Vital Statistics:
| Last | Change | |
| S&P futures | 4,234 | 24.50 |
| Oil (WTI) | 92.41 | -1.53 |
| 10 year government bond yield | 2.84 | |
| 30 year fixed rate mortgage | 5.39% |
Stocks are higher as we finish up a good week of earnings. Bonds and MBS are up.
At least some good news on the home purchase front: Record numbers of homeowners are looking to relocate to cheaper locations, according to a study from Redfin. 33.7% of homeowners want to move somewhere new, compared to 26% pre-pandemic.
The places people are leaving are unsurprising: typically the expensive coastal cities, especially in California, where costs of living are sky-high. IMO, this is something that will remain given that work-from-home is now a permanent part of the landscape.
I suspect that this will actually be a huge boon to the economy, given that a historical source of friction (workers having to be near their place of employment) is no longer an issue. Think about how much productive time is wasted in commuting. This will be good for lower-cost areas, but probably not good for expensive coastal real estate.
Consumer sentiment improved in August, according to the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index. Again, these indices are generally an inverse index of gasoline prices. Inflation expectations dropped, which is welcome and something the Fed pays close attention to.
Consumer sentiment moved up very slightly this month to about 5 index points above the all-time low reached in June. All components of the expectations index improved this month, particularly among low and middle income consumers for whom inflation is particularly salient. The year-ahead economic outlook rose substantially to just above its average reading from the second quarter 2022, while the two other expectations index components remain at or below their second quarter averages. At the same time, high income consumers, who generate a disproportionate share of spending, registered large declines in both their current personal finances as well as buying conditions for durables. With continued declines in energy prices, the median expected year-ahead inflation rate fell to 5.0%, its lowest reading since February but still well above the 4.6% reading from a year ago. At 3.0%, median long run inflation expectations remained within the 2.9-3.1% range seen over the past year. Uncertainty over long run inflation receded a bit, with the interquartile range in expectations falling from 4.7 last month to 3.8 this month, remaining above the 3.3 range seen last August. Still, the share of consumers blaming inflation for eroding their living standards remained near 48%.
Filed under: Economy |
All Things in Moderation 
Still betting that the DOJ and court will not release the affidavit.
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That’s a given. It was never planned to be released anyway, just the actual search warrant.
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Banner day on DKos. Trump sold nuclear secrets to Russia apparently.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/12/2116089/-Trump-says-he-won-t-object-to-Mar-a-Lago-warrant-release#comment_84261832
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Does he have a motive, or did they not think it through that far?
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He’s a Russian stooge I guess, but also an evil Capitalist. So it wasn’t enough for him to do Putin’s bidding, he had to collect money from his evil deeds as well.
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Presumably he’s still being blackmailed over the pee tape.
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Always worth remembering about Trump:
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/dont-take-the-trump-bait-f48
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My gut is that the Trump taking nuclear secrets narrative is too good to be true.
My guess is he has stuff that either makes him look bad, or is dirt on his political enemies.
My guess is that it is the latter, and related to the Russian Collusion Hoax
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The “nuclear secrets” is the pee tape of this episode.
Useful reality check:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/trump-fbi-raid-classified-nuclear-documents/671119/
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Says the great Uterus seer, Dr. A. Sullivan, OBGYN.
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I was right, affidavit was not unsealed.
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I don’t think it was supposed to be unsealed! What’s your point?
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Why can’t we see it?
Also, what lies am I believing?
Finally, if it’s impossible for us to be convinced to change our mind, will you name a time where someone on this site changed your mind?
Thanks!
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Actually McWing there are lots of examples if you want to go back to the early days of MFP. I know you guys think I’m a progressive……………but I’m not and I’ve actually supported some of the more Libertarian views here on occasion. I don’t expect to change any minds here though! I’m just being silly hoping someone might be listening!
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lms:
I’m just being silly hoping someone might be listening!
We are listening to you. You should know that because when you accused us of believing “lies”, three different people, each separately, asked you to identify these lies. Given that you have refused to even acknowledge the questions, much less answer them, you might want to rethink exactly who isn’t listening to who.
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Apparently we believe Trump’s lies and think the election was stolen.
Which I do not in fact believe. Not that there weren’t people out there trying to insure Trump lost with a little extra-legal voting but I think he lost.
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I think everybody reads your comments and that should be obvious, as you yourself noted that when you comment the overall activity of the site increases. There are no guarantees of persuasion though, but everybody reads them.
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I read everything everybody writes. Some great people here. And then I write a lot all at once which might be a little too much but oh well.
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KW:
And then I write a lot all at once which might be a little too much but oh well.
Every morning I look forward to reading a late night burst of activity from KW. 11 separate comments in less than 40 minutes last night. Impressive!
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I’m doing it again! Shorter this time though.
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I’m not particularly a conservative and if I had to register a party affiliation here I’d register as independent
I think we’re all a bunch of free-thinkers here!
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My mind had been changed here a few times, I’m pretty sure. I know both Scott and JNCP4 have shifted my thinking on stuff. I’d like to pull up a specific example but my memory is not that good honestly. I might just be imagining I’m open-minded.
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KW:
My mind had been changed here a few times
My biggest mind change came over Matt Taibbi, which I announced 2 years ago.
https://all-things-in-moderation.com/2020/10/29/morning-report-gdp-rebounds/#comment-200330
If jnc hadn’t been linking to him, I probably wouldn’t even know who he is.
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“Why can’t we see it?”
Because it would give Trump a roadmap into how he is likely to be charged before he’s actually charged and might allow him to obstruct the investigation.
I believe that affidavits are almost never released before someone is charged, but Mark can probably answer this better.
PopeHat had a discussion on it.
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This is absolutely entertaining by as hell! It’s gone from Presidential Records act to Classified Materials to OMG he’s got Nukes at Mar A Lago!
How can anybody not enjoy the hell out of this!
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Suddenly, norms matter to the DOJ as they literally leak everything? Horseshit.
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jnc:
I believe that affidavits are almost never released before someone is charged, but Mark can probably answer this better.
That could be right, but in light of the 4th amendment it seems a bit whacky to me that the subject of a search warrant has no right to know the foundation of the warrant unless and until a crime gets charged. It seems to me that instances in which a search is conducted but no crime ever gets charged in relation to the search is precisely the kind of search most likely to be a violation of 4th amendment, and yet if it is the case that no one can know the foundation of the warrant unless and until a crime is charged, how is the subject of such a violation ever to be able to know and demonstrate it?
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This may be of interest Scott:
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Popehat presupposes good faith in obtaining the warrant as well as using tradition for not releasing the warrant. As I mentioned earlier, tradition’s out the window given the left’s reaction to Trump starting the night he was elected. Therefore, considering how volatile the electorate is, especially the left’s known propensity for violence, common sense and avoiding violence from the left really demands unsealing it.
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Lol
https://babylonbee.com/news/the-fbi-raid-was-justified-says-merrick-garland-wearing-strapless-gown-and-sun-hat-from-melanias-closet
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Interesting piece on POTUS’s ability to declassify things by a former clerk for Neil Gorsuch.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2022/08/12/former-gorsuch-law-clerk-blows-a-hole-through-legal-argument-for-fbis-mar-a-lago-n2611655
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The comments on this post are exquisite.
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/12/2116206/-Search-warrant-shows-Trump-is-under-investigation-for-possible-Espionage-Act-violations
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You guys probably won’t think this is funny but I kinda did……………..via The Shovel from yesterday!
We are certainly no fans of Donald Trump – let’s make that clear from the outset. But yesterday’s raid by the FBI on the home of a former president sets a dangerous precedent.
A precedent which now means that anyone who evades taxes, attempts to undermine an election, sexually assaults women, manipulates the value of their assets, uses state resources to enrich themselves or aids and abets the overthrow of a democratically elected government will be subject to investigation.
Is that the world we want to live in? Where anyone accused of insurrection can be subject to questioning from law enforcement officers?
It’s a slippery slope. Before we know it, regular citizens accused of defrauding the government, concealing evidence, manipulating financial documents, tampering with witnesses or perverting the course of justice will also be held to account.
Or to put it another way, if we simply shrug our shoulders and fail to question the actions of the FBI, soon any old Joe Citizen who is suspected of ripping classified government documents into small pieces and flushing them down the toilet will be obliged to answer to law enforcement, as well as their plumber.
If we don’t ask the hard questions about the potential motives of the FBI now, soon any one of us who buries our ex-wife in a small grave at the side of their golf course in order to gain a tax concession will be treated with suspicion.
As Trump supporters put it so clearly yesterday, if this can happen to a President, it could happen to anyone who has committed insurrection, assault or fraud. That’s a chilling thought.
We are on new ground here. As Donald Trump himself made clear, this is the first time a former president’s home has been raided. Proof, if ever we needed it, that the FBI shamefully only targets people who it considers to have committed a crime. Who gave FBI director Chris Wray that authority?
As we made clear earlier, we’re certainly not Trump supporters. But in today’s partisan world, it would be easy to fall into the trap of cheering on the FBI’s actions, without taking a step back to look at the bigger picture. If Trump goes to jail, it opens the door for every lying, corrupt, perverted piece of shit to go to jail too. Is that what we want?
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“If Trump goes to jail, it opens the door for every lying, corrupt, perverted piece of shit to go to jail too. Is that what we want?”
I’m pretty sure most people in DC actually don’t want that. They very seriously don’t want that.
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You could have written the same thing about the Kennedys
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Good piece on how Trump will probably be charged, if he is charged.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/08/10/dojs-june-mar-a-lago-trip-helps-prove-18-usc-793e/
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It hasn’t been leaked yet if Trump had the two classifications of classified documents he’s alleged not to have the ability to declassify. It’s interesting that it hasn’t been leaked in if they seized those two classes of documents. That, it seems to me, is telling.
Make no mistake though, he’ll be charged with something, and convicted.
Note, SCOTUS has ruled in the past that even Congressional statutes do not limit POTUS’s ability to declassify things.
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Yeah. If that’s the route they take, I don’t envy them the blowback.
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Not a fan of Roy Moore but sweet Jeebus this is funny.
https://qconline.com/news/national/jury-democratic-pac-defamed-roy-moore-awards-him-8-2m/article_f206c6e7-5cc7-5696-ad25-ff04cac2354c.html
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I cannot wait for the in-camera trial that convicts Trump.
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I’ve always said it, no way Joan of Arc was chick. Anybody that good has to be a dude, I means, look at history.
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SHE WAS A WOMAN. Just because she probably had a penis doesn’t make that any less true, bigot!
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My God, just when I thought it couldn’t get better, it does!
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Now it can be told.
https://thehill.com/homenews/ap/ap-business/inflation-reduction-act-may-have-little-impact-on-inflation/
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They want to start explaining that it won’t do any of the things they said it would do when they were angling for all that sweet moolah. They don’t understand the most of the people who will be voting against them are not aware of this legislation and don’t care.
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Get out of my head!!
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Lol!
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The incompetence is outstanding.
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Elizabeth Warren:
“Everyone comes up to me and says, ‘I would vote for you, if you had a penis.’”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/08/12/ali-vitali-running-as-a-woman-in-2020-00051244
Chances that anyone said that or anything like it? I’d say 0%. As hyperbolic lies go, it’s almost Trumpian.
This was a good one, too.
“How do you convince white men — who aren’t as smart as me — how do you convince those white men over 50 that Elizabeth Warren’s the candidate?”
The racism and sexism in that is even more astonishing than the narcissism. Just imagine Trump…or any male politician, really…saying “How do you convince black women – who aren’t as smart as me – how do you convince those black women under 50 that Donald Trump’s the candidate?”
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I’ll take things that never happened for $400.
She knows she is immune from the pusillanimous stenographers in the media.
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Warren is awful. That the same people who think Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene venerate Elizabeth Warren is … interesting.
How did she ever get elected to anything? Since nobody will vote for her since she doesn’t have a penis.
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Luckily, norms are being preserved.
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Definitely no reason to say there is a “deep state”. That’s just a conspiracy theory!
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After thinking about it over the weekend, I do think that Trump’s document retention violations are at least as bad as Hillary Clinton’s E-mail infractions and probably worse.
Were the situation reversed, I’d probably be calling for some legal action to be taken.
Of course with Trump, the press can never just stop with the facts and argue that what’s known is bad enough. It always has to go to 11. He can’t just have improperly retained classified documents, it has to be nuclear secrets, etc.
But we should all guard against the impulse to just dismiss what he’s actually done due to the press and the Democrats overreaching.
I’m also starting to understand how Democrats felt during the 1990’s with all the constant investigations of Bill Clinton. “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy” was their version of the Deep State.
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I don’t trust either side.
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Nor should you!
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I’ve thought about it too, this is not about classified documents as none of the reported violations require classified documents. This is using the DoJ to enforce the Presidential Records act as well as fish for evidence for 1/6 for the committee. If there is evidence found he’ll be charged with destruction of government property (destroying records of his involvement in 1/6) and Obstruction and if they there is evidence that Trump discussed 1/6 then no matter what that is it will be used as evidence of Sedition. DoJ thinks it’s win/win.
Lawdamighty it keeps getting better!!
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Forgot to link this.
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jnc:
After thinking about it over the weekend, I do think that Trump’s document retention violations are at least as bad as Hillary Clinton’s E-mail infractions and probably worse.
Why?
And what are the retention violations, anyway? Do we even know outside of WaPo anonymously sourced claims?
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Depending on what it is, Trump’s could be theoretically worse strategically, but legally I tend to doubt it. HRC never had the power to declassify anything, nor did she enjoy the president’s blanket entitlement to view all classified documents (while president).
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jnc:
But we should all guard against the impulse to just dismiss what he’s actually done due to the press and the Democrats overreaching.
We should also guard against the impulse to condemn what he is doing just because we know about it. With regard to records holding, is he doing something completely unprecedented that no president has ever done before? Or is he doing something that is always done, and the only reason we know about it is because the corporate media/Washington regime has decided to make an issue of it because it is Trump.
I don’t know the answer, but after seeing what has gone on for 6 years, I am way more likely to give Trump the benefit of the doubt than I am to give the NYT/WaPo/FBI axis the benefit of the doubt.
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could you imagine the left if trump did that to obama?
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I think the better parallel is Hillary Clinton.
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Hillary was never POTUS
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“Or is he doing something that is always done, and the only reason we know about it is because the corporate media/Washington regime has decided to make an issue of it because it is Trump.”
The situation with Petraeus seems to be a pretty good parallel as well:
https://www.justsecurity.org/82623/lessons-from-petraeuss-guilty-plea-for-trumps-classified-docs-investigation/
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A: they will have to present solid evidence that Trump has done something meaningfully bad before I stop dismissing it.
B: The Starr investigation was a shitshow. Clinton’s impeachment was clearly political. Anyone who didn’t watch the progress of that investigation and think “special prosecutors” are actually a really bad idea … was not paying attention. On the surface at least the bullshit Russian collusion investigation at least made sense, except for it being obviously trumped up bullshit. But a special prosecutor looking into a 20 year old land dead and eventually ending up with Clinton’s relationship with an intern that had nothing to do with Whitewater … it was political and stupid and I never assumed good faith on the part of the Republicans there and I’m not going to assume good faith on the parts of the Jan 6th commission or the folks responsible for this raid or whatever it was.
Generally, it’s best not to assume good faith on the part of any politician.
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AABFA
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I’m trying not to imply too many things here re:Trump but I have learned (I think I can trust at least a few of my sources) that first of all, nothing in the Warrant actually calls Trump the person of interest in the search. His Mar A Lago residence was searched but do we actually know that Trump was the one allegedly holding on to those documents and was he aware of them? Until there is an indictment, if there is one, who knows? Lots of assumptions being made on both sides of the political spectrum in the news and here as well.
Apparently one of his lawyers supposedly signed off on the “FACT” that there were no more documents of interest housed at MAL…………last June. I guess a supposed informant called foul on that and the documents were actually found.
Also, even though the declassification issue appears to be up for grabs, my understanding is that there is a process to actually declassify the highest security documents they recovered that may not have been followed. And even if they were declassified, they still shouldn’t be housed in a basement outside of a secure location. We’ll never know what was in those documents.
Also, re Trump’s lies……………..if he’s talking he’s lying IMO. I actually don’t know which of his lies you all believe so I’ll take back my assertion that any of you actually believe him. I can’t see into your minds so I’ll retract that!
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Apparently there are national security documents that are treated differently. But it would have to be data with demonstrable military value.
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lms:
Also, re Trump’s lies……………..if he’s talking he’s lying IMO
Just like Obama!
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Just like most politicians.
Some of his lies I identified when he was running in 2016 about how bad crime was in the US turned out to be true, he was just seeing 4 years into the future.
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Latest NYT Update:
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Weird that parents aren’t trusting the police.
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/3-parents-arrested-during-arizona-school-lockdown/
Would you? If so, why?
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I tried to do a little research on whether Trump was the only president who took documents with him when leaving office and found this article on Johnson. I’ve never read anything from this website before but I did think the article was interesting. I was around during this time period and the Vietnam War really ended up as a disaster for the United States, so this is interesting I think. I do remember when the records were released but had forgotten the real gist of the entire episode.
Johnson wanted to stop Americans from learning about Nixon’s Vietnam treason and his own lawless surveillance…….
What the Johnson administration had done was, in a sense, “legal,” given that there were essentially no laws governing the U.S. surveillance state before reforms in the 1970s. Nevertheless, everyone involved was aware that what they’d done could be seen as scandalous. On the November 4 phone call, Rusk said that revealing the fruits of the FBI’s spying “would be very unwise. I mean, we get a lot of information through these special channels that we don’t make public. I mean, for example, some of the malfeasances of senators and congressmen. … I think that we must continue to respect the classification of that kind of material.”
The Vietnam War eventually ended in 1975, essentially on the same terms as had been available in 1968. Tens of thousands more Americans died, as did a far higher, uncountable number of Vietnamese. During this time, the war further metastasized to Cambodia, where the Nixon administration ramped up a bombing campaign that dropped 2.7 million tons of ordnance on that poor, rural society. This was more than the 2 million tons of bombs the U.S. had used during all of World War II. The extraordinary devastation plausibly led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge and the subsequent Cambodian genocide.
That’s the downside. The upside is that Nixon got to be president, and Americans’ innocence about how politics works was preserved.
After Johnson’s death, Rostow put his documents in a sealed envelope and gave them to the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, with instructions that the envelope was to be opened “not earlier than fifty (50) years from this date June 26, 1973.” In other words, if Rostow had gotten his way, we would only be finding out about this conspiracy next year, in 2023, or even later. Rostow told the library that if it felt 2023 was too hasty, it should “re-close the file for another fifty years.”
Fortunately, the library opened the envelope in the 1990s, although some of the material has yet to be declassified. Nixon lied about what he’d done over and over again until his death in 1994, with many partisans deriding the facts as a preposterous conspiracy theory. It was only in 2016 that Nixon’s direct involvement was finally proved beyond a doubt.
It seems unlikely that the public records Trump took with him on his way out the door could be as momentous as those Johnson tried to excise from history. But given the degree to which U.S. presidents are willing to deceive us, we shouldn’t count anything out just yet.
https://theintercept.com/2022/08/11/trump-fbi-mar-a-lago-classified-documents-lbj/
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It seems unlikely—at least as regards Trump—given he was the first president since … honestly I forget … to not start a war or fresh military action outside the lobbing of missiles in Syria. If there had been a Vietnam style conflict then maybe.
I’m still of the opinion it’s about finding stuff on January 6th at this point. But we shall see, because I don’t know that. Although I am sure every president has taken documents with them upon leaving office for a long time. Probably to hide stuff or have some control.
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KW:
I’m still of the opinion it’s about finding stuff on January 6th at this point.
That is Andy McCarthy’s theory as well, that it was basically just a pretext in order to collect whatever they could in the hope of uncovering evidence related to whatever theory they are working under to charge Trump for Jan 6 crimes.
BTW, he also made a very interesting point regarding the whole “Top Secret” business. Apparently there were 30 agents on the Mar-a-lago raid. He was highly skeptical that they would have given Top Secret clearance to all 30 agents to allow them to view top secret documents. So he says that could not possibly have been their main goal, ie recovery of Top Secret documents.
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Why do you think the branches of government that hate him (well, they all do) but specifically the Intelligence Agencies and the FBI would provide anything compromising on anybody to Trump? Further, his administration was so rittlled with leakers and spies (half of which were probably FBI agents) your position is any scandalous material on Trump wouldn’t of been leaked already? Really?
That’s an interesting position.
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This is from a Chicago Tribune article in October of 2017, about the plans for the Obama presidential library.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/obama-center/ct-met-obama-archives-20171004-story.html
Currently, Obama’s papers are stored in a private facility — a handsome and sprawling, bright white brick building on a commercial strip on West Golf Road in suburban Hoffman Estates. Officials initially thought the papers would be kept in Chicago. But after they spent $300,000 to ship Obama’s documents to the Chicago region and about $223,000 a month to store and provide security for tens of millions of textual records, artifacts and audio visual materials here, they decided to ship them back to Washington once a decision is made on where to keep them permanently, a spokeswoman with the National Archives and Records Administration said.
The classified documents will be housed in an existing facility in Washington, D.C., the spokeswoman said. The non-classified papers will likely be placed in an existing NARA facility in a Washington suburb.
That last paragraph clearly implies (“will be”) that Obama had indeed taken both classified and non-classified records, and was storing them in a “private facility” in Chicago, at least through October 2017.
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Lol!
Trump’s a unique threat tho!
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Lots of unsubstantiated reports and commentary running around this issue over the last week.
But Friday afternoon, the National Archives issued a statement completely debunking these lies from Fox and Trump, explaining that all such documents from the Obama administration are in the possession of the National Archives, not the former president:
“NARA moved approximately 30 million pages of unclassified records to a NARA facility in the Chicago area, where they are maintained exclusively by NARA,” the agency said in a statement. “Additionally, NARA maintains the classified Obama Presidential records in a NARA facility in the Washington, DC, area. As required by the [Presidential Records Act], former President Obama has no control over where and how NARA stores the Presidential records of his Administration.”
I suppose this government “Deep State” National Archives department is also part of the “witch hunt”? When did some of us decide that the government was working against us…………….makes me sad TBH.
Personally, I could care less if Trump had something on France, or a love letter from N Korea…………..but honestly if he’s been hanging on to some kind of national security issues that he doesn’t need now that he was fired…………then I think it’s time to hold him accountable finally. I’m trying not to jump to conclusions but I think he may have finally crossed the line. Waiting on pins and needles…………….LOL…………….just kidding.
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Trust me LMS, he will be indicted, tried and convicted.
You act as if you don’t believe he won’t be, it’s simultaneously funny and weird to me.
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LOL McWing the guy has dodged every bullet thrown his way so far so why in the world would I think he would be convicted of anything this time?
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I say there’s a 50/50 chance. McWing says it’s a done deal and he’s been right so far.
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I think the only question is whether they pursue an indictment. There is some chance that someone will decide that the national fallout from an indictment will be too big to risk. But if they do pursue it. with a 100% Democratic DC jury pool, I agree with McWing that it’s a certainty he gets indicted and convicted.
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When did some of us decide that the government was working against us…………….makes me sad TBH.
The last 6 years have been such a redpill moment for me. Hell, I am an ex-Naval Officer, and some of my ex-colleagues are senior DOD officials. They scare the crap out of me – if you listen to them, they sound no different than the usual suspects on PL.
And, FWIW I think the government works for the D party only. It doesn’t believe it has any obligation to presidents from the other party.
So it works for you. Be happy. But it considers people who disagree with you to be a threat.
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lms:
But Friday afternoon, the National Archives issued a statement completely debunking these lies from Fox and Trump, explaining that all such documents from the Obama administration are in the possession of the National Archives, not the former president
Note that it says the documents “are in”the possession of the National Archives. It doesn’t say when they came into possession of them. And according to the 2017 article I linked, at least until October 2017 they were not in the possession of the NA.
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lms:
When did some of us decide that the government was working against us…
It isn’t working against you. It loves you, because you agree with its politics and you help it maintain its power.
Like Brent, I have been totally turned since 2016. Go back before the 2016 election and read my comments…there was no bigger Trump critic here than I was. But watching the permanent political class in DC conspire with the corporate media in a years long attempt to delegitimize his election and destroy his presidency was too much for me.
Yes, it is sad. Sadder still is that you are blind to it. Or, perhaps, you approve.
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Sadly, I think that is going to be the left’s blueprint going forward. Use the deep state and the administrative state to sabotage and resist policy from anyone but the left.
They’ll do it to DeSantis too. They will threaten to blackball anyone who serves in an R administration.
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Brent:
They will threaten to blackball anyone who serves in an R administration.
I read an article yesterday reminding me that they actually started practicing this years ago. Remember the whole Spygate fiasco, when Valerie Plame was outed as a CIA agent in a Robert Novak column and a special prosecutor was appointed to investigate who in the Bush admin outed her, under the theory that revealing a CIA agent is a crime? Almost immediately they discovered that the leaker was Richard Armitage, whom they didn’t bother prosecuting because it turns out it wasn’t a crime in any event. But that didn’t stop them from continuing to “investigate” for months in an effort to get high ranking Bush officials for process crimes. Ultimately all they got was Scooter Libby, but it wasn’t for lack of trying that the didn’t get Karl Rive or Dick Cheney himself. And who was it that set the ball rolling by convincing his boss to recuse himself and appoint his buddy as a special prosecutor? The one and only James Comey.
Kind of ironic, given what is going on now in Wyoming, that Trump actually pardoned Libby, who worked for Dick Cheney and who Cheney always claimed got screwed.
https://spectator.org/have-the-cheneys-forgotten-the-deep-state-hit-on-scooter-libby/
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It is working towards the goals of a large segment of the left and will continue to do so until it doesn’t. Which at some point it will not—in what we consider positive ways or in ways that no one will consider positive.
Communism worked for the good of the proletariat … until quite rapidly it did not. But most socialist states do work towards the benefit of a large portion of their society … until they don’t.
But even we’re the government currently reducing in size, voluntarily limiting its own power, lower taxes on the middle class, and treating everyone equally under the law … I still wouldn’t suggest to anyone that the government is definitely working for them or the greater good. The government is made up of people. People are flaws. Government organizations are large organizations of flawed people, and any complex organization develops numerous incentives to certain behaviors, good and bad.
So no matter how much I might agree with a given politician or policy, I would never invest 100% faith in them. Certainly not in the gigantic organization of which they now have some level of control.
More salient perhaps, I believe people should always maintain a healthy skepticism of their government—or any person or institution that has power of any kind over them.
Even without them having yet earned in. And certainly our government had earned skepticism since the days of John Adams and the Alien and Sedition acts.
Obvious the press has earned tremendous skepticism as well. Perhaps from early on, although at least in the early days of our country the various press organs were generally up front about their partisan biases.
But anyone who has experienced how the press covers topics they know a lot about should know they cannot be trusted even when they are acting in good faith.
And clearly, the press has their own biases and lots of incentives that compete with their ostensible missjon of “informing the public”.
Whether you think the government is on your side are not … always be skeptical. When the press is acting in concert with the government and the government is acting in concert with megacorporstions, be extremely skeptical.
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“When did some of us decide that the government was working against us”
It sometimes works against us, sometimes work for us, sometimes works at a tangent. Arguably it’s always been that way.
Also when ostensibly it is working for us it may in reality be working against us (even with good intentions). And Vice versa. Us vs. them characterizations are too simplified, IMO.
The left used to not trust the surveillance state and the Patriot Act. But now it does? Or is it not that simple?
The government should be smaller and more decentralized. I’ve pretty much always thought that. Any issues with the deep state doing this or that spring from that basic truth (so I consider it). All of the things I’m complaining about now (or complained about 20 years ago) ultimately comes down to a government that is too large, too powerful, and too centralized. Both in practical terms and philosophical preference.
My opinion.
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Well this is interesting. Denmark has apparently banned the Covid vaccine for kids under 18 yrs old.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2022/08/12/denmark-bans-covid-vax-for-kids-n2611648
What do they know that the CDC doesn’t – or perhaps does but isn’t telling us?
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They know there is zero benefit to kids who aren’t morbidly (and I mean morbidly) obese and diabetic or undergoing chemotherapy — basically there is no health benefit for 99% of children and there is a non-trivial health risk to taking the vaccine.
So they are making (now) a rational cost/benefit analysis and deciding it poses real health risks to kids with zero benefit to the vast majority of children.
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Meaning: they know exactly what we know but mostly ignore. The benefits of the vaccines are not always worth the risks.
Which is the assessment that should be made. There are medications we’ve banned where the benefits outweighed the risks for certain categories of patients but we banned it for everybody because “oh no it’s in the news!” Thinking of Vioxx (I believe) there. A great non-addictive pain medication that seriously increased risk of heart attacks in certain patients. Rather than figure out why and assessing the risks for certain patients we banned it.
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Covid Liturgy.
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It is absolutely hilarious.
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This Covid Liturgy is (chef’s Kiss).
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/pfizer-ceo-albert-bourla-has-covid/
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“When did some of us decide that the government was working against us…………….makes me sad TBH.”
I’d say this probably started in the 1960’s & 1970’s with Vietnam and the revelations about the CIA & FBI. The polling on trust in government matches that.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/06/06/public-trust-in-government-1958-2022/
In terms of recent events, this is probably the best written summation of the people who think Trump was undermined by the bureaucracy in Washington.
“NOTE FROM GLENN GREENWALD: On Friday, a relatively obscure Twitter user with fewer than 7,000 followers — posting under the pseudonym MartyrMade — posted one of the most mega-viral threads of the year. Over the course of thirty-five tweets, the writer, a podcast host whose real name is Darryl Cooper, set out to explain the mindset that has led so many Trump supporters to believe that the 2020 election was fraudulent and, more generally, to lose faith and trust in most U.S. institutions of authority. ”
https://outsidevoices.substack.com/p/author-of-the-mega-viral-thread-on
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Also, worth a reread regarding the nature of politics in the US:
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a21779/president-obamas-illusions-040913/
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But they are absolutely right that the institutions and power centers of this country have been monopolized by a Regime that believes they are beneath representation, and will observe no limits to prevent them getting it.
This.
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Worth a read:
“Salman Rushdie and the Cult of Offense
This is what happens when you debase free expression in the name of free expression.
By Graeme Wood
August 14, 2022, 11:26 AM ET”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/salman-rushdie-fatwa-attack/671139/
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