Sunday School 2/12/23

We'll start your Sunday School lesson in the State of the Union classroom, where Jake Tapper talked with Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

Here's Turner's take on classified documents. 

I just don't get this, Jake. I don't get it with Biden, Pence, or Trump. All of them keep finding documents that are classified, stuffed places. I just -- I have no understanding of it. I can tell you that members of Congress who, like me, deal with highly classified information in the Intelligence Committee, the Armed Services Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee, we're all just stumped. We don't understand how this could be happening. We don't understand how all three could have been so lackadaisical about this.

He said there's legislation "that will make it even more difficult and give different penalties to be able to enforce mishandling classified documents."

Turning to Ukraine, he's "very disappointed" in folks on both sides of the aisle who think we've done enough.

The majority of Congress understands that this is crucial. We are fighting on the front lines of democracy. The fact that Zelenskyy has been -- as president, they -- will rally his country to fight against Russia, and we have been able to arm them, it is really unprecedented that a nation like that could stand to a superpower like Russia. But they're doing so with the commitment to keep the sovereignty of their nation. And Russia's atrocities are just appalling. Anyone who sees what Russia is doing in killing innocent civilians, destroying the infrastructure there has to be moved to want to support the Ukrainians.

In the MTP classroom, What's-his-name talked with Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) about our relationship with China, especially if the recent objects we've shot down turn out to be theirs. Himes said we need to be careful since we don't know yet what those objects were.

I think it's fair to say that the Chinese are probably pretty embarrassed that they let a surveillance platform – the first one – go over the United States. It became a, you know, 'cause célèbre' around the world. We now own it. That's not a comfortable thing for the Chinese. And, of course, we canceled the trip of the Secretary of State. So my guess is that the other two objects are not Chinese, that China is doing everything they can right now to keep as low a profile as possible. But, who knows? We won't know for – I guess, until the administration fully briefs on what these things are. And to be fair, remember, Chuck, when you go by one of these things in an F-22 or an F-18, you're moving pretty fast. Until you actually pick up the pieces on the ground, there'll be some uncertainty.

It'll be fun to watch this unfold, especially since we shot down a third one after the show aired. 

In the This Week classroom, George Stephanopoulos talked with David Miliband, head of the International Rescue Committee, about the difficulties in getting aid to Syria after the devastating earthquake last week.  

There are several issues, not the least of which is that part of Syria is rebel-controlled. Miliband said 

there is news from the United Nations that the Syrian government is going to allow aid to go into this rebel-held area from the government-controlled side. But, frankly, that’s an indirect route, and it’s caught up in politics.

The UN says the "most direct route to help people is across the Turkish-Syrian border, north to south, opening up more crossing points." 

People haven’t gotten food. They haven’t gotten medicine. They haven’t gotten basic hygiene supplies. The water and sanitation is in ruins. So this is a community for whom the earthquake was one massive hit. But the grave danger they face now almost affects more people.

He also explained that borders are effectively blocked for survivors and that people are afraid to go into government-controlled areas.

They fear being prosecuted or recruited into the army of President Assad. Many... about one and a half million to 2 million of those trapped in northwest Syria have fled from other parts of the country because of the fighting. And the Turkish border is also blocked for them. So, these people are caged in, effectively.

The US needs to lead - diplomatically through the UN,  financially, and by ensuring that the Syrian people aren't forgotten, after the dozen-year civil war.

The world has moved on. But the crisis has not been resolved. And a forgotten crisis is not a resolved crisis. What happens is that people on the edge, left on the edge where natural disasters strike that pushed over the precipice, and that’s what we’re seeing now.

I heard a report from the BBC this morning that two additional border crossings have been approved for international aid to flow into the rebel-held part of the country; up to now, there had been only one. 

In Case You Missed It (v104)

Another light week of posts, in an overwhelmingly heavy week of news, conspiracies and threats, primaries, and more. Here's your recap of what made it out of my head. 

I dropped Part Four of A Future Tale, the dream/nightmare series that I've been trying to get my arms around for a while now.  Pere are links to Parts One, Two, and Three, if you want to see why our narrator was trying to deal with an old revolving door - in an alley. 

I put my hand on the brass plate and gave a little push, to see if there was even a chance I could get out this way. At first, there was quite a bit of resistance. That wasn't surprising; who knows how long it's been since anyone else was in this alley? I gave another push, thinking how much this was like pushing the gate at the other end of the alley. When was that, anyway? How long have I been in here? I have no idea.

Finally, on the third push, it actually moved noticeably, if slowly, with a bit of a grinding noise, as if it needed to be oiled. Or, thinking back to when I was a child, maybe it just needed some kids to push and push and keep pushing, going round and round in their little cages within the door, like I did, chasing my older brothers... or, were they chasing me?

Thoughts of anything chasing me right now were unwelcomed, and I pushed those memories aside, focusing on the task at hand: getting this darn thing to move and, hopefully, finding a way out on the other side. I leaned in a bit, putting some oomph into it, and finally, the door moved, with purpose. 

I think I've almost figured the whole thing out - almost - and will have the Epilogue soon. 

For Sunday School, one of the classrooms I sat in on was Face the Nation, where Ed O'Keefe interviewed Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) on the Mar-a-Lago stuff.  One of his questions? "What use could a former president have for classified or top-secret information once he's left office?" Turner was unsure. 

Well, I don't know. I mean, you would have to ask him. But certainly, we all know that every former president has access to their documents. It's how they write their memoirs...

Have any used Top Secret/SCI documents for that, I wonder? Turner seems to doubt the classification of what was found. He said the FBI said "they were identified as marked classified," and, he said, Trump said he declassified them. He thinks the important thing is the "abuse of discretion" on the part of the FBI.

...we have evidence of the FBI abusing that discretion, and of misconduct on behalf of the FBI...There are real questions as, what is the FBI doing here? ...the rank-and-file FBI agents, everybody agrees we support them. We have great faith in them. But the leadership of the FBI, when they undertake a raid against the current president's political rival, you have to ask these questions.

Turner's right: there are real questions here, but he and all the other Rs seem incapable of asking the most important ones: What the hell was Trump planning to do with all of this stuff? Why did he keep it, knowing as he since before he left the White House that the information is not his? And, my favorite, what would the Rs be doing if the person stashing this kind of stuff insecurely was a Democrat? 

In the State of the Union classroom, Jake Tapper talked with Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) on all of this, and even gave Crenshaw some breathing room on 'skepticism' but pointed to law enforcement and asked if they weren't innocent until proven guilty.

Yes, again, people signing off on it doesn't mean it's -- it doesn't -- that it has precedent. It doesn't. This is a very unprecedented measure. And you know that when you're going after an ex-president who may run again, that this is -- this is automatically political. You can't -- you cannot separate the legal aspects of this from the political aspects of it. You can't. And it doesn't seem to me like they have acted responsibly as a result of that. And look, again, why not just ask him? Why not just ask him?

OK, the "why not just ask him?" is a barnful of Texas longhorn bull shit (two words on purpose) and either (a) Crenshaw hasn't read any of the news on this issue, (b) he's covering for Trump out of fear, or (c) he's an idiot.

Remember, everything is unprecedented until someone does it. In this case, how many ex-presidents who may run again have allegedly taken TS/SCI and other classified documents with them after losing an election, have lied to the government about it, have paid liars to lie to the government about it, have a record of cavalier handling of national security, including in the very place that was searched, and of destroying documents? 

The idiocy only increased as the week went on, but I turned to a different subject for Wondering on Wednesday, mostly because I couldn't take it any more. Much of the post was about primaries in New York, one of which garnered a lot of attention in the national media and tea leaf-reading parlors: the race to fill the seat of former Rep. Antonio Delgado, who resigned to become our Lt. Governor.  Democrat Pat Ryan

won the "bellwether" race, as multiple media outlets referred to it, campaigning on a woman's right to choose being a national issue, not a state issue, while Marc Molinaro, the Republican, ran on crime and inflation. How much does this matter in the overall scheme of things, I wonder? I'm not convinced it's indicative of anything, really...

It's funny how so many media outlets jumped on the Ryan win, and how many have been so keen on interviewing him since then. Another race got less national attention, but may have deserved more, I'm not sure. It's about the power of a huge Trump supporter, endorsing a horrid fellow New Yorker and a smarmy fellow New Yorker - and losing both races. 

I can't help wondering how Rep. Elise Stefanik, the number three RINO in the House is feeling today. (A RINO, in these pages, is a MAGA Republican). Stefanik strongly supported the deplorable Carl Paladino in the primary for NY's new 23rd district; Paladino lost to NYS GOP chair Nick Langworthy. Stefanik also strongly supported Steve Wells in the primary for NY's new 22nd district. Wells lost to Brandon Williams. 

House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy might not have had a great morning, after the Paladino loss. It's been reported that McCarthy and Rep. Steve Scalise, his Number Two, weren't happy with Stefanik 'going rogue' with her endorsement. I wonder how today's leadership chat went?

The stuff that I didn't let out of my head? It was more Mar-a-Lago stuff, the RINOs reactions,  student loan forgiveness, the RINO (and the Dem) reactions, and stuff like that. There's already so much noise out there, I decided to hold back. We'll see how long that lasts...

See you later for Sunday School, if not sooner. 

Sunday School 8/21/22

We've got three Congressman in the classrooms today. 

Ed O'Keefe talked with Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, in the Face the Nation classroom. 

On the Mar-a-Lago search, Turner said releasing the affidavit would help explain how the FBI justified "raiding...and spending nine hours in the president's house," when they had other options they could have used. And, he said, "the American public want" the AG focused on things like "human and drug smuggling at the border... Chinese espionage, out-of- control crime in our cities."

He said his committee's concerned about "an allegation of classified documents," and that the DOJ should show them what they went to find, and what the "imminent national security threat" was. He's also concerned about the resources devoted to the search, "when we have real imminent national security threats, like Chinese espionage, the border, issues that -- things that are going on in Ukraine."

And when O'Keefe asked "what use could a former president have for classified or top-secret information once he's left office," Turner was unsure. 

Well, I don't know. I mean, you would have to ask him. But certainly, we all know that every former president has access to their documents. It's how they write their memoirs...

Have any used Top Secret/SCI documents for that, I wonder? Turner seems to doubt the classification of what was found. He said the FBI said "they were identified as marked classified," and, he said, Trump said he declassified them. He thinks the important thing is the "abuse of discretion" on the part of the FBI.

...we have evidence of the FBI abusing that discretion, and of misconduct on behalf of the FBI...There are real questions as, what is the FBI doing here? ...the rank-and-file FBI agents, everybody agrees we support them. We have great faith in them. But the leadership of the FBI, when they undertake a raid against the current president's political rival, you have to ask these questions.

We have "great faith" in the people, but we want to defund or even abolish the organization... And, when is the "real question" ever going to be," what is the former president doing?" Never, it would seem.

In the Meet the Press classroom, What's-his-name talked with Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), chair of the DCCC; he was asked if it was "fair to say now, there's no moral victory" for the Dems; either they keep the House, or they lose. Maloney agreed, but pointed to what he called "a summer of strength" and said the Ds are "going to buck history by making history." 

Look, we know that we need to get things done. That's the hard path that we've chosen. The other side has had a summer of stumbles, obstructing veterans' health care, ripping away 50 years of reproductive freedom, and now trying to defund the FBI and ignore a serious threat to our national security with Trump's latest scandal. We're going to address real problems. We think that's going to bring it home.

On the laughable question from What's-his-name, on whether the Ds "put party over country" by running ads talking about MAGA candidates, Maloney said "Absolutely not."

The moral imperative right now, Mr. Todd, is to keep the dangerous MAGA Republicans who voted to overturn our election out of power. There were 139 of them who voted against the results of the election back in January 2021...We believe that by running a commercial that called our opponent an extremist who was too conservative for Western Michigan, we teed up the choice in the fall.

Maloney was asked if "cynical moves like this" are why "everybody hates both political parties." He said his job "is to win elections for the Democrats and I take that seriously," again noting the importance of not letting McCarthy become speaker. There will always be "difficult moral questions, philosophical questions about tactics," he said. Indeed.

Finally, we've got Jake Tapper and Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) in the State of the Union classroom. Tapper wondered if Crenshaw, a former Navy Seal, is bothered that there was apparently classified information at Mar-a-Lago?

Yes. Well, look, you know me, Jake, and I'm not wanting to withhold criticism, and even make my own side mad. I want to get to the truth...but I will be honest with you here. It -- this -- it's hard to justify what the Department of Justice did here, in my opinion. 

It's not a question that it's bad to have classified material in a non-SCIF environment, right? So, that's a non-secret, compartmentalized infrastructure there. That's wrong. But there's ways to mitigate that. There's ways to resolve that issue. 

Besides, Trump's "been cooperating with them on these issues for a while now, for months." That's why the Rs, even the ones who don't think much of Trump, he said, are coalescing on the issue of the unjustness of the government taking these steps. 

Tapper said skepticism is fine, but there was signoff by a judge, and he wondered if law enforcement isn't innocent until proven guilty. 

Yes, again, people signing off on it doesn't mean it's -- it doesn't -- that it has precedent. It doesn't. This is a very unprecedented measure. And you know that when you're going after an ex-president who may run again, that this is -- this is automatically political. You can't -- you cannot separate the legal aspects of this from the political aspects of it. You can't. And it doesn't seem to me like they have acted responsibly as a result of that. And look, again, why not just ask him? Why not just ask him?

Remember, everything is unprecedented until someone does it. In this case, how many ex-presidents who may run again have allegedly taken TS/SCI and other classified documents with them after losing an election, have lied to the government about it, have paid liars to lie to the government about it, have a record of cavalier handling of national security, including in the very place that was searched, and of destroying documents? 

That Trump is unprecedented doesn't give him a pass, especially since the Rs say this is all about accountability - just not for the guy who had his house searched. Maybe this is one of those "difficult moral questions, philosophical questions" mentioned in the Maloney interview.

I do agree that Marjorie Taylor Greene and AOC "can go join the defund law enforcement club if they want."

See you around campus.

Sunday School 11/17/19

Deval Patrick is the only Democratic presidential candidate making the rounds today; you can see what he had to say, and also what  a couple of other Dems had to say in this week's Sunday School Extra Credit.

I'm spending  time with some of the Republicans who made the classroom rounds rounds today, including Mike Turner (R-Mixed Emotions), who sat with Jake Tapper on State of the Union; Jim Jordan (R-Casual Friday), who talked with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation; and Senator Ron Johnson (R-America's Dairyland) who spoke with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press. 

First up, Tapper and Turner, who was asked if he was "alarmed" about US folks apparently telling Ukraine folks that if they want the aid money released, they have to announce they're going to investigate the Bidens and the 2016 interference (which has been attributed by the entire US intelligence community to Russia, not Ukraine). 

Well, of course, all of that is alarming, And I have said from the beginning, I think this is - -this is not OK. The president of the United States shouldn't even, in the original phone call, be on the phone with the president of another country and raise his political opponent. So no, this is -- is not OK.

Tapper next asked "Do you really think there were no Ukrainians who were under the impression that they needed to publicly announce these investigations in order to get the White House meeting or the aid, the $400 million, they so desperately need?"

The only two that I can speak to, because I'm obviously not psychic as to what Ukrainians think, but the president of Ukraine and the foreign minister...have both stated that they were not under that impression, they did not believe that it was tied, and they did not believe that there was pressure. 

And Tapper mentioned president Trump's tweet "attacking" Ambassador Yovanovitch as she was testifying, and asked, "Does it concern you at all that a witness found what president Trump tweeted to be intimidating?"

Well, I mean, Jake, I think, along with most people, I find the president's tweets generally unfortunate. But let's say this that I think is very important about all of it. And that is that Adams Schiff has been on a three-year quest to impeach this president. He replaced the staff at the Intelligence Committee with prosecutors, instead of experts in, like, nuclear weapons, terrorism and the like... So it's kind of laughable that, in the middle of the hearing, he reads a witness a tweet that she's up until that point unaware of, and then says 'shazam, eureka, I have another reason to impeach the president.' 

Good on him for that last part. Schiff was nuts to bring that tweet into things, without stating that while, it's not intimidating to Yovanovitch who was currently in the witness chair, having already been smeared by the Orange Menace, it might be intimidating to other potential witnesses who are not interested in having themselves and their families attacked by the president and his minions.

Moving on to Brennan and Jordan, who was asked if the whistleblower complaint on September 9th and the aid being released on the 11th was just the calendar, nothing else.

Well, it did and plus, remember, the aid didn't have to be released until September 30th. So it gets released on the 11th and most importantly, the Ukrainians did nothing to - as far as investigations go, to get the aid released. So there was never this quid pro quo that the Democrats all promise existed before president Trump released the phone call. 

On David Holmes, who said in his deposition that he the overheard the phone call between Ambassador Sondland and the president talking about the Bidens, is he credible?

Well, I mean look, he overheard a conversation - we don't know if the other two people are the table are going to vouch for his story. We'll see because there was four people at the table...

Brennan asked if Jordan thought Gordon Sondland was acting on his own, that 'he says he talks to the president all the time."

He's the Senate-confirmed ambassador to the European Union. Mister Volker is - is the special envoy, distinguished career serving our country in the diplomatic corps... We had Rick Perry. We have Secretary Perry, Senate confirmed, working. This whole - this whole irregular channel I find interesting because they're all Senate confirmed individuals, respected individuals, accomplished individuals working on a diplomatic mission, and somehow that's - that's - that's crazy. I just don't follow. 

Asked if he was "comfortable with the investigation that was requested," that "this is the 2020 election. Does that make you uncomfortable?"

Well, I don't think that's what took place here because there never was an investigation undertaken. There was never an announcement from President Zelensky...it didn't happen. There's - there's all kinds of talk about things, but they - it didn't happen. 

And, here's Chuck Todd and Ron Johnson, who was asked about his reaction to the president's tweet about Ambassador Yovanovitch. First, he talked about the president's comments about his own behavior.

He said, "You know, my behavior is caused by, by you. You know, the constant torment, I mean, the investigations." So, you know, listen, I would prefer he not, you know, provide that type of tweet, but you know, my concern -- and let me start out with something else here, Chuck, because I don't want to argue every point. Something we agree on. As Americans, we all share the same goal. We want a safe, prosperous, secure America. We're compassionate. We compare about each other. And generally, generally, we solve our political differences at the ballot box, not in the streets or through impeachment. I think that is really -- as we talked the other day, that's the divide that is tearing this country apart and that's what I'm primarily concerned about.

He said he had nothing against the Ambassador, that she had hosted him on one of his visits to Ukraine,

 But you know, one thing I want to point out is the damage that is being done to our country through this entire impeachment process. You know, it's going to be very difficult for future presidents to have a candid conversation with a world leader because now we've set the precedent of leaking transcripts. It’s going -- you know, the weakening of executive privilege is not good. And by the way, those individuals that leaked this, you know, if their interest was a stronger relationship with Ukraine, they didn't accomplish it. Having this all come out into public has weakened that relationship, has exposed things that didn't need to be exposed.

You know, when I was in Ukraine with Senator Murphy, one of the points I was trying to make is, as we left that meeting, let's try and minimize this. Let's talk about this is a timing difference in terms of funding. Senator Murphy's on the Appropriations Committee. We will restore the funding. I came back and I talked to Senator Durbin. He offered an amendment. That same day, the funding was released. So, this would have been far better off if we would have just taken care of this behind the scenes. We have two branches of government.

So, let's pretend that nothing's wrong, let's let the executive branch run amok and us good guys in Congress, we'll just fix everything and no one will be the wiser.  That's a plan, I guess. Not sure it's the right one, but at least it's a plan. That's more than the rest of them have put on the table.

See you around campus.