Wondering on Wednesday 3/20/24

Ready... Set... Wonder!

Huh... A billionaire can't pay his bond, and can't find people to help him; I wonder how that happens? And I wonder whether at least some of the companies that won't help aren't helping because they simply don't want to be involved with him, rather than because they really can't help him? I'm also wondering, a bit, why the family doesn't tap their Russian connections, where they used to get 'all the money they need' for the business, or why Jared doesn't message his BFF, the Saudi Crown Prince, for help?

Speaking of help, the GoFundMe to raise money towards the penalty has crossed the $1.5M threshold, with over 26,000 donors contributing to the cause. I really wonder who contributes to something like this - it takes a special kind of person to want to donate money to help a billionaire meet his legal responsibilities, I think.

Dartmouth men's basketball players voted to unionize earlier this month after they were deemed to be employees of the school by a regional National Labor Relations Board office. Needless to say, that prompted a whole lot of discussion on what this means more broadly for the NCAA: how will athletes be paid, how much, and would it be only for their season, or for the entire year, what about NIL, and so on. 

Me? I can't help wondering what the $3.6B in scholarships given to 180,000 DI and DII student-athletes is for, if it's not payment for their services?  

And since we're talking about the NCAA, I also wonder why it insists on opening Pandora's Portal of Program Doom before the seasons are officially over? It happens with football, and now basketball. What on earth is the point of encouraging players to end their season before their season ends?  

Finally, I wonder whether NCAA executives have considered changing careers?  They would make, um, "perfect" additions to pretty much any political office, right? They have all the critical experience: they know how to grab as much money as possible from sponsors and donors, make ridiculous rules that even they don't understand, ignore how those rules impact their constituents, and wait for someone else to fix the mess for them, like they're doing with NIL. If that's not a perfect fit, I don't know what is. 

Back to the billionaire. Donald 'Orange Jesus' Trump, a man alleged to have shared our national secrets with members of his residence/private club, is now eligible to receive national security updates as the presumptive Republican nominee. Given his propensity for blurting out whatever the hell crosses his mind, creating alternative facts at the drop of a hat, and his um, alleged inability to differentiate what's his and what's government property, I'm wondering if we should limit what's shared to only weather forecasts with national implications.

Think about it: the forecasts are specific as to locations, risks, potential damage, and populations impacted. Depending on the situation, forecasts even include global modeling. Surely, they should count as 'national security,' right? I wonder - only a little bit, though - what else a narcissist like the OJ would need. Shouldn't knowing how many of his followers, how many "real Americans," are in the path of a storm, or at least within the Cone of Uncertainty sponsored by Sharpie, be enough? 

Trump is suing George Stephanopoulos (and ABC News) for defamation because Stephanopoulos called him a rapist during his incredibly embarrassing interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC). In the interview, Stephanopoulos repeatedly said that Trump was "found liable for rape" by a jury, which is untrue; the jury in the first E. Jean Carroll case found that he did not commit rape under the definition in NYS law at that time. It was Judge Lewis Kaplan who determined that Trump committed rape 'as commonly understood.' 

I wonder if George has considered that he could lose this case? After all, his interview was dripping with malice, towards Trump and Mace. I also wonder if he has second thoughts about inviting a Congresswoman on his show, specifically because she publicly talked about her own rape, specifically to shame her about her political decisions? And the one I wonder the most about: did his wife welcome him home with open arms after that grotesque interview?  I sure as hell hope not.

One last little bit of wondering on this one, now that NY has changed the definition of rape to match what Judge Kaplan said people understand 'rape' to mean, is someone responsible for updating the myriad references to sexual assault in the NYS criminal code before this change goes into effect in September? Are sentencing guidelines being updated? Are DAs receiving training on how to present cases to grand juries? 

What's on your wondering mind tonight?

Wondering on Wednesday 1/11/23

 

Ready... Set... Wonder!

I'm wondering today, on a couple of fronts, about Rep. George Santos (Fables 'R' Us). 

On the one hand, the Nassau County Republicans are not pulling any punches in their criticism of him. Calling him "a joke, a disgrace, abnormal and a pathological liar," the GOP officials 

said the newly elected congressman needed to immediately resign, saying he ran a campaign of “deceit and lies.”

And while Santos threw a defiant "na-na-na-boo-boo" to the party bosses back home, he seems to be quite comfortable with the party bosses in DC. According to Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), Santos "addressed some of the concerns that we've had." Does anyone wonder if that went any further than "do you solemnly swear to go along with us, so help you whoever you believe in?" 

Santos-endorser Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Humiliationville), whose top aide was impersonated by a Santos campaign worker, doesn't appear to have concerns about him sitting in the House chamber, but committees are another issue. 

...McCarthy said Wednesday that embattled freshman GOP Rep. George Santos, who is facing growing calls to resign after admitting to fabricating much of his personal biography, should not be seated on any top committees.

Why, you might be wondering? Well, some think Santos is a national security risk, mostly because of his shady finances. There's chance he might not get any committee assignments; if that's the case, there will be no wondering needed as to why they're keeping him around: 218 votes are way more better than 217. 

Now, I can't help wondering if the reason he's adamant about not resigning is that he feels a responsibility to his former co-workers at Goldman Sachs who may be laid off? The company's letting as many as 3200 people go.

The cuts, totaling about 6.5 percent of Goldman’s workforce, stem from a restructuring plan the investment bank announced in October and the reintroduction of a ritual year-end culling of underperformers that was suspended amid the pandemic, the person said.

I wonder how many of them Santos could help develop kick-ass resumes, find great jobs, start their own companies, or even - dare I say it - run for office? 

I'm investigating wondering if it would be worth wondering if the new House Committee on Investigating the Investigating Bastages that are Investigating Members of the Committee on Investigating the Investigating Bastages that are Investigating Members of the Committee on Investigating the Investigating Bastages that are Investigating Members of the Committee on Investigating - oh, never mind... 

If you're wondering whether the Biden document thing (and the late-breaking new Biden document thing) is the same as the Trump document thing, I'm comfortable saying that the issue - classified documents not being turned over to the National Archives as required - appears to be the same, but much of the rest of it doesn't.  And unless and until we have evidence of Biden 

• ripping up documents and trying to flush them down the toilet, 
• or burning them in the fireplace, 
• or eating them with ketchup, 
• or declassifying them by thinking about them, 
• and ignoring a months-long effort to get documents turned over before he left the VP's office, 
• and saying repeatedly that he had turned all of the documents he had over already, dammit, leave me the hell alone, 
• and after documents were found he argued about giving them back, 
• and that he had his lawyers attest that all the classified documents had been turned over,
• and that the National Archives identified that documents were still missing, 
• and asked to come and get them and he let them into his house but still didn't turn everything over, 
• and that he ignored a subpoena requiring him to turn them over, 
• and then his office was raided, 
• and we still don't know if everything was turned over,  
• and then he buried a relative on the front lawn at his summer home
• and then he claimed attorney-client privilege, executive privilege, and locker room privilege over the documents, 
• and demanded a special master be appointed to review the documents, 
• and had a court limit the review by the special master, 
• and had a court throw out the special master, 
• and then, hoping to forestall any further investigation, he declared himself a candidate for president conveniently just before a special prosecutor was appointed, then nope, it's not the same.

What's on your wondering mind tonight?

Wondering on Wednesday 9/7/22

 

Ready... Set... Wonder!

I wonder how happy the Obamas are that their official White House portraits have finally been unveiled, and that it was the Bidens, not the Trumps, who welcomed them to the ceremony? I'm thinking it's off the charts kind of happy - what do you think?

Similarly, I wonder if the Bidens will do the unveiling of the Trump portraits? Or, since they don't seem interested in doing anything presidential or first ladylike, perhaps someone could just hang a couple of magazine covers? There are enough of each of them (but no Vogue cover for Melania, if memory serves).

On a more serious note, I'm shaking my head at the thought of the WaPo story that "a document describing a foreign government's military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities" was found in the mess of government property found at Mar-a-Lago. And I can't help wondering what kind of damage this information is going to do to our relationships around the world, regardless of which of country's information it was. Research has shown that our standing in the world was diminished during the Trump administration, but it rebounded quickly after Biden's inauguration; who knows what this will do.

I've also been wondering about all the politicians - Rs and Ds alike - who are refusing to debate their opponents. For some, like Herschel Walker in Georgia, the reasons seem obvious. Walker is magnificently unqualified for any public office, and I can't imagine anyone working on his campaign would allow him to go face-to-face with Rev. Raphael Warnock. Katie Hobbs, running for governor in Arizona, refuses to debate Kari Lake; Hobbs issued a statement to the effect that she doesn't want to diminish Arizona any further than the Republican primary debate already did. 

John Fetterman finally agreed to debate Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, and here in New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul says she "always debates" and will do that this year - but we don't know where, when or how many times. She's been ignoring her opponent Lee Zeldin's requests, and ignoring questions from the press as well. I share the opinion of Phil Boas, who opined 

Katie Hobbs should debate. 

She should stick to the issues. Leave the theatrics to her opponent. Paint her vision for Arizona. 

Otherwise, why is she here? 

This is a contest of ideas, and in elections, debate is one of the ways in which we compete. You don’t have to match glib witticisms with your opponent, you can stand as a foil to her erratic ideals and ravings.

Replace 'Katie Hobbs' with the name of any candidate, and the answer would be the same, right?

What are you wondering about tonight?

Sunday School 8/28/22

Let's dive right in with your Sunday School lesson with Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) in the This Week classroom with George, who started by asking if there should have been any documents at Mar-a-Lago. 

Blunt said "we need to know more" about what was found, and wondered why the Intelligence Committee he sits on didn't know anything about this before the top-secret poop hit the fan. He did say they are expecting a briefing soon.

George tried again, and a third time, at which point Blunt said he's careful with documents, butwhatabout Hillary Clinton and James Comey? The fourth time, Blunt said "he should have turned the documents over and apparently had turned a number of documents over." And, he wondered

why this could go on for almost two years and less than 100 days before the election, suddenly, we're talking about this rather than the economy or inflation or even the student loan program you and I were going to talk about today?

On student loan forgiveness, Blunt's a no - he thinks the plan is "monumentally unfair" to folks who didn't attend college because they couldn't afford to go, and to people who paid back their loans, and to people got educated without loans. Besides, it's

just bad economics... I think it's going to have a long-term, devastating effect on a student loan program that worked pretty effectively until about ten years ago when the federal government assumed responsibility for that program.

That Guy from Vermont was up next, offering his take on loan forgiveness. He explained 60% of the benefits will go to folks with Pell grants, and 87% is going to folks making less than $75K a year. He noted how "shocking" it is to some GOP colleagues when "the government actually... does something to benefit working families and low-income people."

He said there wasn't any squawking about "massive tax breaks to billionaires," adding 1%ers "have a lower effective tax break than working people;" and of course, there are corporations that, "in a given year don't pay a nickel in federal taxes." The fact that both Rs and Ds are unhappy? Well, "... the answer is not to deny help to people." 

The answer is maybe to create a government where -- which works for all people and not just for wealthy campaign contributors.

George asked if that can get done "without more Democrats in the Senate," Sanders suggested the Dobbs decision will have an impact, as will "the gun violence we're seeing."

So, I think there is a reasonable chance that Democrats will retain control over the Senate. I certainly hope we get more than 50 in the Senate, that we get at least 52, so we can start going forward and protecting working people in a way we have not been able to do up to now.

Down the hall, Dana Bash had Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH) in the State of the Union classroom. 

Bash asked if AG Merrick Garland should indict FPOTUS. Warren thinks "it's powerfully important" that DOJ can follow the evidence, and if they have it, "they will bring charges and prosecute appropriately. And I support them in that."

Like Sanders, Warren's happy something's being done on student loans. Noting that 40% of folks with student loans don't have a four-year degree, she said the forgiveness "is about America investing in people who work hard, who play by the rules, and who just need a government on their side."

Bash wondered about fairness, and other kinds of debt that the government isn't helping with. Warren said she thinks "a lot about fairness," before reciting her own story of going to college when a semester cost $50, getting a part-time job and being able to pay for her education. That's not the case now, where "our public education system is no longer creating opportunities" for folks without financial means.

Instead, we're saying to these young people, you have got to get an education, but we are going to wrap the chains of debt around you. And, for many, you're going to be paying it for decades into the future, including getting Social Security checks garnished. That's not the America we want.

She didn't address the 'fairness' question, and Bash noted the package doesn't do anything about the cost of education. There are "a lot of problems in the whole system," she said, and this is one tool Biden had to help. She said the Dems "have put multiple plans on the table" to deal with the other issues, but the Rs won't get on board.

We'll close with Sununu, about whom there was some early talk of a presidential run; he's hoping to be re-elected as gov. Bash asked him how concerned he was about the Mar-a-Lago documents, including info related to 'human clandestine sources."  Sununu toed the party line, saying he's concerned about transparency.

...one thing I was very aggressive about was saying, look, if you're going to take unprecedented action and raid a former president's house, well, you better have a strategy for unprecedented transparency. So, I think we're all concerned about what might be in those documents, that some were classified, some weren't, what the serious nature was, but show us. You got to be able to show your cards when you're taking actions like this.

Bash said "you can't show all your cards when you're talking about top secret information," which is the point of the investigation. She asked if he was concerned about "the potential risk to American intelligence and national security."

I think we should -- we should absolutely be concerned. There's no question about that. But I don't know what to be concerned about. No one -- no one seems to. What's the subject matter? What's the dates? What's the times? What are we talking about here? Of course, you can't just open the whole investigation up.

He said he didn't want all the documents on the Internet, but "give us some sense " of what's in them and "what really drove us in there."

So, this is unprecedented. And they had to have an unprecedented strategy, which they clearly didn't have. They're on their heels. They don't know what to do. We just -- we want to see the information, so we can have this discussion, we can talk about the subject matter with some sense.

On the student loan program, here's the best part of his argument.

by the way, the debt is not going anywhere, right? Someone's got to pay it. And, in many instances, because there's no balanced budget, there's no sense of control on the $30 trillion in debt, here's the misery of it. Those individuals that think they're getting the $10,000 or $20,000 off their student loans, it's just getting effectively deferred into taxes down the road, higher taxes down the road, where they will have to pay interest on. This is a political shell game of money. 

 See you around campus.

Sunday School 11/29/20

Welcome back, students. I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving break - I know I enjoyed mine. And honestly? It was nice to leave you alone for a few days, don't you agree? 

I mean, we all know what's been going on: the president has been whining, golfing, lying, and threatening people. Joe Biden announced some cabinet picks. Crazy lawyers have been holding whacky press conferences. Talking heads have been talking. In a nutshell, the usual suspects are acting in the usual manner - this script writes itself. 

But now we're back, so let's pick it up again, starting with Chuck Todd and his interview with Adm. Mike Mullen (Ret.), who served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs under both Dubya and Barack Obama, in the Meet the Press classroom. 

Mullen thinks the assassination of Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh makes it "much more challenging" for Joe Biden vis a vis the Iran nuclear deal; he also noted "there's an Israeli component" here, not in the context of allegations that Israel was behind the killing. Rather, he thinks the Israelis will do whatever they can to make sure Iran never gets a nuclear weapon. He hopes Biden can deal with the treaty and that he can "calm the waters" between the two countries.

Mullen's concerned about who's in the Pentagon,  and the people who were fired or left. 

...There are some real Trump loyalists there now, in charge, and it's pretty difficult to think that over the course of 50 or 60 days you can do something constructive, but you can do something that's really destructive. 

He said that he'd "be concerned" that issues will be raised like the one that was widely reported about a debate on taking some kind of action against Iran (Trump nixed that, we were told). He also said "we need to be very careful with" troop draw-downs.

The reality is, on the ground in places like Somalia and Afghanistan, there are still terrorists who would do us ill, and I want to play, actually, the game on their turf, and not play it here. 

And, he said, he learned on the Bush II to Obama transition that a president shouldn't be boxing in the incoming president, you want "to give (him) as many options and as much space as possible." And that, he said is "obviously the opposite case right now."

So, it appears that the current administration is trying to lock in as many options as -- as many issues as possible to make it much more difficult for President-elect Biden to govern. And actually, historically, that has just never been the case

His concern with that, and the late start that the Biden team has? 

I think, our allies, our friends, and our enemies look at us at a time of real fragility in that regard, and our enemies always try to look and take advantage of a transition period.

Next, let's move on to CNN's State of the Union classroom, where Dana Bash talked with Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), the chair of the Senate Rules Committee (it oversees elections.) Blunt refused to come right out and say that he accepts that Joe Biden is the President-elect. I've added some emphasis. Here's his first dodge.

Well, we are certainly moving forward as if that what is going to happen on January the 20th...But the president wants to see this process play out. The president-elect technically has to be elected president by the electors. That happens in the middle of December. And then, January the 6th, I'm one of the four members of the Congress that participates in the joint session that decides that those electoral votes are fully accepted. And, of course, that is when this process is over, when those votes are accepted and counted.

And, he said, transition money's been released, and folks are "working with the Biden administration, likely administration, on both the transition and the inauguration, as if we are moving forward."

Bash picked up on his "likely administration' comment and said, "So, is it safe to say that you do consider Joe Biden the president-elect?" Again,

Well, the president-elect will be the president-elect when the electors vote for him. There is no official job president-elect... And I think I'm on a list of -- that you're keeping at your network of Republican senators who haven't yet acknowledged that there's a president-elect, as if that's a significant thing.

Bash said it's not just the title of 'President-elect,' it's that Trump lost, he's losing the lawsuits, states are certifying the votes, "and, maybe even more importantly, the president is undermining the democratic process by talking about fraud that nobody can find..."  Blunt's response?

Well... We're at about -- we're at about the end of that process. And when that - when the states have certified, when this process is over, that's when you come to a conclusion. That's why these things are set up in that way.

And, he said, our democratic processes are strong enough to handle this crap (not in so many words, of course), and that he hopes Georgia Republicans go out and vote in the runoff, and "the president says he is going to Georgia next Saturday, so he must be thinking that voters need to vote as well."

He also he wishes that people would have been able to see that signatures were being checked in Pennsylvania, noting that

When you send ballots out to people that you don't know if they are still there or not, and they come back and you don't check the signatures, that is a huge problem."

Here's Bash putting a 'put that in your pipe and smoke it' kind of exclamation point on that part of their conversation.

OK. And, Senator, just to put a button on that, there is no evidence that people didn't see signatures. In fact, the state Supreme Court and now federal court have both thrown out the notion that that didn't happen. 

Finally, Martha Raddatz talked with another defense expert, Adm. William McRaven (Ret.), in ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos classroom. McRaven has not been shy in speaking out against Trump's leadership, in announcing his vote for Joe Biden, or that he's briefed the President-elect. McRaven's like Fauci - he's served under six presidents.

Talking about the murder of Fakhrizadeh, he suggests retaliation is almost inevitable, since they know or suspect that Israel was involved.

I don't see any way around it. They -- they're going to have to save face. And so now the issue becomes, what does that retaliation look like? Does that then begin to escalate the problems in the region? And that's going (not)to be good for anybody. The Iranians don't want to war with us. We don't want to go to war with Iran. So everybody needs to do the best they can to kind of lower the temperature and -- and try not to get this into an escalation mode.

McRaven shares Mullen's concerns about Trump having "taken out all the leadership in the Department of Defense," and replaced them with inexperienced people. And he's also concerned about the troop draw-downs, and more.

But what it appears is that this new administration in the Department of Defense is really rushing to get a lot of Trump's agenda resolved before a President Biden comes in.

He says "the rest of the world, of course, is just looking for a Biden administration to come in," and that they've been concerned for a long time about Trump.

And, frankly, if we are going to move forward, if this new national security team is going to move forward, they are going to need strong alliances. They are going to need a strong NATO. They are going to need strong partnerships with the ASEAN nations, for the African Union. 

He listed all the agreements and organizations we've abandoned, including the WHO, the TPP, the Paris Climate Accord, and the Open Skies treaty. And that's a problem.

... if we don’t abide by our own treaties, if we don’t recognize and support our own treaties, then who in the international community is going to want to partner with us in the future? So, President Trump has been playing a short game, I would offer. I hope President Biden will come in, strengthen these alliances, strengthen these coalitions, get back in to some of these organizations, as imperfect as they might be, and begin to play the long game.

On Biden's cabinet picks, which Raddatz suggested was a kind of 'back to the future' slate of nominees, McRaven disagrees. 

...this new group of national security professionals coming in are incredibly experienced, incredibly talented and they know each other. And that’s an important factor when it comes to working together. But they are going to approach these issues differently than certainly the Trump administration did, and I would offer to some degree differently than the Obama administration did.

As Raddatz said, "it will be a very interesting time." She's right about that.

See you around campus, assuming you're not in yellow zone or a red zone or under some other non-color-coded restriction. Be smart. Wear your mask. And if one of your elected officials says one thing about how to behave, but does another, please - yell at them, of course, but do as they say, not as they do.  

Be better. 

Sunday School 9/22/19

None of the Democratic presidential contenders are in the classrooms today - they must be recovering from the Iowa Steak Fry, or the Des Moines Register poll (more on that during the week), or maybe they're just too busy raising money or something.


So, who do we listen to? Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (three classrooms), Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin (two classrooms or Rep. Adam Schiff, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee (one classroom)?  

I chose Schiff, who appeared on CNN's State of the Union with Jake Tapper. Here are the highlights.

Tapper played a video clip in which the president said he wasn't looking to hurt Joe Biden but "he said a very bad thing. He said a very foolish thing. Now me, on the other hand, my call with the president, the new president of Ukraine, was perfect...There was no quid pro quo..." and Tapper asked Schiff to respond.

Well, if that was the case, then why doesn't the president simply release the transcript of that call? And I don't know whether the whistleblower complaint is on this allegation, but if it is - and even if it isn't - why doesn't the president just say, release the whistleblower complaint? 

Clearly, he's afraid for the public to see either one of those things. And we're determined to make sure that the public does, that the nation is protected, that if the president of the United States is browbeating a foreign leader at the same time he was withholding vital military assistance that Ukraine needed to defend itself against Russia, and trying to get dirt on his political opponent in yet a second campaign, then the country needs to know about it. And we need to take defensive steps. 

And Schiff disagreed with Mnuchin, who was also in Tapper's classroom this morning, who said that foreign leaders need to know their conversations with the president will not be shared. Schiff disagreed, if the conversations contained potential corruption or were being used for political purposes. And, he went on,

that's what's at stake here. This would be, I think the most profound violation of the presidential oath of office, certainly during this presidency, which says a lot, but perhaps during just about any presidency. There is no privilege that covers corruption... And again, I don't know if this is the subject of the whistleblower complaint. But if it is, it needs to be exposed. 

He was careful, twice, to point out that we don't know for sure what's in the whistleblower complaint, even though Tapper suggested that it was about conversation with Ukraine's president. But he did say what we do know: that it wasn't a policy disagreement, and that it was urgent.

(a policy issue) is not a valid whistleblower complaint. But, here, the inspector general said, this is not what is at issue. We're talking about serious or flagrant abuse, impropriety, potential violation of law. And there's no privilege that protects that.

Further, if this is what the complaint is about, you've got the "illicit conduct" by the president and "the added element of a coverup."

Tapper asked if, as the Wall Street Journal reported, Trump pressed eight times to have Hunter and Joe Biden investigated, whether Schiff would consider that an impeachable offense.  Schiff reminded Tapper that he's been "very reluctant" to go down that path (as have been many Dems in leadership roles), as it's "an extraordinary remedy," and one of last resort. That said, 

But if the president is essentially withholding military aid, at the same time that he is trying to browbeat a foreign leader into doing something illicit, that is, providing dirt on his opponent during a presidential campaign, that that may be the only remedy that is co-equal to the evil that that conduct represents.

Joseph Maguire, the acting Director of National Intelligence, will be testifying before the House Intelligence committee on Thursday to explain why he's withholding the whistleblower complaint, Schiff said. 

And we're going to make sure that we find out whether the president has engaged in this kind of improper conduct. But it may be that we do need to move forward with that extraordinary remedy if.. the president is, at the same time withholding vital military assistance he is trying to leverage that to obtain impermissible help in his political campaign.

Tapper allowed as how that's the farthest he's ever heard Schiff go on the topic of impeachment -but he also pointed out that other Dems are willing to go even further, referencing comments by 2020 presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren and freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez  as examples, and asked for Schiff's response.

Well, I would just say this. There's no chance of us persuading the Senate, the Senate Republicans, in an impeachment trial. They have shown their willingness to carry the president's baggage, no matter how soiled its contents. 

But I want to make sure, before we go down this road, that we can persuade the public that this was the right thing to do.... Now, some of the folks that you mentioned have been embracing impeachment from the very beginning. I don't think that's useful in making the case to the public that we did this reluctantly. 

But the president is pushing us down this road..I have spoken with a number of my colleagues over the last week, and this seems different in kind. And we may very well have crossed the Rubicon here.

They also talked about the Ukrainian foreign minister saying there was no pressure to investigate Biden in the July phone call. Schiff noted that the country is in a tough spot, wanting a summit with Trump, having issues with Russia occupying their country, and also understanding that, even though the $250M in military aid that was being held up (which was a subject before Schiff's committee already), it could be cut off just as quickly as it was released. In a nutshell, he was basically saying they're between a rock and a hard place, a position that Schiff doesn't envy, especially given Trump's vindictive tendencies.

He also said that they'll do everything possible - including potentially withholding funds from the DNI - if they don't get the whistleblower complaint. When asked by Tapper if that wasn't going to put our country at risk, Schiff said it depended on what funds are withheld, noting that some funds that don't go directly to national security could be held back. Further, he said,

Now, we cannot afford to play rope-a-dope in the court for weeks or months on end. We need an answer. If there's a fire burning, it needs to be put out. And that's why we're going to have to look at every remedy.

And if these two issues are, in fact, one issue, and relates to deplorable conduct, a violation of the president's oath of office, and a cover-up in terms of this whistleblower complaint, then we're going to have to consider impeachment, as well, a remedy here.

The interview with Schiff ended there, but this conversation -- about Trump and Ukraine and the whistleblower and the DNI and impeachment - yeah, that's going to keep going on, and on, and on...

See you around campus.

TGIF 1/25/19

Wow -- what a week this one was!

I don't know about you, but I got a little tired trying to keep up with who was staring down who, and who was or wasn't blinking, and stuff like that.  Let's take a look.

Covington Catholic had a down and up week when a video appeared to show their #MAGA hat-wearing, women's rights-protesting students engaged in what appeared to be a racist, tomahawk-chopping, chanting in the face of a Native American elder and Vietnam War veteran.

Even their diocese pounced on them, promising a full investigation of their behavior.  And then, more video cropped up, and the race to condemnation turned away (somewhat, but not completely) from the kids and onto the vet, and more particularly onto the media.

There was lots of condemnation to go around on this one, for sure. In the end, the kids were not the instigators; the veteran was of the Vietnam War era, but never served out of the country, and the media? Well, yeah, there's still plenty of condemnation for them, all around: for the original reporting, for being too slow to respond when additional videos were made public, for their treatment of the Native American elder, for their interview with the start of the protest, and for their explanations and apologies, or the lack thereof.

No one was happy, I think - or, maybe I should say no one should be happy.   I expect the students will be invited to the White House, as survivors of the war on religion AND the war against the #fakenews.

But someone definitely had a worse week than the entire city of Covington, Kentucky.

Sunday School 3/4/18

Kinda of in a funk today, so my attention span was limited and I only visited one classroom, CNN's State of the Union with Jake Tapper at the helm.

The first guest was Peter Navarro, who is the White House Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy. Navarro's goal today was to convince us that president Trump's surprise announcement of tariffs - 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum -- was a great idea, good for the president, good for our steel and aluminum workers, and #MAGA.

Navarro said the tariffs would go into effect next week, maybe the week after, once the White House lawyers get all their ducks in a row. Tapper played some video of the president blaming China for overproduction and saying that needed to be addressed, and then he reminded Navarro that China doesn't make the top ten steel importers into the US. Here's how Navarro responded:

So, the bigger picture is that China has tremendous overcapacity in both aluminum and steel. And so what they do is, they flood the world market with this product. And that ripples down to our shores and to other countries. So China is, in many ways, the root of the problem in both aluminum and steel for all countries of the world.

But let's be clear here about what the president's doing. Let's lay this on the table. This is an action, basically, to protect our national security and economic security. And the president was quite clear. We can't have a country that can defend itself and prosper without an aluminum and steel industry.

Silly me - I thought we couldn't be a country without a border wall, and without getting rid of chain migration and stuff. I was wrong, I guess.

Tapper reminded Navarro, speaking of national security, that the Pentagon was not in favor of what Trump did.

The Pentagon wrote a memo about the tariff, saying, indeed the unfair steel practices do create a national security problem. But the Pentagon also said that the US should use targeted tariffs and avoid angering allies who are needed for other diplomatic national security reasons, such as Canada, such as South Korea. If you are invoking the national security exemption, should you not also be listening to the Pentagon on how to apply these tariffs?

Navarro's answer was reminiscent of Trump's "I alone can fix it" comment.

What I love about this president is, he listens to all points of view, both within his government and outside, and then he makes the tough decisions. 

Which includes ignoring the Pentagon.

Also on the show was Ohio Governor John Kasich, who is considered a potential challenger to Trump in 2020. Tapper talked to him about the president's trade tariffs (Kasich is not a fan) and the president's 'gun control without due process' plan; Kasich is again not a fan. Rather, what he's trying in Ohio is a restraining order, which comes with due process.

In terms of our gun retraining order, it means, if you have somebody in the family who sees trouble in the family, they have an ability, either go to law enforcement or the court in order to get those guns out of that person who's having a very difficult time, get the guns away from them. If you're a neighbor or somebody outside, you can go to a police officer who can investigate and then go to the judge. There's got to be speed in this, because we don't want people who are emotionally - you know, emotionally in upheaval, who could pose a threat either to themselves or to somebody else, to be in a position where they can have a gun.

Kasich also noted that the agenda changes, quickly.

And by the way, have we forgotten the Dreamers, the DACA, the young people who came here? They're not even in the news anymore. And I don't - I can't believe Congress is -- Congress has got to do something on guns. 

And you know what? I think the president will sign something. If he doesn't, send it to him anyway. I mean, the deal is that you don't ask permission. You legislate; you get it to the president, you see what he does.

 I believe he will sign some really good, strong, common sense gun legislation. Send him the Dreamers. We can't be taking these kids that have been -- or young people who have been here, some of them for 20 years, and ship them out of the country for political reasons. 

Tapper also asked Kasich about 2020, and whether someone should challenge Trump, even if it's not Kasich who does it. .

Well, come on Jake. We don't know what's going to happen next week. That's not -- you know, all I'm doing is making sure that, both now and when I'm out, that I can have a voice that can help the country, that can bring it together. That's all I'm particularly interested in at this point. And if I go any further than that, Jake, I won't be able to get in my house tonight. My wife will have it barricaded. 

So, I'm not going there.... 

And, listening to the entire exchange  between Kasich and Tapper, I was reminded why I liked Kasich more than any of the rest of the Republicans. First, he's reasonable, and second, he has a great sense of humor and hes not afraid to use it - which is something we could use a whole lot more of in DC.

See you around campus.

Quick Takes (v23): Going Rogue (Updated 11/3/22)

Quick Takes

We all know that the Former Guy has been banned from Twitter since a couple of days after his insurrection in January 2021. 

Now that Elon Musk owns Twitter, there's a lot of speculation on how long it'll be before FPOTUS is allowed back on the platform; given Musk wants to charge 'blue check' users a monthly subscription fee, he might never come back. 

This post, from November 3, 2017, is about the time - before he was banned - that Trump was shut out of his account for 11 blissful, dangerous minutes. 

====================================================

Don't be alarmed at the title - this post has nothing to do with the woman from Wasilla. I didn't mean to scare you, sorry about that.

No, this is all about that glorious, inexplicable feeling of calm that descended on the universe yesterday. I felt it. I'm sure you felt it too, right? Suddenly, things seemed 'right' for a brief period of time, but we didn't quite know why...

What caused that beautiful experience? Well, that's when president Trump's personal Twitter feed (and by personal, I mean the official presidential account) was down for the count, for 11 minutes.

Twitter initially said it was human error that caused the downtime, which inspired a host of tributes on the social media platform to accidentally wonderful acts. But as they investigated to see how it could have happened, it turned out that 'human error' had a name: Rogue Employee, who did this on his or her last day.

#JeSuisRogue #AllHailRogue #EmployeeoftheMonth #YoureHired

While some thought it was a pretty cool thing, and much fun was had on Twitter and other platforms, the reality is there's a certain danger here. I mean, can just anyone working at Twitter shut down the president whenever they want? Are there no protections on his account, or the other verified accounts? How are we all protected from employees like Rogue?

Alexei Oreskovic, writing at Business Insider, suggests there are some serious risks here (emphasis added).

Just think, what if the rogue support staffer on his last day decided to do something different. What if, instead of taking Trump's account offline, the staffer decided to fire off a tweet on Trump's account? Perhaps the staffer might have had Trump say something idiotic or embarrassing. Perhaps the staffer might have had Trump bash a company's stock, in hopes of trading ahead of it and make a quick buck.

And I laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Because Trump does that kind of stuff, what, every other day? Every day? Multiple times a day?

Bash an ally? Check. Threaten free speech? Check. Denigrate our political and justice systems? Check. Threaten opponents? Check. Personally attack anyone who doesn't agree with him? Check. Encourage racism and division? Check. Make other idiotic and embarrassing comments?

CheckCheckCheckCheckCheckCheckCheckCheck

There IS a security component here that Twitter needs to address - there's no question about that. But Oreskovic's comments about idiocy and embarrassment?

Yeah, that's not the concern from Rogue, that's a standing concern every time the president sits down at his keyboard.