[kenberg]

barmar, on 2019-February-28, 10:04, said:

I listened to the Cohen testimony for a couple of hours, but it got so tiresome that I switched it off after a while, so I unfortunately missed the AOC segment. I'm going to check it out on YouTube now.

She reminds me of "Mr Smith Goes to Washington", she's so young and earnest, trying to "do the right thing". I wish her the best of luck, but I wonder how long someone like that can really survive in the DC swamp.

It's this useful idealism coupled with some serious ability. And yes, it sometimes spills over into less than completely well thought out statements, but hell, you're only young once.

Hopping over to Y's post about Altman on the Hijack thread, I wonder how Altman would see her. It's really hard to dislike someone who enjoys dancing on rooftops.

[PassedOut]

AOC takes her position seriously

I wish they all did.

[Winstonm]

andrei, on 2019-February-28, 11:25, said:

Ooops ...

Some possibilities: 1) Cohen was never there and the reporting is wrong. 2) One of Cohen's cell phones was there but carried by someone other than Cohen. 3) The original informants confused Cohen with another actor 4) Cohen is still lying about Prague.

My feeling is that 1 or 2 is the most likely - but 3 is not out of the question. 4 is highly unlikely.

[Winstonm]

Marcy Wheeler in today's NYT:

Quote

Mr. Mueller’s public filings have laid out a broad framework showing that Russians dangled a real estate deal and dirt on Hillary Clinton while asking for a range of sanctions relief. If Mr. Mueller were to charge this quid pro quo as a conspiracy or describe it as one in a report, it wouldn’t matter whether Mr. Trump knew of all the events that furthered the conspiracy. Because of the way conspiracy law works, it’s enough to show that Mr. Trump willingly entered into the conspiracy and took overt acts to pursue its objectives.

[andrei]

Winstonm, on 2019-February-28, 15:52, said:

Some possibilities: 1) Cohen was never there and the reporting is wrong. 2) One of Cohen's cell phones was there but carried by someone other than Cohen. 3) The original informants confused Cohen with another actor 4) Cohen is still lying about Prague.

My feeling is that 1 or 2 is the most likely - but 3 is not out of the question. 4 is highly unlikely.

Since we had "four people with knowledge of the matter" and "two people familiar with the incident" I would say 1) is out of the question. We all know these unnamed sources are always reliable.

My money definitely is on 2). Pretty sure Cohen has lots of cell phones and gives them around.

As for 4) , naaah. Cohen never lies.

[PassedOut]

andrei, on 2019-February-28, 20:34, said:

Since we had "four people with knowledge of the matter" and "two people familiar with the incident" I would say 1) is out of the question. We all know these unnamed sources are always reliable.

My money definitely is on 2). Pretty sure Cohen has lots of cell phones and gives them around.

As for 4) , naaah. Cohen never lies.

As usual, you are being indirect here instead of coming out and saying exactly what you mean, as blackshoe also often does. The reason is, I presume, to provide a hedge to avoid being requoted later in case your estimate of the situation turns out to be wrong.

I think that Cohen either was somewhere near Prague, but not in the city proper -- a ploy like one Bill Clinton might use -- or that Cohen told the truth. Honestly, I can't see a motive for Cohen to lie before the committee on a point like that, given his current circumstances. What might that motive be?

[andrei]

PassedOut, on 2019-March-01, 06:48, said:

As usual, you are being indirect here instead of coming out and saying exactly what you mean, as blackshoe also often does. The reason is, I presume, to provide a hedge to avoid being requoted later in case your estimate of the situation turns out to be wrong.

I think that Cohen either was somewhere near Prague, but not in the city proper -- a ploy like one Bill Clinton might use -- or that Cohen told the truth. Honestly, I can't see a motive for Cohen to lie before the committee on a point like that, given his current circumstances. What might that motive be?

You can quote me all you want.
This reporting:

"
A mobile phone traced to President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen briefly sent signals ricocheting off cell towers in the Prague area in late summer 2016, at the height of the presidential campaign, leaving an electronic record to support claims that Cohen met secretly there with Russian officials, four people with knowledge of the matter say.

During the same period of late August or early September, electronic eavesdropping by an Eastern European intelligence agency picked up a conversation among Russians, one of whom remarked that Cohen was in Prague, two people familiar with the incident said.
"

is BS. You can tell McClatchy is a Jack Bauer fan, sounds exactly like a 24 episode.

Speaking of Cohen: Michael Cohen pitched book claiming Trump not liar

[PassedOut]

andrei, on 2019-March-01, 08:57, said:

You can quote me all you want.
This reporting:

"
A mobile phone traced to President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen briefly sent signals ricocheting off cell towers in the Prague area in late summer 2016, at the height of the presidential campaign, leaving an electronic record to support claims that Cohen met secretly there with Russian officials, four people with knowledge of the matter say.

During the same period of late August or early September, electronic eavesdropping by an Eastern European intelligence agency picked up a conversation among Russians, one of whom remarked that Cohen was in Prague, two people familiar with the incident said.
"

is BS. You can tell McClatchy is a Jack Bauer fan, sounds exactly like a 24 episode.

Speaking of Cohen: Michael Cohen pitched book claiming Trump not liar

I understand all that, but why would Cohen continue to lie to protect Trump under the present circumstances?

[barmar]

andrei, on 2019-February-28, 20:34, said:

My money definitely is on 2). Pretty sure Cohen has lots of cell phones and gives them around.

He pays off his client's porn stars with his own money, why wouldn't he give away cell phones?

[barmar]

What I found most disingenuous during Cohen's testimony was when Republicans pressed him on whether Trump explicitly asked him to lie, or pay off porn stars, etc., and then Cohen had to explain that Trump gave these instructions by code and implication. Congressmen are not aliens, unfamiliar with the way people communicate by innuendo and read between the lines.

I can understand that during court testimony a defense lawyer might use such tactics to try to raise doubt in the jury -- they have to find some way to get their client off. But this was not a criminal case, it's was a fact-finding session. No knowledgeable person should be unable to recognize such tactics that everyone knows about to avoid being overt. And it's ridiculous that a Congressman would waste valuable testimony time pretending that it doesn't exist.

[Winstonm]

PassedOut, on 2019-March-01, 09:06, said:

I understand all that, but why would Cohen continue to lie to protect Trump under the present circumstances?

Here is Cohen's tweeted response at the time the McClatchy story broke:

Quote

“I hear #Prague #Czech Republic is beautiful in the summertime,” Cohen tweeted. “I wouldn’t know as I have never been. #Mueller knows everything!”

"Mueller knows everything" seems to be the key.

As for the article, it makes assumptions but the basic report only states that a phone traced back to Michael Cohen pinged a cell tower "near or around Prague" in August or September of 2016. This definitely seems to be second or even third-sourced information otherwise the exact date would be known.

[johnu]

andrei, on 2019-March-01, 08:57, said:

Speaking of Cohen: Michael Cohen pitched book claiming Trump not liar

As the article said,

Quote

how he pitched the proposal praising Trump just weeks before the FBI raided his office

You must be pretty desperate to mention this since he was still employed by Dennison at the time. Do you think Dennison would give him a big bonus if he was pitching a book claiming Dennison was the biggest liar in the world.

Look no further than presidential press secretaries who have to constantly outright lie and obfuscate since telling the truth would immediately get them fired.

[johnu]

andrei, on 2019-February-28, 11:25, said:

Ooops ...

Yes the Steele Dossier. Many of the points have been confirmed, Cohen's Prague trip is now in question and only the Russians probably know for sure about the Pee tape.

Cohen has consistently denied he was in Prague from day 1. No change in that story. McClatchy reported on phone pings. There could be more to that story. We'll see what happens in future impeachment and criminal proceedings.

[johnu]

After a disasterous meeting with Kim Jong-un that accomplished nothing and even failed to last as long as scheduled, Dennison futilely attempts to spin the focus to other things,

Trump Brags He Freed Otto Warmbier, Blames Obama For North Korean Capture

Quote

Remember, I got Otto out along with three others. The previous Administration did nothing, and he was taken on their watch.

Hmm, Dennison "forgets" that 2 of the other 3 North Korea detainees were arrested while he was president. He is absolutely correct that the Obama administration failed to prevent those 2 arrests. Obama could have refused to leave office

I can't fault Dennison over not remembering the "facts". There are too many lies to juggle for any one man, even a stable genius.

Dennison taking credit for "freeing" Warmbier who was unconscious and had suffered brain damage and died days after being returned to the US is just sick, but nothing unusual or out of the ordinary for Individual-1.

And defends Kim Jong-un's involvement in Warmbier's "condition",

“He (Kim) tells me he didn’t know about it, and I take him at his word,” Trump said."

Believable or not? Kim Jong-un has executed close family relatives in gruesome ways according to some reports. Fairly low level North Korea officials are going to fatally injure an American hostage without orders from above, and then keep silent about it for months? With hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of internal informants, no word of this ever got back to the Supreme Leader (I mean Kim, not Dennison)?

[Winstonm]

As to speaking in code, as Michael Cohen described the speech of Individual-1, I used to work in Las Vegas and was friendly with an ex-NYC cop of Sicilian (he made sure I didn't say Italian, but Sicilian) decent. He described the way a hit would be ordered by a cosa nostra boss. The boss might say, That kid Vito. He rides a motorcycle, right? Dangerous thing, a motorcycle. Be a shame if he had an accident. It would kill his old man. Then, later, he would walk up to someone close to the organization, stuff $5K or whatever into his pocket and say, make sure Vito doesn't get hurt. Capiche?

From there it was totally up to the guy who received the cash make certain the hit was carried out - and usually by handing it off to a third and maybe even fourth party.

That is why a witness from inside is critical.

[Winstonm]

Lawfare has an interesting article why Cohen's testimony about the Pecker president's knowledge of Wikileaks' e-mail drop is important.

Quote

As a result, even if one were to believe that the Trump campaign was ignorant of WikiLeaks’s role in damaging U.S. security, the Trump administration is presumably fully aware of what WikiLeaks is and does and has done. Which means that if the president has hidden his knowledge of communications his campaign was having with WikiLeaks or what his political surrogates were doing in the summer of 2016, he has actively thwarted what are likely ongoing counterintelligence investigations related to WikiLeaks and its role in facilitating the criminal acquisition and/or unauthorized release of years’ worth of highly sensitive and classified information.

[Winstonm]

barmar, on 2019-March-01, 10:45, said:

What I found most disingenuous during Cohen's testimony was when Republicans pressed him on whether Trump explicitly asked him to lie, or pay off porn stars, etc., and then Cohen had to explain that Trump gave these instructions by code and implication. Congressmen are not aliens, unfamiliar with the way people communicate by innuendo and read between the lines.

I can understand that during court testimony a defense lawyer might use such tactics to try to raise doubt in the jury -- they have to find some way to get their client off. But this was not a criminal case, it's was a fact-finding session. No knowledgeable person should be unable to recognize such tactics that everyone knows about to avoid being overt. And it's ridiculous that a Congressman would waste valuable testimony time pretending that it doesn't exist.

Quote

“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” (George Orwell, 1984)

[y66]

From The Return to Protectionism by Pablo D. Fajgelbaum, Pinelopi K. Goldberg, Patrick J. Kennedy and Amit K. Khandelwal via Tyler Cowen:

Quote

We analyze the short-run impacts of the 2018 trade war on the U.S. economy. We estimate import demand and export supply elasticities using changes in U.S. and retaliatory war tariffs over time. Imports from targeted countries decline 31.5% within products, while targeted U.S. exports fall 9.5%. We find complete pass-through of U.S. tariffs to variety-level import prices, and compute the aggregate and regional impacts of the war in a general equilibrium framework that matches these elasticities. Annual losses from higher costs of imports are $68.8 billion (0.37% of GDP). After accounting for higher tariff revenue and gains to domestic producers from higher prices, the aggregate welfare loss is $6.4 billion (0.03% of GDP). U.S. tariffs favored sectors located in politically competitive counties, suggesting an ex ante rationale for the tariffs, but retaliatory tariffs offset the benefits to these counties. Tradeable-sector workers in heavily Republican counties are the most negatively affected by the trade war.

[y66]

From The Oppression of the Supermajority by Tim Wu at NYT:

Quote

The defining political fact of our time is not polarization. It’s the thwarting of a largely unified public.

Quote

We are told that America is divided and polarized as never before. Yet when it comes to many important areas of policy, that simply isn’t true.

About 75 percent of Americans favor higher taxes for the ultrawealthy. The idea of a federal law that would guarantee paid maternity leave attracts 67 percent support. Eighty-three percent favor strong net neutrality rules for broadband, and more than 60 percent want stronger privacy laws. Seventy-one percent think we should be able to buy drugs imported from Canada, and 92 percent want Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. The list goes on.

The defining political fact of our time is not polarization. It’s the inability of even large bipartisan majorities to get what they want on issues like these. Call it the oppression of the supermajority. Ignoring what most of the country wants — as much as demagogy and political divisiveness — is what is making the public so angry.

Some might counter that the thwarting of the popular will is not necessarily worrisome. For Congress to enact a proposal just because it is supported by a large majority, the argument goes, would amount to populism. The public, according to this way of thinking, is generally too ill informed to have its economic policy preferences taken seriously.

It is true that policymaking requires expertise. But I don’t think members of the public are demonstrating ignorance when they claim that drug prices are too high, taxes could be fairer, privacy laws are too weak and monopolies are too coddled.

Others remind us that the United States is a democratic republic, not a direct democracy, and that the Constitution was designed to modulate the extremes of majority rule. Majorities sometimes want things — like bans on books, or crackdowns on minorities — that they should not be given.

This is true. It is also true that a thoughtful process of democratic deliberation and compromise can yield better policy outcomes than merely following the majority’s will. But these considerations hardly describe our current situation. The invocation of constitutional principle has become an increasingly lame and embarrassing excuse. The framers of the Constitution, having experienced a popular revolution, were hardly recommending that the will of the majority be ignored. The Constitution sought to fine-tune majoritarian democracy, not to silence it.

The most obvious historical precedent for our times is the Progressive era. During the first decades of the 20th century, the American public voted for politicians who supported economic reforms like maximum-hour work laws and bans on child labor. But the Supreme Court struck down most of Congress’s economic legislation, deeming it unconstitutional.

In our era, it is primarily Congress that prevents popular laws from being passed or getting serious consideration. (Holding an occasional hearing does not count as “doing something.”) Entire categories of public policy options are effectively off-limits because of the combined influence of industry groups and donor interests. There is no principled defense of this state of affairs — and indeed, no one attempts to offer such a justification. Instead, legislative stagnation is cynically defended by those who benefit from it with an unconvincing invocation of the rigors of our system of checks and balances.

The president, because he is directly elected, might be thought an important remedy to this problem. And when running for office, Mr. Trump did gesture at his support for popular policies, promising to control drug prices, build public infrastructure and change trade policy to favor dispossessed workers. Yet since coming to power, Mr. Trump, with a few exceptions, like trade, has seemed to lose interest in what the broader public wants, focusing instead on polarizing issues like immigration that are not the public’s main concerns but the obsessions of a loud minority faction.

As the United States begins the process of choosing the next president and Congress, we need to talk more openly about which candidates are most likely to deliver the economic policies that the supermajority wants. Yes, the people can be wrong about things, but so too can experts, embedded industry groups and divisive political factions. It is not a concession to populism, but rather a respect for democracy, to suggest that two-thirds of the population should usually get what they ask for.

[kenberg]

y66, on 2019-March-05, 06:48, said:

From The Oppression of the Supermajority by Tim Wu at NYT:

A very interesting article perhaps leadnig to discussion. I think he might be oversimplifying. Take:

Quote

It is true that policymaking requires expertise. But I don't think members of the public are demonstrating ignorance when they claim that drug prices are too high, taxes could be fairer, privacy laws are too weak and monopolies are too coddled.

Others remind us that the United States is a democratic republic, not a direct democracy, and that the Constitution was designed to modulate the extremes of majority rule. Majorities sometimes want things — like bans on books, or crackdowns on minorities — that they should not be given.

Ok, he says majorities should sometimes get their way, and sometimes not. Polls can be tricky. If you ask people whether the rich should pay more taxes, they will say yes. They will always say yes. If you ask someone who is pretty well off but not rich whether s/he him/herself should pay more taxes, s/he will probably say no. But people needing help will disagree with him/her. I have no quarrel with the amount of taxes I pay, I might quarrel with how some of it is spent. I'm not sure about privacy laws. I stay off of Facebook, I consider that a no-brainer, but I am not sure what this privacy point is referring to. As to immigration, I guess I think it's a problem if eleven million people are here illegally. If you poll people, asking if children should be separated from parents if they are caught crossing the border illegally, a clear majority will say no. If you ask if any parent caught illegally crossing the border with a child should then be allowed to stay, I think a majority would also say no.

I would like every kid to have a bike, to have two parents guiding him/her, and to be within walking distance of a decent public school. I strongly suspect a large number of people agree with this and I think it would solve a lot of problems. How to promote it is another matter.

An added note about privacy. Because of the revised tax laws, my medical deductions, as well as other deductions, are now replaced by the standard deduction. So I no longer have to explain which doctors I go to how often, how far I drive to get there, what medicines I might take, and so on. Not that I think anyone is keeping a list, but I always found that a little personal.