The media: the march against Trump goes on, from “collusion” to “obstruction”

The New Neo Posted on by

For the media and Trump, the “collusion with the Russians” narrative is effectively over. But there’ll always be a sion or a tion, so now it’s “obstruction of justice,” despite the fact that no credible case can be made for it, even according to such non-Trump-fan legal experts as Jonathan Turley and Alan Dershowitz.

That doesn’t stop the “resistance.” I wonder what the next charge will be in their relentless quest for Trump’s impeachment.

Another interesting bit of fallout from the Comey testimony is how many revelations in it went against the MSM and its galley of anonymous informants, and how weaselly or even non-existent the retractions were. For example, see this “correction” from CNN, a news outlet which had repeatedly asserted that Comey would be contradicting Trump’s claim about having been informed he was not under investigation by the FBI:

The article and headline have been corrected to reflect that Comey does not directly dispute that Trump was told multiple times he was not under investigation in his prepared testimony released after this story was published.

Wow. No, Comey didn’t directly dispute it. You know what? He didn’t even indirectly dispute it. In fact (shhh, don’t tell!) he confirmed it.

But the NY Times’ behavior was even more self-serving. After Comey testified that a Times article alleging contacts between Trump aides and Russian intelligence officers was “mostly not true,” the Times responded thusly:

Mr. Comey did not say exactly what he believed was incorrect about the article, which was based on information from four current and former American officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because the information was classified. The original sources could not immediately be reached after Mr. Comey’s remarks, but in the months since the article was published, they have indicated that they believed the account was solid.

So, who are you going to believe, Comey or the Times’ unnamed sources, who suddenly and mysteriously “could not immediately be reached”?

[NOTE: In related matters, this Victor Davis Hanson article is well worth reading.]

Barron Trump

The New Neo Posted on by

Has moved into the White House with his mother and grandparents. He’s certainly a tall tall kid for eleven years old.

Barron is either going through early puberty or is going to be a giant, or both. He has two tall parents, but my guess is that he will exceed them both in height.

It is truly amazing how vicious some Trump opponents can be about Barron. The old saw that children of presidents are off-limits went by the wayside long ago. Actually, very little surprises me about the Trump opponents—and those who mock Barron would probably say that, since Trump isn’t a real president, his son isn’t a real president’s child and therefore is fair game.

Do you remember the Boston busing crisis?

The New Neo Posted on by

Or do you just think you do?

[The following is a repeat of a previous post, somewhat edited.]

I thought I remembered it pretty well. But when I started to research the subject, the first articles I read puzzled me and made me doubt my memories. The articles were short, and concerned the black children bused in from Roxbury High to Southie and how terribly they were treated.

And that was absolutely true, of course; I recalled reading about that originally. But I also thought I remembered that the busing was reciprocal, and that it was this reverse busing in particular that raised the ire of the South Boston community, because their kids were bused out of their own neighborhoods to schools in the black ghetto. The low-income white kids of South Boston were the sacrificial lambs to the idea of desegregation; children of the white rich didn’t have to go anywhere.

I started to think that maybe my memory was faulty, but Wiki, of all things, came to my rescue by describing what others had not. Here’s the relevant passage, and the situation was even worse than I had remembered. To me, the only word to describe the particulars of this plan is “crazy” [emphasis mine]: Continue reading →

New federal judge nominees

The New Neo Posted on by

This should warm the cockles of your hearts:

President Donald J. Trump today announced his fourth wave of Federal judicial nominees. These nominations follow the successful confirmation of Associate Justice Neil M. Gorsuch to the United States Supreme Court, the successful confirmation of Judge Amul R. Thapar of Kentucky to serve as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and the nomination of numerous candidates to other judgeships.

You can find the list at the link.

This is an example of the non-sexy, non-juicy, but highly important work of a president. It has a profound effect on future legal decisions, which can have a very profound effect on the course of history.

Many Trump voters held their noses and voted for him for just this one reason. In that respect, their nose-holding is paying off.

Have you tried those fasting diets?

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s an article that purports to go into the science of the currently popular fasting diets, rather than the hype.

My problem with these diets is very simple: if I go for too long without eating I get a migraine, almost like clockwork. Therefore most types of fasting diets are closed to me. The only variety I think I could ever try without getting a headache is the 12-hour window, which has the dieter fasting for 12 hours in a row. The bulk of the fasting hours can be at night, while asleep.

Maybe I’ll give it a go.

I found this part of the article rather amusing:

…[The research] team found that flies…experienced benefits from restricting their feeding windows to a confined period each day. For the insects, a 12-hour feeding window proved to be best, with flies eating for only half a day experiencing better-quality sleep, less weight gain, and a deceleration of cardiac aging compared to their counterparts who were fed the same number of calories, but in food administered throughout the day.

Better quality sleep. Flies sleep??

Deceleration of cardiac aging. Flies have hearts??

But strangest of all—less weight gain. Have you ever seen a fat fly?? Can a fat fly fly?

The case against Comey

The New Neo Posted on by

Jonatahn Turley lays it out.

Turley is an interesting figure. I’ve written about him many times before, most notably here. I find him to be one of the more objective and fair legal analysts writing today. I don’t always agree with him, of course, but he’s always intelligent and writes with great clarity. Politically he leans liberal, Democratic, and decidedly libertarian, which doesn’t mean that he toes the leftist line. He’s definitely a maverick, but a principled one who’s especially concerned with arguing against governmental abuses of power. You can read about both his politics and his previous legal positions here.

Comey’s self-admitted behavior offends Turley, as well it might, because he finds it unethical and Comey’s explanation self-serving. Here’s an excerpt from yesterday’s Turley piece:

Comey described a series of ethical challenges during his term as FBI director. Yet, he almost uniformly avoided taking a firm stand in support of the professional standards of the FBI…

Comey said that he took these actions days after his termination, when he said that he woke up in the middle of the night and realized suddenly that the memos could be used to contradict Trump. It was a bizarrely casual treatment of material that would be viewed by many as clearly FBI information. He did not confer with the FBI or the Justice Department. He did not ask for any classification review despite one of the parties described being the president of the United States. He simply sent the memos to a law professor to serve as a conduit to the media.

As a threshold matter, Comey asked a question with regard to Trump that he should now answer with regard to his own conduct. Comey asked why Trump would ask everyone to leave the Oval Office to speak with Comey unless he was doing something improper. Yet, Trump could ask why Comey would use a third party to leak these memos if they were his property and there was nothing improper in their public release…

Many in the media have tried to spin this as not a “leak” because leaks by definition only involve classified information. That is entirely untrue as shown by history. Leaks involve the release of unauthorized information ”” not only classified information. Many of the most important leaks historically have involved pictures and facts not classified but embarrassing to a government. More importantly, federal regulations refer to unauthorized disclosures not just classified information.

Comey’s position would effectively gut a host of federal rules and regulations. He is suggesting that any federal employee effectively owns documents created during federal employment in relation to an ongoing investigation so long as they address the information to themselves. FBI agents routinely write such memos in investigations. They are called 302s to memorialize field interviews or fact acquisitions. They are treated as FBI information.

There’s much, much more at the link. I find it the most convincing and thorough explanation I’ve read yet of what Comey did re Trump and why it was clearly wrong.

Trump seems to have a great deal of luck in his opponents, who uniformly look bad against him. Some Trump supporters would say it’s not luck, it’s Trump’s skill—skill in driving them to do things that make themselves look bad. I think it’s a combination of both, although the “skill” is partly just the fact that their hatred of and discomfort with Trump’s personality drives them to extremes.

By the way, that’s an explanation for their behavior, not an excuse.

[NOTE: In other Comey news, rumor has it (I’ve come to regard most news reports that rely on unnamed sources as no more than rumor) that he’s signed or is about to sign a ten million dollar contract to write a book. Nice work if you can get it.]

More on Comey: did he commit an indictable offense? and other observations

The New Neo Posted on by

Somewhat lost in the Comey shuffle for some analysts: Comey’s admission that he was the memo leaker.

Jonathan Turley wonders about the possible legal consequences:

One of the most interesting new disclosures today in the Comey hearing was the admission by former FBI Director James Comey that he intentionally used a “friend” on the Columbia law faculty to leak his memos to the media. Comey says that he did so to force the appointment of a Special Counsel. However, those memos could be viewed as a government record and potential evidence in a criminal investigation…

The admission of leaking the memos is problematic given the overall controversy involving leakers undermining the Administration. Indeed, it creates a curious scene of a former director leaking material against the President after the President repeatedly asked him to crack down on leakers.

Which by the way sheds some light on Trump’s questioning Comey’s “loyalty.” Maybe we could paraphrase that as Trump’s asking, “Are you planning to betray me?” And if Comey was going to be honest (or “honestly loyal”), he probably should have answered “Only if you fire me.”

Turley adds:

Besides being subject to Nondisclosure Agreements, Comey falls under federal laws governing the disclosure of classified and nonclassified information. Assuming that the memos were not classified (though it seems odd that it would not be classified even on the confidential level), there is 18 U.S.C. § 641 which makes it a crime to steal, sell, or convey “any record, voucher, money, or thing of value of the United States or of any department or agency thereof.”

There are also ethical and departmental rules against the use of material to damage a former represented person or individual or firm related to prior representation…

Comey’s statement of a good motivation does not negate the concerns over his chosen means of a leak. Moreover, the timing of the leak most clearly benefited Comey not the cause of a Special Counsel. It was clear at that time that a Special Counsel was likely. More importantly, Comey clearly understood that these memos would be sought. That leads inevitably to the question of both motivation as well as means.

In his testimony yesterday, Comey continually guessed at Trump’s motives. I suppose turnabout is fair play and we are free to guess at Comey’s. In view of that, Marco Rubio had an excellent question for Comey:

“Do you ever wonder why, of all the things in this investigation, the only thing that’s never been leaked is the fact that the president was not personally under investigation, despite the fact that both Democrats and Republicans and the leadership of Congress knew that and have known that for weeks?” Rubio asked Comey.

Comey responded “I don’t know,” adding that “matters briefed to the gang of eight are pretty tightly held,” referring to the eight lawmakers who have access to the most highly classified information.

But since Comey himself was the leaker, the implication is that he could have leaked it, and that he held back because that’s the item that would have helped Trump rather than hurt him. Therefore his answer here seems to me to be quite obviously disingenuous; he’s omitting himself from the picture.

Another point that emerged from the Comey testimony, particularly regarding Loretta Lynch (see this), is that Lynch as AG asked Comey to cover up the news that the FBI was investigating Hillary Clinton, and he complied with her request; whereas Trump asked Comey to reveal that he, Trump, was not under FBI investigation, and Comey refused to comply while simultaneously revealing other things that would reflect poorly on Trump.

Hmmmm.

This tweet makes a related observation: “Unlike Clinton, where Comey laid out why she was guilty and then let her off, he lays out Trump’s innocence, and concludes he is guilty.” Good point.

And Frank Lutz points out that there were two major “anonymously sourced BOMBSHELL[s]…that [were] debunked by Comey’s on-record testimony. Reporters must do better.”

My response is that it depends what you think the reporters’ goals were in printing those anonymously-sourced anti-Trump stories in the first place. If you think the reporters were trying to get at the truth, then of course they must do better. But I think they had a different goal. I think they were trying to print damaging stories about Trump, while covering their butts by speaking to people off the record who held positions close enough to Trump and the story that, if ever challenged, the reporters could claim that they had every reason to believe their sources were reliable. The goal is to harm Trump, and it was done with the knowledge that a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

[NOTE: See this for a discussion of the provenance of that quote at the end of my post.]

British election: May miscalculation

The New Neo Posted on by

I don’t always get the parliamentary system’s finer points.

For example—until recently Theresa May’s party held a majority in Parliament, so why on earth would she risk losing it by calling for a snap election? I understand that she was gambling that the vote would strengthen her party’s hold rather than weaken it, but what leader in this day and age can have that much confidence? It seems foolhardy to me.

Now, although her Conservatives have retained a substantial plurality, May must scramble to enlist the help of DUP to form a coalition government. She appears to have successfully done so, thus averting a Jeremy Corbyn prime ministership. Whew. Dodged that bullet—for now.

One interesting fact about the election is that it appears May’s slim margin was due to support from Jewish voters in four London districts, who voted for May (or rather, against Corbyn and his party) because of Labor’s anti-Semitic tendencies.

Andrew C. McCarthy on the Flynn investigation

The New Neo Posted on by

Well worth reading.

Excerpt:

…[L]aw-enforcement is not supposed to subject a person to the processes of a criminal investigation absent a good faith belief that a crime may have occurred. It is abusive to interrogate people, not to uncover a reasonably suspected crime, but to create a new crime.

It is worth asking again: Why was General Flynn, the incoming national security adviser, “grilled” by FBI agents?

Spambot of the day

The New Neo Posted on by

Department of “you would be the last person I’d tell”:

Heya! I just wanted to ask if you ever have any trouble with hackers? My last blog (wordpress) was hacked and I ended up losing months of hard work due to no back up. Do you have any methods to protect against hackers?

That bot came from a site that sells proxies for use online so that you can do stuff on your computer without anyone knowing who you are or where you originate.

Comey’s testimony: in the eye of the beholder, like most things Trump

The New Neo Posted on by

Today James Comey testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee. You can see highlights here, and as well as many tweets on the subject. And you can see a large sampling of the summaries and points of view on the testimony here.

I haven’t watched, although I plan to see some excerpts. I tend not to do auditory processing very well, plus I have a very busy day with some important family matters. But I’ve certainly read recaps from both sides, and I have my own reaction.

There actually isn’t very much that’s new about the Comey testimony, because the gist of it was leaked prior to today. Of course, Comey is fleshing out the details, which will be discussed endlessly. One new fact is that Comey is backing up Trump’s assertion that he told Trump three times that he wasn’t under investigation. The press had reported this as untrue—based on its usual unimpeachable anonymous but supposedly well-informed sources—and, like so many things the press prints, that was incorrect. Trump and Comey actually more or less agree on this particular issue.

Another thing that was revealed today (IMHO) is that Comey was in an adversarial position to Trump from the start. When I say “adversarial,” I’m speaking in emotional terms, not strictly legal ones. Comey left every conversation and immediately wrote down his own recollection of what had happened, in great detail, in order to both protect himself and document the exchange.

And that documentation forms the basis for his testimony. Not only is it completely one-sided (as one might expect; after all, this is Comey telling his story), but it cannot be rebutted except in a he-said/he-said manner. This gives Comey a great deal of power to make or break a president, and everything depends on his own integrity, his freedom from bias, and his memory for a conversation in which he was not a disinterested party.

As a person who has studied human interactions and observed them based on that study, I have to say that very very few people would be capable of recording such a conversation accurately. At one point in my life I was in a situation where I worked with families and couples and each session was recorded. So I had an unusual opportunity—I was able to check out, against the actual record, my own perceptions about conversations as well as the accuracy of the recall of others about those conversations. It turns out I’m pretty good at it but certainly not perfect, and most people I saw were not particularly good at it at all.

Therefore I doubt that Comey is recreating these conversations with Trump with exact accuracy—and that’s not just him I’m talking about, that’s anyone who might be in the same position. Comey’s not a court stenographer, after all, nor is he a recording device.

Plus, Comey was “concerned” about Trump from the very start:

“And then the nature of the person [Trump]. I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, and so I thought it really important to document.”

This is what I mean by “adversarial.” Ordinarily, such an attitude doesn’t make for objective reporting, even if the person is trying very hard to be objective and even if the person honestly thinks he/she is being objective. This is a general rule of human interaction to which Comey is hardly immune. And some of the things he says that could harm Trump are in the form of Comey’s own reactions, feelings, perceptions, interpretations, and hunches, rather than “just the facts, ma’am.”

Some of it is about language, as in the case of Trump’s “honest loyalty” quote. That’s where Trump’s idiosyncratic way of expressing himself makes it unclear what he was getting at:

[Trump] then said, “I need loyalty.” I replied, “You will always get honesty from me.” He paused and then said, “That’s what I want, honest loyalty.” I paused, and then said, “You will get that from me.” As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is possible we understood the phrase “honest loyalty” differently, but I decided it wouldn’t be productive to push it further. The term ”“ honest loyalty ”“ had helped end a very awkward conversation and my explanations had made clear what he should expect.

On the contrary—it could have been extremely productive to “push it further.” If Comey thought Trump’s asking for “loyalty” was a no-no, he owed it to America to “push it further.” But he did not.

I think I may know what Trump actually meant. It’s always risky to try to read someone’s mind—and Trump’s in particular—but I think Trump probably meant something like “lack of bias against me.” In other words, lack of disloyalty. That would make sense for him to wonder, in the anti-Trump atmosphere of Washington DC. Trump didn’t appoint Comey, and Trump is surrounded by previous appointees who are quite frankly against him, and I believe (without being able to prove it) that Trump sensed that Comey was suspicious of him, and wanted to be reassured that this was not the case. In that context, the term “honest loyalty” is understandable.

There’s plenty more to say about Comey’s testimony, and plenty of people have said it. You can follow the links I gave earlier, plus I would recommend this piece by Alan Dershowitz. I choose him because he’s a liberal Democrat and hardly a Trump supporter, and also a sharp guy who’s highly conversant with the law and yet does not always follow the party line. You might say that, in many instances in the past, I’ve found him to be “honestly loyal”—to the truth of the law. Here’s what he has to say about Trump and obstruction of justice:

I write this short op-ed as Comey finishes his testimony. I think it is important to put to rest the notion that there was anything criminal about the president exercising his constitutional power to fire Comey and to request ”“ “hope” ”“ that he let go the investigation of General Flynn. Just as the president would have had the constitutional power to pardon Flynn and thus end the criminal investigation of him, he certainly had the authority to request the director of the FBI to end his investigation of Flynn.

I have one more observation: Comey’s testimony is further proof that Trump’s not a lawyer, and Comey is. When I say that, I’m not just trying to be cute. What I mean is that we’ve had a lot of lawyers as presidents, including the most recent one, Obama, and a rather well-known one, Bill Clinton. Hillary would have been still another lawyer. Many Trump supporters like Trump for that very reason—he’s not a lawyer, and doesn’t talk like one. But it’s a disadvantage when he’s tussling with someone like Comey.