South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg has been unrolling more and more policy proposals as his polling numbers rise in Iowa, putting him in the same tier as Democratic presidential front-runners Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.), former Vice President Joe Biden, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.).
On Friday, Buttigieg revealed “An Economic Agenda for American Families: Empowering Working and Middle Class Americans to Thrive,” his expensive proposal to push for even greater amounts of federal spending and regulation in housing, child care, college, and the workplace.
This is hardly a surprise from a Democratic candidate, even a self-styled moderate like Buttigieg. He says in the proposal’s introduction that he “doesn’t mean government taking over the economy.” But he nevertheless argues that government is supposed to have a “vigorous presence” in our economy to make sure it “actually works for all.”
And by “vigorous,” we’re talking about $1 trillion in new federal spending in housing and child care over a decade, not unlike Warren’s own proposals. Buttigieg wants to spend $430 billion dollars in federal funds to “unlock access to affordable housing” for more than seven million families. He wants to do so by using various federal grant funds to send more money to local governments to fund housing programs.
While that’s better than having the federal government directly decide what gets built, what he’s really doing is increasing spending on existing programs and propagating the perpetual political obsession with homeownership as the ultimate goal of housing policy. And he’s talking about sending more money to programs like the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), a program that has been plagued by local officials directing money away from projects and programs to help the poor to those that help their friends, or even themselves. More CDBG grant funding gets spent on local government projects than on housing.
As always, government involvement in housing development turns it into a big gravy train that rewards those who are connected and have the ears of local officials. Often times, government-mandated affordable housing is anything but, thanks to the competing demands and interests of both government officials and those who lobby them for a piece of that funding. Consider, for example, prevailing wage regulations that affect both federal and sometimes local construction costs, setting an artificial floor on construction costs typically based on what local unionized workers make. Prevailing wage laws are an example of the government putting the thumb on the scales in favor of connected union officials. Since California mandates that low-income housing developers pay laborers the “prevailing wage,” this inevitably jacks up the cost of such housing. The result: housing shortages.
Buttigieg’s housing plan is not all horrible, at least on paper. He appears to be keenly aware that zoning laws contribute to housing shortages, particularly in big cities, and says that he wants to “work with states and cities to reform zoning laws to make it easier to build housing for working and middle-class families.” That’s a nice sentiment that unfortunately has little to do with the role of the president.
Buttigieg wants to spend a cool $700 billion in federal funds on pre-kindergarten and after-school programs, justifying it as a tool to allow parents to “participate as fully in the labor market as they choose.” His campaign says he’ll be going after the typical Democratic whipping boy—the capital gains tax rate—to try to raise the money for this spending.
For college costs, Buttigieg wants to spend another $500 billion to make public college tuition free for families who earn less than $100,000 a year. Buttigieg notes that college price tags have tripled in the past three decades but completely fails to note how much of it is a result of dramatic increases in administrative costs and non-faculty staffing. And the subsidies that the feds have been providing to colleges have a very clear connection to colleges raising tuition rates. Buttigieg’s proposal flippantly deals with this clear economics 101 problem with a simple, “To keep tuition costs in check, in exchange for receiving federal dollars states will guarantee to invest in their public higher education systems and constrain tuition increases.” That doesn’t actually mean anything other than a vague suggestion that colleges will have to justify tuition increases through whatever boilerplate language they’ve been using all along.
And to be clear, there will be increases, and not just because of the federal subsidies here. A good chunk of Buttigieg’s proposal also talks about raising incomes, expanding tax credits, passing a $15 minimum wage, giving every American 12 weeks of comprehensive paid family and medical leave, and increasing wages for teachers. He says he wants to double union membership across the United States and end “right-to-work” laws.
All of these labor promises, if they ever went into effect nationwide, would drive up the costs of everything that Buttigieg says he wants to make “more accessible” to more Americans. In California, for instance, government labor demands (and lawsuits against developers that resist) have driven up housing costs. When President Barack Obama proposed free community college to students back in 2015, the price tag of the cost jumped from $60 to $90 billion just during the process of drafting a bill. It also included a whole host of institutional reforms to “improve student outcomes,” by which the Obama administration meant more spending on student support services outside the lecture hall. This fundamentally meant creating even more non-faculty college positions, thereby driving up, not down, the price of college.
This isn’t a policy paper. It’s a fantasy wish list with no relationship to reality.
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By now, it is exceedingly obvious that the global elite absolutely hate Donald Trump. No president in U.S. history has faced such a relentless assault by the corporate media, and there have been attempts to sabotage his presidency at every turn. Miraculously, Trump has survived all of these attacks so far, but now the specter of impeachment looms large over his administration. The Democrats have a solid majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, they are working quickly toward drafting articles of impeachment, and they actually hope to have Trump impeached by Christmas Day. But in order to have Trump removed from office, 67 votes will be needed in the Senate, and right now Democrats only control 47 of those seats. It was always going to be tough for Democrats to get 20 Republicans in the Senate to turn on Trump, but they have bungled this process so badly that they might not end up getting any at all.
That scenario will become even more likely if House Republicans stand solidly united behind Trump, and at this point even the Washington Post is admitting that there is a possibility “that not a single House Republican” will vote for the articles of impeachment…
Congressional Republicans are sticking with their party leader in the face of thousands of pages of evidence showing President Trump leveraged foreign policy for political favors, raising the possibility that not a single House Republican will vote for his impeachment.
Of course it will only take a simple majority to impeach Trump in the House, and Democrats will be able to do that with no problem, but it appears that the effort to remove Trump will be completely dead when it gets to the Senate.
Yes, things could still change and this is a very fluid situation, but as things stand today it seems that Trump is safe.
So what are the elite going to do if impeachment fails?
They are facing the prospect that Trump could actually win again in 2020, and that would mean that he would remain in the White House until January 2025.
For many among the elite, such a scenario must be avoided at all costs. And the quickest way to get the general public to turn on any president is for the economy to crumble.
This is one of the reasons why some prominent voices on the left have been openly wishing for a recession. For example, just check out what Bill Maher said not too long ago…
“I’ve been saying for about two years that I hope we have a recession and people get mad at me,” said Maher, a multimillionaire who would likely be well insulated from a financial downturn.
“I’m just saying we can survive a recession,” he continued. “We’ve had 47 of them. We’ve had one every time there’s a Republican president! They don’t last forever, You know what lasts forever? Wiping out species!”
Maher is literally wishing for economic pain for more than 300 million Americans just so that another four years of Trump can be avoided.
That is how obsessed some of these radicals are with getting rid of Trump.
And without a doubt, the performance of the economy could be Trump’s Achilles heel. Whenever any piece of good economic news comes out, he eagerly takes credit for it, and he has publicly warned that there will be an economic crash if a Democrat wins in 2020…
President Donald Trump predicted doom if he isn’t re-elected in 2020, saying that the economy would “CRASH” like it did during the Great Depression.
In a tweet Wednesday morning, the president called the crowded field of Democratic challengers “clowns” and compared the prospects of one of them winning to the stock market collapse of 1929.
Even though many Democrats on Wall Street absolutely hate Trump, it is undeniable that they have made out very well while he has been in the White House. In fact, only three presidents have seen the stock market perform better during their first three years in office…
Stock market performance in first three years since Trump’s election, then, ranks fourth among the 14 elected presidents since Herbert Hoover. That’s pretty good! It’s worth noting, though, that there’s not a whole lot separating him from John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. A bad week or two, and he could easily fall to eighth place. On the other hand, falling to ninth would take some work, as would catching up to Dwight Eisenhower for third. Put into letter grades, I’d give the market’s performance since Trump’s election a solid B.
But what happens if the stock market crashes and the U.S. economy plunges into a deep recession in 2020?
Well, just as Trump has been getting credit for the good things that have happened in recent years, he would also get the blame if things got really bad.
Of course that wouldn’t actually be fair, because the truth is that the Federal Reserve actually has far more influence over the performance of the economy and the performance of the stock market than the president does.
But the general public does not understand these things.
When things really start to fall apart, people are going to blame whoever is in the White House, and since Trump was so eager to take credit when things were going good he won’t have any way to avoid the blame when things severely deteriorate.
So would the global elite really resort to “the nuclear option” of crashing the economy in order to prevent Trump from winning the next election?
You never know, but it is entirely possible. Today, debt is the lifeblood of our economy, and if the big banks started to tighten up the flow of credit that would begin to slow down our economy immediately. And as I noted yesterday, we are already starting to see banks deny loans to farmers in the middle of the country on a widespread basis. The tighter that lenders become with their money, the worse that our economy will do, and this is something that we should be watching closely.
The stock market is also a potential flashpoint. Right now, insiders are selling off their stocks “at the fastest pace in two decades”, and valuations are ridiculously inflated. Companies that are losing giant mountains of money every single year are supposedly worth billions of dollars, and the market has been going up for so long that most investors have completely forgotten about 2008. But at some point this entire charade is going to come crashing down, and it wouldn’t take very much of a “push” to make that happen.
There is an even bigger bubble in the bond market. Today, there is 188 trillion dollars of debt in the global financial system, and those at the very top of the economic food chain control much of that debt. Could it be possible that they would be willing to unleash a bit of chaos in order to achieve their political goals?
I don’t think that the global elite really want to go through a major crisis, but at this point for many of them just about anything is preferable to four more years of Trump.
We are less than two months away from 2020, and I truly believe that it will be the most chaotic year that any of us have seen in a very long time.
There are a lot of very powerful people that are absolutely determined to keep Trump from winning this upcoming election, and they would be willing to do just about anything in order to make that happen.
And when you’re ‘extremely” greedy, you don’t need hedges… hence the “put-puke” – which saw a very modest reversal today after days of collapse…
Source: Bloomberg
And, thanks to Trump’s comments and China Global Times’ “lies” response, the market’s pricing of a US-China trade deal slipped…
Source: Bloomberg
Which sent US equity markets red after hope-filled overnight markets expected something great from Trump’s speech, (but Larry Kudlow came on CNBC around 1500ET and jawboned stocks and then a well-timed headline on tax cuts lifted stocks a little more)…
Source: Bloomberg
Big reversal in cyclical stocks today as hope for Trump’s trade speech faded…
Source: Bloomberg
Shorts were squeezed at the open once again BUT this time it was different as “most shorted” stocks were slammed lower…
Source: Bloomberg
The recent series of fresh record highs for U.S. stocks is not being matched by a gauge of broader market strength, suggesting the gains should be treated with caution.
As Bloomberg reports, The McClellan Oscillator, a measure of breadth momentum, is trading below zero — an “unusually weak reading” with the S&P 500 Index at all-time highs, according to Sundial Capital Research Inc. founder Jason Goepfert. The divergence is a modest near-term negative for stocks, having preceded poor short-term returns in the past, he wrote in a note Monday.
And the SMART Money flow remains unimpressed…
Source: Bloomberg
Having reopened after yesterday’s Veterans Day closure, bonds were bid today…
Source: Bloomberg
A massive 10-part $30 bn debt issue from Abbvie (to fund its purchase of Allergan) perhaps explains the surge in yields late last week as managers enacted rate-locks…
Source: Bloomberg
Meanwhile, elsewhere in bond-land, it appears the idea of Legere taking over as CEO has done nothing for WeWork as its bonds collapse to new record lows (yield now at 14.5%)…
Source: Bloomberg
And just in case you wondered, the cost of hedging against a Chinese currency devaluation or sovereign debt crisis is the lowest sine 2008…
Source: Bloomberg
The dollar rallied for the 6th day of the last 7…
Source: Bloomberg
Offshore Yuan slipped lower today as trade deal odds fell…
Source: Bloomberg
The Chilean Peso plummeted to a record low, over 800/USD for the first time…
Source: Bloomberg
Cryptos were somewhat volatile today but ended almost unch…
Source: Bloomberg
Commodities were divergent today with crude and copper sliding as PMs rallied late on…
Source: Bloomberg
Gold was hit multiple times but rebounded each time and ended marginally higher…
Finally it seems the upside momo from trade headlines has been used up as markets seemed more comfortable selling rips today on any hesitation…
“Tax Cut 2.0” Is Back: Trump Exploring Cutting Rate On “Middle Class” To 15%
It’s November again, only to the Trump administration it is 2018 once more instead of 2019: after all, it was one year ago, just before the midterm elections, that the White House floated “tax cut 2.0” to boost popular support for Republicans with no success.
Fast forward to today when on Tuesday first Larry Kudlow hinted, then the WaPo reported that Trump’s economic advisers are exploring whether the president should campaign for reelection proposing a 15% tax rate for the American middle class, with some seeing the idea as a simple way of selling Republicans’ economic agenda as not merely beneficial to the rich, according to multiple people involved in the White House’s internal deliberations over “tax cut 2.0.”
As a reminder, weeks before the 2018 midterms, Trump suddenly floated a 10% tax cut for the middle class, saying he was working on a “very major tax cut for middle-income people.” Talk of that plan fizzled after the election and a concrete proposal never materialized.
So with the presidential election now less than a year away, it’s time to re-float this idea once more.
According to the WsPo report, Trump’s top economic advisor and the head of the National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow, is spearheading the effort behind Trump’s second tax cut package and is widely seen as a leading proponent of the new 15% rate. While it is unclear if Trump has approved the idea, the president has pushed aides to develop a simple tax message for 2020 focused on middle class tax relief.
Unfortunately for Trump, just like in 2018, the popular response has been noticeably muted as the US middle-class no longer believes the president: the White House has faced sharp criticism for its 2017 tax cut law, because its tax cuts ended up helping the wealthiest almost exclusively. The new plan is unlikely to pass Congress before the 2020 election but would give the White House a specific plan to present to voters during next year’s presidential campaign.
Meanwhile, the US would somehow need to issue even more debt to fund what is now an out of control budget deficit, to wit:
Reducing the tax rate to 15 percent for middle-class taxpayers could lower taxes by trillions of dollars over 10 years, according to budget experts, although precise estimates are impossible given that details remain vague. Doing so would free up much more money for Americans to spend, but it would also dramatically add to the deficit unless the cuts were offset by major spending reductions throughout the federal government. The GOP tax law of 2017 already added more than $1.5 trillion to the national debt.
Kudlow declined to comment on what the administration was considering, but stressed in an interview that the process is still in its preliminary stages and that no final decisions have been made.
“[Trump] wants to afford as much relief and simplicity as possible for middle-income taxpayers,” he said.
In addition to a middle-class tax cut, the White House has been discussing other ideas including a payroll tax cut, revamping how capital gains are taxed, exempting savings from taxes, and reducing the number of tax brackets from seven to somewhere around three or four, according to Stephen Moore, a Heritage Foundation tax expert who has worked with the White House on tax policy.
The irony continues: with some of the more rabidly progressive presidential candidates having virtually promised free “everything” to get elected, Democrats have dismissed talk of a second round of tax cuts as a way for Trump to deflect from controversial parts of the 2017 legislation, which permanently cut taxes for corporations but only temporarily cut taxes for individuals. Speaking in New York on Tuesday, Trump defended the 2017 tax cut, saying it had provided “massive relief” for middle class families.
“We think we can bring it down still more,” Trump said of U.S. tax rates.
Perhaps he is right, but the question is will that do anything for most Americans?
“Depending on where it starts, a 15 percent rate would be a relatively small tax cut for middle income people,” said Michael Linden, a tax expert at the Roosevelt Institute, a left-leaning think-tank. “This is an acknowledgement that Republicans’ original tax plan was heavily skewed to the wealthy, the middle got almost nothing, and people at the bottom got literally nothing. I’m not sure having a second go at it is going to solve anything.”
More vividly, Linden laid out an example according to which a single filer making $50,000 would receive a tax cut of $0. A married couple making $100,000 would receive a tax cut of $0.
Just for context here, a single filer making $50,000 would receive a tax cut of $0.
Practical implications of “tax cut 2.0” notwithstanding, expect to hear much more about upcoming “middle class cut” in the coming weeks, especially if the trade deal with China “mysteriously” fails to materialize…
Real estate tycoon Ben Shaoul has sold a retail condo in Manhattan’s prestigious Upper East Side for $15.3 million in Bitcoin. The news was reported by New York real estate magazine The Real Deal on Nov. 1.
Shaoul – who is president of the Magnum Real Estate Group – sold the 11,400-square-foot property to a Taiwan-based entity “Affluent International LCC,” according to a person familiar with the deal.
Luxury properties increasingly bought and sold for BTC
While Shaoul himself has reportedly declined to comment, Eric Hedvat — a broker with Jet Real Estate, which represented Magnum in the deal — characterized the transaction as “a seamless process.”
Magnum reportedly went into contract with two other buyers in the same building using Bitcoin in 2018 — one for a 624-square-foot studio at an asking price of $875,000 and the other a 989-square-foot one-bedroom at $1.48 million.
Another of Shaoul’s residential developments had been listed with an option to purchase using Bitcoin but was eventually sold for cash to Bronx-based investor Martin Shapiro last year for $82 million.
Beyond Magnum, the Real Deal notes that Brooklyn-based rental management company announced in 2018 that it would be accepting cryptocurrency as payment.
A current listing for a $29 million property on the Upper East Side, marketed by Corocan, notes the seller will “accept payment in Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Ripple.”
Use Bitcoin to buy a 19th-century English church
Earlier this fall, Cointelegraph reported that a 150-year-old English church was listed for sale at $1.5 million, either in Bitcoin or fiat currency.
Blockchain, the technology underpinning Bitcoin, is also increasingly being implemented to cement ownership rights for real estate and business in order to mitigate fraud in land registries.
Complaint Alleges Whistleblower Accepted $230K In Illegal Gifts Via GoFundMe Page
A complaint filed to the Intelligence Community’s Inspector General has accused the Ukraine whistleblower, believed to be a CIA operative named Eric Ciaramella, of violating federal law by soliciting money and gifts via a GoFundMe page that has so far raised nearly $230,000, Fox News reports.
Fox only just received a copy of the complaint, which was filed last week. It alleges that the donations from roughly 6,000 individuals “clearly constitute” gifts to a current intelligence official, which may be restricted because of the employee’s official position pursuant to 5 CFR 2635.203 and other statutes.
The complaint also raised the possibility that some of the donations may have come from prohibited sources, and urged the ICIG to investigate whether any “foreign citizen or agent of a foreign government” contributed.
Tully Rinckey, the whistleblower’s law firm, is refusing to comment on his identity despite several reports claiming to identify the whistleblower. However, they have at least confirmed that the holder of the top-secret SCI security clearance has served in government.
The fundraising page claims that “donations will only be accepted from US citizens.” But most of the donors who have contributed were not named, and it’s likely the ICIG will need to subpoena GoFundMe to learn the identities of all 6,000+ donors.
For the record, the whistleblower’s law firm isn’t trying to obscure the campaign. In fact, they have insinuated that they started the campaign on behalf of their client, perhaps because of the tremendous legal bills that he will likely be saddled with from his campaign to undermine the president.
The whistleblower’s attorneys have called the GoFundMe a way to “help support the Intelligence Community Whistleblower [to] raise funds,” and the GoFundMe page itself states that “A U.S. intelligence officer… needs your help” in the form of a “crowdfunding effort to support the whistleblower’s lawyers.”
Though the ICIG’s office refused to comment on the case for Fox, it’s worth noting that the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) warned federal government employees earlier this year that they “may not accept any gift given because of the employee’s official position,” meaning that the gift would “not have been given had the employee not held the status, authority, or duties associated with the employee’s federal position.”
Still, some pundits insisted they thought the fund raiser would probably qualify as legal. Others said one could argue that the donations count as a “gift”, and are therefore illegal.
Whatever happens, it’s a moot point. Because it’s likely the whistleblower’s law firm will take every cent of that money in “fees”.
Let’s see what shape I can give this. I was reading a piece by Byron York that has the first good read-out I’ve seen of the October 29 deposition by Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, self-labeled no. 1 Ukraine expert at the National Security Counsel, and I want to share that in a summarized form, with my comments. There’ll be some longer quotes though. And I know there are people who may not like York, but just skip his opinions and focus on the facts then.
Overall, Vindman comes across to me as a bureaucrat among bureaucrats, who also appears to be on the edge what we think of when we mention the Deep State. And who seems to think his views and opinions trump Trump’s own. “.. his greatest worry was that if the Trump-Zelensky conversation were made public, then Ukraine might lose the bipartisan support it currently has in Congress.”
A US President is elected to determine foreign policy, but Vindman doesn’t like things that way. He wants the policy to be set by people like him. It brings to mind Nikki Haley saying that Tillerson and Kelly wanted her to disobey the President, because they felt they knew better. That slide is mighty slippery. And unconstitutional too.
And the suspicion that Vindman’s report of the call may be what set off “whistleblowing” CIA agent Eric Ciaramella is more alive after the testimony than before. But, conveniently, his name may not be spoken. For pete’s sake, Vindman Even Testified He Advised Ukrainians to Ignore Trump.
House Democrats conducted their impeachment interviews in secret, but Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman still emerged as star of the show. Appearing at his Oct. 29 deposition in full dress uniform, the decorated Army officer, now a White House National Security Council Ukraine expert, was the first witness who had actually listened to the phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that is at the heart of the Democratic impeachment campaign. Even though lawmakers were forbidden to discuss his testimony in public, Vindman’s leaked opening statement that “I did not think it was proper [for Trump] to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen” exploded on news reports.
Here are four problems with the Vindman testimony:
1) Beyond his opinions, he had few new facts to offer.
[..] Indeed, Vindman attested to the overall accuracy of the rough transcript, contrary to some impeachment supporters who have suggested the White House is hiding an exact transcript that would reveal everything Trump said to the Ukrainian president. As one of a half-dozen White House note-takers listening to the call, Vindman testified that he tried unsuccessfully to make a few edits to the rough transcript as it was being prepared. In particular, Vindman believed that Zelensky specifically said the word “Burisma,” the corrupt Ukrainian energy company that hired Hunter Biden, when the rough transcript referred only to “the company.” But beyond that, Vindman had no problems with the transcript, and he specifically said he did not believe any changes were made with ill intent.
“You don’t think there was any malicious intent to specifically not add those edits?” asked Republican counsel Steve Castor. “I don’t think so.” “So otherwise, this record is complete and I think you used the term ‘very accurate’?” “Yes,” said Vindman. Once Vindman had vouched for the rough transcript, his testimony mostly concerned his own interpretation of Trump’s words. And that interpretation, as Vindman discovered during questioning, was itself open to interpretation. Vindman said he was “concerned” about Trump’s statements to Zelensky, so concerned that he reported it to top National Security Council lawyer John Eisenberg. (Vindman had also reported concerns to Eisenberg two weeks before the Trump-Zelensky call, after a Ukraine-related meeting that included Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union.)
Vindman said several times that he was not a lawyer and did not know if Trump’s words amounted to a crime but that he felt they were “wrong.” That was when Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe, a former U.S. attorney, tried to get to the root of Vindman’s concerns. What was really bothering him? “I’m trying to find out if you were reporting it because you thought there was something wrong with respect to policy or there was something wrong with respect to the law,” Ratcliffe said to Vindman. “And what I understand you to say is that you weren’t certain that there was anything improper with respect to the law, but you had concerns about U.S. policy. Is that a fair characterization?”
“So I would recharacterize it as I thought it was wrong and I was sharing those views,” Vindman answered. “And I was deeply concerned about the implications for bilateral relations, U.S. national security interests, in that if this was exposed, it would be seen as a partisan play by Ukraine. It loses the bipartisan support. And then for — ” “I understand that,” Ratcliffe said, “but that sounds like a policy reason, not a legal reason.” Indeed it did.
Elsewhere in Vindman’s testimony, he repeated that his greatest worry was that if the Trump-Zelensky conversation were made public, then Ukraine might lose the bipartisan support it currently has in Congress. That, to Ratcliffe and other Republicans, did not seem a sufficient reason to report the call to the NSC’s top lawyer, nor did it seem the basis to begin a process leading to impeachment and a charge of presidential high crimes or misdemeanors.
So Vindman was so concerned that he contacted the National Security Council (NSC) top lawyer, John Eisenberg. However, when John Ratcliffe asked Vindman: “I’m trying to find out if you were reporting it because you thought there was something wrong with respect to policy or there was something wrong with respect to the law..”, it turns out, it was about policy, not the law. So why did he contact Eisenberg? He doesn’t know the difference, or pretends he doesn’t know? Moreover, Eisenberg’s not the only person Vindman contacted. There were lots of others. And remember, this is sensitive material. Vindman was listening in on the President’s phone call with a foreign leader, in itself a strange event. Presidents and PM’s should be able to expect confidentiality.
2) Vindman withheld important information from investigators.
Vindman ended his opening statement in the standard way, by saying, “Now, I would be happy to answer your questions.” As it turned out, that cooperation did not extend to both parties.
The only news in Vindman’s testimony was the fact that he had twice taken his concerns to Eisenberg. He also told his twin brother, Yevgeny Vindman, who is also an Army lieutenant colonel and serves as a National Security Council lawyer. He also told another NSC official, John Erath, and he gave what he characterized as a partial readout of the call to George Kent, a career State Department official who dealt with Ukraine. That led to an obvious question: Did Vindman take his concerns to anyone else? Did he discuss the Trump-Zelensky call with anyone else? It was a reasonable question, and an important one. Republicans asked it time and time again. Vindman refused to answer, with his lawyer, Michael Volkov, sometimes belligerently joining in. Through it all, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff stood firm in favor of keeping his committee in the dark.
[..] Vindman openly conceded that he told other people about the call. The obvious suspicion from Republicans was that Vindman told the person who became the whistleblower, who reported the call to the Intelligence Community inspector general, and who, in a carefully crafted legal document, framed the issue in a way that Democrats have adopted in their drive to remove the president from office. Vindman addressed the suspicion before anyone raised it. In his opening statement, he said, “I am not the whistleblower … I do not know who the whistleblower is and I would not feel comfortable to speculate as to the identity of the whistleblower.”
Fine, said Republicans. We won’t ask you who the whistleblower is. But if your story is that you were so concerned by the Trump-Zelensky issue that you reported it to Eisenberg, and also to others, well, who all did you tell? That is when the GOP hit a brick wall from Vindman, his lawyer Volkov, and, most importantly, Schiff. As chairman of the Intelligence Committee, charged with overseeing the intelligence community, Schiff might normally want to know about any intelligence community involvement in the matter under investigation. But in the Vindman deposition, Schiff strictly forbade any questions about it. “Can I just caution again,” he said at one point, “not to go into names of people affiliated with the IC in any way.” The purpose of it all was to protect the identity of the whistleblower, who Schiff incorrectly claimed has “a statutory right to anonymity.”
Schiff’s role is beyond curious. Sometimes you think he’s the boy with his finger in the dike, mighty fearful that it could break at any moment. But then Vindman’s lawyer jumps in as well:
That left Republicans struggling to figure out what happened. “I’m just trying to better understand who the universe of people the concerns were expressed to,” said Castor. “Look, the reason we’re objecting is not — we don’t want — my client does not want to be in the position of being used to identifying the whistleblower, okay?” said Volkov. “And based on the chair’s ruling, as I understand it, [Vindman] is not required to answer any question that would tend to identify an intelligence officer.”
[..] Vindman’s basic answer was: I won’t tell you because that’s a secret. After several such exchanges, Volkov got tough with lawmakers, suggesting further inquiries might hurt Vindman’s feelings. “Look, he came here,” Volkov said. “He came here. He tells you he’s not the whistleblower, okay? He says he feels uncomfortable about it. Try to respect his feelings at this point.” An unidentified voice spoke up. “We’re uncomfortable impeaching the president,” it said. “Excuse me. Excuse me,” Volkov responded. “If you want to debate it, we can debate it, but what I’m telling you right now is you have to protect the identity of the whistleblower. I get that there may be political overtones. You guys go do what you got to do, but do not put this man in the middle of it.”
Castor spoke up. “So how does it out anyone by saying that he had one other conversation other than the one he had with George Kent?” “Okay,” said Volkov. “What I’m telling you right now is we’re not going to answer that question. If the chair wants to hold him in contempt for protecting the whistleblower, God be with you. … You don’t need this. You don’t need to go down this. And look, you guys can — if you want to ask, you can ask — you can ask questions about his conversation with Mr. Kent. That’s it. We’re not answering any others.” “The only conversation that we can speak to Col. Vindman about is his conversation with Ambassador Kent?” asked Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin. “Correct,” said Volkov, “and you’ve already asked him questions about it.”
“And any other conversation that he had with absolutely anyone else is off limits?” “No,” said Volkov. “He’s told you about his conversations with people in the National Security Council. What you’re asking him to do is talk about conversations outside the National Security Council. And he’s not going to do that. I know where you’re going.” “No, actually, you don’t,” said Zeldin. “Oh, yes, sir,” said Volkov. “No, you really don’t,” said Zeldin. “You know what?” said Volkov. “I know what you’re going to say. I already know what you’re going to do, okay? And I don’t want to hear the FOX News questions, okay?”
[..] It should be noted that Volkov was a lawyer, and members of Congress were members of Congress. The lawyer should not be treating the lawmakers as Volkov did. Volkov was able to tell Republicans to buzz off only because he had Schiff’s full support. And Republicans never found out who else Vindman discussed the Trump-Zelensky call with.
Looking at this, you get to wonder what the role is of GOP lawmakers, and why anyone would want to be one. Their peers across the aisle pretend they can tell them exactly what and what not to do or say. Is that why they are elected? I couldn’t find one question or even word in here that would be labeled unfitting, or out of place, or aggressive or anything like that. But even then, they hit a brick wall.
So what makes Vindman the expert on Ukraine? I get the idea that it’s his compliance with whatever anyone says is the desired and required policy, and in this case, what is not. He certainly doesn’t appear to know everything. Maybe that’s because he left the country at age three.
3) There were notable gaps in Vindman’s knowledge.
Vindman portrayed himself as the man to see on the National Security Council when it came to issues involving Ukraine. “I’m the director for Ukraine,” he testified. “I’m responsible for Ukraine. I’m the most knowledgeable. I’m the authority for Ukraine for the National Security Council and the White House.” Yet at times there were striking gaps in Vindman’s knowledge of the subject matter. He seemed, for instance, distinctly incurious about the corruption issues in Ukraine that touched on Joe and Hunter Biden.
Vindman agreed with everyone that Ukraine has a serious corruption problem. But he knew little specifically about Burisma, the nation’s second-largest privately owned energy company, and even less about Mykola Zlochevsky, the oligarch who runs the firm. “What do you know about Zlochevsky, the oligarch that controls Burisma?” asked Castor. “I frankly don’t know a huge amount,” Vindman said. “Are you aware that he’s a former Minister of Ecology”? Castor asked, referring to a position Zlochevsky allegedly used to steer valuable government licenses to Burisma. “I’m not,” said Vindman.
“Are you aware of any of the investigations the company has been involved with over the last several years?” “I am aware that Burisma does have questionable business dealings,” Vindman said. “That’s part of the track record, yes.” “Okay. And what questionable business dealings are you aware of?” asked Castor. Vindman said he did not know beyond generalities. “The general answer is I think they have had questionable business dealings,” Vindman said.
[..] Vindman had other blind spots, as well. One important example concerned U.S. provision of so-called lethal aid to Ukraine, specifically anti-tank missiles known as Javelins. The Obama administration famously refused to provide Javelins or other lethal aid to Ukraine, while the Trump administration reversed that policy, sending a shipment of missiles in 2018. On the Trump-Zelensky call, the two leaders discussed another shipment in the future. “Both those parts of the call, the request for investigation of Crowd Strike and those issues, and the request for investigation of the Bidens, both of those discussions followed the Ukraine president saying they were ready to buy more Javelins. Is that right?” asked Schiff.
“Yes,” said Vindman. “There was a prior shipment of Javelins to Ukraine, wasn’t there?” said Schiff. “So that was, I believe — I apologize if the timing is incorrect — under the previous administration, there was a — I’m aware of the transfer of a fairly significant number of Javelins, yes,” Vindman said. Vindman’s timing was incorrect. Part of the entire Trump-Ukraine story is the fact that Trump sent the missiles while Obama did not. The top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council did not seem to know that.
York goes on to explain just how much of a bureaucrat Vindman is, as exemplified by things like “..there’s a fairly consensus policy within the interagency towards Ukraine,”. The “interagency” doesn’t set -foreign- policy, the President does.
4) Vindman was a creature of a bureaucracy that has often opposed President Trump.
One of his favorite words is “interagency,” by which he means the National Security Council’s role in coordinating policy among the State Department, Defense Department, the Intelligence Community, the Treasury Department, and the White House. [..] He says things such as, “So I hold at my level sub-PCCs, Deputy Assistant Secretary level. PCCs are my boss, senior director with Assistant Secretaries. DCs are with the deputy of the National Security Council with his deputy counterparts within the interagency.” He believes the interagency has set a clear U.S. policy toward Ukraine. “You said in your opening statement, or you indicated at least, that there’s a fairly consensus policy within the interagency towards Ukraine,” Democratic counsel Daniel Goldman said to Vindman.
“Could you just explain what that consensus policy is, in your own words?” “What I can tell you is, over the course of certainly my tenure there, since July 2018, the interagency, as per normal procedures, assembles under the NSPM-4, the National Security Policy [sic] Memorandum 4, process to coordinate U.S. government policy,” Vindman said. “We, over the course of this past year, probably assembled easily a dozen times, certainly at my level, which is called a subpolicy coordinating committee — and that’s myself and my counterparts at the Deputy Assistant Secretary level — to discuss our views on Ukraine.”
The “interagency” doesn’t set policy, the President does -and with him perhaps the House and Senate. But not an alphabet soup of agencies.
I’ve said it before, and I fear I may have to say it again, this is a show trial. And no, it’s not even a trial, that happens next in the Senate. Jonathan Turley said the other day that he thinks Nancy Pelosi wants a quick -before Christmas- resolution to the House part, but I’m not convinced.
The reason is that the Democrats lose the director’s chair once this moves to the Senate. They can’t silence the Republicans there the same way Adam Schiff does it in the House. Pelosi herself said in March that impeachment MUST be a bipartisan effort. It’s unclear why she abandoned that position in August, but I think it could be panic, and that it was the worst move she could have made.
Because this thing in its present shape is unwinnable. To impeach Trump, the Dems would need Republican votes. But how could they possibly get those when they lock out the Republicans of the entire process?
Two months ago, former South Carolina governor and congressman Mark Sanford launched what he acknowledged was a long shot primary challenge to President Donald Trump, in the hopes of sparking “a real conversation on debt and deficits and government spending.” After 60 days of a national conversation about everything but, Sanford this afternoon put an end to his experiment in competitive fiscal conservatism.
“You’ve got to be a realist, and what I did not anticipate is an impeachment,” the self-described libertarian Republican told reporters at the New Hampshire Statehouse.
While it’s true that the House impeachment inquiry is dominating national political conversation, there’s no evidence to suggest that Republicans (let alone campaign reporters) would otherwise be focusing on fiscal issues. The federal deficit in the just-completed fiscal year hit $984 billion, without any meaningful resistance from Sanford’s former colleauges in the House Freedom Caucus.
Trump, who Sanford has been calling the “king of debt,” has been systematically wiping out any hint of internal GOP competition. The South Carolina GOP canceled its third-in-the-nation primaries under heavy pressure from the Trump campaign literally the day before Sanford entered the race (the decision is being litigated). A half-dozen state Republican Party machines have already effectively declared their 2020 winners.
Such leg-sweeping tactics, in addition to the president’s considerable popularity among Republicans (among whom his approval rating has not dipped below 87 percent all year), has led to some brutal disparities between the candidates. The Trump campaign and Republican National Committee (whose organizations have been unprecedentedly merged) raised a combined $125.7 million in the third quarter, compared to Sanford’s $60,400. That’s a ratio of 2,111 to 1.
Sanford has fared little better in the polls. The RealClearPoliticsnational polling average has the president with more than an 80-point lead: 85.4 percent, compared to 2.6 percent for former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, 2.2 percent for former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh, and 1.8 percent for Sanford.
“Mark Sanford’s voice in the primaries will be missed,” Weld said in a statement Tuesday. “A true fiscal conservative, he has advocated the common sense policies too seldom heard from Donald Trump or anyone else in Washington. It is shameful that the Trump-controlled South Carolina state party cancelled a primary in which Mark could have been a real factor.”
So Sanford has gone from being a lonely Trump critic in the House GOP, to loser of a GOP primary to a Trump-backed candidate for his seat (which is now held by a Democrat), to long shot presidential challenger, to Republican roadkill. Might now be a time to seek a political party that shares his concern about the national debt and looming entitlement bomb?
I asked six Libertarian Party presidential candidates 10 days ago to name any major-party candidate then running for president who they’d most like see switch to the L.P. Only one—former 1996 vice presidential nominee and South Carolina resident Jo Jorgensen—named Sanford, saying: “Mark Sanford acted like a Libertarian through most of his political career, and a lot of people here were big fans even after his horrible indiscretion—the people of this state still elected him back to Congress. He’s libertarian at heart, and while I commend Tulsi Gabbard for her good no-war stance, everything else about her is just wrong. I don’t see any other libertarian leanings in her, but I do see many libertarian leanings in Mark Sanford.”
(The “horrible indiscretion” in question was Sanford’s infamous marital infidelity in 2009, which noted family-values pol Trump has occasionally mocked him for.)
While Sanford certainly has more political name recognition than any of the dozen or so declared Libertarian presidential candidates, he would (if at all interested) face the same skepticism that would greet any GOP-switcher. After three successive presidential nominations given to formerly elected Republicans, Libertarians are wary about going to that particular well a fourth consecutive time.
Whatever he decides to do with his own future, Sanford’s parting message about ours is both sobering and necessary in 2019 America:
I am suspending my race for the Presidency because impeachment has made my goal of making the debt, deficit and spending issue a part of this presidential debate impossible right now. From day one, I was fully aware of how hard it would be to elevate these issues with a sitting president of my own party ignoring them. Impeachment noise has moved what was hard to herculean as nearly everything in Republican party politics is currently viewed through the prism of impeachment.
This is hardly a lens through which I want to look at things as I believe the debate of ideas is vital for both the conservative movement and for the American voter. What’s needed here is simply a national conversation on whether or not we believe in math. Ours does not add up in Washington and continued denial here could end the American civilization and the dreams that come with it. Unfortunately, with impeachment the wagons are circled, tribes and allegiances are declared and this obliterates the chance to debate and address a host of critical issues.
More than anything we need a debate about our debt and how we pay for this political season’s many grand promises and the ones already accumulated in Washington. We also need a robust debate on trade and tariffs, our belief in institutions, the President’s tone and a whole lot more, but those things will not happen in a Republican primary embattled with impeachment.
Finally, I would like to thank the people of New Hampshire and people from across this country for the conversations we have had on the need for financial sanity. It’s my hope and intention to find new ways to raise and elevate these vital themes.
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Video Shows American ISIS Member Stranded In Greek-Turkish Border ‘No Man’s Land’
A bizarre and unprecedented story is developing along the Turkish-Greek border after a day ago Turkish authorities expelled an alleged American member of the Islamic State, amid a broader initiative to deport hundreds of foreign terrorists who traveled to Syria from the West back to Europe and the US.
For a second day the American terror suspect is stranded in no-man’s land between the Turkish and Greek borders near the town Kastanies in the northeast corner of Greece. As counterterrorism analyst Jean-Charles Brisard put it—
“An Isis jihadist expelled by Turkey to Greece is literally stuck in the buffer zone separating the two countries after Greece’s refusal to allow entry into the territory.”
Stunning video posted the the internet confirms that the man, identified in Turkish and Greek media as 39-year old Muhammed Darwis B. and believed to be a US citizen of Jordanian descent, is walking around inside the few hundred meter long buffer zone between the border crossings, with each side’s gates shutting him in.
It’s unclear why Turkey would think Greek authorities would let him in, but it’s also likely a political stunt by Turkish authorities to underscore its latest threats of what will happen if Europe is unwilling to repatriate the hundreds of European ISIS fighters currently in Turkish custody.
In one video taken by a Turkish broadcaster, the man appears to shout for help at the camera while standing in the strip of land exactly between the crossings.
The Guardian has further details which suggest he could be at the center of a developing diplomatic dispute between Ankara and Washington over potential repatriation to the US:
A Turkish official told AFP that he had refused to be returned to the US and instead asked to be sent to Greece. Athens said he was refused entry when he tried to cross the no man’s land between the two countries to the Greek town of Kastanies. He is reported to have spent the night outside and witnesses said he has been trying to shout to reporters on the Turkish side of the border.
During a Tuesday speech, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said he and other foreign ISIS members were “not our problem” while also threatening Europe with more such ISIS detainee releases to come: “You should revise your stance towards Turkey, which at the moment holds so many Isis members in prison and at the same time controls those in Syria,” Erdogan told reporters in Ankara on Tuesday.
The Greek-Turkish land border at Kastanies where the ISIS suspect is stuck in a buffer zone. Map via BBC
“These gates will open and these Isis members who have started to be sent to you will continue to be sent. Then you can take care of your own problem,” Erdogan added threateningly. Turkish officials last week revealed they have over 1,200 foreign ISIS members in custody.
Erdogan had reportedly been specifically asked about the American during the Tuesday press briefing, at which point he vowed “to continue sending them back”.
#Erdogan says his gov’t has more plans to send #ISIS terrorists back to Europe after he was asked to comment on American ISIS suspect who got pushed by Turkey to Greece on land border, but stuck in no-mans land there. He vows to continue sending them back. pic.twitter.com/S9oWOPajRQ
Interestingly, the State Department said it was aware of the developing situation, but did not definitively affirm whether the man is in fact an American citizen or what will be done: “We are aware of reports of the detainment of a US citizen by Turkish authorities,” a spokeswoman said Monday. “Due to privacy considerations we have no further comment.”
Given Erdogan is scheduled to meet Trump at the White House on Wednesday, it could be that the Turkish president is using the “ISIS unleashed on Europe” threat as a major bargaining chip and as leverage in talks with Washington.
An American ISIS suspect literally stuck between borders certainly carries huge symbolism, illustrating the coming renewed crisis on Europe’s borders.
Two months ago, former South Carolina governor and congressman Mark Sanford launched what he acknowledged was a long shot primary challenge to President Donald Trump, in the hopes of sparking “a real conversation on debt and deficits and government spending.” After 60 days of a national conversation about everything but, Sanford this afternoon put an end to his experiment in competitive fiscal conservatism.
“You’ve got to be a realist, and what I did not anticipate is an impeachment,” the self-described libertarian Republican told reporters at the New Hampshire Statehouse.
While it’s true that the House impeachment inquiry is dominating national political conversation, there’s no evidence to suggest that Republicans (let alone campaign reporters) would otherwise be focusing on fiscal issues. The federal deficit in the just-completed fiscal year hit $984 billion, without any meaningful resistance from Sanford’s former colleauges in the House Freedom Caucus.
Trump, who Sanford has been calling the “king of debt,” has been systematically wiping out any hint of internal GOP competition. The South Carolina GOP canceled its third-in-the-nation primaries under heavy pressure from the Trump campaign literally the day before Sanford entered the race (the decision is being litigated). A half-dozen state Republican Party machines have already effectively declared their 2020 winners.
Such leg-sweeping tactics, in addition to the president’s considerable popularity among Republicans (among whom his approval rating has not dipped below 87 percent all year), has led to some brutal disparities between the candidates. The Trump campaign and Republican National Committee (whose organizations have been unprecedentedly merged) raised a combined $125.7 million in the third quarter, compared to Sanford’s $60,400. That’s a ratio of 2,111 to 1.
Sanford has fared little better in the polls. The RealClearPoliticsnational polling average has the president with more than an 80-point lead: 85.4 percent, compared to 2.6 percent for former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, 2.2 percent for former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh, and 1.8 percent for Sanford.
“Mark Sanford’s voice in the primaries will be missed,” Weld said in a statement Tuesday. “A true fiscal conservative, he has advocated the common sense policies too seldom heard from Donald Trump or anyone else in Washington. It is shameful that the Trump-controlled South Carolina state party cancelled a primary in which Mark could have been a real factor.”
So Sanford has gone from being a lonely Trump critic in the House GOP, to loser of a GOP primary to a Trump-backed candidate for his seat (which is now held by a Democrat), to long shot presidential challenger, to Republican roadkill. Might now be a time to seek a political party that shares his concern about the national debt and looming entitlement bomb?
I asked six Libertarian Party presidential candidates 10 days ago to name any major-party candidate then running for president who they’d most like see switch to the L.P. Only one—former 1996 vice presidential nominee and South Carolina resident Jo Jorgensen—named Sanford, saying: “Mark Sanford acted like a Libertarian through most of his political career, and a lot of people here were big fans even after his horrible indiscretion—the people of this state still elected him back to Congress. He’s libertarian at heart, and while I commend Tulsi Gabbard for her good no-war stance, everything else about her is just wrong. I don’t see any other libertarian leanings in her, but I do see many libertarian leanings in Mark Sanford.”
(The “horrible indiscretion” in question was Sanford’s infamous marital infidelity in 2009, which noted family-values pol Trump has occasionally mocked him for.)
While Sanford certainly has more political name recognition than any of the dozen or so declared Libertarian presidential candidates, he would (if at all interested) face the same skepticism that would greet any GOP-switcher. After three successive presidential nominations given to formerly elected Republicans, Libertarians are wary about going to that particular well a fourth consecutive time.
Whatever he decides to do with his own future, Sanford’s parting message about ours is both sobering and necessary in 2019 America:
I am suspending my race for the Presidency because impeachment has made my goal of making the debt, deficit and spending issue a part of this presidential debate impossible right now. From day one, I was fully aware of how hard it would be to elevate these issues with a sitting president of my own party ignoring them. Impeachment noise has moved what was hard to herculean as nearly everything in Republican party politics is currently viewed through the prism of impeachment.
This is hardly a lens through which I want to look at things as I believe the debate of ideas is vital for both the conservative movement and for the American voter. What’s needed here is simply a national conversation on whether or not we believe in math. Ours does not add up in Washington and continued denial here could end the American civilization and the dreams that come with it. Unfortunately, with impeachment the wagons are circled, tribes and allegiances are declared and this obliterates the chance to debate and address a host of critical issues.
More than anything we need a debate about our debt and how we pay for this political season’s many grand promises and the ones already accumulated in Washington. We also need a robust debate on trade and tariffs, our belief in institutions, the President’s tone and a whole lot more, but those things will not happen in a Republican primary embattled with impeachment.
Finally, I would like to thank the people of New Hampshire and people from across this country for the conversations we have had on the need for financial sanity. It’s my hope and intention to find new ways to raise and elevate these vital themes.
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