Tag: news

Not So Subtle Cover-Up: From Zero To 50 Iran Attack Injuries In Under 3 Weeks

Not So Subtle Cover-Up: From Zero To 50 Iran Attack Injuries In Under 3 Weeks

The Pentagon casually slipped in an update to their ever evolving casualty numbers from the Jan.8 Iranian ballistic missile attack on Ayn al-Assad air base in Iraq, which the American public was initially told resulted in “no casualties” and that “all is well”:

The Pentagon now says 50 American military service members suffered traumatic brain injuries following Iran’s Jan. 8 missile attack on a base in western Iraq that was housing the U.S. military personnel. — ABC News

Damage at Ayn al-Assad military air base in the western Iraqi province of Anbar. AFP via Getty

“Of these 50, 31 total service members were treated in Iraq and returned to duty, including 15 of the additional service members who have been diagnosed since the previous report,” Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Col. Thomas Campbell said late Tuesday. “Eighteen service members have been transported to Germany for further evaluation and treatment.”

To review, Trump’s first address to the nation following the major unprecedented attack on US forces in retaliation for Qassem Soleimani’s death indicated “no casualties” and that “all is well!”. Two weeks later, the Pentagon stunned reporters by indicating 11 US troops actually suffered traumatic brain injury (TBI).

And two days after this the count shot up to 34, and it became evident that among these up to half had serious enough injuries to be evacuated to hospitals outside the country, with most transferred to Germany, and some later taken back to the United States for continued observation. 

Four days following last Friday’s “34” update, we’re now up to 50 troops injured. In summary, the figures went from zero to 11 to 34 to 50… and who knows where from here. 

Ayn al-Assad military air base, via the AP.

It must also be remembered that US officials and media pundits slammed Iranian state media for its repeat claims that the Jan.8 ballistic missile attack resulted in major casualties. Iranian media went so far as to report emergency medical evacuations of US personnel from the scene. US officials scoffed and laughed at this “fake news” at the time — and just days ago the semi-official major Iranian media outlet Fars News had its English news website taken offline by order of US Treasury for sanctions violations and state propaganda. 

But now we know the accurate headline in the wake of the attack should have read: “50 Americans Injured, Some Seriously…”.

So here’s the awkward truth: Iranian state media was closer to the truth than the Pentagon and US administration propaganda the public was fed. 

The Pentagon has claimed the “concussion-like symptoms” didn’t immediately present themselves. Yet now we’re talking 50 troops close enough to missile impact sites to suffer head trauma — a number so large it would be impossible for the chain of command to “miss” what was the single most important attack on a US facility in years. 

This evolving casualty count should be a major scandal, yet it’s barely elicited a yawn in the mainstream media. 

As we’ve repeatedly pointed out since last summer’s “tanker wars”, Trump has painted himself into a corner on Iran, jumping from escalation to escalation (to this latest “point of no return big one” in the form of the ordered Soleimani assassination) — yet all the while hoping to avoid a major direct war. The situation reached a climax where there were “no outs” (Trump was left with two ‘bad options’ of either back down or go to war). 

Thus when Iran finally launched a serious retaliation Jan.8, the “out” was simply to lie. The “no casualties” cover-up line was offered so Trump could quickly move on without the political pressure of being “forced” into retaliation tit-for-tat style, leading to war.

Ironically, it might be the first time the American public was force-fed naked war propaganda for the sake of not going to war.


Tyler Durden

Wed, 01/29/2020 – 14:55

Tags
Politics
War Conflict

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“Don’t Buy The Dip”: SocGen Sees 10% Stock Correction If Coronavirus Escalates

“Don’t Buy The Dip”: SocGen Sees 10% Stock Correction If Coronavirus Escalates

Over the weekend, One River CIO Eric Peters observed that “in each downturn, central bankers must step in more and more aggressively…. the process is reflexive and ultimately leads to a Minsky extreme,” an observation that was picked up by Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson the next day,when in discussing the potential impact on the market as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and other builtup imbalances, Wilson said that while a correction has likely begun, it will be contained to 5 percent or less as the Fed won’t let stocks drop too much as “liquidity remains flush.”

Today, in its attempt to assess the possible damage to global markets from coronavirus risk, SocGen doubles down on Morgan Stanley’s forecast, and cautions that “a further escalation of the coronavirus could result in an overall 10% equity market correction”, however like Wilson, it stops there because “to argue for more, we would need to see the emergence of more significant fears on global growth” even as the French bank concedes the precarious gamma positioning on the derivatives side could be pointing to the possibility of a further rise in equity volatility.

In making its case for a potential correction, SocGen focuses on fundamental, technical and thematic catalysts:

Starting with the first, SocGen’s Alai Bokobza writes that “fundamentally, we see converging uncertainty signals that call into question the acceleration of the global economy.” Specifically, he targets China, saying that if it were to be hit again, “its 18% weight in the global economy would have an overwhelmingly negative effect on the rest of the global economy.”

That said, and just like Morgan Stanley, Bokobza still thinks the Federal Reserve would respond immediately to the risk of a slowdown as times are turbulent in Washington, preventing quick activation of fiscal policy, noting that “this is possibly what the USD has been telling us in recent days, having failed to rise.” As a result, SocGen continues to push “for a high content of US Treasuries; 50% of our sovereign bond exposure in fact” while Gold and the Yen are often singled out as two other assets potentially worth holding to stabilize portfolios in the coming turbulent times.

While SocGen is clearly bearish on the economy and expects a recession later this year, there is another reason why it is recommending duration exposure: not long ago, the market was significantly net short Treasuries in the belief that the US economy was on track for acceleration. However, after brainstorming with its top US economist Stephen Gallagher, the SocGen derivatives team sees “little or no reason to rethink protecting against a recession we anticipate will arrive later this year.“

And while SocGen clearly agrees with Morgan Stanley in broad terms, it disagrees with JPM, which as we noted on Monday is urging clients to buy the dip, and says that “in our view, it is too early to call a generalized “buy the dips”, given the newsflow on the virus is currently anything but reassuring.” That said, the French bank would view material weakness “as a potential opportunity to raise exposure to Japan equities – after all, they are no longer burdened by the risk of potentially fast Yen appreciation, which investors had been fearing previously.”

Moving to technicals, SocGen sees another potential trigger for short-term turbulence in the from the listed derivative markets. As we noted as recently on Monday, gamma positioning had recently shifted into negative territory (although the rebound from the past two days appears to have lifted the SPX above the selling threshold).

As a reminder, gamma-linked indicators are designed to estimate whether hedging by market makers is currently suppressing or elevating volatility. Positive gamma leads to dampening of index moves because the hedgers need to sell when the market moves up and vice versa. Negative gamma leads to hedgers exacerbating volatility as they sell when the market moves down and buy when it goes up. The chart below shows that the S&P500 spot moving into negative gamma territory (below the red line) is consistent with higher levels of VIX:

Like Nomura’s McElligott, SocGen’s derivatives strategy team estimates that aggregate dealer gamma had briefly moved into negative territory on the S&P500, and remains close to it. This would imply the potential for a period of higher turbulence in the short term. This may change if the spot recovers, i.e., if the S&P continue to rise sharply, but it is something to watch nevertheless.

Finally, in the context of thematic investments and baskets, SocGen points out that at this stage, the virus is mainly affecting China and the rest of Asia, and it is in those market that risks are obviously higher. However, a basket of European stocks thematically linked to China “could still be vulnerable if the virus continues to spread.”

In conclusion, while SocGen would stay away from stocks at least until a bigger market flush takes place, it likes US Treasuries as “portfolio stabilizers”, as the Fed continues to be seen (and act) as proactive in turbulent times, “but prefer Gold to the Yen or USD.” Additionally, the bank sees an opportunity to invest in Japan equities (deep value) “while baskets of stocks with high valuation linkage to China may remain vulnerable at least until the clouds clear.” For now, however, SocGen’s clearest reco is simple: “do not add more risk only after the coronavirus situation stabilizes.”


Tyler Durden

Wed, 01/29/2020 – 14:40

Tags
Business Finance

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Senators Collins, Romney, and Murkowski ask about how to consider mixed motives

Today, the Senators are posing written questions to counsel for both sides. The first question came from Senator Collins of Maine, who asked the question on behalf of herself, Senator Murkowski of Alaska, and Senator Romney of Utah. (You can find the clip at about 1:16 p.m ET). Here is my rough transcript:

Collins: Mr. Chief Justice, I send a question to the desk  on behalf of myself, Senator Murkowski, and Senator Romney.

Roberts: This is a question for the counsel for the President. If President Trump had more than one motive for his alleged conduct, such as the pursuit of personal political advantage, rooting out corruption, and the promotion of national interest, how should the Senate consider more than one motive in its assessment of Article I.

Senator Romney also tweeted this question (#2 on the list):

This question echoes my writings on Article I.

The President’s lawyer, Patrick Philbin, responded that an action with mixed motives “could not possibly be the basis for an impeachable offense.” If there is both some “personal” motive and some “legitimate public interest” motive, it could not be impeachable. He asked a hypothetical about what the relevant standard is to impeach: is it “48% legitimate, and 52% personal”? He added, “you can’t divide it that way.” The House must establish “there is no public interest at all.”

The next portion of Philbin’s answer is very, very similar to the argument I advanced in the Times, which Alan Dershowitz quoted from. Here is my rough transcript:

If there is something that shows a possible public interest, and the President could have that possible public interest motive, that destroys their case. So once you are into mixed motives land, it is clear that their case fails. That can’t possibly be an impeachable offense at all. All elected officials to some extent have in mind how their conduct, how their policy decisions, will affect the next election. There is always some personal interest in the electoral outcome of policy decisions. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s part of representative democracy…If you have some part motive for personal electoral gain, that will somehow become an offense–it doesn’t make any sense. That is totally unworkable. And it can’t be the basis for removing a President.

Philbin concluded that the issues that President Trump discussed with the Ukrainian President “raised some public interest.” It was “at least worth asking some question about it.”

H/T to Peter Hurley for pointing out this exchange. I was on the road today and did not catch it live.

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Worst-Case ‘Climate Porn’ Is Counterproductive to Addressing Real Climate Change

Predictions of catastrophic climate change by the end of this century are mostly based on a greenhouse gas emissions scenario fetchingly entitled “Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5” (RCP8.5). In RCP8.5, humanity greatly boosts the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by increasing the amount of coal it burns five-fold. This scenario, instead of being treated as a very unlikely worst case, has been frequently described by climate researchers and journalists as a baseline for future emissions and temperature projections. In an email, Breakthrough Institute director of climate and energy Zeke Hausfather observes that the RCP8.5 “emissions scenario has been referred to a ‘business as usual’ in thousands of published papers.”

Consequently, it is not surprising that the climate change literature is replete with studies stoked with RCP8.5 worst-case emissions inputs concluding that business-as-usual ends in a worst-case global temperature apocalypse. For example, journalist David Wallace-Wells relied on RCP8.5 when he warned in his 2019 book, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, that “a five-degree increase in temperatures would make parts of the planet unsurvivable.”

“Model projections rely on two things to accurately match observations: accurate modeling of climate physics and accurate assumptions around future emissions of CO2 and other factors affecting the climate,” explain climate researchers in a new study in Geophysical Research Letters. “The best physics‐based model will still be inaccurate if it is driven by future changes in emissions that differ from reality.” They report that early climate models, once actual greenhouse gas and aerosol pollution emissions are inputted, have been pretty good at projecting global average temperature trends over the past three decades. This suggests, at least in the models evaluated in that study, that their internal physics are, broadly speaking, correct.

Critics of the RCP8.5 scenario, like climatologist Judith Curry, early on argued that it was being misused by researchers as a business-as-usual baseline to sketch out “horrific visions of the future.” Climate policy expert and University of Colorado political scientist Roger Pielke, Jr., is also a fierce critic of using RCP8.5 to generate what he says amounts to “climate porn.”

In the current issue of Nature, Hausfather and Glen P. Peters, the research director at the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo, Norway, urgently appeal to climate researchers to use more realistic emissions scenarios as baselines for the climate change projections to be reported in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report’s (AR6) due in April 2021.

Hausfather and Peters note that researchers have devised 5 Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) outlining various population, technological, and energy trends to use as inputs into the AR6 climate models. Taking into account the more plausible emissions scenarios among the SSPs, they conclude that “assessment of current policies suggests that the world is on course for around 3°C of warming above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.” They think that’s “still a catastrophic outcome,” but it’s a long way from 5°C projections based on the worst-case RCP8.5 scenario. Even climate doomster Wallace-Wells recently conceded about the climate future that “it’s not as bad as it once looked.”

“We must all—from physical scientists and climate-impact modelers to communicators
and policymakers—stop presenting the worst-case scenario as the most likely one. Overstating the likelihood of extreme climate impacts can make mitigation seem harder than it actually is,” they write. “This could lead to defeatism, because the problem is perceived as being out of control and unsolvable. Pressingly, it might result in poor planning, whereas a more realistic range of baseline scenarios will strengthen the assessment of climate risk.”

Climate porn is not business-as-usual and it’s getting in the way of devising real solutions to the climate change that humanity is most likely going to experience in this century.

Disclosure: I have had the pleasure of attending and participating in several Breakthrough Dialogues.

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Republican Senators Say the Truth Is Irrelevant in Evaluating the Gravity of Trump’s Misconduct

Donald Trump’s lawyers have vigorously disputed the facts alleged in the articles of impeachment against him. But their fallback, bottom-line argument, which is especially important now that former National Security Adviser John Bolton seems prepared to confirm the aid-for-investigations quid pro quo at the heart of the House’s case, is that the president’s conduct would not constitute an impeachable offense even if he did everything the Democrats say he did. Leaving aside the questionable merits of proceeding with a hasty, party-line impeachment less than a year before Trump faces re-election, that position sets a dangerous precedent that Republicans may come to regret.

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, a member of Trump’s legal team who used to agree with the scholarly consensus that impeachment does not require a criminal offense, changed his mind in 2018, then changed it again this year. His current position is that impeachment requires “criminal-like behavior akin to treason and bribery,” which for some reason does not include extorting the Ukrainian government into announcing an investigation of a political rival by delaying congressionally approved military aid.

Republican senators who dismiss the significance of Bolton’s potential testimony are leaning hard on that dubious conclusion. “I don’t think anything he says changes the facts,” Majority Whip John Thune (R–Thune) told CNN. “I think people kind of know what the fact pattern is….There’s already that evidence on the record.” Sen Kevin Cramer (R–N.D.) concurred: “I think Bolton sounds like a lot of the other witnesses, frankly. I don’t know that he’s got a lot new to add to it.”

Thune and Cramer, in other words, think Democrats have already established that Trump used the military aid as leverage to obtain the “favor” he wanted from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy: “a major investigation into the Bidens,” as the president himself put it. But although Trump and his lawyers have strenuously denied that nexus, Thune and Cramer say it does not matter.

Sens. Roger Wicker (R–Miss.), Roy Blunt (R–Mo.), Tim Scott (R–S.C.), John Cornyn (R–Texas), and Thom Tillis (R–N.C.) agreed that the quid pro quo is irrelevant to the question of whether Trump committed an impeachable offense. “I don’t think the testimony of Ambassador Bolton would be helpful because I basically am in agreement with the very scholarly approach that Mr. Dershowitz took that there’s no article there that’s grounds for impeachment and removal,” Wicker told CNN.

These senators’ incuriosity is more than a little troubling given the details of the accusations against Trump. Here are the key alleged facts, which for the sake of this argument we have to assume are true:

1. Trump did not really care about rooting out official corruption in Ukraine or any other legitimate foreign policy goal. He pressed the Ukrainian government to announce an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden because he hoped to improve his chances of winning another term by discrediting the Democratic presidential contender he views as the biggest threat to his re-election.

2. The claim that Biden improperly used his influence as vice president to protect his son from a Ukrainian corruption investigation, as Trump alleged in his July 25 phone call with Zelenskiy, is transparently spurious. In pressing for the removal of Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, Biden was simply implementing Obama administration policy, which was consistent with a widely held view that Shokin was ineffectual and corrupt. Hence there was no legitimate reason for the Ukrainian government to investigate Biden.

3. Trump was so keen on tarnishing Biden that he jeopardized Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russian aggression and compromised U.S. foreign policy goals, to the dismay of all his top advisers and members of Congress from both parties.

4. Trump was so keen on tarnishing Biden that he did not care whether his aid freeze was legal, which it wasn’t, or whether he was unconstitutionally usurping the legislative branch’s authority to appropriate taxpayer money, which he was.

5. To cover up this unseemly scheme, Trump lied over and over again about what he did and why, and he stonewalled the House’s attempt to investigate the matter by refusing to provide relevant documents and telling current and former administration officials that they should not testify.

Some of these claims are well-established, while some rely mainly on circumstantial evidence and debatable inferences that could be reinforced by Bolton’s testimony. But Thune et al. say the truth of these allegations is irrelevant for the purpose of deciding whether Trump’s removal is constitutionally justified. Or as Dershowitz put it, “Nothing in the Bolton revelations—even if true—would rise to the level of an abuse of power or an impeachable offense.”

Suppose Bolton testified that Trump told him, in so many words, that he was blocking the military aid to Ukraine solely because he wanted to undermine Biden as a presidential candidate by making him look corrupt. In Dershowitz’s view, apparently, that would not constitute even an abuse of power, let alone an impeachable offense.

The Democrats say Trump abused his power for personal gain by encouraging a foreign government to unfairly impugn the integrity of a political rival. To further that goal, they say, he violated the law (the Impoundment Control Act), the Constitution (by disregarding the separation of powers), and his oath of office (in which he promised to “faithfully execute” his office and “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”). If the allegations against him are true, Trump also undermined the rule of law in Ukraine by encouraging Zelenskiy to abuse his power, since an investigation of Biden was justified only by Trump’s domestic political interests.

This is the Republican response, which we should keep in mind the next time a Democrat occupies the White House: So what?

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Senators Collins, Romney, and Murkowski ask about how to consider mixed motives

Today, the Senators are posing written questions to counsel for both sides. The first question came from Senator Collins of Maine, who asked the question on behalf of herself, Senator Murkowski of Alaska, and Senator Romney of Utah. (You can find the clip at about 1:16 p.m ET). Here is my rough transcript:

Collins: Mr. Chief Justice, I send a question to the desk  on behalf of myself, Senator Murkowski, and Senator Romney.

Roberts: This is a question for the counsel for the President. If President Trump had more than one motive for his alleged conduct, such as the pursuit of personal political advantage, rooting out corruption, and the promotion of national interest, how should the Senate consider more than one motive in its assessment of Article I.

Senator Romney also tweeted this question (#2 on the list):

This question echoes my writings on Article I.

The President’s lawyer, Patrick Philbin, responded that an action with mixed motives “could not possibly be the basis for an impeachable offense.” If there is both some “personal” motive and some “legitimate public interest” motive, it could not be impeachable. He asked a hypothetical about what the relevant standard is to impeach: is it “48% legitimate, and 52% personal”? He added, “you can’t divide it that way.” The House must establish “there is no public interest at all.”

The next portion of Philbin’s answer is very, very similar to the argument I advanced in the Times, which Alan Dershowitz quoted from. Here is my rough transcript:

If there is something that shows a possible public interest, and the President could have that possible public interest motive, that destroys their case. So once you are into mixed motives land, it is clear that their case fails. That can’t possibly be an impeachable offense at all. All elected officials to some extent have in mind how their conduct, how their policy decisions, will affect the next election. There is always some personal interest in the electoral outcome of policy decisions. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s part of representative democracy…If you have some part motive for personal electoral gain, that will somehow become an offense–it doesn’t make any sense. That is totally unworkable. And it can’t be the basis for removing a President.

Philbin concluded that the issues that President Trump discussed with the Ukrainian President “raised some public interest.” It was “at least worth asking some question about it.”

H/T to Peter Hurley for pointing out this exchange. I was on the road today and did not catch it live.

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Worst-Case ‘Climate Porn’ Is Counterproductive to Addressing Real Climate Change

Predictions of catastrophic climate change by the end of this century are mostly based on a greenhouse gas emissions scenario fetchingly entitled “Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5” (RCP8.5). In RCP8.5, humanity greatly boosts the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by increasing the amount of coal it burns five-fold. This scenario, instead of being treated as a very unlikely worst case, has been frequently described by climate researchers and journalists as a baseline for future emissions and temperature projections. In an email, Breakthrough Institute director of climate and energy Zeke Hausfather observes that the RCP8.5 “emissions scenario has been referred to a ‘business as usual’ in thousands of published papers.”

Consequently, it is not surprising that the climate change literature is replete with studies stoked with RCP8.5 worst-case emissions inputs concluding that business-as-usual ends in a worst-case global temperature apocalypse. For example, journalist David Wallace-Wells relied on RCP8.5 when he warned in his 2019 book, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, that “a five-degree increase in temperatures would make parts of the planet unsurvivable.”

“Model projections rely on two things to accurately match observations: accurate modeling of climate physics and accurate assumptions around future emissions of CO2 and other factors affecting the climate,” explain climate researchers in a new study in Geophysical Research Letters. “The best physics‐based model will still be inaccurate if it is driven by future changes in emissions that differ from reality.” They report that early climate models, once actual greenhouse gas and aerosol pollution emissions are inputted, have been pretty good at projecting global average temperature trends over the past three decades. This suggests, at least in the models evaluated in that study, that their internal physics are, broadly speaking, correct.

Critics of the RCP8.5 scenario, like climatologist Judith Curry, early on argued that it was being misused by researchers as a business-as-usual baseline to sketch out “horrific visions of the future.” Climate policy expert and University of Colorado political scientist Roger Pielke, Jr., is also a fierce critic of using RCP8.5 to generate what he says amounts to “climate porn.”

In the current issue of Nature, Hausfather and Glen P. Peters, the research director at the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo, Norway, urgently appeal to climate researchers to use more realistic emissions scenarios as baselines for the climate change projections to be reported in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report’s (AR6) due in April 2021.

Hausfather and Peters note that researchers have devised 5 Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) outlining various population, technological, and energy trends to use as inputs into the AR6 climate models. Taking into account the more plausible emissions scenarios among the SSPs, they conclude that “assessment of current policies suggests that the world is on course for around 3°C of warming above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.” They think that’s “still a catastrophic outcome,” but it’s a long way from 5°C projections based on the worst-case RCP8.5 scenario. Even climate doomster Wallace-Wells recently conceded about the climate future that “it’s not as bad as it once looked.”

“We must all—from physical scientists and climate-impact modelers to communicators
and policymakers—stop presenting the worst-case scenario as the most likely one. Overstating the likelihood of extreme climate impacts can make mitigation seem harder than it actually is,” they write. “This could lead to defeatism, because the problem is perceived as being out of control and unsolvable. Pressingly, it might result in poor planning, whereas a more realistic range of baseline scenarios will strengthen the assessment of climate risk.”

Climate porn is not business-as-usual and it’s getting in the way of devising real solutions to the climate change that humanity is most likely going to experience in this century.

Disclosure: I have had the pleasure of attending and participating in several Breakthrough Dialogues.

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Republican Senators Say the Truth Is Irrelevant in Evaluating the Gravity of Trump’s Misconduct

Donald Trump’s lawyers have vigorously disputed the facts alleged in the articles of impeachment against him. But their fallback, bottom-line argument, which is especially important now that former National Security Adviser John Bolton seems prepared to confirm the aid-for-investigations quid pro quo at the heart of the House’s case, is that the president’s conduct would not constitute an impeachable offense even if he did everything the Democrats say he did. Leaving aside the questionable merits of proceeding with a hasty, party-line impeachment less than a year before Trump faces re-election, that position sets a dangerous precedent that Republicans may come to regret.

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, a member of Trump’s legal team who used to agree with the scholarly consensus that impeachment does not require a criminal offense, changed his mind in 2018, then changed it again this year. His current position is that impeachment requires “criminal-like behavior akin to treason and bribery,” which for some reason does not include extorting the Ukrainian government into announcing an investigation of a political rival by delaying congressionally approved military aid.

Republican senators who dismiss the significance of Bolton’s potential testimony are leaning hard on that dubious conclusion. “I don’t think anything he says changes the facts,” Majority Whip John Thune (R–Thune) told CNN. “I think people kind of know what the fact pattern is….There’s already that evidence on the record.” Sen Kevin Cramer (R–N.D.) concurred: “I think Bolton sounds like a lot of the other witnesses, frankly. I don’t know that he’s got a lot new to add to it.”

Thune and Cramer, in other words, think Democrats have already established that Trump used the military aid as leverage to obtain the “favor” he wanted from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy: “a major investigation into the Bidens,” as the president himself put it. But although Trump and his lawyers have strenuously denied that nexus, Thune and Cramer say it does not matter.

Sens. Roger Wicker (R–Miss.), Roy Blunt (R–Mo.), Tim Scott (R–S.C.), John Cornyn (R–Texas), and Thom Tillis (R–N.C.) agreed that the quid pro quo is irrelevant to the question of whether Trump committed an impeachable offense. “I don’t think the testimony of Ambassador Bolton would be helpful because I basically am in agreement with the very scholarly approach that Mr. Dershowitz took that there’s no article there that’s grounds for impeachment and removal,” Wicker told CNN.

These senators’ incuriosity is more than a little troubling given the details of the accusations against Trump. Here are the key alleged facts, which for the sake of this argument we have to assume are true:

1. Trump did not really care about rooting out official corruption in Ukraine or any other legitimate foreign policy goal. He pressed the Ukrainian government to announce an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden because he hoped to improve his chances of winning another term by discrediting the Democratic presidential contender he views as the biggest threat to his re-election.

2. The claim that Biden improperly used his influence as vice president to protect his son from a Ukrainian corruption investigation, as Trump alleged in his July 25 phone call with Zelenskiy, is transparently spurious. In pressing for the removal of Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, Biden was simply implementing Obama administration policy, which was consistent with a widely held view that Shokin was ineffectual and corrupt. Hence there was no legitimate reason for the Ukrainian government to investigate Biden.

3. Trump was so keen on tarnishing Biden that he jeopardized Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russian aggression and compromised U.S. foreign policy goals, to the dismay of all his top advisers and members of Congress from both parties.

4. Trump was so keen on tarnishing Biden that he did not care whether his aid freeze was legal, which it wasn’t, or whether he was unconstitutionally usurping the legislative branch’s authority to appropriate taxpayer money, which he was.

5. To cover up this unseemly scheme, Trump lied over and over again about what he did and why, and he stonewalled the House’s attempt to investigate the matter by refusing to provide relevant documents and telling current and former administration officials that they should not testify.

Some of these claims are well-established, while some rely mainly on circumstantial evidence and debatable inferences that could be reinforced by Bolton’s testimony. But Thune et al. say the truth of these allegations is irrelevant for the purpose of deciding whether Trump’s removal is constitutionally justified. Or as Dershowitz put it, “Nothing in the Bolton revelations—even if true—would rise to the level of an abuse of power or an impeachable offense.”

Suppose Bolton testified that Trump told him, in so many words, that he was blocking the military aid to Ukraine solely because he wanted to undermine Biden as a presidential candidate by making him look corrupt. In Dershowitz’s view, apparently, that would not constitute even an abuse of power, let alone an impeachable offense.

The Democrats say Trump abused his power for personal gain by encouraging a foreign government to unfairly impugn the integrity of a political rival. To further that goal, they say, he violated the law (the Impoundment Control Act), the Constitution (by disregarding the separation of powers), and his oath of office (in which he promised to “faithfully execute” his office and “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”). If the allegations against him are true, Trump also undermined the rule of law in Ukraine by encouraging Zelenskiy to abuse his power, since an investigation of Biden was justified only by Trump’s domestic political interests.

This is the Republican response, which we should keep in mind the next time a Democrat occupies the White House: So what?

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Localism in the 2020s (Part 4) – Creating More Voluntary Unions

Disclaimer: I don’t have answers to everything. In fact, I probably don’t have answers to anything at all, just some thoughts on what’s wrong with the structure of governance around the world (it’s too centralized and authoritarian) and some general ideas about what direction we should head in.

Given the increased likelihood that all sorts of things about the current paradigm will begin to fail in a more acute and undeniable manner in the years ahead, well intentioned people capable of critical thought should begin contemplating how things could be as opposed to how they are. Ideally, this will lead to increased action and experimentation, particularly at a local level. Never forget, if we don’t come up with our own ideas and perspectives for how things should be, others will be more than happy to decide for us.

More than anything else this piece should be seen as a thought exercise of how I would try to structure things if presented with a blank slate opportunity. 

In Part 3 of this series, I outlined a framework of sovereignty beginning with the individual, progressing to family, municipality/county, state and finally country. Though the broadest scope of decision making should always reside with the individual, the reality of social relations means some individual autonomy is relinquished as sovereign units grow to include more and more people. It’s part of human nature to expand beyond ourselves and our families into larger and more complex social relationships, but far more thought should be directed at the dangers and uncertainties that arise as these units start to include increased degrees of geography and population.

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Watch Live: Jay Powell Soothes Fraying Nerves At Fed Press Conference

Watch Live: Jay Powell Soothes Fraying Nerves At Fed Press Conference

Somebody do something!? Stock markets are down (maybe 1 or 2% from record highs) and while bond yields, commodities, and foreign stocks all signaling anxiety over global growth due to the coronavirus, it seems US traders remain convinced that The Fed can tamp down any global pandemic fears with its liquidity spigot…

So while no mention was made in the statement (not expected), all eyes and ears will be on Powell’s presser now to promise something, anything to save us all…

Watch Live (scheduled to begin at 1430ET):


Tyler Durden

Wed, 01/29/2020 – 14:27

Tags
Business Finance

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