump and his family will benefit personally by millions of dollars from five features of the tax scam: lower top income tax rates; the deep corporate tax cuts; a weakened estate tax; a tax cut mostly benefiting wealthy business owners like Trump; and real estate loopholes the tax law opened.
REALITY: Median family income rose just $514 in 2018 and the annual growth rate in workers' wages has increased just 0.3% since the tax scam became law. Both of these are well below the increases that occurred during President Obama's last two years in office.
REALITY: Almost half of the benefits of this supposed "small" business tax cut are going to the tiny sliver of businesses with over $1 million in annual income. Less than a quarter is going to firms with income of $200,000 or less.
REALITY: Economic growth (GDP) since the tax law was enacted has been in line with the Obama years and hasn't come close to the 4%, 5% or 6% promised by Trump and the GOP. The Federal Reserve (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/18/fed-ups-it-gdp-recast-forecast-for-2019-slightly-to-2 point-2percent.html) predicts growth of 2.2% for the full year of 2019.
REALITY: The total cost of the tax cuts is estimated at $1.9 trillion (https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2019-10/55743-CBO-effects-of-public-law-115-97-on-revenues.pdf), according to the Congressional Budget Office which will be added to the national debt and is being used by Trump and congressional Republicans to try and make deep cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education and more.
REALITY: Monthly job growth has averaged 195,000 in the two years since the tax cuts were enacted. Job growth in the last two years of the Obama administration averaged 210,000 a month.
REALITY: Instead of investing in more jobs and higher wages,capital investments are falling into negative territory in 2019. Corporations have used their tax savings for stock buybacks, which primarily benefit executives and other wealthy shareholders. Corporations bought back a record $800 billion-plus of their own shares in 2018, over the $519 billion in stock buybacks in 2017.
In a new chartbook (https://americansfortaxfairness.org/goptaxscamanniversary2/) by Americans for Tax Fairness titled "Trump-GOP Cuts Failing Workers and the Economy," we take a look at eight key promises (ahem, LIES) made by Donald Trump and congressional Republicans that were used to scam the American people and ram their tax breaks through Congress.
In 2017, we were told repeatedly that the giant, unpaid-for tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations would increase jobs, pay for themselves, give every family a big raise and really hurt rich people like Donald Trump. The evidence says otherwise.
REALITY: The richest 1% are getting an average tax cut that's 75 times more than the average tax cut of the bottom 80% -- $50,000 vs. $645.
REALITY: Donald Trump and his family will benefit personally by millions of dollars from five features of the tax scam: lower top income tax rates; the deep corporate tax cuts; a weakened estate tax; a tax cut mostly benefiting wealthy business owners like Trump; and real estate loopholes the tax law opened.
REALITY: Median family income rose just $514 in 2018 and the annual growth rate in workers' wages has increased just 0.3% since the tax scam became law. Both of these are well below the increases that occurred during President Obama's last two years in office.
REALITY: Almost half of the benefits of this supposed "small" business tax cut are going to the tiny sliver of businesses with over $1 million in annual income. Less than a quarter is going to firms with income of $200,000 or less.
REALITY: Economic growth (GDP) since the tax law was enacted has been in line with the Obama years and hasn't come close to the 4%, 5% or 6% promised by Trump and the GOP. The Federal Reserve (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/18/fed-ups-it-gdp-recast-forecast-for-2019-slightly-to-2 point-2percent.html) predicts growth of 2.2% for the full year of 2019.
REALITY: The total cost of the tax cuts is estimated at $1.9 trillion (https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2019-10/55743-CBO-effects-of-public-law-115-97-on-revenues.pdf), according to the Congressional Budget Office which will be added to the national debt and is being used by Trump and congressional Republicans to try and make deep cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education and more.
REALITY: Monthly job growth has averaged 195,000 in the two years since the tax cuts were enacted. Job growth in the last two years of the Obama administration averaged 210,000 a month.
REALITY: Instead of investing in more jobs and higher wages,capital investments are falling into negative territory in 2019. Corporations have used their tax savings for stock buybacks, which primarily benefit executives and other wealthy shareholders. Corporations bought back a record $800 billion-plus of their own shares in 2018, over the $519 billion in stock buybacks in 2017.
Monday, December 9, 2019
Recent News by the Numbers
I. Minor Cost Increases Create Protests
20c -Per day use fee for calls on instant messaging apps proposed by the Lebanese government --which prompted 2 million protesters to march in October.
4c - Subway fare hike, in US currency, that sparked a million protesters to fill the streets of Santiago, Chile, on October 25.
25% - Gasoline price increase in Ecuador after the government repealed fuel subsidies, leading thousands of demonstrators to demand the move be reversed, along with other IMF-imposed austerity measures.
500 - Police officers redeployed to prevent fare evasion in the New York City subway on November 1, more than 1,000 protesters marched to call for an end to police brutality and for spending taxpayer funds on more beneficial social programs. (Source: Teddy Ostrow, The Nation, November 25, 2019.)
II. Voter Purges
17M - US voters purged from states' voter rolls from 2016 to 2018.
15 - States with more-restrictive voter ID laws than they had in 2010.
12 - States that have made it harder to register to vote since 2010.
4 - States that made it more difficult for students to vote since 2010.
1,500 - Twitter accounts suspended for postings intentionally misleading election-related content, such as the wrong day of the 2018 midterms.
235K - Number of voters that Ohio planned to purge from its rolls this year.
20% - Percentage of that number who were active voters who would have been erroneously prevented from voting. (Source: Alice Markham-Cantor, The Nation, November 11/18, 2019.)
III. Fleeing and Resettled Refugees
37K - Daily number of people forced to flee their homes because of persecution and violence.
70.8M - Number of forcibly displaced people world-wide, according to the United Nations.
26M - Number of refugees world-wide, according to the UN.
0.4% - Percentage of refugees resettled by the UN.
36% - Percentage registered by the UN's High Commissioner for refugees who come from Syria or Afghanistan.
207K - Number of refugees settled in the United States in 1980.
0 - Number settled in the US in October -- the first time the country hasn't taken in a single refugee since monthly records were started nearly 30 years ago. (Source: Mary Akdemir, December 2/9, 2019.)
ADDENDUMS:
*Attorney General William Barr has accused the Democrats of a "war" against a "duly elected government" at a conference of the Federalist Society.
*At a rally, Trump acted out a orgasm directed at Lisa Page, a FBI agent, who carried out an email romantic exchange with another FBI agent, both critical of Trump. He acted out: "I love you, Peter. Oh! God! How I love you!"
*At the G-7 meeting, Trump told French President Emmanuel Macron that he could send him some "ISIS fighters" if he wanted them. Macron: "Let's be serious."
*The Second Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that Deuteche Bank and Capital One must comply with an order to turn over a broad range of financial records. They ordered "prompt compliance."
*Trump called Macron's comment that NATO is experiencing "brain death," "very nasty."
20c -Per day use fee for calls on instant messaging apps proposed by the Lebanese government --which prompted 2 million protesters to march in October.
4c - Subway fare hike, in US currency, that sparked a million protesters to fill the streets of Santiago, Chile, on October 25.
25% - Gasoline price increase in Ecuador after the government repealed fuel subsidies, leading thousands of demonstrators to demand the move be reversed, along with other IMF-imposed austerity measures.
500 - Police officers redeployed to prevent fare evasion in the New York City subway on November 1, more than 1,000 protesters marched to call for an end to police brutality and for spending taxpayer funds on more beneficial social programs. (Source: Teddy Ostrow, The Nation, November 25, 2019.)
II. Voter Purges
17M - US voters purged from states' voter rolls from 2016 to 2018.
15 - States with more-restrictive voter ID laws than they had in 2010.
12 - States that have made it harder to register to vote since 2010.
4 - States that made it more difficult for students to vote since 2010.
1,500 - Twitter accounts suspended for postings intentionally misleading election-related content, such as the wrong day of the 2018 midterms.
235K - Number of voters that Ohio planned to purge from its rolls this year.
20% - Percentage of that number who were active voters who would have been erroneously prevented from voting. (Source: Alice Markham-Cantor, The Nation, November 11/18, 2019.)
III. Fleeing and Resettled Refugees
37K - Daily number of people forced to flee their homes because of persecution and violence.
70.8M - Number of forcibly displaced people world-wide, according to the United Nations.
26M - Number of refugees world-wide, according to the UN.
0.4% - Percentage of refugees resettled by the UN.
36% - Percentage registered by the UN's High Commissioner for refugees who come from Syria or Afghanistan.
207K - Number of refugees settled in the United States in 1980.
0 - Number settled in the US in October -- the first time the country hasn't taken in a single refugee since monthly records were started nearly 30 years ago. (Source: Mary Akdemir, December 2/9, 2019.)
ADDENDUMS:
*Attorney General William Barr has accused the Democrats of a "war" against a "duly elected government" at a conference of the Federalist Society.
*At a rally, Trump acted out a orgasm directed at Lisa Page, a FBI agent, who carried out an email romantic exchange with another FBI agent, both critical of Trump. He acted out: "I love you, Peter. Oh! God! How I love you!"
*At the G-7 meeting, Trump told French President Emmanuel Macron that he could send him some "ISIS fighters" if he wanted them. Macron: "Let's be serious."
*The Second Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that Deuteche Bank and Capital One must comply with an order to turn over a broad range of financial records. They ordered "prompt compliance."
*Trump called Macron's comment that NATO is experiencing "brain death," "very nasty."
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
GOP Follies Closing After First Run
#President Trump has time-and-again contended that his call to Ukraine's President Zelensky was "perfect." What this means is that in order for every call to a foreign leader to be "perfect" it must include a "favor" that is politically beneficial to Trump.
#When Mick Mulvaney described a quid pro quo between Ukraine's role in meddling in the U.S. 2016 presidential election and the freeze on military aid, he said this sort of thing happens all the time, and everyone should just "get over it." It is deeply troubling that Mulvaney is forecasting that every time Trump calls or meets with a foreign leader, it will involve a quid pro quo personally beneficial to Trump.
#Sen. Lindsey Graham is proving to be the master of the inane: He has said that: 1.) It is sad that Trump is going to be impeached due to one phone call, when Trump's entire tenure in office has been chuck-a-block with instances of abuse of power; 2.) He has said that he is not going to read any transcripts related to the impeachment; and 3.) He has vowed to shut down the impeachment proceedings in the Senate before they begin.
#Trump contends that he was interested in rooting out corruption in Ukraine; however there is no public record of him taking any action to root out corruption in that country. There is abundant evidence that he has been trying to corrupt a very inexperienced Ukraine leader.
#The GOP is trying to make a point that Trump did not mention freezing military aid in the July 25 call. The White House initially announced that the aid would be released on February 28, and then reasserted the release on May 23. In mid-July, President Trump directed acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to attribute the freeze to an "interagency process." Mulvaney then passed the word to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). High OMB officials have confirmed that the directive came from Trump, but no reason was given for the freeze. Once more, a deputy Defense Department official centrally involved in the dispersal of appropriated funds, has testified that Ukraine officials she was in contact with, were flummoxed by the withholding of the military aid.
#The GOP has made a big case that the first whistleblower (WB) did not have first-hand knowledge of the July 25 phone call, not only does the lawyer for the first WB have as a client a second WB with first-hand knowledge, but two major witnesses -- Lt. Col. Alexander Vineland, a National Security Council official, and Tim Morrison, another National Security Council official -- listened to the July 25 call.
#Rep. Jim Jordan wanted to have Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the EU, testify in public because he had said in a December 9 text message that there was no quid pro quo. Later, Sondland admitted that he did not have independent knowledge, but was merely repeating what Trump had instructed him to say. Then, Sondland said his memory had been "refreshed" and he said that "everything" was conditioned on the Ukraine government publicly announcing the opening of the two demanded investigations.
#A big talking point for the GOP is that impeachment would nullify the 2016 election of Trump. Any impeachment of a president would nullify the prior election of a president. The impeachment clause in the Constitution would become a dead letter. Since a Justice Department memo says that a sitting president can't be tried in a court of law, and an elected president can't be impeached, this nation that rebelled against the rule of a British king, would have established a U.S. king totally above the law.
#The "three amigos," Gordon Sondland, Kurt Volker and Rick Perry, head of the Department of Energy, tried to dissuade Trump from his position on Ukraine, but were unsuccessful.
#A member of the GOP House leadership, Rep. Steve Scalise, has compared the House investigative committee hearings as Soviet-style in nature. Scalise doesn't seem to understand the Soviet "show" trials of the 1930s usually resulted in the execution of those convicted, or being sent away to hard labor in the Siberian Gulag.
#When the GOP got the public hearings they had been demanding, they unanimously voted against them. The GOP lawmakers said in effect, that it was "too little, too late." The GOP claim that the Democrats were being unfair to Trump should have been washed away by the fact that the rules voted into being on October 31 essentially adopted the GOP rules adopted in 2015. The charge of unfairness to Trump is ludicrous when one considers the law-breaking he has allowed to get away with; the democratic norms he has trampled; and the severe damage he has done to the checks and balances structure of the U.S. government by stonewalling on documents and witnesses.
#In June, President Trump ordered John Bolton and Defense Secretary Mark Esper to conduct a policy review; however, John C. Rood, the undersecretary for defense, had already sent a letter to congressional committees in May -- including the committee chaired by Sen. Chuck Grassley -- to give assurance that the "Government of Ukraine has taken substantial actions to make defense institutional reforms for the purpose of decreasing corruption, increasing accountability, sustaining improvements of combat capability enabled by U.S. assistance."
#May 7 may become an important day in the Ukraine scandal, as The New York Times has cited three sources in describing a meeting largely devoted to discussing an investigation of Burisma, the Ukrainian natural gas company, on whose board Hunter Biden served. How and why did Burisma come up when it had been investigated long before?
#When Mick Mulvaney described a quid pro quo between Ukraine's role in meddling in the U.S. 2016 presidential election and the freeze on military aid, he said this sort of thing happens all the time, and everyone should just "get over it." It is deeply troubling that Mulvaney is forecasting that every time Trump calls or meets with a foreign leader, it will involve a quid pro quo personally beneficial to Trump.
#Sen. Lindsey Graham is proving to be the master of the inane: He has said that: 1.) It is sad that Trump is going to be impeached due to one phone call, when Trump's entire tenure in office has been chuck-a-block with instances of abuse of power; 2.) He has said that he is not going to read any transcripts related to the impeachment; and 3.) He has vowed to shut down the impeachment proceedings in the Senate before they begin.
#Trump contends that he was interested in rooting out corruption in Ukraine; however there is no public record of him taking any action to root out corruption in that country. There is abundant evidence that he has been trying to corrupt a very inexperienced Ukraine leader.
#The GOP is trying to make a point that Trump did not mention freezing military aid in the July 25 call. The White House initially announced that the aid would be released on February 28, and then reasserted the release on May 23. In mid-July, President Trump directed acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to attribute the freeze to an "interagency process." Mulvaney then passed the word to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). High OMB officials have confirmed that the directive came from Trump, but no reason was given for the freeze. Once more, a deputy Defense Department official centrally involved in the dispersal of appropriated funds, has testified that Ukraine officials she was in contact with, were flummoxed by the withholding of the military aid.
#The GOP has made a big case that the first whistleblower (WB) did not have first-hand knowledge of the July 25 phone call, not only does the lawyer for the first WB have as a client a second WB with first-hand knowledge, but two major witnesses -- Lt. Col. Alexander Vineland, a National Security Council official, and Tim Morrison, another National Security Council official -- listened to the July 25 call.
#Rep. Jim Jordan wanted to have Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the EU, testify in public because he had said in a December 9 text message that there was no quid pro quo. Later, Sondland admitted that he did not have independent knowledge, but was merely repeating what Trump had instructed him to say. Then, Sondland said his memory had been "refreshed" and he said that "everything" was conditioned on the Ukraine government publicly announcing the opening of the two demanded investigations.
#A big talking point for the GOP is that impeachment would nullify the 2016 election of Trump. Any impeachment of a president would nullify the prior election of a president. The impeachment clause in the Constitution would become a dead letter. Since a Justice Department memo says that a sitting president can't be tried in a court of law, and an elected president can't be impeached, this nation that rebelled against the rule of a British king, would have established a U.S. king totally above the law.
#The "three amigos," Gordon Sondland, Kurt Volker and Rick Perry, head of the Department of Energy, tried to dissuade Trump from his position on Ukraine, but were unsuccessful.
#A member of the GOP House leadership, Rep. Steve Scalise, has compared the House investigative committee hearings as Soviet-style in nature. Scalise doesn't seem to understand the Soviet "show" trials of the 1930s usually resulted in the execution of those convicted, or being sent away to hard labor in the Siberian Gulag.
#When the GOP got the public hearings they had been demanding, they unanimously voted against them. The GOP lawmakers said in effect, that it was "too little, too late." The GOP claim that the Democrats were being unfair to Trump should have been washed away by the fact that the rules voted into being on October 31 essentially adopted the GOP rules adopted in 2015. The charge of unfairness to Trump is ludicrous when one considers the law-breaking he has allowed to get away with; the democratic norms he has trampled; and the severe damage he has done to the checks and balances structure of the U.S. government by stonewalling on documents and witnesses.
#In June, President Trump ordered John Bolton and Defense Secretary Mark Esper to conduct a policy review; however, John C. Rood, the undersecretary for defense, had already sent a letter to congressional committees in May -- including the committee chaired by Sen. Chuck Grassley -- to give assurance that the "Government of Ukraine has taken substantial actions to make defense institutional reforms for the purpose of decreasing corruption, increasing accountability, sustaining improvements of combat capability enabled by U.S. assistance."
#May 7 may become an important day in the Ukraine scandal, as The New York Times has cited three sources in describing a meeting largely devoted to discussing an investigation of Burisma, the Ukrainian natural gas company, on whose board Hunter Biden served. How and why did Burisma come up when it had been investigated long before?
Wednesday, November 6, 2019
History of Impeachment
I. History of Impeachment
"Impeachment is an ancient relic, a rusty legal instrument and political weapon first specified by the English Parliament, in 1376, to wrest power from the King by charging his ministers with abuses of power, convicting them, removing them from office,and throwing them in prison." "After conducting at least ten impeachments between 1376 and 1450, Parliament didn't impeach anyone for more than a hundred and seventy years, partly because Parliament met only when the King summoned it, and, if Parliament was going to impeach his ministers, he'd show them by never summoning it, unless he really had to, as when he needed to levy taxes." [1]
"Steeped in the lore of Parliament's seventeenth-century battles with the Stuarts, men like Adams considered the right of impeachment to be one of the fundamental rights of Enlightenment." "All four of the original plans for a new constitution allowed for Presidential impeachment." "Some mode of displacing an unfit magistrate is rendered indispensable by the fallibility of those who choose, as well as by the corruptibility of the men chosen, the Virginia delegate George Mason said: "An impeachment offense is an abuse of the power of the office that violates the public trust, and runs counter to the national interest, and undermines the Republic."
"Nothing in American history, from the founding of the earliest colonies, suggests that an impeachable offense has to be an indictable crime." Johnson's acquittal also elevated the Presidency by making impeachment seem doomed."
"The impeachment of an American President is certain to lead to no end of political mischief and almost certain to fail. Still, worse could happen. Heaven forbid this Republic should become one man's kingdom."
II. Family Court, and Police Domestic Violence
"In the ninety-nineties, researchers found that forty-one per cent of male [police] officers admitted that in the previous year, they'd been physically aggressive toward their spouses, and nearly ten per cent acknowledged choking strangling, or using -- or threatening to use -- a knife or a gun." "The Citizens Police Data Project, in Chicago, analyzed the records of Chicago cops between 2000 and 2016 and found that officers accused of domestic abuse received fifty per cent more complaints than their colleagues for using excessive force." [2]
III. Merit Badges
"Research shows that the more selective a college admissions process, the greater the economic value of the degree. The narrower the entryway, the broader the range of opportunities on the other side." "Taxpayers spend a hundred and forty-eight billion dollars a year to support higher education through subsidies and grants." [3]
"Today, fifty-six per cent of students are classified as non-Hispanic and forty-two per cent of students are male." "In a survey conducted in 2014, fifty-five per cent of Americans identified as lower class or working class." "Since 1998, the average score of students whose parents are well-educated has increased by five points, while the average score of students whose parents have only an associates' (two-year college) college degree has dropped by twenty-seven points. It turns out that the SAT is, in fact, the friend of privilege." "According to the Harvard economist Raj Chetty, children whose parents are in the top one per cent of the income distribution --roughly 1.6 million households -- are seventy-seven times more likely to attend an Ivy League college than children who are in the bottom income quintile (about twenty-five million households.)"
"The educated elite has become a self-perpetuating caste, drilling its children in the rituals of meritocratic advancement and walling itself off from the world of the average American." Steven Brint, in 'Two Cheers for Higher Education,' says that the average appropriation per student in public institutions declined by twenty per cent between 1990 and 2015." "There are sixty thousand undergraduates in Ivy League colleges."
"As a polity, we are in a bizarre place were workers whose lives and prospects have been damaged by the increasingly skewed distribution of wealth and income have helped bring to power a government whose most significant legislative accomplishment is the passage of a tax law that effectively redistributes wealth upwards."
ADDENDUM:
*About three billion people around the world cook on open fires. "Billions of people live in these parts of the world, and many of them are considered 'last mile' -- beyond the last mile of road..." "There are at least fourteen thousand solar cookers already in Haiti." [4]
Footnotes:
[1] Jill Lepore, "You're Fired," The New Yorker, October 28, 2019.
[2] Rachel Oniv, "Show of Force," The New Yorker, September 30, 2019.
[3] Louis Menard, "Merit Badges," The New Yorker, September 30, 2019.
[4] Ian Frajir, "Brave New World," The New Yorker, September 30, 2019.
"Impeachment is an ancient relic, a rusty legal instrument and political weapon first specified by the English Parliament, in 1376, to wrest power from the King by charging his ministers with abuses of power, convicting them, removing them from office,and throwing them in prison." "After conducting at least ten impeachments between 1376 and 1450, Parliament didn't impeach anyone for more than a hundred and seventy years, partly because Parliament met only when the King summoned it, and, if Parliament was going to impeach his ministers, he'd show them by never summoning it, unless he really had to, as when he needed to levy taxes." [1]
"Steeped in the lore of Parliament's seventeenth-century battles with the Stuarts, men like Adams considered the right of impeachment to be one of the fundamental rights of Enlightenment." "All four of the original plans for a new constitution allowed for Presidential impeachment." "Some mode of displacing an unfit magistrate is rendered indispensable by the fallibility of those who choose, as well as by the corruptibility of the men chosen, the Virginia delegate George Mason said: "An impeachment offense is an abuse of the power of the office that violates the public trust, and runs counter to the national interest, and undermines the Republic."
"Nothing in American history, from the founding of the earliest colonies, suggests that an impeachable offense has to be an indictable crime." Johnson's acquittal also elevated the Presidency by making impeachment seem doomed."
"The impeachment of an American President is certain to lead to no end of political mischief and almost certain to fail. Still, worse could happen. Heaven forbid this Republic should become one man's kingdom."
II. Family Court, and Police Domestic Violence
"In the ninety-nineties, researchers found that forty-one per cent of male [police] officers admitted that in the previous year, they'd been physically aggressive toward their spouses, and nearly ten per cent acknowledged choking strangling, or using -- or threatening to use -- a knife or a gun." "The Citizens Police Data Project, in Chicago, analyzed the records of Chicago cops between 2000 and 2016 and found that officers accused of domestic abuse received fifty per cent more complaints than their colleagues for using excessive force." [2]
III. Merit Badges
"Research shows that the more selective a college admissions process, the greater the economic value of the degree. The narrower the entryway, the broader the range of opportunities on the other side." "Taxpayers spend a hundred and forty-eight billion dollars a year to support higher education through subsidies and grants." [3]
"Today, fifty-six per cent of students are classified as non-Hispanic and forty-two per cent of students are male." "In a survey conducted in 2014, fifty-five per cent of Americans identified as lower class or working class." "Since 1998, the average score of students whose parents are well-educated has increased by five points, while the average score of students whose parents have only an associates' (two-year college) college degree has dropped by twenty-seven points. It turns out that the SAT is, in fact, the friend of privilege." "According to the Harvard economist Raj Chetty, children whose parents are in the top one per cent of the income distribution --roughly 1.6 million households -- are seventy-seven times more likely to attend an Ivy League college than children who are in the bottom income quintile (about twenty-five million households.)"
"The educated elite has become a self-perpetuating caste, drilling its children in the rituals of meritocratic advancement and walling itself off from the world of the average American." Steven Brint, in 'Two Cheers for Higher Education,' says that the average appropriation per student in public institutions declined by twenty per cent between 1990 and 2015." "There are sixty thousand undergraduates in Ivy League colleges."
"As a polity, we are in a bizarre place were workers whose lives and prospects have been damaged by the increasingly skewed distribution of wealth and income have helped bring to power a government whose most significant legislative accomplishment is the passage of a tax law that effectively redistributes wealth upwards."
ADDENDUM:
*About three billion people around the world cook on open fires. "Billions of people live in these parts of the world, and many of them are considered 'last mile' -- beyond the last mile of road..." "There are at least fourteen thousand solar cookers already in Haiti." [4]
Footnotes:
[1] Jill Lepore, "You're Fired," The New Yorker, October 28, 2019.
[2] Rachel Oniv, "Show of Force," The New Yorker, September 30, 2019.
[3] Louis Menard, "Merit Badges," The New Yorker, September 30, 2019.
[4] Ian Frajir, "Brave New World," The New Yorker, September 30, 2019.
Tuesday, November 5, 2019
Marshals' Law, and Trump's Abuse of Power
I. Marshals' Law
In fiscal year 2018, the U.S. Marshals "held nearly 240,000 people facing federal criminal charges." "The Marshals run the vast pretrial detention system without owning or operating any jails. Instead, the agency houses its detainees in about 1,100 jails and private facilities around the country." "About two-thirds of all prosecutions between October 2018 and April 2019, were related to immigration crimes, including many of the people swept up in Trump's 'zero tolerance' border policy." [1]
Between June 2016 and June 2019, data shows that 158 people died while in Marshals' detention, and hundreds more died in the preceding five years. "Suicide took the lives of at least 47 of the 158 detainees who died in the three-year period for which we have records. But the Marshals appear to have done little to ensure that the county jails they contract with implementing stringent suicide prevention measures" [are followed]. Of the 250 annual audits that Seth Freed Wessler's team analyzed, at least 10 (some at the same facilities), indicate potential medical [problems] ; 45 show extraordinary numbers of prisoner assaults -- in one case, 869 in a single facility. In California's Fresno County Jail, in a single year, at least 11 cases show noncompliance with mandated rape-prevention policies; and also show attempted suicide rates of nearly 1 in every 20 detainees. But there appear to be no consequences. "In one facility, a Marshals' inspector noted there had not been a single suicide attempt in 2018, while a separate federal report noted there had been dozens of attempts."
II. From Russia to Ukraine
"Trump compounded Barr's distortions by publicly and endlessly repeating that the [Mueller] report found 'no collusion, no obstructions' " "It's appropriate to note, as well, that in the Ukrainian chapter, Trump has done Putin's bidding, to the extent that he can, going so far as to embrace a discredited conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 campaign.' " "Trump wants no part of conflict with Putin, but the aid package tied his hands." [2]
"Trump is currently surrounded by people like Barr and Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, who are willing to debase their offices to indulge Trump's abuse of power." "One way of looking at Trump's evolution from candidate to President, from Mueller's time to Schiff''s, is that his abuses are accelerating, with each unpunished act serving as a license for more."
ADDENDUM: * The Washington "Post" editorial board as accused Trump of trying to extort the Ukrainian government.
Footnotes:
[1] Seth Freed Wessler, "Marshals' Law," Mother Jones, November/December 2019.
[2] Jeffrey Toobin, "From Russia to Ukraine," The New Yorker, October 14, 2019.
In fiscal year 2018, the U.S. Marshals "held nearly 240,000 people facing federal criminal charges." "The Marshals run the vast pretrial detention system without owning or operating any jails. Instead, the agency houses its detainees in about 1,100 jails and private facilities around the country." "About two-thirds of all prosecutions between October 2018 and April 2019, were related to immigration crimes, including many of the people swept up in Trump's 'zero tolerance' border policy." [1]
Between June 2016 and June 2019, data shows that 158 people died while in Marshals' detention, and hundreds more died in the preceding five years. "Suicide took the lives of at least 47 of the 158 detainees who died in the three-year period for which we have records. But the Marshals appear to have done little to ensure that the county jails they contract with implementing stringent suicide prevention measures" [are followed]. Of the 250 annual audits that Seth Freed Wessler's team analyzed, at least 10 (some at the same facilities), indicate potential medical [problems] ; 45 show extraordinary numbers of prisoner assaults -- in one case, 869 in a single facility. In California's Fresno County Jail, in a single year, at least 11 cases show noncompliance with mandated rape-prevention policies; and also show attempted suicide rates of nearly 1 in every 20 detainees. But there appear to be no consequences. "In one facility, a Marshals' inspector noted there had not been a single suicide attempt in 2018, while a separate federal report noted there had been dozens of attempts."
II. From Russia to Ukraine
"Trump compounded Barr's distortions by publicly and endlessly repeating that the [Mueller] report found 'no collusion, no obstructions' " "It's appropriate to note, as well, that in the Ukrainian chapter, Trump has done Putin's bidding, to the extent that he can, going so far as to embrace a discredited conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 campaign.' " "Trump wants no part of conflict with Putin, but the aid package tied his hands." [2]
"Trump is currently surrounded by people like Barr and Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, who are willing to debase their offices to indulge Trump's abuse of power." "One way of looking at Trump's evolution from candidate to President, from Mueller's time to Schiff''s, is that his abuses are accelerating, with each unpunished act serving as a license for more."
ADDENDUM: * The Washington "Post" editorial board as accused Trump of trying to extort the Ukrainian government.
Footnotes:
[1] Seth Freed Wessler, "Marshals' Law," Mother Jones, November/December 2019.
[2] Jeffrey Toobin, "From Russia to Ukraine," The New Yorker, October 14, 2019.
Monday, November 4, 2019
Diet Recommendations, Abortion "Undue Burden", Diversity Failures
#Diet Recommendations - Conscious "knowledge is not in itself enough to change behavior, and why public health initiatives that educate people about healthy choice tend to fail. In 1991, the National Cancer Institute determined that only eight per cent of Americans were aware of the recommendations to eat at least five servings of fruit and vegetables daily." "In 2007, government officials tried again, launching a program called Fruits & Veggies. Even so, by 2018 only twelve per cent of Americans ate the recommended two servings of fruit daily, and only nine per cent ate three servings of vegetables." [1]
"The path to breaking bad habits lies not in resolve, but in restructering our environment in ways that sustain good behaviors."
#"Undue Burden" Shift - "In 2016, the court reversed the Texas case involving admitting privileges in a 5-3 decision, saying reducing the pool of doctors permitted to conduct the procedures exerted an 'undue burden' on a woman's right to have an abortion." A Georgetown law professor believes that if the Supreme Court upholds the lower-court ruling, it will send the message that states are free to expand abortion restrictions beyond what was previously considered constitutional, and that "if you change the political composition of the court, you can change constitutional rights." "To uphold Louisiana's restrictions on abortion, they would have to highlight how the facts of each case are unique, or else find that they got something wrong in the previous verdict. Otherwise they would risk creating the impression that the rule of law shifts with different Presidents." [2]
#Diversity Developments - "A 2019 survey of 234 companies in the S&P 500 found that 63% of the diversity professionals had been appointed or promoted to their roles during the past three years." "From 1985 to 2016, the promotion of black law partners inched up from 1.7% to 1.8%. The proportion of black men in management at U.S. companies with 100 or more employees barely budged -- from 3% to 3.2%." [3]
"A 2018 survey of the 15 largest public fashion and apparel companies found that nonwhites held only 11% of board seats and that nearly three quarters of company CEOs were white men. And in the top 200 film releases of 2017, minorities accounted for 7.8% of writers, 12.6% of directors, and 19.8% of lead roles." In higher education, in the fall of 2017, 81% of full-time professors at degree-granting postsecondary schools were white. just 3% were Hispanics, and 4% were black.
#Methane Regulation Gone - "On August 29, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler proposed to eliminate direct regulation of methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas." "In New Mexico, this would mean that 4,700 new and existing oil and gas wells would no longer have to reduce their methane emissions, endangering our climate and our families' health. Methane is 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, but it disappears from the atmosphere much faster when emissions are reduced." [4]
Footnotes:
[1] Jerome Grooesman, "The Resistance," The New Yorker, October 28, 2019.
[2] Sanya Mansoor, "How could Louisiana's SCOTUS..." TIME, October 21-28, 2019.
[3] Pamela Newkirk, "Diversity has become..." TIME, October 21-28, 2019.
[4] Camilla Feibelman, "US moves back..." Grande Sierra, October/November/December 2019.
"The path to breaking bad habits lies not in resolve, but in restructering our environment in ways that sustain good behaviors."
#"Undue Burden" Shift - "In 2016, the court reversed the Texas case involving admitting privileges in a 5-3 decision, saying reducing the pool of doctors permitted to conduct the procedures exerted an 'undue burden' on a woman's right to have an abortion." A Georgetown law professor believes that if the Supreme Court upholds the lower-court ruling, it will send the message that states are free to expand abortion restrictions beyond what was previously considered constitutional, and that "if you change the political composition of the court, you can change constitutional rights." "To uphold Louisiana's restrictions on abortion, they would have to highlight how the facts of each case are unique, or else find that they got something wrong in the previous verdict. Otherwise they would risk creating the impression that the rule of law shifts with different Presidents." [2]
#Diversity Developments - "A 2019 survey of 234 companies in the S&P 500 found that 63% of the diversity professionals had been appointed or promoted to their roles during the past three years." "From 1985 to 2016, the promotion of black law partners inched up from 1.7% to 1.8%. The proportion of black men in management at U.S. companies with 100 or more employees barely budged -- from 3% to 3.2%." [3]
"A 2018 survey of the 15 largest public fashion and apparel companies found that nonwhites held only 11% of board seats and that nearly three quarters of company CEOs were white men. And in the top 200 film releases of 2017, minorities accounted for 7.8% of writers, 12.6% of directors, and 19.8% of lead roles." In higher education, in the fall of 2017, 81% of full-time professors at degree-granting postsecondary schools were white. just 3% were Hispanics, and 4% were black.
#Methane Regulation Gone - "On August 29, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler proposed to eliminate direct regulation of methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas." "In New Mexico, this would mean that 4,700 new and existing oil and gas wells would no longer have to reduce their methane emissions, endangering our climate and our families' health. Methane is 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, but it disappears from the atmosphere much faster when emissions are reduced." [4]
Footnotes:
[1] Jerome Grooesman, "The Resistance," The New Yorker, October 28, 2019.
[2] Sanya Mansoor, "How could Louisiana's SCOTUS..." TIME, October 21-28, 2019.
[3] Pamela Newkirk, "Diversity has become..." TIME, October 21-28, 2019.
[4] Camilla Feibelman, "US moves back..." Grande Sierra, October/November/December 2019.
Sunday, November 3, 2019
Drug Treatment Facilities and Abortion Restrictions
I. Drug Treatment Facilities
"South Florida -- the densely populated area comprising Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties -- has four hundred and seventy-eight licensed facilities for drug treatment." "In 1986, there were approximately seven thousand treatment facilities for substance abuse in the U.S.; today, there are at least fifteen thousand, a figure that doesn't include most sober homes. In the same period, the addiction treatment industry's revenue rose from nine billion dollars to more than fifty billion dollars." [1]
"In 1999, seventeen-thousand Americans died from drug overdoses. In 2017, more than seventy- thousand Americans did: a death count exceeding that at the height of the AIDS crisis." "A patient tested three times a week could generate twenty thousand dollars a month." "The competition for well-insured patients veers into what's known as patient-brokering. The Florida Patient Brokering Act prohibits people and health care facilities from offering any kind of 'commission, bonus, rebate, kickback, or bribe, directly or indirectly, in cash or in kind,' in exchange for patient referrals.' "
"Many patient-brokers pick up young drug users from the street." "Federal authorities charged a hundred and twenty-four people in South Florida alone, and dozens of sober homes were shut down." "Most young addicts I knew didn't get funerals with a viewing; they were burned to bits in furnaces, and, as others thrown into the ocean or tossed to the wind from a mountaintop."
II. Restricting Abortion
"Abortion had been decriminalized in 1972, with the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, but, with the passage in 1977 of the Hyde Amendment which banned federal funding for almost all abortions, the procedure had become too expensive for many women." "In Arizona, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington state, court judges reduced prior sentences if they [the patients] agreed to get birth-control shots or implants." "That year, ARG Southwest gave funding and assistance to about fifty women each month; it now serves more than three hundred a month. The average cost of an abortion is around five hundred dollars." [2]
"Abortion in Georgia is legal up to the twentieth week of pregnancy, and fourteen of the state's clinics are in the Atlanta area." "In South Carolina, there are just three abortion clinics." More than half of the South Carolina women who had abortions in 2017 traveled outside the state for their procedures."
ADDENDUMS:
*President Barshar al-Assad gained more territory in one day than he had in years of fighting Syria's civil war.
*In addition to freezing military aid, the White House froze a separate $141 million aid package for Ukraine, which would have come from the State Department.
Footnotes:
[1] Colton Wootern, "The Florida Shuffle," The New Yorker, October 14, 2019.
[2] Alexia Okebcuo, "Radical Care," The New Yorker, October 14, 2019.
"South Florida -- the densely populated area comprising Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties -- has four hundred and seventy-eight licensed facilities for drug treatment." "In 1986, there were approximately seven thousand treatment facilities for substance abuse in the U.S.; today, there are at least fifteen thousand, a figure that doesn't include most sober homes. In the same period, the addiction treatment industry's revenue rose from nine billion dollars to more than fifty billion dollars." [1]
"In 1999, seventeen-thousand Americans died from drug overdoses. In 2017, more than seventy- thousand Americans did: a death count exceeding that at the height of the AIDS crisis." "A patient tested three times a week could generate twenty thousand dollars a month." "The competition for well-insured patients veers into what's known as patient-brokering. The Florida Patient Brokering Act prohibits people and health care facilities from offering any kind of 'commission, bonus, rebate, kickback, or bribe, directly or indirectly, in cash or in kind,' in exchange for patient referrals.' "
"Many patient-brokers pick up young drug users from the street." "Federal authorities charged a hundred and twenty-four people in South Florida alone, and dozens of sober homes were shut down." "Most young addicts I knew didn't get funerals with a viewing; they were burned to bits in furnaces, and, as others thrown into the ocean or tossed to the wind from a mountaintop."
II. Restricting Abortion
"Abortion had been decriminalized in 1972, with the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, but, with the passage in 1977 of the Hyde Amendment which banned federal funding for almost all abortions, the procedure had become too expensive for many women." "In Arizona, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington state, court judges reduced prior sentences if they [the patients] agreed to get birth-control shots or implants." "That year, ARG Southwest gave funding and assistance to about fifty women each month; it now serves more than three hundred a month. The average cost of an abortion is around five hundred dollars." [2]
"Abortion in Georgia is legal up to the twentieth week of pregnancy, and fourteen of the state's clinics are in the Atlanta area." "In South Carolina, there are just three abortion clinics." More than half of the South Carolina women who had abortions in 2017 traveled outside the state for their procedures."
ADDENDUMS:
*President Barshar al-Assad gained more territory in one day than he had in years of fighting Syria's civil war.
*In addition to freezing military aid, the White House froze a separate $141 million aid package for Ukraine, which would have come from the State Department.
Footnotes:
[1] Colton Wootern, "The Florida Shuffle," The New Yorker, October 14, 2019.
[2] Alexia Okebcuo, "Radical Care," The New Yorker, October 14, 2019.
Saturday, November 2, 2019
Dirt Digger for President
Steve Coll, "Reason to Impeach," The New Yorker, October 7, 2019.
"Many features of Trumpism -- the cynical populism, the brazen readiness to profit from high office, the racist and nativist taunts -- have antecedents in American politics. But Donald Trump's open willingness to ask foreign governments to dig up dirt on political opponents has been an idiosyneratic aspect of his rise to power."
"Two bombshell documents made public [late in September] -- a record of a phone conversation between Trump and Voldymyr Zelensky, Ukraine's President, and a whistle-blower's complaint about that call -- fully justify House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision, announced [early this month], to open an official impeachment inquiry. The documents describe a breach of Trump's constitutional duties that is exceptional even in light of his record to date."
"The whistle-blower's complaint is one of the great artifacts to enter Washington's sizable archive of political malfeasance. In the second paragraph, its author distills Trump's offense with bracing clarity" "I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 election."
"Since 2014, the Kiev government has been a ward of America and Europe, the potential for real or perceived conflicts of interest should have been apparent to both Bidens. Still, according to Ukrainian officials, no evidence of wrongdoing by either Hunter Biden or Zlochevsky has been found." (Mykola Zlochevsky is a Ukrainian oligarch, who controls Burisma Holdings, on whose board Hunter Biden sat.)
"In May, [Rudy] Giuliani announced that he would go to Kiev to urge the new government to investigate, among other subjects, the Bidens and alleged links between Ukraine and the Democrats. He would do so, he told the "Times," "because that information will be very, very helpful to my client."
"Around mid-July, according to the Washington "Post," Trump ordered his chief of staff to hold back four hundred million dollars in military aid to Ukraine that had been approved by Congress. Then, on July 25th,Trump had the phone call with Zelensky that all the world can now review."
ADDENDUMS:
*John Eisenberg, the White House's legal adviser on national security issues, moved the transcript of Trump's call to President Zelensky, to a classified server after the adviser on Ukraine for the National Security Council, Army Lt Co. Alexander Vineman, expressed concerns about what was said on the July 25th call.
*U.S. ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, pushed two Ukrainian officials to investigate Trump's political rivals. This was in a July 10th meeting.
Steve Coll, "Reason to Impeach," The New Yorker, October 7, 2019.
"Many features of Trumpism -- the cynical populism, the brazen readiness to profit from high office, the racist and nativist taunts -- have antecedents in American politics. But Donald Trump's open willingness to ask foreign governments to dig up dirt on political opponents has been an idiosyneratic aspect of his rise to power."
"Two bombshell documents made public [late in September] -- a record of a phone conversation between Trump and Voldymyr Zelensky, Ukraine's President, and a whistle-blower's complaint about that call -- fully justify House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision, announced [early this month], to open an official impeachment inquiry. The documents describe a breach of Trump's constitutional duties that is exceptional even in light of his record to date."
"The whistle-blower's complaint is one of the great artifacts to enter Washington's sizable archive of political malfeasance. In the second paragraph, its author distills Trump's offense with bracing clarity" "I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 election."
"Since 2014, the Kiev government has been a ward of America and Europe, the potential for real or perceived conflicts of interest should have been apparent to both Bidens. Still, according to Ukrainian officials, no evidence of wrongdoing by either Hunter Biden or Zlochevsky has been found." (Mykola Zlochevsky is a Ukrainian oligarch, who controls Burisma Holdings, on whose board Hunter Biden sat.)
"In May, [Rudy] Giuliani announced that he would go to Kiev to urge the new government to investigate, among other subjects, the Bidens and alleged links between Ukraine and the Democrats. He would do so, he told the "Times," "because that information will be very, very helpful to my client."
"Around mid-July, according to the Washington "Post," Trump ordered his chief of staff to hold back four hundred million dollars in military aid to Ukraine that had been approved by Congress. Then, on July 25th,Trump had the phone call with Zelensky that all the world can now review."
ADDENDUMS:
*John Eisenberg, the White House's legal adviser on national security issues, moved the transcript of Trump's call to President Zelensky, to a classified server after the adviser on Ukraine for the National Security Council, Army Lt Co. Alexander Vineman, expressed concerns about what was said on the July 25th call.
*U.S. ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, pushed two Ukrainian officials to investigate Trump's political rivals. This was in a July 10th meeting.
Friday, November 1, 2019
Ivanka Trump Speaking Softly and Carrying a Big Schtick
One of the recurring story lines of the Trump era: Things are going off the rails, but never fear -- first daughter and White House adviser Ivanka Trump is quietly working behind the scenes to be the least-awful member of the administration, details of which are conveniently leaked to the press:
February 2017: The New York Times reports that Ivanka and sidekick Jared Kushner "helped kill" an executive order rolling back LGBTQ protections.
April 2017: Politico reports that Ivanka has "quietly reached out to" Planned Parenthood as part of her "listening tour."
April 2017: Eric Trump tells the Telegraph that a "heart-broken and outraged " Ivanka pushed her father to launch missile strikes on Syria after a chemical attack.
May 2017: Ivanka, who Axios states is "passionate" about climate change, is said to be working behind the scenes to influence her father's decision to ditch the Paris climate deal.
June 2017: A US Weekly cover story trumpets that Ivanka "will always fight for what she believes in."
June 2018: CNN asserts that Ivanka "agrees with her father's sentiments that he hates the family separation issue and doesn't want it to occur" -- though she won't say anything about it publicly.
September 2018: An unnamed source tells Vanity Fair that Ivanka told her dad to pull his nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
October 2018: The New York Times reports that only after "importuning" by Ivanka and Jared did the president speak out against anti-Semitism following a mass shooting at a synagogue.
April 2019: As Trump threatens to shut down the US-Mexico border, Jared pushes for immigration policies in line with his and Ivanka's "more moderate positions," Politico reports.
July 2019: An anonymous source tells CBS News that the president "took heat" from Ivanka after he let his supporters chant "send her back" at a rally.
August 2019: As Trump dithers, Ivanka reportedly has been "quietly calling" lawmakers to gauge their support for new gun laws.
September 2019: Yahoo News reports "rumors" that Ivanka and Jared have suggested replacing Vice President Mike Pence with a woman on the 2020 ticket. (Source: Inae Oh, "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Schtick," Mother Jones, November/December 2019.)
ADDENDUMS:
*The State Department probe of Hillary Clinton's emails finds no deliberate mishandling of classified information.
*Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell calls pulling troops out of northern Syria a "grave strategic mistake."
*Trump calls acting ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor a Never Trumper.
*Randall Eliason, a professor of white-collar crime at George Washington University, says a likely charge for the quid pro quo in Ukraine could be bribery: demanding something in exchange for military aid.
*Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was fined $100,000 by a magistrate judge for violating an order to stop collecting loan payments from former Corinthian College students.
* U.S. Judge Christopher R. 'Casey' Cooper of the D.C. judicial circuit said he will order the State Department to begin releasing Ukraine-related documents in 30 days. The lawsuit was filed by the watchdog group, American Oversight.
February 2017: The New York Times reports that Ivanka and sidekick Jared Kushner "helped kill" an executive order rolling back LGBTQ protections.
April 2017: Politico reports that Ivanka has "quietly reached out to" Planned Parenthood as part of her "listening tour."
April 2017: Eric Trump tells the Telegraph that a "heart-broken and outraged " Ivanka pushed her father to launch missile strikes on Syria after a chemical attack.
May 2017: Ivanka, who Axios states is "passionate" about climate change, is said to be working behind the scenes to influence her father's decision to ditch the Paris climate deal.
June 2017: A US Weekly cover story trumpets that Ivanka "will always fight for what she believes in."
June 2018: CNN asserts that Ivanka "agrees with her father's sentiments that he hates the family separation issue and doesn't want it to occur" -- though she won't say anything about it publicly.
September 2018: An unnamed source tells Vanity Fair that Ivanka told her dad to pull his nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
October 2018: The New York Times reports that only after "importuning" by Ivanka and Jared did the president speak out against anti-Semitism following a mass shooting at a synagogue.
April 2019: As Trump threatens to shut down the US-Mexico border, Jared pushes for immigration policies in line with his and Ivanka's "more moderate positions," Politico reports.
July 2019: An anonymous source tells CBS News that the president "took heat" from Ivanka after he let his supporters chant "send her back" at a rally.
August 2019: As Trump dithers, Ivanka reportedly has been "quietly calling" lawmakers to gauge their support for new gun laws.
September 2019: Yahoo News reports "rumors" that Ivanka and Jared have suggested replacing Vice President Mike Pence with a woman on the 2020 ticket. (Source: Inae Oh, "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Schtick," Mother Jones, November/December 2019.)
ADDENDUMS:
*The State Department probe of Hillary Clinton's emails finds no deliberate mishandling of classified information.
*Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell calls pulling troops out of northern Syria a "grave strategic mistake."
*Trump calls acting ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor a Never Trumper.
*Randall Eliason, a professor of white-collar crime at George Washington University, says a likely charge for the quid pro quo in Ukraine could be bribery: demanding something in exchange for military aid.
*Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was fined $100,000 by a magistrate judge for violating an order to stop collecting loan payments from former Corinthian College students.
* U.S. Judge Christopher R. 'Casey' Cooper of the D.C. judicial circuit said he will order the State Department to begin releasing Ukraine-related documents in 30 days. The lawsuit was filed by the watchdog group, American Oversight.
Thursday, October 31, 2019
All the President's Men
I. All the President's Men
[Pence, Barr, Pompeo, Mulvaney] "Together they represent the four tent poles of the modern GOP circus: the extreme Christian right, the stolid GOP establishment, the corporate Koch brothers wing and the allegedly anti-deficit, actually white nationalist Tea Party." "Pompeo warned that Trump would be "an authoritarian president who ignored our Constitution." He subscribed to Trump's stonewalling agenda when he "attempted to defy Democratic subpoenas for information about the Ukraine mess, complaining his political opponents were intimidating and bullying State Department officials." [1]
Mick Mulvaney "peddles the budget-busting Trump tax cuts. "Now he's the guy who gave the order to halt congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine, as Trump dictated. He has also been subpoenaed to provide a libraryful of administration documents to the committees investigating impeachment."
II. The Burden of War on the Few
"The burden of nearly two decades of war -- nearly 7,000 dead and more than 50,000 wounded -- has been largely sustained by 1% of our population." "Under the military's current standards, 71% of Americans ages 17 to 24 do not meet physical or mental qualifications for military service. People often assume the draft was compulsory for an entire generation , but this was never the case. Of those killed in Vietnam, the war most inextricably linked to the draft, 69.3% were volunteers." "Our World War II military was 61.2% conscripted. In Vietnam it was 25%." "In the run-up to the 2018 mid-term elections, 42% of Americans didn't know whether or not we were still at war in Afghanistan." [2]
"Here's what a reverse-engineered draft could look like: The Department of Defense would annually set a certain number of draftees for induction into the armed forces for two-year enlistments, which is half the typical enlistment of a volunteer. This number would be kept small as a percentage of the overall active-duty force, let's say 5%, or 65,000 people, which is roughly the size of the Coast Guard," "Which comes to a final aspect of the reverse -engineered draft: those whose families fall into the top income bracket would be the only ones eligible."
III. Child Care Expenses
Except for the very wealthy, childcare is very expensive. "In 28 states and the District of Columbia, one year of infant care, on average, sets parents back as much as a four-year public college, and nationally, childcare costs, on average, are between $4,000 and $9,600 annually, according to the advocacy organization, Child Care Aware." "Nearly 2 million parents had to leave work, change jobs, or turn down a job offer because of childcare obligations in 2016, according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress (CAP), a left-leaning think tank" [3]
"The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates that nearly 1.2 million people are employed in childcare in America, not including the countless number who are self-employed." In 2018, according to the Institute for Family Studies, only 28% of married mothers with children under 18 said that working full time was ideal." "A 2017 white paper from the U.S. Census Bureau that followed more than 2 million children for five years, found that those who were less likely to repeat a year of school are those in family day care or with relatives or babysitters." "But wages for childcare workers have remained largely stagnant, increasing by just 1% from 1997 to 2013, and barely keeping pace with the rising coat of living, according to a 2014 report by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley. During that time, the average weekly cost of care for children under 5 more than doubled, according to the same report."
Footnotes:
[1] Joan Walsh, "All the President's Men," The Nation (I omitted the date in my notes.)
[2] Elliot Ackerman, "Born into war," TIME, October 21-28 2019.
[3] Katie Reilly and Belinda Luscombe, "At what cost?" TIME, October 21-28, 2019.
[Pence, Barr, Pompeo, Mulvaney] "Together they represent the four tent poles of the modern GOP circus: the extreme Christian right, the stolid GOP establishment, the corporate Koch brothers wing and the allegedly anti-deficit, actually white nationalist Tea Party." "Pompeo warned that Trump would be "an authoritarian president who ignored our Constitution." He subscribed to Trump's stonewalling agenda when he "attempted to defy Democratic subpoenas for information about the Ukraine mess, complaining his political opponents were intimidating and bullying State Department officials." [1]
Mick Mulvaney "peddles the budget-busting Trump tax cuts. "Now he's the guy who gave the order to halt congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine, as Trump dictated. He has also been subpoenaed to provide a libraryful of administration documents to the committees investigating impeachment."
II. The Burden of War on the Few
"The burden of nearly two decades of war -- nearly 7,000 dead and more than 50,000 wounded -- has been largely sustained by 1% of our population." "Under the military's current standards, 71% of Americans ages 17 to 24 do not meet physical or mental qualifications for military service. People often assume the draft was compulsory for an entire generation , but this was never the case. Of those killed in Vietnam, the war most inextricably linked to the draft, 69.3% were volunteers." "Our World War II military was 61.2% conscripted. In Vietnam it was 25%." "In the run-up to the 2018 mid-term elections, 42% of Americans didn't know whether or not we were still at war in Afghanistan." [2]
"Here's what a reverse-engineered draft could look like: The Department of Defense would annually set a certain number of draftees for induction into the armed forces for two-year enlistments, which is half the typical enlistment of a volunteer. This number would be kept small as a percentage of the overall active-duty force, let's say 5%, or 65,000 people, which is roughly the size of the Coast Guard," "Which comes to a final aspect of the reverse -engineered draft: those whose families fall into the top income bracket would be the only ones eligible."
III. Child Care Expenses
Except for the very wealthy, childcare is very expensive. "In 28 states and the District of Columbia, one year of infant care, on average, sets parents back as much as a four-year public college, and nationally, childcare costs, on average, are between $4,000 and $9,600 annually, according to the advocacy organization, Child Care Aware." "Nearly 2 million parents had to leave work, change jobs, or turn down a job offer because of childcare obligations in 2016, according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress (CAP), a left-leaning think tank" [3]
"The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates that nearly 1.2 million people are employed in childcare in America, not including the countless number who are self-employed." In 2018, according to the Institute for Family Studies, only 28% of married mothers with children under 18 said that working full time was ideal." "A 2017 white paper from the U.S. Census Bureau that followed more than 2 million children for five years, found that those who were less likely to repeat a year of school are those in family day care or with relatives or babysitters." "But wages for childcare workers have remained largely stagnant, increasing by just 1% from 1997 to 2013, and barely keeping pace with the rising coat of living, according to a 2014 report by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley. During that time, the average weekly cost of care for children under 5 more than doubled, according to the same report."
Footnotes:
[1] Joan Walsh, "All the President's Men," The Nation (I omitted the date in my notes.)
[2] Elliot Ackerman, "Born into war," TIME, October 21-28 2019.
[3] Katie Reilly and Belinda Luscombe, "At what cost?" TIME, October 21-28, 2019.
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Fishing, Homeless People, and Long-Term Service Needs by the Numbers
I. Fishing, Gone
126 - Pounds that a Chinook salmon, Alaska's state fish, can weigh.
$595M - Estimated value of Alaska's commercial salmon harvest in 2018.
$3.3B - Average annual export value of Alaska's seafood.
55F - Warmest water temperature a salmon can handle before its health starts to decline.
81.7F - Water temperature recorded in July in the Deshka River, a major salmon stream north of Anchorage.
1M - Number of pink salmon in the Shaktoolik River threatened by warming waters. (Source: The Nation, October 14, 2019.)
II. Homeless People
553K - Estimated number of homeless people in the United States on a given night in 2018.
37.8M - US households that pay more than 30 percent of their income toward housing.
24 - Percentage of homeless people who have physical or mental disabilities.
1.5 - Median wait in years for a Section 8 housing voucher.
6M - Substandard homes in the US.
2.1M - People living in public housing in the US.
1.5M - Vacant homes in the US. (Source: The Nation, October 21, 2019.)
III. Long-Term Service Needs
88M - Number of people in the United States over the age of 65 by the year 2050.
50% - Percentage of those who will have significant long-term service needs.
$266K - Projected average annual cost for those with significant long-term service needs.
$11.57 - Median hourly wage for a home care worker in the United States.
87% - Percentage of home care workers who are women -- more than half of them women of color. (Source: The Nation, October 28/November 4 , 2019.)
IV. A Wealth Tax
"The top 1 percent of Americans have more wealth than the bottom 95 percent, and that gulf is growing. Those in the top 0.1 percent have doubled their share of the country's wealth over the past four decades from about 10 to 20 percent of all wealth."
"According to tax law experts Lily Batchelder and David Kamin, the bottom 95 percent of income earners make 80 percent of their income from wages and salaries. In contrast, the top 1 percent earn just over half their income this way, and that number drops rapidly as you go up the ladder."
Probably the major objection lodged against the wealth tax is that it is too difficult to account for the wealth of rich people; however, fortunately, much wealth is in stocks and bonds, which are easily calculated. And the IRS can develop new evaluation techniques for other financial assets.
A 2% tax on wealth over $50 million affects only the top 0.1%. If it raises the full $2.75 trillion over 10 years, it would be enough to pay for 10 years of paid family leave; free public college; universal day care; and universal child allowance. (Sources: Mike Konczal, "Tax the Filthy Rich!" The Nation, October 28/November 4, 2019; Saez and Zucman; FAMILY ACT; American Family Act; Estimates from Warren and Sanders campaigns, IWPR; and Moody's Analytics.)
V. Selective Marshals Detention Facilities (Per-Prisoner Payments)
Central Arizona - Rate: $120 --- Rio Grande - Rate: $90 --- Leavenworth - Rate: $100 --- Val Verde County - Rate: $60 --- East Hidalgo - Rate: $60.
Average daily population of Marshals detainees by facility: State/local - 36,000; Privately owned - 9,900; Federal - 9,700.
Marshals payments to detention facilities: CoreCivic - $310M; GEO Group - $56M; State/local - $747M.
Percentages of detention categories for U.S. Marshals: 1.) In fiscal year 2018, nearly 75% of all federal defendants were detained before trial. In 1988, nearly 30% were. 2.) 88% of Latino federal defendants were put in pretrial detention. 45% of whites were. 3.) 71% of noncitizen federal defendants were put in pretrial detention. 53% of citizen defendants were. 4.) More than 113,000 Marshals detainees were held on immigration charges, a 94% increase over 2017. (Source for V: Mother Jones, November/December 2019.)
ADDENDUMS:
*Trump says other countries, including Russia and China, should be responsible for protecting U.S. -allied Kurds.
*The State Department is promoting Mike Pompeo as a Christian leader.
*Mike Pompeo said that he never heard about military aid being conditioned on opening investigations, yet he was on the July 25 call.
*On October 20, Trump quoted "Mark Esperento, Secretary of Defense." as saying the ceasefire is holding up nicely." His name is Mark Esper.
126 - Pounds that a Chinook salmon, Alaska's state fish, can weigh.
$595M - Estimated value of Alaska's commercial salmon harvest in 2018.
$3.3B - Average annual export value of Alaska's seafood.
55F - Warmest water temperature a salmon can handle before its health starts to decline.
81.7F - Water temperature recorded in July in the Deshka River, a major salmon stream north of Anchorage.
1M - Number of pink salmon in the Shaktoolik River threatened by warming waters. (Source: The Nation, October 14, 2019.)
II. Homeless People
553K - Estimated number of homeless people in the United States on a given night in 2018.
37.8M - US households that pay more than 30 percent of their income toward housing.
24 - Percentage of homeless people who have physical or mental disabilities.
1.5 - Median wait in years for a Section 8 housing voucher.
6M - Substandard homes in the US.
2.1M - People living in public housing in the US.
1.5M - Vacant homes in the US. (Source: The Nation, October 21, 2019.)
III. Long-Term Service Needs
88M - Number of people in the United States over the age of 65 by the year 2050.
50% - Percentage of those who will have significant long-term service needs.
$266K - Projected average annual cost for those with significant long-term service needs.
$11.57 - Median hourly wage for a home care worker in the United States.
87% - Percentage of home care workers who are women -- more than half of them women of color. (Source: The Nation, October 28/November 4 , 2019.)
IV. A Wealth Tax
"The top 1 percent of Americans have more wealth than the bottom 95 percent, and that gulf is growing. Those in the top 0.1 percent have doubled their share of the country's wealth over the past four decades from about 10 to 20 percent of all wealth."
"According to tax law experts Lily Batchelder and David Kamin, the bottom 95 percent of income earners make 80 percent of their income from wages and salaries. In contrast, the top 1 percent earn just over half their income this way, and that number drops rapidly as you go up the ladder."
Probably the major objection lodged against the wealth tax is that it is too difficult to account for the wealth of rich people; however, fortunately, much wealth is in stocks and bonds, which are easily calculated. And the IRS can develop new evaluation techniques for other financial assets.
A 2% tax on wealth over $50 million affects only the top 0.1%. If it raises the full $2.75 trillion over 10 years, it would be enough to pay for 10 years of paid family leave; free public college; universal day care; and universal child allowance. (Sources: Mike Konczal, "Tax the Filthy Rich!" The Nation, October 28/November 4, 2019; Saez and Zucman; FAMILY ACT; American Family Act; Estimates from Warren and Sanders campaigns, IWPR; and Moody's Analytics.)
V. Selective Marshals Detention Facilities (Per-Prisoner Payments)
Central Arizona - Rate: $120 --- Rio Grande - Rate: $90 --- Leavenworth - Rate: $100 --- Val Verde County - Rate: $60 --- East Hidalgo - Rate: $60.
Average daily population of Marshals detainees by facility: State/local - 36,000; Privately owned - 9,900; Federal - 9,700.
Marshals payments to detention facilities: CoreCivic - $310M; GEO Group - $56M; State/local - $747M.
Percentages of detention categories for U.S. Marshals: 1.) In fiscal year 2018, nearly 75% of all federal defendants were detained before trial. In 1988, nearly 30% were. 2.) 88% of Latino federal defendants were put in pretrial detention. 45% of whites were. 3.) 71% of noncitizen federal defendants were put in pretrial detention. 53% of citizen defendants were. 4.) More than 113,000 Marshals detainees were held on immigration charges, a 94% increase over 2017. (Source for V: Mother Jones, November/December 2019.)
ADDENDUMS:
*Trump says other countries, including Russia and China, should be responsible for protecting U.S. -allied Kurds.
*The State Department is promoting Mike Pompeo as a Christian leader.
*Mike Pompeo said that he never heard about military aid being conditioned on opening investigations, yet he was on the July 25 call.
*On October 20, Trump quoted "Mark Esperento, Secretary of Defense." as saying the ceasefire is holding up nicely." His name is Mark Esper.
Friday, October 18, 2019
Kafka Excerpts, Elite Plus Schools, and Guns! Guns! Guns!
I. Kafka Excerpts
p. 81 - " 'Charge stacking' vastly increases the prosecutor's power in plea bargaining: the defendant faces very long consecutive sentences and a sometimes confusing trial where there are so many counts that a conviction on at least one of them is likely." "Because of the phenomenal growth in the number of offenses, even professors and practicing attorneys who have spent most of their careers wrestling with the intricacies of the criminal law are familiar with only a fraction of the statutes to which we are subject." "If knowledge of the criminal law consists in the ability to make reliable forecasts about what conduct will be punished, it follows that no one knows the law." [1]
p. 85 - "About 90 million living Americans have used an illicit drug, an activity for which many could have been sent to prison if detected and prosecuted. Even occupants of our highest offices have engaged in felonious drug use... Second, astronomical numbers of young adults have engaged in music piracy. According to some estimates, 52 percent of Internet users between the ages of 18 and 21 commit this crime by illegally downloading approximately 3.6 billion songs each month..."
"The ownership of offshore Internet casinos that do business in the United States includes many of the most prestigious investment firms in the world: Fidelity, Merrill Lynch, Golden Sachs, Morgan Stanley and others. Only prosecutable discretion prevents criminal liability from extending to the highest reaches of mainstream society."
"Perhaps over 70% of living adult Americans have committed an imprisonable offense at some point in their life." "We are steadily moving to a world in which the law on the books makes everyone a felon." "If present trends continue, nearly one in 15 Americans born in 2001 will serve some time in n prison during their lifetimes... One in three black men, one in seven Hispanic men, and one in 17 white men."
p. 88 - In place of an earlier order in which criminal process involved many jury trials, and locally elected prosecutors responsive to poor and working class constituencies, we created prosecutors' offices characterized by 'bureaucratic detachment' "... "The consequences were poor crime control, rapidly changing punishment practices, and massive inequality. "
p. 90 - "The increasingly lengthy sentences in our criminal codes together with the triumph of plea bargaining has led us to our shocking levels of imprisonment."
II. Elite Plus Schools
"In recent years, the Elite Plus' colleges have enrolled more students from the top 1% of the income distribution than from the bottom half. They devote vast resources to educating these already privileged students. The most selective schools spend almost eight times as much per student as the least selective ones, according to one estimate." [2]
"Four fifths of the partners at the most profitable law firms in America graduated from the top five law schools. Elite schooling has become the dynastic technology of choice for the 1%." Education must become less hierarchical and less meritorious." "The shares of Americans age 25 to 29 to get a B.A. nearly quadrupled between 1940 and 1980, but the rate of growth then slowed dramatically and has now stalled."
III. Guns! Guns! Guns!
There are 393 million firearms in the United States, a statistic so staggering that it is necessary to render it in simple terms. For every 100 Americans -- regardless of age, criminal history, mental health, or physical ability -- there are 120 weapons. Last year nearly 40,000 people died in gun-related violence, two thirds of them from suicide." [3]
ADDENDUMS:
*A federal judge dismisses Trump's law suit seeking to bock the Manhattan district attorney from obtaining his tax returns.
*President Trump has called for Mitt Romney's impeachment.
*In 2017, Trump pressed then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to intervene in the prosecution of a Turkish-Iranian gold dealer who was represented by Rudolph W. Giuliani.
*Sen.Lindsey Graham has called Trump's decision on Syria the "biggest blunder of his presidency."
Footnotes:
[1] Robert P. Burns, "Kafka's Law," University of Chicago Press, 2014.
[2] Daniel Markovits, "Less Elite, More Equal," TIME, September 30, 2019.
[3] Laila Salami, "Our Best Shot," The Nation, September 30, 2019.
p. 81 - " 'Charge stacking' vastly increases the prosecutor's power in plea bargaining: the defendant faces very long consecutive sentences and a sometimes confusing trial where there are so many counts that a conviction on at least one of them is likely." "Because of the phenomenal growth in the number of offenses, even professors and practicing attorneys who have spent most of their careers wrestling with the intricacies of the criminal law are familiar with only a fraction of the statutes to which we are subject." "If knowledge of the criminal law consists in the ability to make reliable forecasts about what conduct will be punished, it follows that no one knows the law." [1]
p. 85 - "About 90 million living Americans have used an illicit drug, an activity for which many could have been sent to prison if detected and prosecuted. Even occupants of our highest offices have engaged in felonious drug use... Second, astronomical numbers of young adults have engaged in music piracy. According to some estimates, 52 percent of Internet users between the ages of 18 and 21 commit this crime by illegally downloading approximately 3.6 billion songs each month..."
"The ownership of offshore Internet casinos that do business in the United States includes many of the most prestigious investment firms in the world: Fidelity, Merrill Lynch, Golden Sachs, Morgan Stanley and others. Only prosecutable discretion prevents criminal liability from extending to the highest reaches of mainstream society."
"Perhaps over 70% of living adult Americans have committed an imprisonable offense at some point in their life." "We are steadily moving to a world in which the law on the books makes everyone a felon." "If present trends continue, nearly one in 15 Americans born in 2001 will serve some time in n prison during their lifetimes... One in three black men, one in seven Hispanic men, and one in 17 white men."
p. 88 - In place of an earlier order in which criminal process involved many jury trials, and locally elected prosecutors responsive to poor and working class constituencies, we created prosecutors' offices characterized by 'bureaucratic detachment' "... "The consequences were poor crime control, rapidly changing punishment practices, and massive inequality. "
p. 90 - "The increasingly lengthy sentences in our criminal codes together with the triumph of plea bargaining has led us to our shocking levels of imprisonment."
II. Elite Plus Schools
"In recent years, the Elite Plus' colleges have enrolled more students from the top 1% of the income distribution than from the bottom half. They devote vast resources to educating these already privileged students. The most selective schools spend almost eight times as much per student as the least selective ones, according to one estimate." [2]
"Four fifths of the partners at the most profitable law firms in America graduated from the top five law schools. Elite schooling has become the dynastic technology of choice for the 1%." Education must become less hierarchical and less meritorious." "The shares of Americans age 25 to 29 to get a B.A. nearly quadrupled between 1940 and 1980, but the rate of growth then slowed dramatically and has now stalled."
III. Guns! Guns! Guns!
There are 393 million firearms in the United States, a statistic so staggering that it is necessary to render it in simple terms. For every 100 Americans -- regardless of age, criminal history, mental health, or physical ability -- there are 120 weapons. Last year nearly 40,000 people died in gun-related violence, two thirds of them from suicide." [3]
ADDENDUMS:
*A federal judge dismisses Trump's law suit seeking to bock the Manhattan district attorney from obtaining his tax returns.
*President Trump has called for Mitt Romney's impeachment.
*In 2017, Trump pressed then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to intervene in the prosecution of a Turkish-Iranian gold dealer who was represented by Rudolph W. Giuliani.
*Sen.Lindsey Graham has called Trump's decision on Syria the "biggest blunder of his presidency."
Footnotes:
[1] Robert P. Burns, "Kafka's Law," University of Chicago Press, 2014.
[2] Daniel Markovits, "Less Elite, More Equal," TIME, September 30, 2019.
[3] Laila Salami, "Our Best Shot," The Nation, September 30, 2019.
Thursday, October 17, 2019
Environmental Problems and One Proposed Solution
I. The Shrinking Amazon
"Five decades ago, Brazil incentivized its people to colonize the Amazon." Since the inauguration of President Jair Bolosnaro in January, the rate of deforestation has soared..." "At least half of the shrinking forest will give way to savanna. With as much as 17% of the forest lost already. scientists believe that the tipping point will be reached at 20% to 25% of deforestation even if climate change is tamed." [1]
"Despite growing outrage and threats by Western leaders to withhold trade with Brazil until Bolosnaro reverses course. On the ground [Kate Sandy and allies] discovered the battle for the Amazon is close to being lost. The emboldened forces of development are screaming without restraint and the stakes for the planet couldn't be higher."
"The Amazon is 10 million years old. Home to 390 billion trees the vast basin reigns over South America an is an unrivaled nest of biodiversity." "August is burning season when Amazon farmers use a rare period of dry weather to set fires to clear fields ready to plant crops. But 2019 was different; satellite data showed more than 46,000 fires in the Amazon, an alarming 111% increase over the last year."
"Cattle farming accounts for up to 80% of deforested land In 2018, Brazil exported some $6 billion worth of beef, more than any other country in history."
"The [Amazon] forest stores up to 120 billion metric tons of carbon, equivalent to almost 12 years of global emissions at current rates."
II. Climate Change Is Not Healthful
"The Fourth National Climate Assessment, published in 2018, by a collaboration among 13 U.S. scientific agencies, highlights how higher temperatures, severe whether events and rising seas can contribute to health-related cardiopulmonary illness, infectious disease and mental-health issues." "Climate change is a public-health issue. It has been linked to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and can shove the body's response to existing environmental assaults into overdrive." "In the U.S.,urban communities of color, often also low-income areas, are especially at risk." [2]
III. Destroying Wetland Habitat
"Ecologists say coastal wetlands are capable of trapping carbon up to 40 times faster per hectare than tropical rainforests. But over the past 400 years, farmland, coastal development, and rising sea levels have combined to destroy 91% of wetland habitat on the Essex coast." "From 2005 to 2015, Europe's forest cover grew by the equivalent of 1,900 football fields every day, as the E.U. pent several billion euros to fund the planting, often on farmland that had been abandoned because of changing agricultural practices in places like France and Italy." [3]
"A Pew Research poll released three weeks after the 2008 Iowa caucuses found that 1% of Americans ranked the issue as the nation's most important problem."
"Across Iowa, the annual precipitation level averaged less than 33 inches during every decade of the 20th century." "This spring alone, extreme rain put 100,000 acres of farmland underwater in the state, resulting in tens of millions of dollars to farmers." "By 2050, climate change threatens to erase all the gains made in agricultural productivity since the 1980s in the Midwest, meaning farmers will need to spend heavily or cut production, according to the National Climate Assessment."
IV. Bernie's Secret Climate Weapon
Bernie Sanders's Green New Deal "calls for government action on a heroic scale --committing the United States to do its fair share to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030, in line with the findings of the landmark scientific report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPCC) last October -- and outlines a set of bold policies to achieve that extremely ambitious goal. The plan's 10-year, $16.3 trillion price tag raised eyebrows among the usual inside-the-Beltway suspects." [4]
Footnotes:
[1] Kate Sandy, "The Tipping Point," TIME, September 23, 2019.
[2] Adrienne L. Hollis, "Climate change is he global..." TIME, September 23, 2019.
[3] Ciara Nugent, "Take a Walk..." TIME, September 23, 2019.
[4] Tom Athanasiou, "Bernie's Secret Climate Weapon," The Nation, September 30, 2019.
"Five decades ago, Brazil incentivized its people to colonize the Amazon." Since the inauguration of President Jair Bolosnaro in January, the rate of deforestation has soared..." "At least half of the shrinking forest will give way to savanna. With as much as 17% of the forest lost already. scientists believe that the tipping point will be reached at 20% to 25% of deforestation even if climate change is tamed." [1]
"Despite growing outrage and threats by Western leaders to withhold trade with Brazil until Bolosnaro reverses course. On the ground [Kate Sandy and allies] discovered the battle for the Amazon is close to being lost. The emboldened forces of development are screaming without restraint and the stakes for the planet couldn't be higher."
"The Amazon is 10 million years old. Home to 390 billion trees the vast basin reigns over South America an is an unrivaled nest of biodiversity." "August is burning season when Amazon farmers use a rare period of dry weather to set fires to clear fields ready to plant crops. But 2019 was different; satellite data showed more than 46,000 fires in the Amazon, an alarming 111% increase over the last year."
"Cattle farming accounts for up to 80% of deforested land In 2018, Brazil exported some $6 billion worth of beef, more than any other country in history."
"The [Amazon] forest stores up to 120 billion metric tons of carbon, equivalent to almost 12 years of global emissions at current rates."
II. Climate Change Is Not Healthful
"The Fourth National Climate Assessment, published in 2018, by a collaboration among 13 U.S. scientific agencies, highlights how higher temperatures, severe whether events and rising seas can contribute to health-related cardiopulmonary illness, infectious disease and mental-health issues." "Climate change is a public-health issue. It has been linked to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and can shove the body's response to existing environmental assaults into overdrive." "In the U.S.,urban communities of color, often also low-income areas, are especially at risk." [2]
III. Destroying Wetland Habitat
"Ecologists say coastal wetlands are capable of trapping carbon up to 40 times faster per hectare than tropical rainforests. But over the past 400 years, farmland, coastal development, and rising sea levels have combined to destroy 91% of wetland habitat on the Essex coast." "From 2005 to 2015, Europe's forest cover grew by the equivalent of 1,900 football fields every day, as the E.U. pent several billion euros to fund the planting, often on farmland that had been abandoned because of changing agricultural practices in places like France and Italy." [3]
"A Pew Research poll released three weeks after the 2008 Iowa caucuses found that 1% of Americans ranked the issue as the nation's most important problem."
"Across Iowa, the annual precipitation level averaged less than 33 inches during every decade of the 20th century." "This spring alone, extreme rain put 100,000 acres of farmland underwater in the state, resulting in tens of millions of dollars to farmers." "By 2050, climate change threatens to erase all the gains made in agricultural productivity since the 1980s in the Midwest, meaning farmers will need to spend heavily or cut production, according to the National Climate Assessment."
IV. Bernie's Secret Climate Weapon
Bernie Sanders's Green New Deal "calls for government action on a heroic scale --committing the United States to do its fair share to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030, in line with the findings of the landmark scientific report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPCC) last October -- and outlines a set of bold policies to achieve that extremely ambitious goal. The plan's 10-year, $16.3 trillion price tag raised eyebrows among the usual inside-the-Beltway suspects." [4]
Footnotes:
[1] Kate Sandy, "The Tipping Point," TIME, September 23, 2019.
[2] Adrienne L. Hollis, "Climate change is he global..." TIME, September 23, 2019.
[3] Ciara Nugent, "Take a Walk..." TIME, September 23, 2019.
[4] Tom Athanasiou, "Bernie's Secret Climate Weapon," The Nation, September 30, 2019.
Monday, October 14, 2019
Vaping, Controlling Platform Companies, EPA Rule Rollbacks, and Latin American Interference
I. Vaping
Last November, "the FDA announced that almost 21% of high school students had vaped during the previous month, a 78% increase over the year before. That number jumped again this year, to 27.5%, meaning that more than 4 million American teenagers vape regularly, according to preliminary reports from federal health officials. [1]
"Eighth-graders who vape are 10 times as likely to eventually smoke cigarettes as their nonvaping peers, HHS says."
"Juul has assiduously followed Big Tobacco's playbook: aggressively marketing to youth and making implied health claims a central pillar of its business plan."
"A four-pack costs $16, and each 200-puff pod delivers a much nicotine as a pack of 20 cigarettes."
II. Vaping More Popular Than Smoking in High Schools
Percentage of high schoolers who, in the past month, have smoked: 16% in 2011 versus 6% in 2019.
Percentage who have vaped: 2% in 2011 versus 28% in 2019.
Percentage of vapers among adults: 3% versus 28% among high schoolers. [2]
III. Controlling Platform Companies
"In the intelligence world, countries copy what works, and the FBI has already said China and Iran are getting in on the game. Just this year, Facebook and Twitter have taken down hundreds of accounts and handles affiliated with Iran influence operations." [3]
"That doesn't mean government has no role. Congress should amend the Communications Decency Act of 1996, particularly Section 230. It was that law that declared the platform companies were not publishers and gave them blanket immunity for the content that is on them."
"I've long thought that we don't have a 'fake news' problem, we have a media literacy problem. Millions of people just can't tell the difference between a made-up story and a factual one, and don't know how to do so."
IV. EPA Rule Rollbacks
"A recent New York Times analysis found that [Trump's] White House has killed, stymied. or targeted 84 environmental rules. Among the regulations the administration has set its sights on are those regarding chlorpyrifos, a toxic pesticide linked to neurological damage in children. [4]
"And then Trump took office. In March 2017, shortly after meeting with the CEO of Dow Chemical, the leading manufacturer of chlorpyrifos, then-EPA administrator Scott Pruitt rejected the prohibition in July, despite a court-order, the EPA again refused to implement a ban."
ADDENDUM:
*"From 1900 to 2006, power changed hands in [Latin America] 162 times via military coup, typically announced from a studio of a state broadcaster. In a striking number of cases -- at least 41, by the count of a Harvard study -- the force behind the coup was the U.S., which maintained a proprietary hold over the hemisphere it regarded as its realm. [5]
Footnotes:
[1[ TIME, September 30, 2019.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Excerpts from a forthcoming book, "Information Wars: How We Lost the Global Battle Against Disinformation & What We Can Do About It" by Stengel.
[4] Molly Minta, "EPA Rules Rollbacks," The Nation, September 30, 2019.
[5] Karl Vick, "The U.S. watches Venezuela teeters," TIME, May 13, 2019.
Last November, "the FDA announced that almost 21% of high school students had vaped during the previous month, a 78% increase over the year before. That number jumped again this year, to 27.5%, meaning that more than 4 million American teenagers vape regularly, according to preliminary reports from federal health officials. [1]
"Eighth-graders who vape are 10 times as likely to eventually smoke cigarettes as their nonvaping peers, HHS says."
"Juul has assiduously followed Big Tobacco's playbook: aggressively marketing to youth and making implied health claims a central pillar of its business plan."
"A four-pack costs $16, and each 200-puff pod delivers a much nicotine as a pack of 20 cigarettes."
II. Vaping More Popular Than Smoking in High Schools
Percentage of high schoolers who, in the past month, have smoked: 16% in 2011 versus 6% in 2019.
Percentage who have vaped: 2% in 2011 versus 28% in 2019.
Percentage of vapers among adults: 3% versus 28% among high schoolers. [2]
III. Controlling Platform Companies
"In the intelligence world, countries copy what works, and the FBI has already said China and Iran are getting in on the game. Just this year, Facebook and Twitter have taken down hundreds of accounts and handles affiliated with Iran influence operations." [3]
"That doesn't mean government has no role. Congress should amend the Communications Decency Act of 1996, particularly Section 230. It was that law that declared the platform companies were not publishers and gave them blanket immunity for the content that is on them."
"I've long thought that we don't have a 'fake news' problem, we have a media literacy problem. Millions of people just can't tell the difference between a made-up story and a factual one, and don't know how to do so."
IV. EPA Rule Rollbacks
"A recent New York Times analysis found that [Trump's] White House has killed, stymied. or targeted 84 environmental rules. Among the regulations the administration has set its sights on are those regarding chlorpyrifos, a toxic pesticide linked to neurological damage in children. [4]
"And then Trump took office. In March 2017, shortly after meeting with the CEO of Dow Chemical, the leading manufacturer of chlorpyrifos, then-EPA administrator Scott Pruitt rejected the prohibition in July, despite a court-order, the EPA again refused to implement a ban."
ADDENDUM:
*"From 1900 to 2006, power changed hands in [Latin America] 162 times via military coup, typically announced from a studio of a state broadcaster. In a striking number of cases -- at least 41, by the count of a Harvard study -- the force behind the coup was the U.S., which maintained a proprietary hold over the hemisphere it regarded as its realm. [5]
Footnotes:
[1[ TIME, September 30, 2019.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Excerpts from a forthcoming book, "Information Wars: How We Lost the Global Battle Against Disinformation & What We Can Do About It" by Stengel.
[4] Molly Minta, "EPA Rules Rollbacks," The Nation, September 30, 2019.
[5] Karl Vick, "The U.S. watches Venezuela teeters," TIME, May 13, 2019.
Sunday, October 13, 2019
Ukraine-Related Material
On July 24, President Trump triumphantly announced that Robert Mueller found "no collusion." On July 25, he made a phone call to the Ukrainian president. Trump said that there was no quid pro quo during the call because there was no mention of withholding military aid of about $270 million. If Trump claimed that he had to prove that he had to establish lack of corruption in Ukraine before he would release the funding, than he shouldn't have praised the president for cleaning up the corruption.
Given that Ukraine wanted that aid as soon as possible, because it was being pressured by Russia, Trump was increasing Ukraine's peril by withholding funding. Ukraine knew as early as mid-July that the funding was not coming in. Rudy Giuliani or others could have linked the withholding of funding to Ukraine opening an investigation of Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
Trump said that the aid to Ukraine was withheld because other countries did not offer to help: "I want other countries to put up money, they say 'oh, let it go, and I let it go." He specifically mentioned Germany and France. On Monday, September 23, he said the funding was withheld because he was concerned that the Ukrainian government was corrupt. "I want to make sure that county (sic) is honest." It's very important to talk about corruption. If you don't talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt." Of Biden, he said: "I did not make a statement 'you have to do this or I'm not going to give you aid.' I wouldn't do that, I wouldn't do that."
Rudy Giuliani said two Department of State officials were working with him on Ukraine. Both the IG and the DNI were preparing to refer a criminal complaint to the DoJ. A.G. Barr relied strictly on the White House notes on deciding not to release the whistleblower report to Congress. In his testimony to Congress DNI Joseph Maguire claimed the President is not part of the intelligence community. Rep. Adam Schiff and Maguire agree that the whistleblower is "credible," and his report is an "urgent concern." Maguire was vague about the word "shell." Maguire said several times in his testimony that he went to the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel first, but then finally admitted that he went to the White House first. Schiff pushed hard on why Maguire remained silent when Trump called the whistleblower a "political hack" and maybe even a traitor. Maguire couldn't answer who made the decision to defy a subpoena. He seemed to be saying that the President's executive privilege power, even when not claimed, trumps the whistleblower legal protection.
Maguire wouldn't answer if he spoke to Trump, even after Schiff advised him that he wasn't asking about substance, he wanted to know if Maguire spoke to Trump. Maguire seems to believe that even the question of whom he spoke to is covered by executive privilege.
The whistleblower said that the Ukrainian call transcript was put in a separate compartment designed for highly sensitive, politically damaging documents -- other calls may have been put in that compartment. Maguire said that he had no jurisdiction over that matter. He also said that whether or not Giuliani had a security clearance is not in his jurisdiction, and he couldn't answer questions about him, because of attorney-client privilege.
On September 27, Trump accused Rep. Adam Schiff of lying to Congress and called on him to resign based on fraud.
Given that Ukraine wanted that aid as soon as possible, because it was being pressured by Russia, Trump was increasing Ukraine's peril by withholding funding. Ukraine knew as early as mid-July that the funding was not coming in. Rudy Giuliani or others could have linked the withholding of funding to Ukraine opening an investigation of Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
Trump said that the aid to Ukraine was withheld because other countries did not offer to help: "I want other countries to put up money, they say 'oh, let it go, and I let it go." He specifically mentioned Germany and France. On Monday, September 23, he said the funding was withheld because he was concerned that the Ukrainian government was corrupt. "I want to make sure that county (sic) is honest." It's very important to talk about corruption. If you don't talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt." Of Biden, he said: "I did not make a statement 'you have to do this or I'm not going to give you aid.' I wouldn't do that, I wouldn't do that."
Rudy Giuliani said two Department of State officials were working with him on Ukraine. Both the IG and the DNI were preparing to refer a criminal complaint to the DoJ. A.G. Barr relied strictly on the White House notes on deciding not to release the whistleblower report to Congress. In his testimony to Congress DNI Joseph Maguire claimed the President is not part of the intelligence community. Rep. Adam Schiff and Maguire agree that the whistleblower is "credible," and his report is an "urgent concern." Maguire was vague about the word "shell." Maguire said several times in his testimony that he went to the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel first, but then finally admitted that he went to the White House first. Schiff pushed hard on why Maguire remained silent when Trump called the whistleblower a "political hack" and maybe even a traitor. Maguire couldn't answer who made the decision to defy a subpoena. He seemed to be saying that the President's executive privilege power, even when not claimed, trumps the whistleblower legal protection.
Maguire wouldn't answer if he spoke to Trump, even after Schiff advised him that he wasn't asking about substance, he wanted to know if Maguire spoke to Trump. Maguire seems to believe that even the question of whom he spoke to is covered by executive privilege.
The whistleblower said that the Ukrainian call transcript was put in a separate compartment designed for highly sensitive, politically damaging documents -- other calls may have been put in that compartment. Maguire said that he had no jurisdiction over that matter. He also said that whether or not Giuliani had a security clearance is not in his jurisdiction, and he couldn't answer questions about him, because of attorney-client privilege.
On September 27, Trump accused Rep. Adam Schiff of lying to Congress and called on him to resign based on fraud.
Saturday, October 12, 2019
Abortion in Mexico/Central America
I. Abortion in Mexico/Central America
Amy Littlefield and Laura Gotteodiener, "A Second Assault," The Nation, September 30, 2019.
"On average, from 2007 trough 2016 across Mexico, one person was reported to authorities every day on suspicion of abortion." "According to a 2006 Human Rights Watch report, 'actual access to safe abortion procedures is made virtually impossible by a maze of administrative hurdles as well as -- most pointedly -- by official negligence and obstruction.' " "From 2009 to 2016, there were 111,413 rapes reported to federal and local attorney generals." "Unsafe abortion is a leading cause of maternal death in Mexico."
"Today, though the national law says survivors in any Mexican state can go to a public hospital and get an abortion without reporting the crime to authorities first, 11 states impose some form of time limit on the books that require victims to file a report." "Twelve states impose some form of time limit in abortions for rape survivors, mostly confining it to the first trimester of pregnancy." "Across the country, activists say that one of the biggest remaining hurdles is not the law itself but rather the doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, and other public officials who fail to understand it or carry it out."
"Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have some of the world's most restrictive abortion laws, with several banning abortion outright." "In 2014, at least 10 percent of maternal deaths in the region resulted from unsafe abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive heath research organization."
II. Iran Meeting Is Absurd
Brian Bennett and John Walcott, "Iran Gets Tough," TIME, September 30, 2019.
" 'Trump's desire for a meeting with Iran is absurd at this point,' says the director for the hawkish Foundation for Defense for Democracies. 'Trump finds himself backed into a corner because for a year now he has marched down an escalating path while insisting he doesn't want a conflict,' says Jeffrey Prescott, former senior adviser under President Obama. But Secretary of State Pompeo has argued that easing pressure on Iran before it makes concessions on its nuclear program or reduce its use of proxy forces in the region, would be dangerous, as it would reward that behavior."
III. Extreme Poverty in the Black Hills
Brooke Jarvis, "American Sphinx," The New Yorker, September 23, 2019.
Larry Smalley, an advocate for abused children, told Brooke Jarvis that kids in Pine Ridge are experiencing 'a state of emergency,' and that it's not uncommon for three or four or even five families to have to share a trailer -- feeling squeezed into the vast contradiction that is the modern Back Hills. "Here, sites of theft and genocide have become monuments to patriotism, a symbol of resistance has become a source of revenue, and old stories of broken promises and appropriation recur."
IV. Contradictory Words From Trump and Biden
A statement from the Justice Department contradicts President Trump's words about Attorney General William Barr's involvement in pressuring the Ukrainian government in digging up dirt on Joe Biden. "The President has not spoken with the Attorney General about having Ukraine investigate anything relating to former Vice President Biden or his son." "The President has not asked the Attorney General to contact Ukraine -- on this or any other matters."
In his call to Ukrainian President Zelensky, Trump said: "There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that, so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great."
Amy Littlefield and Laura Gotteodiener, "A Second Assault," The Nation, September 30, 2019.
"On average, from 2007 trough 2016 across Mexico, one person was reported to authorities every day on suspicion of abortion." "According to a 2006 Human Rights Watch report, 'actual access to safe abortion procedures is made virtually impossible by a maze of administrative hurdles as well as -- most pointedly -- by official negligence and obstruction.' " "From 2009 to 2016, there were 111,413 rapes reported to federal and local attorney generals." "Unsafe abortion is a leading cause of maternal death in Mexico."
"Today, though the national law says survivors in any Mexican state can go to a public hospital and get an abortion without reporting the crime to authorities first, 11 states impose some form of time limit on the books that require victims to file a report." "Twelve states impose some form of time limit in abortions for rape survivors, mostly confining it to the first trimester of pregnancy." "Across the country, activists say that one of the biggest remaining hurdles is not the law itself but rather the doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, and other public officials who fail to understand it or carry it out."
"Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have some of the world's most restrictive abortion laws, with several banning abortion outright." "In 2014, at least 10 percent of maternal deaths in the region resulted from unsafe abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive heath research organization."
II. Iran Meeting Is Absurd
Brian Bennett and John Walcott, "Iran Gets Tough," TIME, September 30, 2019.
" 'Trump's desire for a meeting with Iran is absurd at this point,' says the director for the hawkish Foundation for Defense for Democracies. 'Trump finds himself backed into a corner because for a year now he has marched down an escalating path while insisting he doesn't want a conflict,' says Jeffrey Prescott, former senior adviser under President Obama. But Secretary of State Pompeo has argued that easing pressure on Iran before it makes concessions on its nuclear program or reduce its use of proxy forces in the region, would be dangerous, as it would reward that behavior."
III. Extreme Poverty in the Black Hills
Brooke Jarvis, "American Sphinx," The New Yorker, September 23, 2019.
Larry Smalley, an advocate for abused children, told Brooke Jarvis that kids in Pine Ridge are experiencing 'a state of emergency,' and that it's not uncommon for three or four or even five families to have to share a trailer -- feeling squeezed into the vast contradiction that is the modern Back Hills. "Here, sites of theft and genocide have become monuments to patriotism, a symbol of resistance has become a source of revenue, and old stories of broken promises and appropriation recur."
IV. Contradictory Words From Trump and Biden
A statement from the Justice Department contradicts President Trump's words about Attorney General William Barr's involvement in pressuring the Ukrainian government in digging up dirt on Joe Biden. "The President has not spoken with the Attorney General about having Ukraine investigate anything relating to former Vice President Biden or his son." "The President has not asked the Attorney General to contact Ukraine -- on this or any other matters."
In his call to Ukrainian President Zelensky, Trump said: "There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that, so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great."
Thursday, October 10, 2019
Donald Trump's Assault on Campaign Finance Law
Donald Trump's assault on campaign finance law started with the June 9, 2016 meeting in the Trump Tower, which didn't come to light until notice of it came in one of the many revisions that Jared Kushner made on his national security form, picked up by The New York Times. Trump went through a series of ever increasing attempts to tone down the seriousness of a meeting originally pitched to Donald Trump Jr as the Russian government offering "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. Trump, senior, finally got to the point where he said that "everyone" would have taken that call. He described it as "opo" (opposition) "research."
The next major point in Trump commenting on campaign finance law came in an Oval Office interview of President Trump by George Stephanopoulos, who asked it the president would accept a call from a foreign government with derogatory information on a political rival. Trump said that he would decide whether or not to report the call to the FBI or some other governmental agency. Knowing what we do about Donald Trump, it is very likely that if what he hears is very damaging to a rival, that it not the type of call that Trump will report.
What's different about President Trump's July 25 call to the Ukrainian president is that he is soliciting the head of a foreign government to break U.S. campaign finance law. Once more, according the whistleblower's report, Trump continued to bring up the subject during the call.
Getting now to Trump's supporters' attempts to discredit the whistleblower, one of the main talking points is that the report is a second-hand, not a first-hand account of the call. The inspector general for the intelligence community has been prompted to issue a lengthy memo explaining that the whistleblower protection law does not require that a report must be first-hand: it must be credible. The whistleblower in this case was serving in an inter-agency capacity, and was getting reports from those with first-hand information. Of great importance is that the whistleblower's report tracks very closely with the call transcript released by the Trump administration. In that transcript, the Ukrainian president is asked to open an investigation of corruption on the part of Joe Biden to, presumably, kill an investigation of his son, Hunter, who was serving on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
The attorney for the first whistleblower is now representing a second whistleblower, who, he says, does have first-hand information, thereby shooting down the Trump surrogates' vain attempt to discredit the first whistleblower.
When the Trump administration released a sketchy transcript of a 30-minute call, President Trump apparently believed that the suspension of military aid was not specifically mentioned meant that there was no quid pro quo. This kind of linkage could have been revealed to the Ukrainian government either by Rudy Guiliani or through other means. Regarding the suspension of military aid, Trump has given two very different reasons for doing it: 1.) He was concerned about the corruption in the Ukrainian government, and didn't want to give military aid until the corruption problem was addressed; and 2.) He was waiting to see what other governments, such as Germany and France, would contribute in military aid.
ADDENDUMS:
*On September 30, Trump called for Adam Schiff to be arrested for treason for exaggerating parts of the President's call with Ukraine's leader.
*Trump denounced six members of Congress as "Do Nothing Democrat Savages," included were three women of color.
*As many as 130 officials have been questioned in a renewed probe of Hillary Clinton's emails.
*Attorney General William Barr has urged foreign governments to aid in his investigation of CIA and FBI activities related to the 2016 election.
*The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) allowed drug makers to increase production of opioids even as overdose deaths were skyrocketing. Opioid overdose deaths increased by 71 percent per year between 2013 and 2017, as the DEA authorized manufacturers to produce "substantially larger amounts of opioids," reads the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General.
*When on ABC's "This Week," host Martha Raddatz asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo what he knew about Trump's phone conversation with Ukrainian President Zelensky, Pompeo answered: "None of which I've seen." Pompeo referred to Ukraine's foreign minister saying that there was no pressure. Pompeo also said that Biden should be investigated. It took about a week for Pompeo to admit that he was on the call.
The next major point in Trump commenting on campaign finance law came in an Oval Office interview of President Trump by George Stephanopoulos, who asked it the president would accept a call from a foreign government with derogatory information on a political rival. Trump said that he would decide whether or not to report the call to the FBI or some other governmental agency. Knowing what we do about Donald Trump, it is very likely that if what he hears is very damaging to a rival, that it not the type of call that Trump will report.
What's different about President Trump's July 25 call to the Ukrainian president is that he is soliciting the head of a foreign government to break U.S. campaign finance law. Once more, according the whistleblower's report, Trump continued to bring up the subject during the call.
Getting now to Trump's supporters' attempts to discredit the whistleblower, one of the main talking points is that the report is a second-hand, not a first-hand account of the call. The inspector general for the intelligence community has been prompted to issue a lengthy memo explaining that the whistleblower protection law does not require that a report must be first-hand: it must be credible. The whistleblower in this case was serving in an inter-agency capacity, and was getting reports from those with first-hand information. Of great importance is that the whistleblower's report tracks very closely with the call transcript released by the Trump administration. In that transcript, the Ukrainian president is asked to open an investigation of corruption on the part of Joe Biden to, presumably, kill an investigation of his son, Hunter, who was serving on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
The attorney for the first whistleblower is now representing a second whistleblower, who, he says, does have first-hand information, thereby shooting down the Trump surrogates' vain attempt to discredit the first whistleblower.
When the Trump administration released a sketchy transcript of a 30-minute call, President Trump apparently believed that the suspension of military aid was not specifically mentioned meant that there was no quid pro quo. This kind of linkage could have been revealed to the Ukrainian government either by Rudy Guiliani or through other means. Regarding the suspension of military aid, Trump has given two very different reasons for doing it: 1.) He was concerned about the corruption in the Ukrainian government, and didn't want to give military aid until the corruption problem was addressed; and 2.) He was waiting to see what other governments, such as Germany and France, would contribute in military aid.
ADDENDUMS:
*On September 30, Trump called for Adam Schiff to be arrested for treason for exaggerating parts of the President's call with Ukraine's leader.
*Trump denounced six members of Congress as "Do Nothing Democrat Savages," included were three women of color.
*As many as 130 officials have been questioned in a renewed probe of Hillary Clinton's emails.
*Attorney General William Barr has urged foreign governments to aid in his investigation of CIA and FBI activities related to the 2016 election.
*The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) allowed drug makers to increase production of opioids even as overdose deaths were skyrocketing. Opioid overdose deaths increased by 71 percent per year between 2013 and 2017, as the DEA authorized manufacturers to produce "substantially larger amounts of opioids," reads the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General.
*When on ABC's "This Week," host Martha Raddatz asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo what he knew about Trump's phone conversation with Ukrainian President Zelensky, Pompeo answered: "None of which I've seen." Pompeo referred to Ukraine's foreign minister saying that there was no pressure. Pompeo also said that Biden should be investigated. It took about a week for Pompeo to admit that he was on the call.
Wednesday, October 9, 2019
Student Diversity, Indicting a President, and an Altered Environment
I. Student Diversity
Three-quarters in Los Angeles, California schools are poor, and more than seventy per cent of black and Latino children attend schools in which most of the students live in poverty. Forty-three percent of the city's population is composed of white students, yet they account for only fifteen percent of the public-school population. Black and Latino students together make up almost seventy percent of the public school population in the specialized high schools. Asian-American students account for sixteen percent of the enrollment at specialized high schools. Asian-American students tend to receive lower scores on the most subjective parts of college admissions evaluations -- often in ways that correspond to personality stereotypes attached to Asian-Americans. [1]
II. Indicting Sitting President
Ina 75-page opinion, Judge Victor Manero writes that too much weight has been given to the proposition that a sitting president can't be indicted. He says that "the theory has gained a certain degree of axiomatic acceptance, and the DOJ Memos which propagate it have assumed substantial legal force as if their conclusion were inscribed on constitutional tablets so etched by the Supreme Court." "The Court considers such popular currency for the categorical concept and its legal support as not warranted." Judge Manero says that the conclusion a sitting President can't be indicted is based on "an unqualified abstract doctrine." Instead, " the presidential immunity theory substantially relies on suppositions, practicalities... as well as conjurings of remote prospects and hyperbolic horrors about the consequences to the Presidency and the nation as a whole..."
III. "Severely Altered" Environment
According to the United Nations, humans have "severely altered" two-thirds of the earth's maritime environment. "Each decade we lose ten per cent of the world's sea-grass meadows and dump some four billions of tons of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge, and other industrial wastes into the world's waters." Also, according to the United Nations study, "Humans have accelerated the rate of global species extinction by a factor of 'tens of hundreds of times' more than in the previous ten million years." "Already, humans are expected to force more than a million species into extinction, and, by 2050, to fill the oceans with a greater mass of plastic than there is of fish." [2]
In his article, Ben Taub reports that only half of Africa's population lives within a mile of a functional road. "Deliveries of blood to rural health centers are slow and unreliable; refrigerated medicines go bad before they arrive." "The continent has three per cent of the world's motor vehicles, but account for eighteen per cent of the world's road deaths."
ADDENDUMS:
*As governor of Indiana, Mike Pence signed a law that requires fetal remains of miscarriages and abortions, at any stage of pregnancy, to be cremated or buried. Jia Tolentino says that she "had grown up Baptist in Texas, with the idea that girls should consecrate their bodies for God and for their future husbands." [3]
*House Minority Leader Kevin McCrthy sees nothing wrong with Vice-President Pence staying at a hotel from which Trump profits, even claiming that those resorts were "just like any other hotel." "The president's resorts are hotels he owns." McCarthy says Trump is "competing in a private enterprise." At least 60 military service members have stayed at Trump's Turnberry resort.
*Diana Ohlbaum, Senior Strategist and Legislative Director for Foreign Policy of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, says that the 180-year-old AUMF has been used to justify 41 military operations in 19 countries.
*President Trump has said that he was blocked from building infrasructure by the Democrats; however, at a joint meeting to build an infrastructure plan, Sen. Schumer bought a 39-page plan, and Trump brought nothing.The Trump staff had prepositioned a podium in the Rose Garden, with spending figures on the Mueller investigation.
Footnotes:
[1] Jelani Cobb, "This Is a Test," The New Yorker, September 16, 2019.
[2] Ben Taub, "Ideas in the Sky," The New Yorker, September 23, 2019.
[3] Jia Tolentino, "All Aunt Lydia's Children," The New Yorker, September 16, 2019.
Three-quarters in Los Angeles, California schools are poor, and more than seventy per cent of black and Latino children attend schools in which most of the students live in poverty. Forty-three percent of the city's population is composed of white students, yet they account for only fifteen percent of the public-school population. Black and Latino students together make up almost seventy percent of the public school population in the specialized high schools. Asian-American students account for sixteen percent of the enrollment at specialized high schools. Asian-American students tend to receive lower scores on the most subjective parts of college admissions evaluations -- often in ways that correspond to personality stereotypes attached to Asian-Americans. [1]
II. Indicting Sitting President
Ina 75-page opinion, Judge Victor Manero writes that too much weight has been given to the proposition that a sitting president can't be indicted. He says that "the theory has gained a certain degree of axiomatic acceptance, and the DOJ Memos which propagate it have assumed substantial legal force as if their conclusion were inscribed on constitutional tablets so etched by the Supreme Court." "The Court considers such popular currency for the categorical concept and its legal support as not warranted." Judge Manero says that the conclusion a sitting President can't be indicted is based on "an unqualified abstract doctrine." Instead, " the presidential immunity theory substantially relies on suppositions, practicalities... as well as conjurings of remote prospects and hyperbolic horrors about the consequences to the Presidency and the nation as a whole..."
III. "Severely Altered" Environment
According to the United Nations, humans have "severely altered" two-thirds of the earth's maritime environment. "Each decade we lose ten per cent of the world's sea-grass meadows and dump some four billions of tons of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge, and other industrial wastes into the world's waters." Also, according to the United Nations study, "Humans have accelerated the rate of global species extinction by a factor of 'tens of hundreds of times' more than in the previous ten million years." "Already, humans are expected to force more than a million species into extinction, and, by 2050, to fill the oceans with a greater mass of plastic than there is of fish." [2]
In his article, Ben Taub reports that only half of Africa's population lives within a mile of a functional road. "Deliveries of blood to rural health centers are slow and unreliable; refrigerated medicines go bad before they arrive." "The continent has three per cent of the world's motor vehicles, but account for eighteen per cent of the world's road deaths."
ADDENDUMS:
*As governor of Indiana, Mike Pence signed a law that requires fetal remains of miscarriages and abortions, at any stage of pregnancy, to be cremated or buried. Jia Tolentino says that she "had grown up Baptist in Texas, with the idea that girls should consecrate their bodies for God and for their future husbands." [3]
*House Minority Leader Kevin McCrthy sees nothing wrong with Vice-President Pence staying at a hotel from which Trump profits, even claiming that those resorts were "just like any other hotel." "The president's resorts are hotels he owns." McCarthy says Trump is "competing in a private enterprise." At least 60 military service members have stayed at Trump's Turnberry resort.
*Diana Ohlbaum, Senior Strategist and Legislative Director for Foreign Policy of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, says that the 180-year-old AUMF has been used to justify 41 military operations in 19 countries.
*President Trump has said that he was blocked from building infrasructure by the Democrats; however, at a joint meeting to build an infrastructure plan, Sen. Schumer bought a 39-page plan, and Trump brought nothing.The Trump staff had prepositioned a podium in the Rose Garden, with spending figures on the Mueller investigation.
Footnotes:
[1] Jelani Cobb, "This Is a Test," The New Yorker, September 16, 2019.
[2] Ben Taub, "Ideas in the Sky," The New Yorker, September 23, 2019.
[3] Jia Tolentino, "All Aunt Lydia's Children," The New Yorker, September 16, 2019.
Tuesday, October 8, 2019
The UkraineTranscripts Ignored by GOP Lawmakers
After U.S. House members questioned Kurt Volker for about nine hours, all of the Republican lawmakers who talked to the media said that nothing that happened in the hearing did any damage to President Trump. The unreliability of these GOP lawmakers is illustrated by the transcripts presented in the hearing. The identity of the persons participating in the transcript exchanges is as follows: Kurt Volker - former special envoy to Ukraine; Gordon Sondland - U.S. Ambassador to the European Union; Bill Taylor - charge d'affaires at the U.S. embassy in Ukraine; and Andrey Yermak - aide to President Zelensky of Ukraine.
8/8/19 - Yermak texted Volker a news story entitled, "Trump Holds Up Ukraine Military Aid Meant to Confront Russia."
8/9 - Sondland sends a text to Volker suggesting that Zelensky hold a news conference announcing his intent to investigate. "To avoid misunderstanding, might be helpful to ask [the Zelensky aide] for a draft statement (embargoed) so that we can see exactly what they propose to cover."
8/10 - Volker: "I agree with your approach. Let's iron out statement and use that to get date and then PreZ can go forward with it."
8/10 - Yermak: "Once we have a date, will call for a press briefing, announcing upcoming visit and outlining vision for the reboot of US-Ukraine relating among other things Burisma and election meddling."
8/13 - Volker: He says that "special attention should be paid to the political processes of the United States, especially with the alleged involvement of some Ukrainian politicians." "We intend to initiate and complete a transparent and unbiased investigation of all available facts and episodes, including those involving Burisma and the 2016 elections, which in turn will prevent the reoccurrence of this problem in the future."
9/1 - Taylor: "Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?"
9/8 - Taylor: "The nightmare is they give the interview and don't get the security assistance."
9/9 - Taylor: "As I said on the phone, I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help for a political campaign."
9/9 - Sondland: "Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump's intentions. The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quids of any kind." Sondland then says: "I suggest we stop the back and forth by text." Sondland tells Taylor that if he has concerns, he should contact Secretary of State Pompeo.
The references to a date involve a White House visit after President Zelensky issues a statement agreeing to demanded investigations. The statement by Kurt Volker on 8/10 lays bare the link between the statement and the White House visit. When Bill Taylor says "interview" he probably means press conference. Burisma refers to the gas company whose board Hunter Biden served on. When Gorgon Sondland suggests stopping the texting, he probably is concerned that a written record could cause problems in the future. Bill Taylor is obviously very concerned about linkage between investigations and a White House visit; also, he worries about a link between withholding military aid and Trump's 2020 reelection campaign.
Although Sondlund texted that Trump stressed no quid pro quos, there were at least three specific ones: 1.) a demand for a statement from Zelensky that he will investigate the Bidens and Burisma before a date will be set for a White House visit; 2;) a demand voiced by Kurt Volker that the Ukraine role in meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections must be included in the investigation, and 3.) a quid pro quo linking withholding military aid to helping a political campaign.
Here is the narrative about Trump withholding military aid from Ukraine. The withholding started in June when Trump ordered John Bolton and Defense Secretary Mark Esper to conduct a policy review; however, John C. Rood, the undersecretary for defense, had already sent a letter to congressional committees in May -- including the committee chaired by Sen Chuck Grassley -- to give assurance that the "Government of Ukraine has taken substantial actions to make defense institutional reforms for the purpose of decreasing corruption, increasing accountability, sustaining improvements of combat capability enabled by U.S. assistance."
In interagency meetings on July 23 and July 26, Office of Management and Budget officials stated that the instruction to suspend military aid came from President Trump without a policy directive.
When President Trump was asked at the United Nations session why he suspended the military aid, he said he had to know if Ukraine had eliminated corruption, because he didn't want to send aid to a corrupt nation. Yet when he was asked a second time, he said he was waiting to see if EU nations like Germany and France were making a military aid commitment to Ukraine.
In conclusion, it is clear that there were quid pro quos with Ukraine, and that the withholding of military aid to aid a political campaign was elevated over helping Ukraine to withstand a major threat to its sovereignty by Russia.
8/8/19 - Yermak texted Volker a news story entitled, "Trump Holds Up Ukraine Military Aid Meant to Confront Russia."
8/9 - Sondland sends a text to Volker suggesting that Zelensky hold a news conference announcing his intent to investigate. "To avoid misunderstanding, might be helpful to ask [the Zelensky aide] for a draft statement (embargoed) so that we can see exactly what they propose to cover."
8/10 - Volker: "I agree with your approach. Let's iron out statement and use that to get date and then PreZ can go forward with it."
8/10 - Yermak: "Once we have a date, will call for a press briefing, announcing upcoming visit and outlining vision for the reboot of US-Ukraine relating among other things Burisma and election meddling."
8/13 - Volker: He says that "special attention should be paid to the political processes of the United States, especially with the alleged involvement of some Ukrainian politicians." "We intend to initiate and complete a transparent and unbiased investigation of all available facts and episodes, including those involving Burisma and the 2016 elections, which in turn will prevent the reoccurrence of this problem in the future."
9/1 - Taylor: "Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?"
9/8 - Taylor: "The nightmare is they give the interview and don't get the security assistance."
9/9 - Taylor: "As I said on the phone, I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help for a political campaign."
9/9 - Sondland: "Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump's intentions. The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quids of any kind." Sondland then says: "I suggest we stop the back and forth by text." Sondland tells Taylor that if he has concerns, he should contact Secretary of State Pompeo.
The references to a date involve a White House visit after President Zelensky issues a statement agreeing to demanded investigations. The statement by Kurt Volker on 8/10 lays bare the link between the statement and the White House visit. When Bill Taylor says "interview" he probably means press conference. Burisma refers to the gas company whose board Hunter Biden served on. When Gorgon Sondland suggests stopping the texting, he probably is concerned that a written record could cause problems in the future. Bill Taylor is obviously very concerned about linkage between investigations and a White House visit; also, he worries about a link between withholding military aid and Trump's 2020 reelection campaign.
Although Sondlund texted that Trump stressed no quid pro quos, there were at least three specific ones: 1.) a demand for a statement from Zelensky that he will investigate the Bidens and Burisma before a date will be set for a White House visit; 2;) a demand voiced by Kurt Volker that the Ukraine role in meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections must be included in the investigation, and 3.) a quid pro quo linking withholding military aid to helping a political campaign.
Here is the narrative about Trump withholding military aid from Ukraine. The withholding started in June when Trump ordered John Bolton and Defense Secretary Mark Esper to conduct a policy review; however, John C. Rood, the undersecretary for defense, had already sent a letter to congressional committees in May -- including the committee chaired by Sen Chuck Grassley -- to give assurance that the "Government of Ukraine has taken substantial actions to make defense institutional reforms for the purpose of decreasing corruption, increasing accountability, sustaining improvements of combat capability enabled by U.S. assistance."
In interagency meetings on July 23 and July 26, Office of Management and Budget officials stated that the instruction to suspend military aid came from President Trump without a policy directive.
When President Trump was asked at the United Nations session why he suspended the military aid, he said he had to know if Ukraine had eliminated corruption, because he didn't want to send aid to a corrupt nation. Yet when he was asked a second time, he said he was waiting to see if EU nations like Germany and France were making a military aid commitment to Ukraine.
In conclusion, it is clear that there were quid pro quos with Ukraine, and that the withholding of military aid to aid a political campaign was elevated over helping Ukraine to withstand a major threat to its sovereignty by Russia.
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