Memo frenzy: sequel 1

The Nunes memo (text here) hammers on the Steele dossier, how biased Steele was against Trump, how the dossier was used to spy on an American whose rights were thus abridged, and, hey, the targeted individual worked on Trump's campaign.

The memo was heartily cheered by the Trump faithful. Their narrative is that the whole 'Russia thing' is fake news, stirred up by media, abetted by deep state leakers and a very biased FBI and Justice Department. Both of those departments should obviously be cleared out, with all these anti-Trump conspirators sent to jail.

The Nunes memo supported this narrative by positing the FBI used the perfidious Steele dossier to get a warrant to spy on a loyal American (Trump adviser Carter Page), violating his civil rights. Those who want to take that narrative even further into territory even Nunes can't go, they say that the FBI was spying on the Trump campaign and giving that information to Obama.

The Nunes is centered on the claim that the FISA court judge wasn't told that the dossier was opposition research. Dems dispute this. Am I going to believe Nunes? Not a chance. I'm looking forward to the actual verbiage that Dems points to as backing their claim that the judge was informed that the dossier had political origins.

The duplicity of Steele is a fair target. He didn't fully share his motives. His work was sloppy and uneven, and he broke faith with FBI by leaking to the press while he was very engaged with the FBI.
Did the FBI know the origin of the Steele dossier, paid for by Clinton and the DNC? Did they dig for the information? How did the FBI frame the information from the dossier? Were they clear on its origin at oppo research? Did the judge have full information? It is a reasonable question whether the court would have granted the FISA warrant if the judge had been fully informed.

The Nunes memo is also disputed because it ignores that the FBI was already investigating Russian hijinks prior to the creation of the Steele dossier. What other information had the FBI gathered? Nunes pretends there was none. Trump loyalists pretend there was none--as though there were no Russian hijinks at all. Dems claim there was other evidence.

If there was no evidence of hijinks, then there is no reason to spy on Carter Page. However, if there were Russian hijinks along with evidence that Carter Page was involved, then there's a good reason to spy on Page. Interestingly, Page hasn't been a big figure in the whole issue of Russian meddling. The current inquiry isn't centered around Page, but around multiple connection points between the Trump campaign and Russia. Also, Russian meddling -- can we take it as granted that there were a lot of Russian dirty tricks? Do we need a laundry list of them?

So the question of whether Russian meddling was real is paramount. If it was real, if there were sources showing Russian meddling, and not just the fervid, well-paid work of one biased spy, then the investigations appear to be justified.

If Russian meddling was real, then Russia deserves the sanctions put on it. And it would have been wrong to remove those sanctions, as it appears Trump was ready to do. In fact, the whole coziness of Trump, many of his advisers, and Russia appear to be frightening, as though rules and laws don't matter.

One other observation about the memo. Nunes claims twice that FBI and DOJ knew the Steele was being paid by DNC, but is actually vague on the point. It doesn't say who in the FBI and DOJ knew this. It is also vague on what was known, using the phrase "knew political actors..." This vagueness may indicate that there is no written evidence that the information was known at that time at the FBI and DOJ.

Is this applicable to the memo? To the strategy?

Image: smoosh.com

Extras. Reaction from the director of the FBI. Reaction from the New Yorker. Here's an interesting point. Carter Page was already on the radar of other news organizations before the leak from Steele: Huffpost early Aug 2016, ABC July 2016, and Slate July 2016.

Because of the memo frenzy, Congress didn't do the work they needed to in the run-up to the end of the most recent continuing resolution, so we're facing another shutdown. Way to go, boys!

Guess what! There was verbiage to the effect that the dossier was political. It was footnote, and Nunes knew about it. What a fucking liar he is.

More extras that I forgot. Conservative theories and reaction to them. Super-great wonderful interactive graphic about who is who in the Russia investigation. Gowdy splits the difference in conspiracies. An unofficial Dem rebuttal is rebutted. Scathing review of the memo because the critique is very sharp, not because the language is hyped. WaPo timeline I might want to refer to.

Finally, a much better memo from Senator Ron Johnson. Reasonable tone, reasonable questions. Download the memo and the internal FBI communications. This is what a decent congressman does. Nunes is a sideshow.

More and better extras. A long, detailed profile of Carter Page. Impressive unless it's full of Russian disinformation. Another more important memo, also about the Carter Page surveillance, but so much more solid.

Memo frenzy

House Republican Devin Nunes, who did some underhanded shit to cover up for Trump last spring, now has a new plan. He's claiming that he has secret information that shows how the FBI and maybe Justice Department (DOJ) had conspired to illegally surveille on the Trump campaign, and other such nefarious acts.

It's a bunch of hogwash. Nunes doesn't have new information -- that's my prediction. He has a hodge-podge that he's carefully piled up to make the FBI look as bad as possible, mostly by editing out info that shows the FBI doing their job, while playing up anything that makes them look bad.

I have no inside info at all, so my prediction of the contents of the memo are based on existing leaked information that is all over the press. Both the Washington Post (link above) and Reuters have detailed stories about what is in the memo. Nunes' memo shows the FBI used information from the Steele dossier to obtain FISA warrants to surveille Carter Page. Maybe there's a bit of a surprise, and someone else from the campaign was watched too.

Maybe there will be some innuendo that information was shared with the Clinton campaign. You know, hints that it was possible, but no definite evidence that such illegal information sharing actually happened.

It will leave out the information that Papadoupolous told a Danish Australian somebody that he was getting dirt on Clinton from the Russians. That this info was given to the FBI, and they obtained warrants based on that, and maybe other sources too. How this leads to a warrant to watch Carter Page--that I don't know right now. That interesting piece of the puzzle will probably be revealed sometime.

The memo probably pretends that there wasn't anything to worry about the Russians and the Trump campaign until all that misleading info from the Steele dossier, and that was the excuse to spy on the Trump campaign.

True and Not True

However, parts of the Steele dossier have been verified as true, parts have been shown to be wrong, and parts are very scandalous and the kind of delicious misinformation that some source enjoyed feeding to a gullible mark.

Too many Trump supporters would love to pretend that there is nothing to see in Trump's closeness to the Russians. There was no Russian misbehavior. Instead, the misbehavior was on the part of the Obama administration and its subverted spy network embedded in the FBI and DOJ.

What a cynical ploy this is. The Dems on the committee want to blow the whole issue open with their own version of the events. But somehow it's OK for the GOPers to publish their case, but not for the Dems to do the same. I wonder why? This is so obviously partisan that no one should see it any other way.

If and when Nunes' memo is published, there will be hew and cry, and hundreds of journalists will be working to dig out as much of the rest of the story as possible. We \probably won't have to wait very long to find out all the mitigating information that the Dems wanted to tell but weren't allowed to.

Hide and Seek

High-ranking officials in both the DOJ and FBI don't want the memo released either:

“We have grave concerns about the material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy,” the FBI said.

They'll be painted as part of a Dem-aligned spy group within these agencies. Maybe they don't want certain embarrassing details out there. Maybe they don't want internal methods revealed. Maybe they're pissed off about being accused when they were doing their jobs and looking into Russian influence.

Are Trump and Nunes hoping the hew and cry will be enough to shut down the Mueller investigation? Maybe that's what they hope, but I doubt it will happen. I doubt there is much that will smudge the investigation. Mueller will continue to work meticulously gathering the information that's out there, and maybe parts that are currently hidden--though I don't think there will be any more major revelations. I'm so looking forward to the detailed reports--reports are full of real evidence, honestly collected and presented without partisan spin.

What if the memo contains much more than I thought? Then I was wrong and will need to reevaluate. However, if it contains what I've outlined here, this memo is perhaps the biggest example of a shiny object so far in this presidency. A nothing-new-here that dominated the news cycle for several weeks, and that was called "shocking" and "far worse than Watergate." Yep, that's what I'm predicting: a bunch of GOP hype-tripe pretending to be shock and awe.

Image: twitchy.com

Extras. Is it a coincidence the Trey Gowdy is calling it quits? Gowdy may be an intense conservative, but he seems to have limits on stupid partisanship.

The head of the CIA, a conservative appointed by Trump, says that he's expecting more interference by Russians in the midterm elections. Fake news, I guess.

Reverse auction in Congress

This is an explanation I developed in my comments on political threads, but I'm finally writing it here. On many issues, the GOP leadership has the choice of two negotiation partners. It can negotiate with the House Freedom Caucus (a more conservative group) or it can negotiate with Dems.

Both the Freedom Caucus and the Dems will try to barter votes for concessions. The GOP will be able to play them off against each other and lower the degree of concessions.

This dynamic was first apparent when the GOP were late again getting to the appropriations bills last September. Dems helped them out by providing votes to pass a clean continuing resolution to keep funding as is. In December, it was the Freedom Caucus' turn to provide the votes, with a clean bill again being passed.

Neither the Dems nor the Freedom Caucus gain much in these clean bills. Many of them want to use their leverage (their votes) to gain concessions. Dems want protection for DACA young people (children brought to the US as illegal aliens). The Freedom Caucus has a big roster of wants, including no concessions on DACA, tougher immigration measures, and more military readiness.

With the 1/19/18 appropriation deadline coming up, both the Dems and the Freedom Caucus were vying to be the partner. The Dems thought they had a deal, but it fell apart. The Freedom Caucus swooped in and made a deal for almost a clean bill--few demands at all. That bill passed the House just one day before the deadline.

The Freedom Caucus agenda is a better fit in general for the GOP. But this is complicated by the slim GOP margin in the Senate, and some very independently-minded GOP senators. Several senators, such as Lindsay Graham and Jeff Flake, want to do an immigration reform deal that is more liberal than what the rest of the GOP senators want. (This is how the Dem deal fell apart. The Dems negotiated only with Lindsay Graham, and the deal was spiked by Trump.) Do Graham and Flake have to willpower to stand strong and send the Freedom Caucus deal to defeat? I rather doubt it.

I think Graham and Flake will have to settle on a lesser immigration deal in the near future, or maybe no deal at all. Democrats have been threatening a filibuster and hinting at a government shutdown if they don't get a deal on DACA. I predict any shutdown will fail. The Dem leadership probably realizes this, so I don't think they would attempt anything more than a token shutdown at most.

Shutdown threats are a blunt instrument, and not useful for getting major changes in potential legislation. Making an advantageous deal is going to be hard for the Freedom Caucus or the Dems. The best deal may be for them have secret talks with as many allies in the GOP establishment as possible, be prepared to make concessions, and then take what they can get. However, this strategy is certain to piss off true believers among the supporters, and get the politicians labeled as sell-outs. But that's the breaks when you negotiate from a position of weakness and you aren't the only potential partner. If someone is ready to trip you and underbid you, you need to be ready to do the same.

Image: nbcnews.com

World populations

I can't remember what triggered the question in my head, but I started to wonder about racial make up of the population of the whole world.

I was wondering what the world looked like back in the 1400s. Were there major migrations going on? That was on the eve of the migration of Europeans all over the world, and their forcible displacement of Africans via slavery to the Americas. Was there migration as big as the Turks to Anatolia in the 6th through 11th century?

It's incredible to think of Europeans swamping North America and Australia and New Zealand, and making a pretty big dent in South America too. Sad to think about the loss of native American cultures.

So what is the balance in the world now? It was somewhat hard to find. For one thing, racial classification is very much out of favor. However, I did find this:

Image: sciencechatforum.com

I liked that the world wasn't divided into white, black, American Indian, and Asian. It makes sense to have more divisions in Asia. Does the entry for South/Central American make sense? Maybe it does. Perhaps there are has been more mixing there of European, American, and African stocks.

I then thought of a Cambodian babysitter my kids had 20 years ago. She had lighter skin and finer features than the Cambodians at the bus stop near me. She explained that she was half Chinese, which was one reason her family fled Cambodia. The Chinese diaspora has been extensive, like the European diaspora. Then I found this graph of the Indian diaspora, which is also fascinating.

Image: commonwealthroundtable.co.uk

Then there was this list of ethnic groups. My group is there, and so is my spouse's. But no Vikings? That's sad.

As a thought experiment, what groups will be on a pie chart in 200 years or 500 years? It almost makes me hope that I'll have an afterlife and can peek in on Earth to watch.

Ssdly, I didn't save a link to a genetic study showing that if there were racial categories, there should be only three of them: pygmies, Bushmen, and everyone else. I have no trouble believing that.

Update 4/5/18. Japanese population has already peaked (in 2008) and is declining. China, even with their one-child policy, still hasn't peaked (source). By the way, I'm in favor of a stabilization and decline in world population.

Republican accomplishments in 2017

The GOP had undivided power in the US federal government: presidency, House, Senate, and even a mostly sympathetic Supreme Court. They started the year with all kinds of bragging, but didn't manage to do some major pieces of legislation, including repealing Obamacare, overhauling immigration laws, defunding the horrid Planned Parenthood, reworking trade agreements, etc.

The misses have been well-discussed. What might be overlooked is what was accomplished by these latter day Keyston Kops. (A good summary is here. A summary from a conservative site here.)

Tighter enforcement on immigration. Many groups, including Haitians, have lost special status and are now subject to deportation. DACA for children brought to the US wasn't renewed. Flow across the border seems to be down (a trend over several years). Democrats are being pounded by their constituents over their failure to stop these immigration changes. But that just shows the unrealistic hopes of certain groups since the Dems have almost no power.

The tax reform/tax cut bill was passed, with major changes for both businesses, individuals, and households. It's hard for me to predict how this will affect the country in the long term. It may cause a big increase in deficits. However, if the increases are kept to around $100 billion a year, that's not too large in the scheme of things. So far businesses have responded in positive ways, so there is a chance that the economic benefits will outweigh the economic downsides. We'll have to wait to see, though not everyone agrees. Some are presuming it will be a failure, though partisanship is probably the motive.

Changes in regulations, and a big slowdown in new regulation. I personally think that the stability of much less new regulation is mostly a benefit. I'm not a business owner, but wonder how many are relieved with this change in particular. And I'm not talking about businesses that hope to drill in sea coasts or pollute.

No huge disasters. There haven't been any crises that have started and gotten worse. No blunders that ballooned into disasters. Does that count as an accomplishment? No, but I'm still grateful.

Image: magapill.com

Extras. Not a close fit except for the aspect of a roundup of 2017. The most underreported news stories.

Interesting factoids

My blog is now mostly links. But that doesn't mean I'm not thinking. I feel like I'm thinking as much as before. So I can't really explain why my writing has changed to these collections of short, link-based reflections.

Here are a bunch of lighter link that are still interesting.

Energy promise fulfilled? In Australia, a huge battery system is providing backup for when renewables faulty and storage for when the energy output is abundant. This is such an important step in making renewables primary in large-scale energy production.

Kick him when he's down. We can laugh and/or sneer at formerly famous alt-right jerk Milo Y__(whatever). Here's an article on his unpublished books and the editor's comments.

Hackable votes. This one is heavier: an article about how Georgia has very poor security for its electronic voting machines. It contains first-hand reports of problems and officials trying to cover them up.

Good news/bad news. A funny conundrum. Media has done very well under the Trump campaign and presidency. Viewership is up, profits are up. It could be very nasty (in financial terms) if Trump doesn't win in 2020.

Trump's mental condition. Hahahaha. Nearly everyone has an opinion, but this is the opinion of a trained neurologist.  I've had some training in neurology, so I notice many of the behaviors the neurologist mentions. I would add this: look for changes, particularly diminishing ability. As far as I can tell, Trump hasn't deteriorated, but we should be alert for the signs. This is a reasonable place for a bookmark to a lawyerly explanation for why impeachment hearings are warranted. I don't agree, but the case is well argued.

A journalist on our side. Maybe Trump, Bannon, or whoever thought Michael Wolff could be trusted to write positive fluff pieces, and they found out otherwise when he wrote Fire and Fury. This is the kind of piece that might have given them false hope. It's a sympathetic view of Roger Ailes. It also sounds like he flattered people's egos, basically conning the con men that staff the White House. I don't trust him to be fair and scrupulously accurate. However, he claims to have tapes of some interviews. Added fun!

Image: newsday.com

The Roy Moore saga

I'm late writing about this story, but that's OK because the themes of the story are timeless. (I'm also going to be more free-form in writing.)

Roy Moore is a former judge in Alabama who displays a lot of the worst characteristics of evangelicals. He thinks God is on his side. He thinks he's right and anyone who agrees with him is wrong. His beliefs are more important than American law. He thinks he's right when he defies court rulings, laws, whatever. He's been removed from the Alabama Supreme Court twice (TWICE!) for this kind of behavior. The first was for refusing to remove a stone statue depicting the Ten Commandments. (The order was due to that whole 'separation of church and state' nonsense.) The second time was for lying about his directions on how to handle (errr, avoid) marriage for same sex couples, which the US Supreme Court approved a few years ago.

So, although he was controversial, he ended up as the GOP nominee for Senate for a special election in Alabama to replace Jeff Sessions, who left the Senate to become Attorney General. This shows yet again that too few regular people vote in primaries. People shouldn't be so lazy because primaries are important for getting the best possible person in the office.

The GOP had the main primary and then a run-off between the top two. Only after this process were there national reports alleging that Roy Moore had chased, bothered, and even molested at least one 14-year-old girl when he was single, a prosecutor, and in his 30's.

This isn't news to me. I hadn't heard it about Roy Moore, but I've heard it before and even witnessed it with my own eyes. There are too many men who take liberties with women as though men have prerogatives and women must simply comply and supply. So I'm not disposed to believe a man's denials. But beyond my own bias, the preponderance of the evidence is against Roy Moore and with his accusers. There is a pattern, plus there are plenty of people confirming that he gave unwanted attention to teenage girls. There's even a video of a male worker at a store in the mall talking about Moore being banned from the mall, including the name of the police officer to contact if Moore came around. This isn't a guy with an ax to grind, so his story is very credible and very damaging to Moore. The denials are Moore and his friends circling the wagons. Again, this is typical entitled male response (actually, circling the wagons is typical of many groups).

Moore, just as one might expect from a self-righteous person, denies the reports and calls his accusers liars. What is much more likely is that Moore is an abject liar himself.

Only one Republican that I can point to has acted honorably, and that's Senator Richard Shelby. He clearly said that Roy Moore isn't a good candidate, that he wasn't going to vote for him, and that Alabamians shouldn't vote for him. Most other GOPers were weasels about Roy Moore.

The good news is that Roy Moore lost. That's a good reflection on the majority in Alabama, and what a pleasant surprise to give the rest of the country. The Dems were very happy because there hasn't been a Dem senator from Alabama in 20 years. The Republicans aren't completely upset because Roy Moore is a loose cannon that they won't have to worry about, so a bit of relief for them.

Image: al.com

Extras. Lots. Breitbart lies about the inscription in a yearbook. It was clearly a combination of different writers, so this isn't a revelation... to anyone with a working brain. Breitbart then whines about being labeled liars. Another woman shows a greeting card from Roy Moore, who dated her when she was 17. Check out the handwriting.

Fox News interview with a pretty fair analyst. The anchor is trying to skew things, and it's interesting how the info about Sen. Shelby is buried at the end. Probably no accident. Roy Moore never conceded the election (because he's God's choice, you know) and even tried to prevent the certification of the election. He wasn't successful because there is a reality beyond Moore's belief systems. Thank God for that.