Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has released his watchdog report on the conduct of former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and it is scathing. As I discussed in an earlier column, McCabe took the unprecedented step of a top former FBI officer of asking for donations on GoFundMe and racked in more than half a million dollars. He notably raised the money and then closed the site not long before the release of the report showing that he repeatedly made false statements to investigators as well as Comey. It was like creating a victim fund before police concludes whether you were attacked or the attacker. Horowitz did not convey any doubt as to McCabe being the culprit. He and his career staff found that McCabe not only lied but did so to advance his personal — the public’s — interest. If that is the case, it only magnifies the concerns over the treatment of McCabe as opposed to the Trump officials (like Michael Flynn) who he once investigated. The fact that he had the audacity to raise a half million dollars before the facts were made public only heightens these concerns.
At issue is the leak to The Wall Street Journal about an FBI probe of the Clinton Foundation.
Notably, the report itself belies the allegation of McCabe that he was victim of a witch hunt loyalists. Not only was Horowitz an Obama appointee but his staff were all career officials. More importantly, the report confirms that opened this review a week before Trump was sworn in. It preceded and had no connection to Mueller.
The report takes apart McCabe’s spin with clinical precision. It found that McCabe, 50, lied or misled investigators on not one but four occasions. It also found that these lies were clearly meant to help McCabe alone. McCabe said that he had full authority to make the disclosures. The IG found no evidence to support those claims. It also found that there was no evidence that then FBI Director James Comey was informed by McCabe. The IG states:
“[W]e concluded that McCabe’s decision to confirm the existence of the CF investigation through an anonymously sourced quote, recounting the content of a phone call with a senior department official in a manner designed to advance his personal interests at the expense of department leadership, was clearly not within the public interest exception.”
So let’s sum up. The IG found that McCabe lied on four occasions. It found that he did so for personal benefit. He further showed no contrition and allegedly falsely implicated his superior in the improper leaking of information to the media.
As noted earlier, Flynn was indicted for criminal false statements on less. He now faces a prison stint after pleading guilty to a single false statement about a meeting with Russian diplomats during the Trump presidential transition period. While Flynn did not deny the meeting, which was entirely legal, he denied discussing sanctions with the Russians. Mueller charged him with lying or misleading federal investigators under 18 U.S.C. 1001. He did so even though investigators working under former FBI Director James Comey reportedly had concluded that Flynn did not intend to lie and should not be charged criminally for the omission.
McCabe has used the Flynn defense that he was “confused and distracted” but unlike Flynn it appears (thus far) to have worked.
The issue is not as much the crying need to indict McCabe as it is the lack of consistency of how this law is being applied.
Story still isn’t good enough for the Daily Tatler. Spiked.
Did your caregiver leave the ward?
That’s my line. Quit cribbing.
You’re absolutely correct. I have no idea what came over me. I do apologize.
Anxiously awaiting simple country doctor, Jill McCabe, and her full-throated, media-propped defense of heroic, dazed and confused yet heroic public servant, Andy McCabe. Maybe she’ll even hum this as she scribbles her well publicized apologia: https://youtu.be/DwBirf4BWew
OMG! What a song! What a singer! And that Beehive!
Weeeeeee Dawggies!
I wonder if Andy bought Jill an “insurance policy” with double indemnity and an “Arkancide” clause.
New research that studied 2016 FB ads found “groups that filed no reports with the FEC placed 4 times more ads than those that filed”.
Z-berg’s company will continue to be paid with rubles. And, he’ll do nothing because greed can never be satisfied, not even after a fascist has been installed as leader of the “free world”.
Did the russians actually alter ballots – if so I am interested – even if not we should adopt Tulsi Gabbards(D-HI) paper audited ballot bill to protect voting.
Did the Russian put guns to peoples heads and direct them to vote for Trump ?
If you are claiming that Russians successfully “persuaded” voters – I do not give a rats ass.
John Oliver persuaded voters, The Guardian persuaded voters.
I think the facts about actual Russian efforts to persuade are laughably inconsequential,
But even if the Russians spent $8B on facebook adds “SO WHAT ?”
As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis advised, in his famous Whitney v. California opinion in 1927, “If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”
We do not own the internet.
We do not have the privilidge to censor it – not even with respect to our own elections.
As to the more laughable issues.
Clinton spent almost twice what Trump spent.
Clinton spent $20 for each vote she received.
In swing states that was actually closer to $200.
Mueller’s “IRA” spent about 1/1000 what Clinton spent – and only 1/10000 of the IRA budget was on the US election.
If there is a rule that dictates spend $X and you influence Y votes – The IRA might have bought 2 votes.
Except nearly half their spending was on Clinton – so essentially they cancelled themselves out.
@dhlii April 17, 2018 at 9:45 AM
“Clinton spent almost twice what Trump spent.
“Clinton spent $20 for each vote she received.
“In swing states that was actually closer to $200.”
You make many excellent points in your comment, here.
I read somewhere that Mueller’s Russian trolls may have spent as much as $100,000 touting several different candidates in a $2.5 billion election. 🙂
In the context of the revelations in the DNC emails and illegally obtained FISA warrants, it’s as though the Clinton Machine and its tenders in the Deep State are complaining that only they have the right to interfere surreptitiously in US elections.
Anyone still in the dark regarding clues to the political leanings of leading members of the Deep State (in addition to those in the FBI) need to read CIA Director John Brennan’s bilious tweet to Trump and watch Charlie Rose’s interview of Acting CIA Director Mike Morel, the latter of which is morbidly revealing:
https://twitter.com/JohnBrennan/status/974978856997224448?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Fbig-government%2F2018%2F03%2F18%2Fjohn-brennan-tweet-confirms-donald-trumps-concerns-politicized-intelligence%2F&tfw_creator=joelpollak&tfw_site=BreitbartNews
https://charlierose.com/videos/28568
Excellent post.
Mostly I do not focus on the “De Minimus” assertion regarding “russian influence”.
As it includes a presumption of guilt.
Regardless, your “only Democrats can influence an election” – ties that to my larger argument.
Few of us like that Russia got involved in our election. But in the real world lots of things we do not like are going to happen and our out of our power to prevent.
We need to see things as they are. Like it or not, the Russians engaged in free speach, persuasion.
At its core the argument of the left is that “We get to choose, what persuasion voters can hear”.
Voters are subject to infinite influences during an election, but ultimately they make their own choice.
My grandmother always picked the most handsome candidate.
History suggests the candidate with the shortest name wins.
Regardless, people vote – they vote for bad reasons, they are subject to myriads of influences – bad and good.
Chance fate, various actors, dictate that the access hollywood tape gets released before the election, but the Daniels story does not. That Clinton is exhonerated by the FBI after a long (but piss poor) investigation, but then clobbered by the exposure of DNC emails.
It is always possible to play “what if” and get a different result.
But after the fact gaming the election to get a different outcome does not demonstrate malfeasance.
If Russia Spent a Billion Dollars telling voters that Clinton was the anti-christ as “deplorable” as that might be, it is still persuasion, and nothing more. You have no control over the voices of others – not even the voices of bad actors, like Putin.
Mr. Turley, you’ve left out the word “not” in the 10th line of your first paragraph. What now reads “. . .McCabe not only lied but did so to advance his personal — the public’s — interest” should read “McCabe not only lied but did so to advance his personal — NOT the public’s — interest.”
I wondered earlier why Professor Turley thought McCabe was news-worthy this Monday. Then I realized there was a 3 hour hearing in Federal Court today regarding the raid on Michael Cohen’s office. It could be the professor didn’t want his Trump supporters to think about that hearing.
It turns out Cohen was also representing Sean Hannity, of all people. No wonder Hannity was so vehement in his condemnation of said raid. He knew his name would come up!
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/16/michael-cohen-client-list-526288
One of Cohen’s “cigar buddies” was accused of a racist threat which ended up in court. (The Guardian) The guy was identified as an executive at Deutsche Bank.
In a different situation involving Deutsche, a whistleblower said the minimal fine given to the bank for its wrongdoing reflected the revolving door between the bank’s lawyers and the SEC. The door through which Khumari walked to become 2nd in command to Berman, the state attorney who was recused in the Cohen raids, was the Deutsch Bank door.
With luck, the judge who hears Mueller’s evidence about Deutsch Bank will be honest.
Still kind of lost on me why this is an issue. Was it viewed as a problem that this Cohen represented another higher profile person ?
Just thinking ahead – about my own case load and who would be revealed, both past and present, should the feds break into my office ……..
INlegaleagle said, “Still kind of lost on me why this is an issue.”
Because Cohen is at pains to demonstrate that he has any significant number of clients other than Trump. SDNY contends that Cohen is more of a business man than a practicing lawyer and that Cohen is using his status as a lawyer to shield his business dealings from investigation by SDNY.
Hannity says he was never a client and “I never retained him, received an invoice, or paid legal fees.”
Hannity paid his lawyer, Cohen, how much? Without payment, does client-attorney privilege exist?
Attorney, Steve Molo, declined a position on the Trump team.
“Deep State” Obergruppenfuhrer Mueller is extending the Coup d’Etat to conservative talk radio hosts. Mueller’s latest victim is Sean Hannity. The creatures of the “swamp” are actively “resisting” its draining.
Cohen says Hannity is his client. Hannity says Cohen is not his attorney. Is this all code for something else?
It’s all code for: The extraconstitutional Gestapo just conducted a blitzkrieg raid on the constitutional right to privacy and attorney/client and executive privilege.
It dudn’t get any better than this…I mean worse!
It means America now understands the raison d’être of the 2nd Amendment.
The law and the Constitution are null and void.
It’s time to get this party started.
Oh wait. The Congress could suddenly grow a pair and exert its absolute dominion as representatives of the Sovereign, the People, and Class-Action or Mass-Action impeach the perpetrators and accomplices of the Obama coup d’etat in America, which has finally revealed the true meaning of “…fundamentally transforming America.”
Nutchacha is insufferable’s “…autophagy among this crew…” is inexorable.
All roads lead to Obama.
Rod Rosenstein is “dishonorable.”
That is something we all know after Rosenstein’s illegal, political appointment of a special prosecutor to
investigate an INDIVIDUAL not a CRIME as an act to perpetuate a coup d’etat in America.
__________
James Comey on Rod Rosenstein:
“The deputy attorney general, in my view, had acted DISHONORABLY by putting out this pretext about why I
was fired,” Comey said Sunday.
Republican Mueller’s investigation is going to vindicate Trump. Cohen, Flynn, Gates, Papadopolis and Manafort were bad seeds who had nothing to do with Trump.
Thanks for the article and your observations along the way, Mr. Turley. I have watched your commentary since the “W” days, and find you to be one of the dwindling number of liberals who are willing to stick with their principles no matter who they are applied to. We need more like you in public life.
Does anyone, anywhere REALLY believe any senior democrat will be indicted and jailed? We know better. Equal Justice is dead and has been for a long time. The only real question remaining is basic. Can the rule of law be saved…
I am not optimistic.
I have not read the report, but I can say this – the criminal laws in this country are deep and broad enough that an aggressive prosecutor can always find a pretext to bring charges against anyone.
This is entirely intentional. Those whom the establishment (that is, those with influence and authority) want punished, are punished. Those whom the establishment do not want punished, walk.
You’re confusing federal and state criminal codes. The ‘three felonies a day’ problem really concerns federal jurisprudence.
Section 8 pf the IG report is worth a read. It chronicles how, in order to shift suspicion for the WSJ leaks onto others with the FBI, McCabe used his position as Deputy Director to phone the Field Offices in NYC and DC and “chastise” their Directors to find the leaker. This is well-trained spycraft — yes, there are some few who the US taxpayers send to spy school, who then use what they’ve learned unethically and illegally. That appears to be what we are seeing here. McCabe was a counterintel expert, and ran a deceptive op where he tried to frame his peers in the FBI to cover his tracks. The man deserves indictment, a trial and prison time, to make an example of those who apply their tradecraft training improperly. I’d put John Brennan in the same category….that other shoe has yet to drop.
pbinca said, “McCabe used his position as Deputy Director to phone the Field Offices in NYC and DC and “chastise” their Directors to find the leaker.”
Is that a crime, pbinca? If so, then how so? What are you thinking, pbinca?
It is not a crime.
It is a fact that demonstrates duplicity.
It is well established at this point that McCabe was the source of the WSJ leak.
Ultimately even he admitted it.
“McCabe used his position as Deputy Director to phone the Field Offices in NYC and DC and “chastise” their Directors to find the leaker.”
would constitute an abuse of power, duplicity and lack of integrity
Are you honestly trying to defend McCabe ?
The man was disciplined for retaliating against an agent that filed an EEOC complaint against him.
This is really the guy you want to go down with ?
Sounds like manufactured indignation on your part. An elaborate display to show how ‘outraged’ you are by Andrew McCabe. Every Trumper on this thread is just so, so angry! But oddly that anger dissipates with regards to Scott Pruitt’s $43,000 phone booth. Somehow Pruitt is a hero taking on leftist environmentalists.
There is a difference between perverting the law and paying for security.
It’s a big difference but with such a lack of vision, you will need big glasses.
“Sounds like manufactured indignation on your part. An elaborate display to show how ‘outraged’ you are by Andrew McCabe. Every Trumper on this thread is just so, so angry!”
Your clairvoance fails. Don’t like Trump, didn’t vote for him.
Don’t like people who lie – under oath. Do not like people who abuse power.
I would prefer that Trump would quit threatening people. Thus far he has not acted on those threats.
McCabe has bullied subordinates and retaliated against those who crossed him.
McCabe was a problem independent of his involvement in the Trump fiasco.
Among other reasons I am angry with McCabe is because I did read the WSJ story about him that was leaked – and at the time I beleived it. I thought maybe Andrew McCabe was an honest agent that could be trusted. Had I known that he leaked his own preening story I would have felt different – about him and about the integrity of the clinton investigation.
“But oddly that anger dissipates with regards to Scott Pruitt’s $43,000 phone booth.”
Not odd at all – did Pruitt lie under oath ?
I am not happy with the cost of his “phone booth” – I expected better of him than that.
But I am still capable of grasping that even with a 43,000 phone booth, the EPA budget has dropped $100M.
43K vs. 100M – overall that is a start. 8B left to cut.
“Somehow Pruitt is a hero taking on leftist environmentalists.”
No hero – just not an idiot.
Can you name a single malthusian prognostication since … Malthus that has EVER come true ?
Silent Spring ? Peak Oil ? Peak Oil ? Peak Oil ? .. The Population Bomb ?
Which of these environmental crisises has ever proven true ?
Pruitt has the EPA doing all the things that were undone during the Obama administration.
The SuperFund sites are getting cleared, The Mess EPA made out in Colorado is getting cleaned up.
EPA is out of the business – for now, of manufacturing fake malthusian crisises.
That is really good for all of us – even you. .
As long as we’re noting illegal behavior today, The Government Accountability Office issued a report this morning stating that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt broke the law by spending a total of $43,000 for a secure phone booth that was installed in his office.
Pruitt’s official budget limited his office refurbishment to a $5,000 limit. Yet Pruitt somehow felt the need to convert a closet into said phone booth. That conversation required a $5,000 slab of concrete among other things. The real question, however, is ‘why’ Pruitt felt the need to have a special phone booth. What business is he conducting that would demand such secrecy?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/04/16/scott-pruitts-43000-soundproof-phone-booth-violated-spending-laws-federal-watchdog-finds/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8e6ea19e30df
Yeah, I’m with you! When you have a bunch of underhanded shenanigans going on, it would be better to just install your very own non-governmental email server in somebody’s bathroom, away from prying eyes! And cheaper, too!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
You got that right!!
And thank you, Peter Hill, for bringing this travesty to our attention.
BUT…BUT…..Hillary.
BUT.. BUT.. Hillary–
Hmm, you posted about Pruitt in a thread on McCabe. But because someone brings up Hillary, you balk? Things that make you go hmmm.
You really want to fight over a phone booth ?
You do know that even Dissmissed HHS Sec. Price spent LESS that his Obama predecessor ?
No Obama cabinet official would survive the scrutiny you subject Trump appointees to.
So do you think the secure phone booth was a “bribe” ?
How is it “corrupt” ?
Look I would love to cut down wastefull government spending. More than most.
But this is not an ethics violation.
Given the intense interest of snowflakes such as yourself in what Pruitt was up to and the ample evidence that most of the federal govenrment thinks they are part of the #resistance and think leaking to the press is patriotic – I am surprised every Trump cabinet member has not constructed a 43,000 secure phone booth.
Agree. The secure phone booths are clearly needed. At least until the next Dem regime takes over.
FF SIERRA,
ThInk about how much CONTROL spent on their secure phone booth over 50 years ago.
It’s behind a series of secure steel doors, and can be seen at beginning of every episode of Get Smart.
Would you believe I loved the cone of silence.
No EPA Administrator ever found it necessary to have a secure phone booth. It was clearly an ethics violation. And it wasn’t the only one with Pruitt. At one point Pruitt went to Disneyland accompanied by 20 security people! Again, no EPA Administrator ever found necessary to have that much protection.
One might also note that Pruitt wanted to lease a private jet for $100,000 per month. But thankfully his top lieutenants talked him out of it (because the expense would have vastly outstripped his allotted travel budget).
Scott Pruitt is, quite simply, the very personification of “the swamp” Trump pretended to save us from. Pruitt barely disguises his role as an unofficial lobbyist for the gas and oil industries. The fact that he is running the EPA should be an insult to every American.
Scott Pruitt is trying to do his job. The phone booth is not something he can take with him and based on the threats to his and his family’s life I understand his needs. In the meantime, he is doing a great job so he is worth every penny. The left hates him and that is probably where the threats on his life come from.
Can you say Steve Scalise?
George, don’t say that out loud. A lot of lefties will eventually insist that the near murder of Scalise and others was a right-wing plot. They have trouble getting their facts straight.
Jill or Nutchacha will say something something about a “Kellyanne Pivot”.
Yes! Murder, mayhem, etc., the bane of the “lefties.”
No facts do they offer — much like yourself.
Trollop upon trollop, your factual contributions have waned of late.
Keep the maw of stereotype blather full though, as you claim others do.
Such is incoherence.
I love your support of Antifa and the violent portions of BLM along with the violent leftist demonstrations on the college campus and elsewhere. I love the woman’s movement that excludes all woman that might have a difference of opinion while including Linda Sarsour who believes in Sharia Law and unequal rights for women along with genital mutilation.
Where did I offer support of Antifa?
You must have a lot of straws as you grab and employ them so readily.
Turning the lens away from your angst by putting words in other’s mouths.
Sloppy work.
I am just filtering through the water to understand what you think which isn’t clear based on your writing which frequently is incoherent and inconsistent. Perhaps you don’t like Antifa. OK, I’ll accept that but I can only accept what you tell me and with regard to Antifa you told me very little. You said nothing about BLM, violent leftist demonstrations, Linda Sarsour and the woman’s movement that excludes those that don’t follow a near singular position.
I’ll be glad to listen to anything you say that has meaning and doesn’t simply throw out sound bites along with inconsistent thoughts. How you are perceived is entirely up to you. So far you haven’t distanced yourself from any of those movements so my statements might not be sloppy at all rather they might be exactly on target.
You make the same mistake as most here: accuse a poster of any current meme so that you can pirouette your diatribe.
It’s a really lame form of argument.
Allen sez:
“I am just filtering through the water to understand what you think which isn’t clear based on your writing which frequently is incoherent and inconsistent.”
It is amazing that after four posts of mine that you can determine that my writing is, “frequently [is] incoherent and inconsistent.”
The ‘frequently’ stands out. Maybe you confuse me with another? Maybe you’re full of it? Maybe you don’t pay attention and hope others do the same? Maybe your a verbose fool?
What a genius you must be. I wish I had your foresight.
“after four posts of mine”
Foolish you assuming one determines who you are based only on the posts directed at them. You have written plenty and when we add up what you have actually said we come up almost entirely empty except for the negative conclusions that are easy to draw.
You have a lot of maybes for an uncivil vile person and you will never have more than minimal foresight.
Or you could just be open about what you beleive.
They are your ‘maybes’, idiot.
Allan, were you addressing ‘me’ here???? I can’t tell. Your comments are all so over-the-top.
It looks like you’re responding to some liberal caricature as portrayed by Fox News. That’s common with Fox News viewers. They just assume every liberal marches in lock step with the most extreme and nutty leftists. And it illustrates how Fox News has really dumbed-down America. America has dumbed-down to the point where Trump’s deep state paranoia unhinges the very stupidest people.
Peter, the email may or may not have had your name as the originator with my reply appearing as if it were to you. If you go to the website and trace that comment down you will find it goes to d smithy and you are totally uninvolved.
The comments may seem to be over the top when responding to a reasonable person, but that was not the case. I was responding to d smithy who is a nutcase. Though there are a good number of nutcases like smithy that come from the left we see similar nutcases on the right. You will have to crack smithy’s nuts open to determine what smithy is for yourself.
I think your diatribe about Fox News is off in the wild blue yonder, but you are entitled to your opinion. The news segment is about as fair and balanced as one sees on the tube. Maybe you and William watch more Fox News and Fox Analysts (non-news) than I so maybe you have seen things I haven’t seen. As I have said many times on this blog I record a lot of shows just in case something comes up a day or so later and I use the fast forward button so I am not the expert daily listener whether it be Fox or any MSM show. Maybe you will watch (and record) one of the shows for later discussion. It would be interesting. Sometimes people hear only what they want to hear. That reduces the need for Valium and other medications that smooth over those rough patches of frustration and anger.
“America has dumbed-down to the point where Trump’s deep state paranoia unhinges the very stupidest people.”
I think that America has been so dumbed down that some people might interpret your statement as one that reflects intelligence. It doesn’t.
I like your prose, nay, your poetry.
You must be a very sensitive partner, not dissimilar to James “The Fruitcake” Comey.
But you kinda don’t make any sense given the topic,
which is an ongoing coup d’etat by Obama, and the elements thereof.
Scott Pruitt is the first EPA head in this new post – ‘unhinged we’re going to shoot up Republicans and have no ability to exercise self-control’ liberal politics.
He is doing an outstanding job – thus, he should also purchase a bullet proof vehicle and send the bill to the DNC
Annihilate the EPA.
Let the polluted aggrieved sue.
You must live on a high mountain top with an artesian spring at your doorstep.
So where does your effluence go?
Because before the EPA everyone died from polluted water ?
No EPA administrator ever did ? You know that ?
Regardless, given that the permanent employees of the EPA are openly hostile to Pruitt and leak like a sieve. I think that it is reasonable for Priutt to want to keep his phone calls private.
No it is not a clear ethics violation.
Just spraying nonsense does not make it so.
Again total spending on administration under Obama was HIGHER for every department.
If you do not want Pruitt to need that kind of security – quit sending him death threats.
As I recall AG Lynch was sitting on the Tarmac in her private Jet Meeting Bill Clinton in his private Jet.
I beleive every Obama Cabinet member had a leased private Jet and/or used the military equivalents.
I would be happy to see reasonable rules for this. But don’t expect me to whigg out when Trump’s cabinet is spending/Wasting LESS that Obama’s.
Further all Cabinet secretaries should examine a variety of travel options to determine what best meets their needs and budget.
I think it is probably reasonable to expect that every Cabinet Sec. have available a small Jet for work use.
But the use should be restricted to actual work, and the Jet should be provided and manned by the Airforce.
Pruitt does nto disguise at all that he thinks CAGW is garbage science – which it is.
And that is actually why you are hostile to him.
At the same time he is actually rigorously enforcing the actual functions of the EPA – making significant progress on superfunds sites and cleaning up EPA disasters that were created by the Obama administration.
Personally I think the EPA is one of the useless departments of the federal government that should just be eliminated. There is no statistical evidence that its existance has provided any benefit. If anything the rate of improvement in our air and water has declined since the EPA was created – by Nixon.
We are spending 8B (down 100M from Obama) for which we get no value.
And that is what I would be far more concerned about than Pruitt’s phone both and plane.
What is the total cost of the EPA and what is its value ?
Under Pruitt the cost is down and the value is up.
I will give him a private plane if he can slash another 100M from the budget.
Just shut it down.
Yeah, it’s not like there’s a politically-motivated witch hunt or a soft coup going on, nor is the left focusing irrational attention on his removal by any means necessary because he’s highly effectively disarming Obama-era anti-capitalistic damage in his agency.
“Anti-Capitalistic damage”..??
Since when is clean water and clean air anti-capitlisitc?
Would you have me believe that corporate executives and their families don’t need clean water? Bankers don’t need clean air? How absurd!
What’s absurd is believing anything Obama did was pro capitalist, or pro environmentalist. Read the fine print please.
Since When was EPA actually about clean water or Air ?
Air and Water quality have been improving since shortly after the End of WWII – the worst environmental disaster in our history.
NOTHING the federal state or local government has done has caused the slightest change in pre-existing trends of improvement.
Today 2 of the top 3 sources of water pollution are GOVERNMENT.
Businesses care greatly about pollution – only they give it a different name – WASTE.
Waste is a cost. Self-interest drives businesses to convert waste into products.
This is why there are no recycling laws that apply to business – they are not needed.
If a mexcan farmer raises a chicken and then cooks it for a meal – 50% of that chicken is waste.
98.5% of every chicken entering a tyson food plant comes out as a product of some kind.
Not because of government rules, but because waste is pure loss, and any waste that can be converted into a product even one that loses money is better than waste.
dhlii, thanks for your comment here. Now I know your sense of history is a massive ravine.
To suggest that pollution has naturally slackened since the end of W.W. II overlooks 75 years of history. That view pretends there’s no garbage patch in the South Pacific. That view pretends China and India never industrialized. That view pretends the world’s great rain forests have lost no acreage since 1945!
I can only conclude you are some modern day Rip Van Winkle who fell asleep in 1945 and awoke just recently. And now you’ve got 75 years of reading to make up! Better start with back-issues of “National Geographic”.
Without taking sides on this issue, I think Peter is thinking in a very shallow way. Peter didn’t think before writing and take note of an all-important sentence, ” WWII – the worst environmental disaster in our history.” Peter, you gather up pieces of evidence for the side you wish to promote, but very frequently a lot of that evidence is trivial compared to other evidence that can be presented on both sides. My guess is that your background and training doesn’t rely on strict adherence to evidence where evidence is rated as to its quality.
Peter also jumped immediately from a discussion of the EPA and the US to the globe.
While peoples throughout the world follow much the same patterns – including patterns involving pollution, they do not do so at exactly the same time in history.
WWII was absolutely disassterous in terms of industrial polution for those nations involved – ignoring the bombings. Love Canal – that historic disaster in the 60’s was primarily caused by waste from WWII.
But Africa, China, India, Brazil, …. are not each at exactly the same place as the US in the cycle of rising standard of living. And thus they are not at approximately the same place in terms of life expectance and environmental quality.
The fact which Peter is ignorant of is that nature is foul and dirty. That humans who must live closely with it and depend directly on it lead short brutish dirty lives.
That our pristine sense of nature is an artifact of our afluence and the fact that even when we are immersed in nature – we are still far removed from it.
We have sanitation systems, clean water delivery systems, clean energy delivery systems,
and myriads of other things that make 80+ year life expectances possible.
I am classical liberal – libertarian. I want much of the same things the left wants.
But I am not confused about how we get them.
Much of the left’s “fake” rights are artifacts of affluence.
There are no transgendered cave men.
Poor societies are not merely racist, they are prejudiced against the people living 4 miles away.
I used to be certain that we would not cease using oil until something cheaper came along.
But then I came to realize that there already exist much cheaper energy sources than oil – that we abandoned long ago – because they were dirty and as we got more wealthy we valued cleaner more.
We may well move to some “green” energy long before it makes “economic” sense.
But we will not do so until we are affluent enough to do so, and want what it offers enough to pay more.
Government has never delivered on that.
Peter Fails to grasp that.
“Peter also jumped immediately from a discussion of the EPA and the US to the globe.”
Peter is not focused.
“We may well move to some “green” energy long before it makes “economic” sense.”
What people fail to realize is that economic prosperity provides the environment for a cleaner environment. When we artificially add taxes and the like to the world we slow economic growth and at the same time slow the ability to create a clean environment.
Thank goodness for oil, shale, coal and natural gas. In places where desertification is occurring it is a lot better to burn any of those products than to burn trees and vegetation. All sorts of laws that supposedly protect our environment actually destroy it. I asked my neighbor why, since he wasn’t planning to do any building right now, he tore down all the trees and his answer was if he waited then it might be “environmentally” impossible in a number of years. That is why builders knock-down natural vegetation that they have to replace in a number of years. No one wants to take a chance on a “spotted owl” or something of a similar nature. The EPA laws, rules, and regulations have become developmental spoilers whether that be spoilers of the environment, progress, or the economy.
Again, Pigou levies and tradeable permits address externalities. Nor does industrial develpoment per se address environmental pollution. Affluence born of development grants you the margin to acquire a higher-order commodity.
According to Coase – reduce economic friction, and provide strong property rights – which we have done radically since the Coase Theorum was first offered – and the problems of externalites solve themselves – without pigou levies of tradeable permits.
Coase’s is a theoretical formulation never applied. It doesn’t address distributional questions. I’m not sure even Coase expected his hypotheticals to comprehansively address the problem.
“Coase’s is a theoretical formulation never applied. It doesn’t address distributional questions. I’m not sure even Coase expected his hypotheticals to comprehansively address the problem.”
Really ?
I have not had issue with most of your posts,
but I find it difficult to give you the benefit of the doubt here.
The Coase “theorum” is theoretical in the same way that Supply and demand are.
The entire POINT of the Coase theorum is that given a free market, strong property rights and frictionless exchange the market will ALWAYS reach the best outcome.
Property rights are inside our control.
Progress over time significantly decreases friction in exchanges.
Unaddressed by the Coase Theorum is the fact that market interventions themselves are not free or frictionless or efficient.
The entire point of the Coase Theorum was to note that it is extremely hard if not impossible to produce a better result than markets do on their own.
Too many particularly on the left are under the delusion that perfection is acheivable.
It is not. The market left to its own will ALWAYS have some failures.
That said, the market with those things – such as strong property rights that it must get externally, will have less failures than any alternative.
Desertification is primarily driven by bad land use and stupid green policies.
Historically a warmer planet is wetter and has less deserts – and the Sahara is shrinking.
In Africa our efforts to protect grasslands, by stopping burning and the migration of herd animals has actually caused desertification. Grasslands need to be periodically destroyed – in small parts, in order to regrow healthier.
We see similar bad results from our stupid forest management in the US.
Our decades long efforts to “prevent” forest fires has resulted in a vast almost contiguous super forest full of dead wood and ready to go up in a big way.
Further that decadent protected forest is a WORSE habitat for animals.
The US spent a century draining the “wetlands” and now – we do not have malaria in Ohio.
God forbid we should try that now.
Historically a warmer planet is wetter and has less deserts – and the Sahara is shrinking.
Not historically. The subtropical zones have been plenty warm. And very very arid. Global circulation patterns permit nothing else.
“Not historically. The subtropical zones have been plenty warm. And very very arid. Global circulation patterns permit nothing else.”
Yes, Historically. Further your argument is overly broad.
Global circulation patterns dictate that some parts of the planet will be dryer than others.
They do not dictate that they will be deserts.
AGAIN, Historically the hotter the planet, the wetter the planet – that should actually be a no brainer.
The more water in the atmosphere the more rainfall – even in arid regions.
A warmer planet means fewer and smaller deserts – OVERALL.
Even now most deserts – like the Sahara are shrinking.
We are creating deserts in some places – but not as a consequence of warming, but by disrupting the natural cycles of birth and death in grasslands.
In Africa our efforts to protect grasslands, by stopping burning and the migration of herd animals has actually caused desertification. Grasslands need to be periodically destroyed – in small parts, in order to regrow healthier.
No clue where you acquired this meme.
“No clue where you acquired this meme.”
From the scientists who have been working on these issues for a lifetime.
Google is your friend.
Humans are often responsible for environmental harms.
But our efforts to fix the planet quite frequently produce worse results than the harm they seek to repair.
“To suggest that pollution has naturally slackened since the end of W.W. II ”
The EPA only has jurisdiction over the US – our conversation was specific to the EPA and the US.
Addressing issues more “globally”
All the demands the left makes – regardless of whatever they are and whether anyone agrees with them or not, are paid for by what we produce.
The quality of our environment improves – as our standard of living improves.
If you think otherwise – you should try that “back to nature” life style it is nasty, brutish and short.
Life expectance until a few centuries ago was in the 20’s.
People entering into indentured servitude in London to Travel to Jamestown could expect a hard short life, and probably would not live to the end of their indenture – but they would live longer than remaining in london.
You fixate on “polution” – for most of human existance the water we drank, the food we ate, was toxic.
Cholera is a scourge that gone in the developed world and nearly gone elsewhere. And even it is tame compared to predicessors.
From the time we lived in caves – as our standard of living improved the quality of our lives improved.
“pollution” decreased and life expecance increased.
In the 1500’s the air in london was unbreathable – long before the industrial age.
Selling shit to burn for heat was a booming trade.
In 1900 New York City had a massive pollution problem requiring armies of people to address.
Each day there was 1,000,000lbs of new horseshit and 250,000 gal of horse urine.
A few years later rising standards of living and Henry Ford cured that problem forever.
BTW the “garbage” in the earth’s oceans should be cleaned up – profitably in a few years.
The air in China was toxic long before it industrialized. Do you know how much pollution 10m people produce cooking with dung, wood and charcoal every day ?
Regardless the patter throughout the world is the same – the higher the standard of living the “cleaner” the environment.
We switch from burning dung, peat, and wood to coal – when our standard of living is high enough to afford the cleaner coal.
We switch from coal to oil – again as our standard of living rises high enough to afford oil,
From oil to Natural Gas, and from natural gas to electric.
Regardless, as we produce more value – we can afford more of all the things you think we should want.
Conversely your idiocy will assure that our lives grow natsier, more brutish – as well as dirtier.
Quite simply your concept of this friendly pleasant safe clean nature does not exist without increasingly wealthy humans. If you doubt me – go try and live their on your own.
Not asleep. also not blind to the world as it actually is, as you are.
I grew up in a relatively rural area.
I live on two acres in a semi suburban area.
My kids have seen red tail foxes, in their back yard, deer, many kinds of owls, frogs, Red Tail Hawks, Wood Peckers attack my house every morning and ake me.
In short – in a week I see more “nature” in modern suburbia, than I did 50 years ago in a decade on the boonies.
But my guess is that you know nothing of this nature that you celebrate. That your exposure to it is those National Geographics.
“Conversely your idiocy will assure that our lives grow natsier, more brutish – as well as dirtier.”
This is the other side of the coin the left refuses to recognize.
Yeah, burning dung and living in huts wasn’t good the environment either.
But here’s a fact: “The world’s population has more than doubled since 1950”.
That means it took all of history to arrive at the world’s population of 1950. But since then the world’s population has ‘more’ than doubled. That’s all one needs to know to understand Deforestation, Climate Change and Ocean Dead Zones.
In the last 50 years the U.S. has gained more than 100 million people. That has vast implications as well. Countless acres of farm and woodland have been paved for parking lots. That contributes to Climate Change. All that pavement retains heat on hot summer days. All the fluids leaking from motor vehicles onto giant parking lots mix with precipitation to form toxic stews that seep into soil and waterways.
I could go on and on with examples of how population growth alters the environment. But thinking people can form some picture in their heads.
Therefore to suggest the EPA is just an expensive fancy with no scientific basis is divorced from reality.
That’s all one needs to know to understand Deforestation, Climate Change and Ocean Dead Zones.
No, that’s not all one needs to understand about resource use or climate or ecology.
The global total fertility rate is currently 2.5, 1/2 what it was in 1960. The only parts of the world which have fertility rates which produce high natural increase would be Tropical and Southern Africa and a scatter of about a half-dozen other countries which are (like much of Africa) dirt poor. Every other part of the world is at or below replacement level. Even Africa has seen total fertility rates decline by 1/3 since 1960, and it’s a reasonable wager they’ll decline further as the improvement in life expectancy on the continent (it is currently 60 years in Tropical Africa) and the gradual movement of the labor force out of agriculture has its usual effects.
Meanwhile, in Europe, Canada, and the industrial Far East, people need to produce more children to sustain the older cohorts.
What you note is true – and it is dangerous.
Contra the left the Earth is capable of supporting 4-5 times the current population with CURRENT agricultural methods. With methods that work “experimentally” we could atleast double that again.
With sufficient wealth to shift to real factory farming there really is no limit.
Further all the above can be done using LESS land than today.
And it will increasingly more food production CLOSER to us.
Yes, most developed nations are at less than replacement levels. Important point to note. Western, Christian families should be having ‘more’ children!
Nevertheless populations are still surging in the poorest countries. And that’s why refugees and illegal migrations are an increasing problem. They will continue to be for many years to come.
But regardless of where populations are surging, environmental problems become more complicated with more people. The world of 1900, for instance, was undoubtedly more reckless in terms of pollution. But far less people mitigated the far-reaching effects of pollution.
In any event we need scientific-minded regulation of the environment. One bad decision, like Flint Michigan, for instance, can create a disaster that takes years to undo. So this idea that we need to muzzle the EPA is absurdly stupid. One can’t put a price on clean air and water.
In any event we need scientific-minded regulation of the environment. One bad decision, like Flint Michigan, for instance, can create a disaster that takes years to undo.
The problems in Flint had flat-zero to do with environmental regulation. It was a mistake by the local water authority in processing the water which dislodged lead in old pipes recently brought back into use and introduced it into the supply to consumer. And, no, undoing the ‘disaster’ wasn’t going to take ‘years’.
You are correct that Flint was not caused by environmental laws.
You are wrong that more regulation would have prevented it.
What was done at Flint violated existing law.
Why – because government does nto have to follow its own law and law or not no one holds it accountable for stupid mistakes.
Flint was a political mistake. The city decided that they could end their dependence on Detroit for water by reverting back to an older water source that had not been usable in the past because of pollution – remember that WWII stuff.
But the river water was still not that good and they had to chlorinate the crap out of it, which resulted in leaching lead into the water.
All of this was predictable and violated existing regulations.
This was not old pipes brought back into use. Lead was/is being leached from throughout the city.
Not only has Flynt poisoned its kids, but it has also destroyed the city water pipes.
Had Flynt acted smartly and quickly they would have switched back to Deteroit water – which would have been very expensive.
Now they have poisoned kids and a destroyed water distribution system.
And the repair costs are gargantuan.
But government actually likes really really costly mistakes.
And that’s why refugees and illegal migrations are an increasing problem.
No, refugee flows have nothing to do with population increase. Refugee flows are triggered by political disorder or, in some cases, acute environmental events. What you need to protect you against refugees would be armed men. You can provide sustenance for refugees in camps proximate to the trouble until such time as they can be repatriated.
You keep spouting this essentially zero sum claim – that there is a known finite limit to resources, people whatever and that things such as pollution are connected to “pollution” in some fixed way – as if all this is established fact.
But I have already countered that it is not.
Historically – that is throughout human history, population decreases have been disasterous, while increases have been universally good.
But now – merely because you say so – we must be at the limit.
Why ? Why can’t the earth have 20B people ? 100B ?
That may be inconceivable to you – but so what ? Just because you can not conceive of something does not make it inconceivable.
The fact is there is no reason to posit some specific limit to the number of people on earth.
You are making an assumption with no basis.
Next “pollution” is itself a very misleading term.
Humans have produced far MORE not less destruction per capita in the past.
The form just changes.
I noted that NYC in 1900 produced massive amounts of horseshit.
That is no longer and issue, almost entirely gone.
Far more people today – far less total waste – but in different form.
Yes, today at this moment more people means more cars means more of whatever comes out of the tailpipe of a car. but these ratio’s are not fixed – not really to anything.
The waste output of a care today is far less than 50 years ago.
In 10 years the waste may not even be the same stuff.
You just can not do these stupid linear extrapolations.
That is not how reality has ever been.
Nor is this true elsewhere in the world.
India has far more people than 50 years ago.
It also has far far more food, and a far far higher standard of living.
Although the waste output is going to vary – depending on the specific “waste” you pick,
On net I doubt India produces more waste today than it did 50 years ago with less people.
But the waste is different.
You do not grasp this at all. More people means a higher standard of living.
Over periods of atleast 30 years there is no place or time in human history that more people did not mean a higher standard of living.
A higher standard of living means far less of whatever was considered waste at the lower standard of living, and some new but actually less harmful waste at the higher standard of living.
We traded the horsehit of the 19th century for the tailpipe emissions of the 20th.
And BTW similar trades occur arround the world.
The Life of John D. Rockefeller in 1900 sucked compared to yours today.
Sorry peter but 1900 was not some green topia.
Compared to today it SUCKED.
The last thing we need is “scientific minded regulation”
That is the cause of most of our problems.
Flint was a stupid political f’up and like all political F’up became and excuse to waste money.
There was no need for more regulation. What the politicians of Flint did to its people was stupid, wrong, and violated existing regulations all over the place.
Typical left wing nut solution – if people do not follow the law – pass more laws – that will fix it.
“One can’t put a price on clean air and water.”
Actually yes you can – and MUST put a price on clean water and clean air – and absolutely everything.
We produce approx. 20B of wealth each year – that is what we have to spend.
We must get absolutely everything we need from that – not merely water and air, but healthcare, and entertainment and clothes and shetler and transportation and food. and …
If we choose to spend more on water and air we get less of something else.
And if we are not very careful – we get less of clean water and air too.
I have told you SEVERAL times that qualtity of life – including clean water and clean air improve ONLY when standard of living rises.
That is because the poorer we are the more important other things like food become and the less we have to spend for “extra clean air”.
We do not need the EPA because the more wealthy we are – the more we will spend on those things you think are priceless.
You have no idea how things work – but you are in a great rush to break them.
Again – go look at the real world, real history.
Government and regulation do NOT bring you more of what you want and need.
Rising standards of living – which are acheived SOLELY by producing more are the source of your ability to have more of what you want and need.
Regardless, before you force your religion on the rest of us – live it yourself.
It will kill you and we will not have to worry about your stupidity.
“The world’s population has more than doubled since 1950”.
Absolutely – AND the global standard of living doubled, and the amount of callories we consume per day has doubled, and starvatiion has nearly disappeared.
And yet the total land area used in cultivation is unchanged.
In fact in affluent countries like the US it has actually gone DOWN.
Further in the US more people are living on LESS land than in 1950.
Oops.
From 1900-1950 the 95% confidence interval BEST temperature change was about 0.11C/decade.
From 1950-2018 the 95% confidence interval BEST temperature change was about 0.11C/decade.
In fact the long term trends back to 1840 are approx. 0.11C/decade.
Land use changes in the US and throughout the world have almost certainly contributed to warming.
But those effects stop as the land use change stops.
BTW where is it you think oil comes from ?
Water quality in the US has been improving in the US along a linear trend since ….. WWII.
Oops.
AGAIN 2 of the top three sources of water polution are GOVERNMENT – the other is agriculture. NOT oil from cars.
BTW do you know what Asphalt is made of ?
You could go on and on – I am sure spew cluesless drek that you have been fed but never bothered to
learn anything about.
But if you would actually like to learn something here is a start:
https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Resource-Julian-Lincoln-Simon/dp/0691003815
This would be actual real world data.
Buy the book – when you are shocked by some of it – actually check it on the internet.
Particularly since Simon’s last update is 1998 – and though things have changed since then the evidence is STRONGER now than ever.
Just to be clear – find an instance of human population growth that over a period of time greater than about 30 years has proven net harmful. THERE ARE NONE.
When I was in grade school we put nickels in milk boxes for the starving millions in Bangeledesch.
Today the left whigs out because 100 garment factory worked in bangeledesch are killed in a factory fire.
Millions are not starving – in part because of those factories.
“Therefore to suggest the EPA is just an expensive fancy with no scientific basis is divorced from reality.”
No actually it is reality.
Though lets frame this argument properly – so long as we are discussing the EPA – we are discussion the US.
I will debate rainforests with you if you wish.
But I am not interested in brain dead arguments that the EPA is saving the rainforests.
With respect to the EPA – as I noted before From the environmentally disasterous WWII through to the present by every measure of anything the EPA has anything to do with, things have been steadily improving since WWII.
Further the Improvement BEFORE the EPA was greater than AFTER.
Further on specific things like – water.
The rate Before specific regulations was greater than after.
There is absolutely no evidence that the EPA or any environmental regulation has created improvement in any large trend in overall improving environmental quality.
As I have said before – things improve – because as we become more affluent we desire those things more.
If you have had Psychology – you have likely studied Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
We seek food before we seek love.
We seek heat – before cleaner air.
The more affluent we are the better the world we demand – because we can afford it.
The EPA has absolutley ZERO ability to change that.
dhlii, the arguments you’re making here remind of analogies conservatives make for regulations in general.
Before the Great Recession, conservatives would argue that regulations on banks and financial services were not really needed because ‘another Great Depression was highly unlikely’. When asked why another Great Depression was unlikely, conservatives would note that modern regulations would ensure against a meltdown. So they used that argument to deregulate! And guess what? We had another meltdown in 2008.
And now conservatives like you are making this same argument with regards to the environment: “We’re now much cleaner because of regulations. So now we can scrap the regulations”.
It’s like saying, “Well now that I’m free of cancer, I can go back to smoking”.
Before the Great Recession, conservatives would argue that regulations
Non sequitur
God no! You are not going to make the stupid “the financial markets blew up the economy” argument ?
Get a clue – that is not even possible.
It is based on delusionary understanding of the financial markets.
Outside of a very small range Financial market do NOT create or destroy wealth.
The move it arround (the do create or destroy a small amount by moving it, but that had nothing to do with the great recession).
The proximate cause of the great recession is very similar to that of the great depression.
The bursting of a giant credit bubble that left us with the realization that we have significantly inflated the value of a durable asset.
That is the absolutely stupidest thing that we can do to the economy.
In 2006 – the “housing bubble” burst – through the fed’s easy money policies and through government imposed garbage lending standards we inflated the value of housing by about $11T
Between 2006 and 2008 much of that 11T vaporized – it was never real in the first place.
It was a fictitious creation of easy money.
BTW the stupid government lending rules only dictated WHERE the bubble occurred.
The left whigs out over MBS;s and CDO’s and CDS’s as if they were something evil and the cause of this.
Bzzt, wrong. All of these are “securities” – that means they are essentially money, although they are actually better than government money. An MBS is esentially a share of a house.
If the value of the house drops the value of the MBS MUST drop.
The truth about the financial markets is that they proved remarkably resilient.
in 2006 the Housing bubble collapsed, and it was not until 2008 that the financial markets ability to cope with a 11T loss was exceeded.
Peter YOU and your regulation broke the markets – not the other way arround.
BTW you can tell this by Dodd Frank.
The new regulation did absolutley nothing to address the root cause of the problem.
Zero zip zilch.
Nothing that you have been told was a cause of the problem has been regulated by Dodd Frank.
Everything necescary to cause 2008 again is still in place – should government wish to F’up again.
I am not a conservative. I am a classical liberal – that is a “real” liberal, someone who prizes liberty – aka libertarian, and a fake clueless liberal who does not even understand that the root of liberal is liberty.
If some of what I say sounds like conservatives – it is because conservatives borrow their economics from classical liberals.
From Adam Smith, Bastiat, Say, Ricardo, Hayek, Friedman, Coase, Lucas, Barro.
The great depression was also caused by “easy money” causing a credit bubble – partly in housing but mostly in industry. That is why the stock market tanked – because stock is a security whose value is as a share of a company. IF the value of the company is inflated and collapses then stocks will crash.
In the 20’s the Fed kept interest rates too low for way too long.
If you have the slightest actual knowledge of economics you know this.
Hayek predicted the US crash a couple of years ahead to within a few months.
Friedman won the Nobel prize for his work on the monetary causes of the great recession.
All recessions and depressions are the consequence of bad monetary policy.
You can go back into the 19th century following that, or even back to “tulip mania”.
And monetary policy errors are almost always government because government controls money.
I would further note that there are only two instance in US history of a recovery as bad as the Great Recession.
Both share a lot of traits.
A progressive republican president followed by a progressive democrat.
The exact same easy money poor monetary policy.
The cancer is bad monetary policy and we have done nothing about that.
There has been no “cure”.
Dodd Frank is not even a bandaid. It is a ball and chain.
It is like telling a cancer patient – here – carry arround a bag of sand that will make you get better.
And it worked exactly as expected.
Again, the Fed violated the Taylor Rule from the fall of 2002 to the fall of 2004. The point of origin of the inflation of housing prices in excess of nominal incomes was in 1997. The Fed may have been a contributor, but it had other drivers. It was in 2003 that Freddie Mac slashed underwriting standards. Housing prices had been inflating for a number of years at that point. As a rule, Washington Mutual the exception, banks cut out their subprime lending at the end of 2005.
Greenspans violations of the Taylor rule started small, but they started in 1996 not 2002.
One of the problems with “easy money” is that no matter how small the error in interest rates is,
if sustained it compounds and that can quickly become huge.
The Fed error that caused the great recession was small – I have heard credible estimates that mortgage interest rates as like as .25 higher from 2000 forward would have entirely prevented this.
The error causing the great depression was equally small – but it lasted for a decade.
Worse still there was a real boom int he 20’s. The economy was really growing greatly.
But the small artificial increase of easy money resulted in the great depression.
Though I would note that The great depression likely would have only been a serious recession but for bad fiscal and monetary responses.
I do not disagree with you with respect to the other mistakes that were made – such as Fannie and Freddie slashing standards.
BUT, too low for too long GUARANTEED there would be a bubble.
All these other things ONLY dictated WHERE the bubble would be.
Lowering lending standard does not by itself cause credit to flow from good investments to bad ones.
You can lower lending standards to zero, investors will still put their money where the return justifies the risk.
And that is actually the fundimental error – interest rates are the long term risk price of money.
If you get that wrong money – credit flows to worse rather than better investments.
The problem with easy money is that it supplies the money which then goes to inflate some asset.
In very simplistic terms a “bubble” is inflation but in a very narrow segment of the economy.
And as Friedman pointed out
Inflation is ALWAYS and EVERYWHERE a monetary phenomena
The proximate cause of the great recession is very similar to that of the great depression.
Uh, no. The period running from 1929 to 1933 saw severe deflation and double-digit real interest rates.
“Uh, no. The period running from 1929 to 1933 saw severe deflation and double-digit real interest rates.”
CAUSE – not response.
While Bush/Obama responded badly.
Hoover/FDR did far worse.
Further the Fed responded horribly to the great depression and certainly not nearly as bad to the great recession.
Finally, the great depression hit a far less affluent and resilient country.
There were lots of bubbles in the 90’s and into 2000’s.
Such as the tech bubble.
Bubbles in volatile assessts – no matter how large are less dangerous than in durable assets.
Investors can absorb losses and shrug.
The working class can not.
Where a bubble is matters alot – it is that the makes the actions of Fannie/Freddie, …. so bad.
I didn’t mean to start an argument about Great Recession causes. I will tell you this, however. A friend of mine, a very bright Libertarian, tried to convince me that The Great Recession was caused by ‘too much regulation. And to convince me he sent a Fox News clip from 2006. A basic news story where John McCain was addressing the U.S. Senate. McCain warned that Fannie Mae was accountable to no one. No regulatory body was watching Fannie Mae. It turned out to be ‘true’ from the searches I made. A very under-reported cause of The Great Recession. No one was regulating Fannie Mae. So ‘lack’ of regulation was an actual cause. But my Libertarian friend had somehow overlooked that.
The Great Recession was caused by the FED – not regulation.
Regulation directed WHERE the bubble occured not that it occured.
By McCain’s speach in 2006 – it was already too late.
Fannie and Freddie were significant actors in this drama.
Contra McCain they were not under regulated. They just ignored the regulations.
With respect to Fannie and Freddie the bigger issue is that they are abominations.
They were and remain privately owned but government controlled.
I do not know about you, but in my mind “government controlled” == regulated.
Or do you think that an economy where government owns/controls everything but does not pass lots of rules is “unregulated” ?
And the final Fannie Freddie problem is that they were a huge source of “moral hazard”
This is where those making decisions involving risk, do not have a stake in the outcome.
And Nasim Taleb calls it – “skin in the game”.
People NEVER make good decisions when the outcome does not impact them.
Which is a fundimental reason that all regulation fails.
I would note that post 2008 NOTHING has been done to address the problems at Fannie and Freddie.
As I have said before Dodd Frank not only did not address the actual problem – it did not even address the lefts(or anyone else’s) claims for the causes of the problem
Dodd Frank was – “oo Something bad happened, lets go do a bunch of unrelated things, and declare victory, because we have done something”
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac et al were regulated by a component of HUD with the acronym OFHEO. OFHEO was operating in a political matrix which wished to promote homeownership to marginal prospects.
unfortunately, by his own actions, Horowitz has impeached his report.
Why did Horowitz rush the McCabe investigation? Politics?
Why did Horowitz refuse to release the report to the public when it was finished, and before McCabe was fired? Politics?
Why did Horowitz time the release of the McCabe report to coincide with the release of Comey’s book? Politics?
Unless Horowitz testifies under oath, and answers these questions (and others) he’s just another political hack who, but associating himself with Trump, has lowered himself to Trump’s level.
“… rush the McCabe investigation?” — you mean the investigation that began before Trump was inaugurated and went on for over a year? That investigation? Who told you it was rushed?
William, ‘who’ was spearheading that investigation before Mueller was appointed? It looks like you seek to lengthen the timetable.
Did you even read the article? ? ? The investigation is by the Inspector General, not Comey and not Mueller. It’s not a criminal investigation. It’s an administrative investigation. And it began before Trump was inaugurated. It has nothing to do with Mueller or whoever was “spearheading” Mueller’s investigation.
Try reading the article, and maybe try removing your head from Hillary’s butt. You’re spewing Clinton crap.
William Bayer,..
– I didn’t see your comments, or carefully read the JT column, before my post a few minutes ago.
I’ll go back over the column and the comments, but it looks like IG Horowitz started these investigations in early 2017.
I don’t know at what point McCabe himself became a target….not sure if that info is known.
I hope you don’t think my reply was to you, Tom. It was posted as a reply to a reply I received from Peter Hill.
No William, I knew who it was directed to.
I just had not caught your comment before I posted mine.
Got it, and I just shot a reply at you concerning the question you asked what’s-his-name.
William, you and Paul are going so over the top with sarcasm and paranoia that no one can be sure ‘who’ you’re really talking about.
You mean delay to allow McCabe to collect his early and excessive pension, which is fraudulent and irrevocable after his 50th birthday? Geez, that’s really not fair. All those years of selfless service.
I do not think you get to keep your pension after you are convicted.
The IG investigation is nearly as old as the Trump investigation. It is OLDER than the Mueller investigation
Horrowitz is an Obama appointee.
The report was due in October, it is LATE, not early.
I doubt Horowitz likes Trump at all.
I fully expect he will eventually be testifying to congress.
I beleive he has done so already privately.
Paul L.,
I have no way of knowing if IG Horowitz rushed the McCabe investigation.
According to WikiPedia, IG Horowitz began in investigating, in Jan. 2017, the conduct of the FBI in its investigations of election-related matters.
It may be that the Strzok-Page emails, and others, were discovered in the course of that investigation.
What is the basis for your conclusion that the McCabe investigation was rushed?
Do you know when the IG started investigating McCabe?
Tom: I might be wrong about this, but I believe the investigation related to this specific IG report began as a referral related to McCabe’s failure to recuse himself in relation to his wife’s receipt of political donations and/or accusations that McCabe violated the Hatch Act by campaigning for his wife using his FBI office. I recall that accusation dating back to around election day — which would account for why it started so much earlier than other matters that the IG has been investigating.
I think the IG’s investigation then morphed into or merged with the leak investigation after Sessions announced the formation of a special leak-investigation team, since one of the mysterious, unexplained leaks was what turned out to be the leak by McCabe.
As the IG’s report states, at first they were interviewing McCabe under the impression that he was a victim of the leak (it being about his phone conversation with a DOJ official). They didn’t suspect him as the leaker until he started engaging in inexplicable conduct after they’d interviewed him about the leak.
So while it began by investigating one thing, it accidentally merged with the leak investigation because McCabe was presumed to be the victim, not the perpetrator, of that leak, and that’s where McCabe committed the “lack of candor” and unauthorized release of FBI information referenced by the IG.
Thanks for the info, William.
No problem — like I said, I might be wrong. I took a nap in the middle of reading the IG’s report and I should probably give it a second read. But I’m definitely clear on the fact that when the FBI internal investigators first interviewed McCabe, it wasn’t because he was a target of the leak investigation. They were trying to figure out who all he told about the phone conversation, assuming that one of those people were the leaker(s). But apparently McCabe described the call as something so upsetting to him that he raved about it to lots of people in general, like something one might do when angry. The investigator concluded that they wouldn’t be able to get useful information from him about everyone he might have talked with about that phone conversation.
In retrospect, that was probably half true and half a clever way to avoid giving the investigators useful information.
So that’s the way the investigators wrote up the “SSS” (signed sworn statement) for McCabe to sign and forwarded it to him. Then, when he didn’t sign and return it to them, as required to complete the questioning, they asked him again a month later, and I don’t think he responded that time, either — which would be sort of unusual for him to not be of assistance in completing the simple formality of his interview.
Finally, when push came to shove about signing the SSS, McCabe claimed that the SSS was completely wrong and didn’t say what he says he said — now claiming that he’d told the that he did authorize the leak, when he’d actually told the investigators that he didn’t authorize it and didn’t have a clue who did the leak.
That’s were he got busted — and again, it wasn’t McCabe that was the target when they’d been questioning him.
That’s my memory of the IG’s report. Now I’ll have to reread it to see how good my memory is concerning something I read while I was half awake.
Very stupid idea to lie to investigators. The process alone will trap people most of the time all by itself. When people have legal problems, they need to figure out a legal argument to get out of trouble. The stupidest thing a person can do is lie about the facts.
You’d think that a deputy director of the FBI would know that. Guy must not have been very good at his job. Must’ve moved up the ranks by some method other than brains or talent. What is it that Woody Allen said? — something about success being 90% just showing up every day (or words to that effect).
“Car 54, where are you?”
Has anyone seen Jeff Sessions, “…a dupe which will live in infamy.”
Actually, since you continue to spew Hannity nonsense, I hope you’re aware that it was just revealed in court that Hannity is one of Michael Cohen’s three clients. That sort of makes much of the “news” he’s been spewing about Cohen and/or Stormy sort of irregular, having mentioned nothing about the fact that Cohen is his own lawyer.
A legitimate news person is supposed to mention that sort of thing so that viewers can judge for themselves whether or not they want to believe what he’s saying.
Very bad idea to link up with Hannity. And it’s totally unnecessary. It’s very easy to support Trump while realizing that Hannity is just a rabble-rousing fraud.
I guess you don’t like Hannity. That is your opinion, but he has been right on a lot of things so I wouldn’t dismiss him so easily. It’s easy to knock a guy that you don’t like, but not always the best way.
My problem with Hannity is that he over-sells info and claims to “break” news that is actually broken by others (Sara Carter, for one) whom Hannity CONSTANTLY interrupts while they are explaining things — almost never letting them finish what they have so say so that Hannity can take the ball and hotdog as if it’s HIS story.
He becomes identified with the stories, not because he believes in them (although I’m sure he probably does) but to milk them for ratings.
He also constantly spreads false legal information and does it with the lawyer (what’s his name) sitting right next to him.
One repeated bit of utter nonsense that Hannity is responsible for spreading is that the FBI gave Hillary special treatment by not putting her under oath while interviewing her. The FACT is that the FBI never puts interviewees under oath because they don’t have to. It’s a crime to lie to the FBI, whether you’re under oath or not, so they don’t have to bother putting people under oath.
Hannity spread that garbage and it got all the way to Trump, who likewise often repeated it.
That’s GARBAGE, and it’s totally unnecessary garbage because there’s plenty of truthful information about how the FBI gave Hillary special treatment and it only undermines the case by spreading false nonsense.
The guy needs to let his guests talk more and learn to shut up while they’re talking, and he needs to stop taking credit for things that he has no right to take credit for. And he needs to stop lying because it isn’t necessary.
And then there’s today, where his goofy conduct has caused trouble for Trump via bad publicity that the MSM will have a field day with, by being SECRETLY associated with Michael Cohen without ever having mentioned it even once while reporting about Cohen and Stormy.
There’s no excuse for concealing that from viewers. It’s dishonest “journalism,” even if he refers to what he does as “entertainment.” Most of his viewers don’t differentiate between “news” and “entertainment,” and that’s a REAL problem, because being an “entertainer” discounts everything the guy says.
So yeah, I have a big problem with Hannity, because almost everything he does he does for the benefit of his own ratings, and in this latest instance it’s gonna hurt Trump. And I’ve warned people about this nonsense time and time again, including here, where I’ve also warned Turley that he’s starting to bear some resemblance to what Hannity does and suggested for his own good and the good of his readers that he knock it off because it’s unnecessary and Turley could do readers a much greater service by explaining how the law works, rather that wading into Hannity territory.
William, I can’t argue with you for I don’t watch much of Hannity or any of the talk shows on Fox News. I watch occasionally in part and generally using fast forward. However, I do recollect Hannity giving Sara Carter a lot of praise everytime her name is mentioned. I haven’t felt that Hannity was laying claim to most of the stories other than saying you can hear it here or something like that. I will have to listen a bit more and evaluate what I hear. In the meantime, it appears that you listen on a regular basis so perhaps you can alert me when he does those things. I have him ( and loads of shows) on record so I can run back and take a listen. It’s interesting how we have such a different take on this individual.
Interrupting people seems to be done by all interviewers and Hannity seems to interrupt in an average manner though some interviews may be so well planned in advance by other interviewers that interruptions aren’t necessary.
Re: recording and swearing an oath you may be correct and Hannity may be wrong. He is a political commentator and I am sure we can find a lot of errors being made by all commentators. But I did see this “Julia Edwards and Reuters | May 22, 2014
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The FBI and several other U.S. federal law enforcement agencies will reverse a policy that has long prohibited the recording of interrogations of people held in custody, a Justice Department memo sent last week said. The new policy, effective July 11, creates a presumption that agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will…”
Hillary was interviewed in July 2016. To be honest I don’t know for sure one way or the other. The news media is very poor at verifying what it says. Even the lawyers on these shows make loads of mistakes.
I think your big gripe is he talks too much and that is what talk show hosts do so I doubt you would like to watch any talk show host on a daily basis.. That is one of the reasons I don’t watch any of these shows on a regular basis or even watch the entire show.
I occasionally have Hannity on if I’m expecting some particular issue to get covered. Hannity DOES interrupt Sara Carter more often than he interrupts others — mostly males, since she’s usually the only female on his show — so maybe it just seems more rude to me. But when he does it, he does it just to recap something that doesn’t need to be recapped.
I do NOT appreciate his “style.” And the FBI doesn’t put people under oath, nor does ANY law enforcement agency I’ve ever heard of put people under oath while conducting an investigation. Congress puts people under oath, and courts put people under oath. Law enforcement does NOT, and I don’t know who fed Hannity that nonsense or why the lawyer sitting next to him doesn’t correct him when he says it. The guy can’t be much of a lawyer if he doesn’t know THAT, so my assumption is that Hannity more-or-less runs his show like a bully who people are afraid to correct — sort of the male Hillary Clinton.
Meanwhile, what you quoted appears to be related to a policy of recording interviews, not putting people under oath. And from the Inspector General’s report at issue in this Turley article, you can see that they still don’t record interviews. The Inspector General puts people under oath and records interviews, but at least most of the FBI interviews referenced in his report rely on note-taking as a record, not on recording.
It’s really the same gripe I’m having here with what Turley is doing — hashing out some issues without bothering to mention anything about the law. And in this particular Turley article, he TOO is misrepresenting the law because he’s talking about a “lack of criminal referral for McCabe.” That’s total nonsense. A criminal referral is how people request that the FBI/DOJ investigate some matter, and Sessions as already stated — months ago — that he has a criminal prosecutor working in parallel with the Inspector General, reviewing the same issues that the Inspector General is reviewing. So the criminal investigation is already underway and has been for some time — yet Turley is peddling nonsense about a FICTIONAL absence of a “criminal referral.”
People standards are slipping far below acceptable standards. Turley certainly knows the difference between a criminal referral and criminal charges, which I can only assume is what he’s really talking about while using the WRONG language.
It’s all just a general devolution of intelligence or a lack of standards regarding speaking correctly to the issues.
And Hannity is one of the pioneers of that kind of sloppiness, and it appears to be contagious.
“I do NOT appreciate his “style.” ”
That is why there are a multiplicity of talk show hosts.
Recording, according to the article is to be done. Hillary wasn’t recorded. None of that matters. She should have been recorded and treated like any other individual. Is she guilty of collusion? Maybe, but collusion is not a crime. I believe she is a crook and should never have been permitted control over the DNC. She demeaned all the women that had legitimate complaints of sexual abuse which demonstrates a person’s nature and that person shouldn’t be in a public position of trust.
I think by the nature of their work and their need to appeal to the public all commentators can be a bit sloppy. I certainly don’t think Hannity is worse than average (but I will turn him on to see). Turley is a bright guy. He appears to me to be on the left while supporting civil liberties something the old left supported. The MSM will tolerate some difference of opinion from an occasional expert especially one whose ideology is on the left, but I think Turley would lose his jobs if he were to say exactly what he thought at all times.
Because of all these factors what we hear tends towards the mediocre and perhaps even worse if we base it on past experience. That is why I will listen to those that appeal to integrity even if that person has an opposing viewpoint. Despite what you or others think I am not really an ideologue of the right or left. I have positions and compromise positions since we are in a pluralistic world and cannot survive with a single dogma though we should constantly keep in mind the values of our forefathers life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (property). That is not a guarantee by government rather a pledge to limit its laws from preventing those values from being realized.
Allen said:
“That is why there are a multiplicity of talk show hosts.”
So, if you get information from any does that make you a passive patsy?
The answer is ‘yes.’
Ypu should read more, Allan; it takes much less time.
“Ypu should read more, Allan; it takes much less time.”
You just demonstrated your reading skills since I responded to William saying “I can’t argue with you for I don’t watch much of Hannity or any of the talk shows ” What you write is just words absent thought and most definitely absent intellect.
But isn’t this your forte, Allan.
I read much too much to read so little as to ferret out your blatherings of self-righteousness.
The pattern of your assumed superiority is painfully obvious. You argue in the mud yet have the illusion that you are on firm ground.
Keep your points going — list Hannity’s here, and the other thread.
Work hard, my son, at nothing of consequence as you welcome a neo-feudal system of governance.
“self-righteousness.”
What else can anything seem to be other than self-righteousness to a vile contemptible human being?
Well, you’re getting into new topics now, and I agree with most or all of what you wrote. Meanwhile, I remembered my biggest gripe of all about Hannity, and it’s what caused me to launch my initial reply to George, because of some things we said to each other the other day. His comment here reminded be of that, where he ridicules Jeff Sessions. That’s something that Hannity started. He did it night after night, and his loyal viewers started badgering republicans in Congress to start doing it, and making demands for a second special counsel.
Why is that nonsense? Well, for one thing, they never mention — Hannity never mentioned — how it is that if they don’t trust Jeff Sessions, why on Earth would they demand a special counsel that would be appointed by — guess who — Jeff Sessions? It makes ZERO sense in the context of their arguments that they don’t trust Sessions. And aside from that, the accuse Sessions — as George did here AGAIN — of doing nothing, simply because they don’t know what Sessions is doing. And it’s pure ignorance on their part, because the standard policy (before Lynch/Comey) was to NEVER even confirm the existence of an investigation unless/until criminal charges are brought.
Out of pure ignorance, Hannity and his loyal viewers were demanding that Sessions behave the way Comey behaved, make news announcements about who and what the DOJ/FBI is investigating.
Pure, ignorant nonsense which they escalated to ridiculing Sessions for no reason, then escalated to demanding a second special counsel for no reason, and then demanding the release of documents (criminal evidence), which is NEVER done and will hurt the prosecutions that they are also demanding.
And it all stemmed from Hannity firing up is loyal, and totally ignorant, followers.
So he isn’t just “entertaining” — he’s injecting himself into government affairs, and he’s not nearly smart enough to do that.
And by the way, I’m not an ideologue, nor am I a republican or democrat. I’m just a citizen who thinks both parties are garbage but support Trump — not the republican party — just Trump, so I put up with the republican only because they’re necessary.
By the way, elsewhere it’s been announced this evening that Trey Gowdy (a fraud among frauds) has scheduled a hearing for the Inspector General to appear before his committee on May 8. That’s NOT good news, because being a total fraud, nothing good can possibly come from that hearing, nor does Gowdy intend anything good to come from that hearing. Heres a link to where I read about it:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/04/16/trey-gowdy-requests-ig-horowitz-appearance-before-house-oversight-committee-may-8th-2018/#more-148120
I don’t blame Hannity for focussing in on Jeff Sessions. Sessions to date seems to have acted in a passive manner (at least what we see) and that it is not something we should be looking for when there is so much criminality in the DOJ. You might want to argue differently, but that argument is merely another point of view.
I think you are excessively hard on Hannity because he doesn’t agree with your views. I’m not saying Hannity is correct or incorrect because I don’t have enough knowledge of these specifics. I accept what he says as another point of view much as I accept your alternate point of view. The idea of a special counsel is exhilarating and exasperating at the same time because none of us know what the answer will be which depends upon factors we have no knowledge of. Thus I can cheer Sessions’ decision to use Huber and dislike Sessions at the same time when he refuses to provide a special counsel. All of that is known as opinion and I don’t fault anyone for rational opinions based on real facts.
I certainly wouldn’t call his audience or Hannity himself ignorant. You might be better informed than most, but that doesn’t make them ignorant, only less informed for many reasons. They may not have as much time as you or the same interests you have. They may even have a rational difference of opinion. Frankly, my question is not what Sessions should do rather whether or not he is a ditherer.
Sorry, but I stopped reading where you wrote that it’s “merely another point of view” about Sessions not telling people what’s going on.
It’s NOT just another point of view. It’s the way the DOJ/FBI is supposed to work, and it was the biggest complaint people had about Comey — that he was always making statements in front of cameras about what was being investigated. His little speech about exonerating Hillary was unprecedented in the history of the FBI. I have zero tolerance for people that demand Sessions do what Comey did. If they wanted Comey as Director of the FBI or Attorney General, then they should have voted for Hillary.
I’m done for the day arguing with people about nonsense that makes ZERO sense.
“I stopped reading ”
Then you missed the point because you didn’t agree with a potentially different point of view. Your point of view doesn’t mean that Sessions cannot be more proactive without violating any of your beliefs about the DOJ. I don’t ask for Sessions to tell everyone what is or is not going on but in over a year it appears that he has an overwhelming passivity or an underwhelming inability to act. (Opinions can change, but not those opinions set in concrete.)
If you read the rest of what I wrote you would find I reserved my opinion due to lack of knowledge, but that is not something you did. You drew preconceived conclusions before availing yourself of the rest of another’s reply.
Actually, I realillzed that I was wasting my time with the conversation. I guess you don’t think I’m entitled to that opinion, but that’s what I was clearly doing. It was a wasted of time. I gave you more than enough of my time — up to and beyond the point where it was clear that I was wasting my time. I’m allowed to make that determination, whether you like it or not.
“Actually, I realillzed that I was (1) wasting my time with the conversation. I guess you don’t think I’m entitled to that opinion, but that’s what I was clearly doing. It was (2) a wasted of time. I gave you more than enough of (3) my time — up to and beyond the point where it was clear that I was (4) wasting my time. I’m allowed to make that determination, whether you like it or not.”
You are entitled to believe whatever you wish, but if anyone were wasting their time in the conversation it was I and anyone following the threat because you don’t belong in a discussion where more than one idea exists and that idea isn’t yours. That is your problem, no one else’s.
One only has to look at the seething frustration in your comment about your time repeated over and over again in a very short paragraph. 4 times to be exact. Take a valium.
You don’t have ideas. You’re an ideologue. And if I don’t think I belong in the conversation, please stop wasting my time with your empty-headed nonsense.
“You don’t have ideas. You’re an ideologue. And if I don’t think I belong in the conversation, please stop wasting my time with your empty-headed nonsense.”
William, you could have avoided the nonsense by taking a Valium that would have alleviated your seething frustration. Suddenly, you think I am an ideologue because I don’t regularly watch Hannity and you think I should disapprove of him without adequately knowing him first. You don’t seem to respond to anything I have said so I have concluded that along with the Valium you should find a safe space that is padded where you can argue with yourself. Then when you get angry at yourself you won’t get hurt pounding your head against the wall.
“It’s NOT just another point of view. It’s the way the DOJ/FBI is supposed to work,”
Can I get and Amen, Sister !
Count the ways, Allen, where your claim is correct:
1. ?
2. ?
3. ?
……
Enlighten us all.
Instead of 3 or 300, since I don’t watch that much of Hannity, but occasionally watch because of a guest that is on.
How about the Reverend Wright? That is a biggy. Wish to explain?
Your math skills are impressive!
Shuffle all you want, meager man, try to change the discourse — but at least back up your claim of Hannity being right on a lot of things.
Count them out — take this as an opportunity to educate the hoi polloi.
A list will do.
I gave you a starting point, the Reverand Wright and that was an excellent example since it took around a year for the rest of the media to catch up. Your response was just a bunch of words. Nothing about the Reverend Wright so why bother to provide #2 or #3 if you can’t even respond to #1. You are a gigantic failure.
Don’t act as if you represent the masses. You don’t. You represent a distinct group of people that incessantly talk and say nothing. I’ll add to that. Most likely you know very little and think yourself a lot smarter than you are.
I don’t give a damn about any Reverends. Waste of time, sucking the blood of most.
Do you actually give a damn about what end-times MF’s preach about? They fleece their flock as a matter of course.
Much like our government.
Do you have anything else to add to your expansive Hannity list?
Keep going, impress me.
“Keep going, impress me.”
The only thing that might impress you is violent protest. Of course, you don’t care about the Reverend Wright. That is not part of your nature. You are all about fulfilling your own needs whether they are of interest to others or not. Your request for a list was a sham.
Let’s see what we know about you. You don’t like (“damn about any Reverends”) religious people since you excluded none in your attack. You are vile and uncivil (“MF’s preach about? “) someone who should not be around children or any civil human being. You don’t like our government, but that doesn’t exclude you from liking your own government and making you into an authoritarian pig.
“You don’t like (“damn about any Reverends”) religious people since you excluded none in your attack. You are vile and uncivil (“MF’s preach about? “) someone who should not be around children or any civil human being. You don’t like our government, but that doesn’t exclude you from liking your own government and making you into an authoritarian pig.”
The assumptions you make are ludicrous, offered up so that your argument has a pivot point.
You are shameless in your ignorance of your own beliefs.
“You are shameless in your ignorance of your own belief”
You are the one to crash in with your vile contemptible attitude using an alias to hide a former one.You have crapped in your own bed and now have to sleep in it.
Your free to disown Wright – but then do not try to hang some other idiots arround the rest of our necks.
I am not aware of anyone here that appears to be a big Hannity fan.
There is a big difference between yawning at the non-story that Hannity might be a Cohen client and being a virulent Hannity supporter.
Rather than fixate on guilt by association and fallacious argument,
How about facts, logic, reason.
Haha. Right. A lot of things….Hm. How ’bout the Uranium One “scandal”? So sorry for your loss.
this is to “I have a ‘Hannity was here’ tattoo across my lower back” allan
“Hm. How ’bout the Uranium One “scandal”?”
What about the Uranium One issue. Hillary is a crook and got a lot of money. Do you wish to prove that as Secretary of State she acted properly with regard to the Clinton Foundation?
If there was anything in real life remotely illegal about any aspect of what you refer to as “Uranium One” (haha), there would have been criminal prosecutions arising out of same. The fact that the paranoid conspiracy wackjobs can’t accept that there’s anything illegal has no bearing in real life.
this is to “I much prefer the Pravda Faux News bubble life over real life” allan
If there was anything in real life remotely illegal about any aspect of what you refer to as “Uranium One” (haha), there would have been criminal prosecutions arising out of same.
From the Holder-Lynch ‘Justice Department’? LMAO
“If there was anything in real life remotely illegal about any aspect of what you refer to as “Uranium One” (haha), there would have been criminal prosecutions arising out of same.”
There were. There was a large active FBI criminal probe of corrupt russian business proactices in the US producing results.
As that probe started to touch on the U1 deal, the probe was stalled and shutdown to avoid bringing problems to the attention of congress.
Those involved in the probe and its slow walking and shutdown, were the same players we see today.
Comey, Mueller, Rosenstein, …..
The start begins with recognition:
https://saraacarter.com/breaking-lawmakers-make-criminal-referral-on-clinton-comey-lynch-to-doj-on-steele-dossier/
BREAKING: Lawmakers Make Criminal Referral on Clinton, Comey, Lynch to DOJ on Steele Dossier
Obama officials and FBI embattled agents also targeted for possible violations of federal law
While some of this is reaching – it is still worth noting, there is much more evidence for all of this than “trump/russia” AND, if as the left continues to claim Trump is guilty of various things – such as “obstruction of justice” than by the same broad interpretations, these people are too.
One law for all. Interpret it broadly at your own personal peril.
On U1 there is further actual evidence that a significant FBI investigation of Russian Corruption touching on U1 was sidetracked and slow walked in order to hide the rampant corruption from congress and get the U1 deal approved.
And the players in this ?
All the same people who show up in everything today.
Comey, Mueller, Rosenstein, ……
Mark is a slothful parasite that feeds off the list. He knows almost nothing and has no moral or ethical foundation. That being said the Obama DOJ refused to investigate the Clinton Foundation’s dealings.
$500,000 went into the pockets of the Clinton’s from the Russian Bank that financed the sale. Just under $150,000,000 flowed into the Clinton Foundation. Who was the director of the FBI when the investigation into the Rosatom subsidiary was started? Robert Mueller.
The Obama Administration refused to investigate pretty much anything.
Which is why many of us wonder why we are investigating this absolute nothing burger, when the very same people dropped the ball on much more substantial charges.
As I recall Mueller is going after Manafort for Logan act violations.
Manafort took money from the Ukraine to lobby congress.
But Manafort did not lobby congress for Ukraine – he paid Tony Podesta to do so.
But no charges against Podesta ?
Of course the Logan act is unconstitutional and no one has tried to enforce it in more than a century.
“The Obama Administration refused to investigate pretty much anything.”
When did the law matter to Obama except where the law helped him meet his ends?
Thank you. I accept your concession.
P.S. Imagine if you had the same dentist as O.J. Simpson. Who are your dentist’s other patients, by the way?
I guess you don’t understand the idea that a “journalist” is supposed to allow his viewers to know whether he has a relationship with someone he repeatedly mentions in a “‘news” story, so that people will be able to decide whether they’re receiving “fair and balanced” reporting or a slanted perspective.
When people see George Stefanopolis, they know he has/had a relationship with the Clintons, so they know what he says about the Clintons might be biased in their favor and they know the reason why.
Hannity hid the fact that he was a client of Cohen during many stories about Cohen. And there’s more to it than that, buy you clearly either don’t comprehend or simply don’t care. Hannity tells you what you want to hear and that’s all that matters to you. So you’ll let a dishonest clown do your thinking for you without caring one bit that he’s a dishonest clown.
Not really the same thing as having him for your dentist.
After having to listen to William Bayer’s teeth gnashing about Hannity here and in later posts I decided to look at yesterday’s recording. The show was pretty good with good guests including Alan Dershowitz and DiGenova.I thought the show was better than I remembered especially after listening to William Bower’s headache-inducing negative rants. It is not my cup of tea, but I have to say it was a good show and provided a lot of insight ( I can’t comment on any shows previous to this one because I rarely watch Hannity and never a complete show like I watched this one.)
I didn’t notice significant error which on talk shows is inevitable. I think if William Bower critiqued his own posting like he did Hannity, I think he couldn’t stomach finishing reading one of his own and would probably never read his own work again that is if he ever decided to write again.
In any event, Hannity discussed his association with Michael Cohen. He stated (with his reputation at stake) that Cohen never represented him in any legal matter and that he never retained his services. He stated he had brief conversations with Cohen on legal matters mostly focusing on real estate and stated that he has said it many times that Michael Cohen knows real estate.
Also on the show was clips of Comey on another show where Hannity critiqued the discussion and added a lot of useful information.
William Bayer, jump into an ice water bath to cool yourself off and then into bed with a Valium. You need it.
Retaliation for the bombing in Syria could come from Putin as the release of all the data on President
Trump’s “collusion” with Russia. I hope Mueller’s on that.
the constant breathless hopeyness of the left.
Trump could easily have avoided bombing syria.
I do not think the case to bomb syria was good enough.
But he did and pissed all over Putin – AGAIN.
At some point maybe you will grasp that Trump is NOT putin’s puppet – which BTW means the entire Trump/Russia things is garbage.
Horowitz is only the investigator. Only prosecutors can charge someone with a crime. It’s normal for there to be a delay after the conclusion if the investigation. We can only hope and pray that charges are forthcoming.
Agreed. The odd thing here is that Turley is talking about a criminal “referral,” not criminal charges — and the purpose of a criminal referral is to bring something to the attention of the FBI/DOJ for them to investigate — and Sessions has already assigned a prosecutor from outside Washington D.C — Huber in Utah — to investigate parallel with the Inspector General.
So I don’t know what sort of referral Turley thinks hasn’t happened yet, since the DOJ is already working the case. You don’t make a referral when a prosecutor is already on the case.
Maybe Turley meant criminal “charges,” not criminal “referral.”
It really gets confusing when he strays away from his actual knowledge of the law.
Justice is McCabe going to jail and losing a civil suit that pays for all of Flynn’s expenses plus.
Justice is all the rats starting to rat each other out, and all ending up disgraced or in jail.
That appears to be happening.
We are in the midst of a circular firing squad.
McCabe has turned on Lynch and particularly Comey
Comey on McCabe and Lynch.
Lynch on Comey and McCabe.
It is not really possible at this point for any of them to be either credible or honorable.
Comey is not handling tough questions in his interviews well.
But then Comey has been very weird from the begining.
He has this huge Rep from purportedly speaking Truth to Power with Bush.
Yet, he portray’s himself as unable to stand up to Trump.
Further as we start learning the facts, it does nto look like he could not stand up to Trump, but that he was actively trying to Setup Trump.
Frankly it looks mostly like Comey was looking after Comey first and foremost everywhere and all the time.
Comey (and McCabe) claim there was all this interferance in the Clinton probes, from DOJ.
So why wasn’t the man who think Trump was obstructing Justice speaking out over things he claims that were much more overtly wrong ?
Comey now claims to be queasy about Obama declaring Clinton innocent at the begining of the investigation – yet, he admits he never spoke up.
Nor do we have evidence he spoke up to the purported efforts of DOJ to squash The Clinton investigation.
What we do have is Both Comey and McCabe independently trying to jockey for position in the upcoming Clinton administration.
Both were seeking to assure Clinton’s election – while at the same time having enough dirt to blackmail Clinton.
When things did not workout and Clinton lost, they went to work to set Trump up for Blackmail.
Sorry left wingnuts, it was not Putin trying to grab Trump by the Balls – it was Comey and McCabe and their cronies. Conspiracy ? Maybe not, but lots of insiders looking to manufacture or advance this Russia Collusion narrative as a means of maintaining their own power.
And we have had this horror show because Trump would not play ball.
While the crazy leftists on this blog ignore all the facts, perhaps others are starting to realize what pieces of sh-t our FBI contained. Trump approval ratings are rising even with the most recent attacks against him.
“The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 51% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance.”
Check. Thanks for the Pravda Faux News talking points that were issued today.
this is to “just keep lyin’ until they think it’s true” dilly
I do not watch Fox – or pretty much any other MSM source.
Regardless of insults or your attempt to spin,
facts are facts. If they favor one “side” over another – that is tough.
We do not get to pick and choose the facts because of our ideology.
Those who attempt to lobotomize themselves.
Is lying to the fbi in an internal investigation a crime as opposed to lying in an external criminal investigation? McCabe’s exposure would seem greater in connection with his “insurance policy” efforts
There is no special crime of lying to the FBI
18 USC 1001 is lying to a federal official during an investigation.
That can be any kind of investigation of anything by any federal employee seeking information.
It however requires an attempt to mislead investigators.
The FBI can not “entrap” someone by questioning them until the lie about something the FBI already knows.
Mueller’s charges do not conform, as the investigation was not mislead.
Strzok as an example had the transcript of the Flynn conversation with Kislyak prior to questioning Flynn.
That is a classic entrapment ambush and it can not create a crime.
Trump’s legal team needs Turley!
“McCabe’s exposure would seem greater in connection with his ‘insurance policy’ efforts”
And that’s probably one reason that we’ve heard nothing about criminal charges yet — because they aren’t nearly done investigating everything that McCabe was involved in, and they won’t charge him until they’ve figured out his entire involvement.
Turley is, and has been, way off concerning these issues — I think because he’s been more interested in Michael Kohen/Stormy Daniels than McCabe et al.
For all of his writing here about the IG’s report on McCabe, Turley missed the actual title of the Inspector General’s report, which clearly states that it’s directed to only to “certain allegations” relating to McCabe — not all of the allegations relating to McCabe. This is only stuff that he did on his own, not involving a conspiracy with others, such as the “insurance policy” or plan to set up Flynn for a fake interview concerning information the FBI already possessed.
And Turley’s talking about the absence of a criminal “referral” when there’s clearly already been a referral. If there weren’t a referral, a prosecutor wouldn’t already be working the case.
Do we know what the prosecutor in Denver is doing?
Perhaps some Grand Jury’s are capable of keeping secret their deliberations?
We do not know alot of things. Most “Mueller” leaks either prove false or much less consequential than intitially claimed.
His first duty would have been to set up the plea deals reached with Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bruce and Nellie Ohr, and others that have turned government witness in order to save their own hides — all of those involved who’ve not been fired (yet) and whom you never hear being interviewed or much talked about in the news.
And I believe he’s in Utah, not Denver — but that’s just his home territory. He’d have to come to Washington where much of the criminal conduct happened to do grand jury stuff.
My understanding is there is already a GJ in Salt Lake City.
Mueller has been forumn shopping – so has Sessions.
There was a pretty good analysis of Sessions appointing Hunt, that suggested strongly that NOT appointing an SC was the right thing to do.
That an SC would have to operate out of DC which would make things 100 times more difficult.
That by running this out of Utah, Sessions has more control, more ability to keep things quiet and a better GJ. Further Hunt was an Obama appointment – like Horrowitz.