Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Biden’s Just Blundered on Taiwan, Too

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ABC News, Afghanistan, alliances, allies, Article Five, Biden, China, Cold War, Congress, credibility, George Stephanopoulos, Japan, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Republic of China, semiconductors, South Korea, Taiwan, treaties, vital interests

Last week I tweeted that I was worried that President Biden would do something stupid and reckless to try to establish or reestablish (depending on our viewpoint) his global chops following the Afghanistan military withdrawal his administration has so disastrously conducted. As known by RealityChek regulars, American Presidents have followed this course before – notably John F. Kennedy.

And sure enough, on Wednesday he at least came uncomfortably close. No, Mr. Biden didn’t invade or threaten another country, or even move U.S. military forces into provocative positions versus, say, China or Russia or Iran or North Korea. But he did say something that should worry all Americans. In his interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, the President suggested that Taiwan now enjoys the same status in American eyes as Japan, South Korea, and the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). That is, they’re allies in whose defense against external aggression the United States is treaty-bound to fight.

Specifically, when asked by Stephanopoulos if China could credibly tell the Taiwanese – who they claim run a renegade province that Beijing has vowed to bring back into its fold with force if necessary – “See? You can’t count on the Americans,” Mr. Biden’s response included:

“We have made– kept every [defense] commitment. We made a sacred commitment to Article Five that if in fact anyone were to invade or take action against our NATO allies, we would respond. Same with Japan, same with South Korea, same with– Taiwan. It’s not even comparable to talk about that.”

The President is right about NATO. In fact, that Article Five he mentioned is the keystone of the treaty that established the alliance. In 1949, the signatories agreed

“that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs…will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”

The Japan-U.S. Security Treaty of 1951 contains its own Article Five. The key section:

“Each Party recognizes that an armed attack against either Party in the territories under the administration of Japan would be dangerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional provisions and processes.”

The promise to meet aggression with U.S. military force is a little looser here – and notice that the treaty creates no Japanese obligation to aid the United States with its own military if American territory comes under attack. The reasons are complicated – for example, in 1947, Japan, then under U.S. military cooperation, adopted a constitution containing a proposal from Supreme Allied Commander General Douglas MacArthur that pledged “never” to “maintain” “land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential.” The idea, of course, was to prevent Japan from ever reemerging as the type of threat it became in the 1930s. And at that point, it wasn’t even a fully sovereign nation, much less an armed one.

Nonetheless, as the Cold War developed, and Washington’s priorities in East Asia shifted toward using any actual and potential assets available to resist communist aggression, the United States proceeded to push Japan to rearm and add to the regional forces that could fight the Soviets or the Chinese or the North Koreans. But even though Japan continuously balked, the United States’ determination to defend Japan could never be seriously doubted as long as tens of thousands of American servicemen were stationed on Japanese soil, representing a “tripwire” whose presence and possible vulnerability to the superior conventional militaries of potential regional aggressors would guarantee an armed U.S. response – poentially complete with the use of nuclear weapons – against an attack on Japan. 

A similar U.S. commitment – complete with unequal obligaions and tripwire forces – has been made to South Korea.

There’s now clearly a case for adopting the same policy toward Taiwan. From 1954 to 1979, the U.S. security relations with Taiwan were governed by a assymetrical defense treaty, too, complete wiith an Article Five American commitment. But since the United States decided to recognize the People’s Republic of China (yes, the Communists) as China’s sole legitimate government, its approach toward Taiwan’s defense has been informally called “strategic ambiguity” – which is just as fuzzy and plastic as it sounds.

Yet whereas that posture arguably made sense for most of the post-1979 period, since the People’s Republic has grown so much stronger and more important economically than Taiwan (which still calls itself the Republic of China), the island can now legitimately claim to boast an asset vital to America’s own national security and prosperity – world leadership in the manufacture of the world’s most advanced and powerful semiconductors.

At the same time, extending Article Five-type status even to a technological powerhouse like Taiwan isn’t a decision to be made on the spur of the moment. The impact on China – which has significantly closed the military gap with the United States especially in its own backyard (where Taiwan is located) – needs to be carefully considered. And more important, it’s a move that the United States can’t make by presidential fiat. Congress needs to approve.

On Thursday, a “senior Biden administration official” told reporters that American “policy with regard to Taiwan has not changed.” And the usual supposed experts and talking heads said that Mr. Biden had simply added to his long record as a “gaffe machine.” But who the heck is this senior official, anyway? Why should anyone believe him or her if they’re not willing to speak for attribution? And why should the Chinese take this walk-back seriously, or take comfort in (unofficial) assurances that the President was just Biden-ing again – especially since “strategic ambiguity” has become a lot bolder under both him and President Trump?

Moreover, if they’re not aware of it already, the Chinese should know that Presidents have used all sorts of ways short of formal treaties to tie the nation militarily to foreign countries, and even to use military force (Google “Tonkin Gulf Resolution,” or “Authorization for Use of Military Force”), and that timely, effective Congressional resistance is anything but a sure thing. That could go double for a national political establishment that today is united by a sense of humiliation due to the Afghanistan debacle – and possibly spoiling for an opportunity to regain global confidence.

Again, I’m not against a treaty commitment to Taiwan. But it needs to be made with full consideration of all the pluses and minuses, and according to clear Constitutional procedures. And it certainly shouldn’t result from an out-of-the-blue comment by a Chief Executive under heavy political fire, however richly deserved.

Im-Politic: The Swalwell Spy Scandal News Blackout Extends Far Beyond the NY Times

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ABC News, Associated Press, Bloomberg.com, CBS News, China, Christine Fang, Eric Swalwell, espionage, Fang Fang, Fox News, Im-Politic, Mainstream Media, McClatchy News Service, media bias, Michael Bloomberg, MSM, MSNBC, NBC News, NPR, PBS, Reuters, spying, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USAToday

If you’re a news hound, you know that The New York Times, long – and long justifiably – seen as the most important newspaper in the world, has devoted exactly zero coverage to a bombshell report earlier this month that California Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell several years ago was pretty successfully targeted by a spy from China.

And if you don’t know about this Swalwell story, you should. He’s a member of the House Intelligence Committee, which means that he’s been privy to many of the nation’s most important national security secrets. In addition, he has long been a genuine super-spreader of the myth that President Trump is a Russian agent. So although there’s no evidence so far that Swalwell either wittingly or unwittingly passed any classified or otherwise sensitive information to this alleged spy, understandable questions have been raised about his judgement and therefore his suitability for a seat on this important House panel. Further, he hasn’t denied having an affair with this accused operative, who was known as Christine Fang here, and Fang Fang in her native country.

In other words, it’s a pretty darned big story, and The Times decision to ignore it completely (not even posting on its website wire service accounts of developments) is a flagrant mockery of its trademark slogan “All the News That’s Fit to Print” and clearcut example of media bias – especially since the paper showed no reluctance to report on his abortive presidential campaign this past year or his (always unfounded) attacks on Mr. Trump.

At the same time, if you don’t know about l’affaire Swalwell, you’ve got a pretty compelling excuse. Because The Times has by no means been alone in its lack of interest. Joining it in the zero Swalwell coverage category since the China spy story broke on December 8 have been (based on reviews of their own search engines):

>The Associated Press – possibly the world’s biggest news-gathering organization

>Reuters – another gigantic global news organization

>Bloomberg.com – whose founder and Chairman, Michael Bloomberg, is a leading fan of pre-Trump offshoring-friendly China trade policies

>USAToday

>NBC News

>CBS News

>MSNBC (The FoxNews.com report linked above says this network covered this news once briefly, but noting shows up on its search engine.) 

>National Public Radio (partly funded by the American taxpayer)

>McClatchy (another big news syndicate)

Performing slightly – but only slightly – better have been:

>PBS (one reference on its weekly McLaughlin Group talk show – nothing on its nightly NewsHour)

>ABC News (one news report)

>The Wall Street Journal (one news article, one opinion column)

The Swalwell story isn’t the world’s, or the nation’s, or even Washington’s biggest. But it’s unmistakably a story, and the apparent blackout policy of so many pillars of journalism today, coming on the heels of similar treatment of the various Hunter Biden scandal charges, further strengthens the case that a national institution that’s supposed to play the critical role of watchdog of democracy has gone into a partisan tank.

The only bright spots in this picture? Social media giants Twitter and Facebook haven’t been censoring or arrogantly and selectively fact-checking Swalwell-related material. Yet.

Im-Politic: Are Democrats Groping Toward Race Relations Straight Talk?

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ABC News, African American women, African Americans, Amy Klobuchar, Democrats, election 2020, gender, George Floyd, Im-Politic, Joe Biden, Leah Wright Riguer, police brutality, race relations, racism, This Week, vice president

I’m sure that Harvard University political scientist Leah Wright Riguer didn’t mean to voice her own bizarre elaboration of Joe Biden’s recent claim that “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”

All the same, that’s awfully close to what she did in her appearance yesterday on ABC News‘ “This Week” news talk show as she struggled to explain why Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, didn’t really have to select an African American woman as his running mate in order to avoid charges of racism or racial insensitivity. In the process, she also inadvertantly revealed how confused – and how worrisomely confused – much Democratic (and by extension, much liberal and progressive) – thinking on race relations is. Strangely, however, they also can be seen as cause for some optimism.

Biden, you’ll recall, has promised to name a woman as his vice presidential choice, and due to the national furor over race relations and police brutality that’s followed the George Floyd killing in Minneapolis, it’s widely assumed that he now has no choice but to choose an African American woman. The case for making such a selection, as Riguer pointed out, is also reinforced by the importance of these women to the Democratic voting base.

But then Riguer, an African American ABC News Contributor, then revealingly expressed her own befuddling take on the issue. She was asked by moderator Jonathan Karl whether “Biden should choose an African-American woman as his running mate,” and whether (white) former vice presidential (and before that, presidential) candidate Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is correct in claiming that a black female running mate is “pretty much” locked in.

Here’s how Riguer answered:

“So, it’s not necessarily a lock, although I think what we have to consider is that the base of the Democratic Party is black women.

“And black women are really pushing for their agenda and for their issues and for their needs to be front and center on the ticket, but also have somebody in the White House, whether it be vice president, whether it be president, that is going to fight for these issues and make them tangible. And so what we are seeing is that a lot of black women and a lot of the broader party is actually saying, yes, this is a black woman’s time.

“But I think it’s also important to actually listen to what these people are saying. And what they’re saying is that it doesn’t necessarily have to be a black woman. It has to be somebody who listens to black women’s issues.

“So, if there are candidates out there who happen to be black, who happen to be black women, but they’re not — they don’t have our best interests in mind, then perhaps we should be looking in a different direction.”

That final point is the key here. On the one hand, it was good to see that Riguer was clearly uncomfortable with a purist Identity Politics, African-American-Woman-Or-Bust stand. Let’s hope that all Americans can agree that when selecting a running mate a presidential candidate should be thinking first and foremost about who’s best qualified to be “a heartbeat away” from the world’s most powerful and important job. (Not that Riguer necessarily made that point.)

On the other hand, she also argued that black women who don’t “listen to black women’s issues” and “don’t have our best interests in mind” should be ruled out by the Democrats.

This argument isn’t exactly the same as Biden’s stated belief that identity can’t be defined correctly unless it’s defined in a way that’s useful for certain politicians and parties. But it’s close, and raises many more questions than it answers, especially when it’s taken down from the abstract level and used as guidance for Biden today.

It’s entirely understandable, after all, for African-American women to insist that Biden not select for the ticket an African-American Republican woman, or even a non-partisan female African American conservative. But even assuming that’s what Riguer was talking about, what have ever been the odds of that kind of decision being made? Practically zero. And that’s precisely because it’s hard to identify any African-American Democratic female politician, or other figure who’s prominently associated with Democrats (Oprah Winfrey? Former Obama administration national security adviser Susan Rice?) who’s not on board with how Riguer believes African American Democratic women (and she?) define “their best interests.”

At the same time, if Riguer is serious in maintaining that it’s not black female-ness as such that should determine Biden’s vice presidential pick, then why should race play any official, or even public, role at all? Those last two qualifiers are crucial, because there’s absolutely nothing new about presidential candidates choosing running mates mainly because they checked some demographic or geographical box deemed likely to help secure victory. So let’s not suddenly start standing on our high horses and insist that seeking an African American woman actively, or that naming one, would be anything close to unprecedented or is in any way improper.

But if Riguer is right in describing African-American women (and presumably many other Democrats) as prioritizing a pro-African-American woman agenda (whose definition wasn’t specified but isn’t important for our purposes here), over racial identity per se, then it’s legitimate to ask why racial (or gender or ethnic) identity should matter at all.

In fact, nothing could have been easier for intelligent, articulate people like Riguer (and Biden – or at least his handlers nowadays) to say than something on the order of “I’d like nothing better than to see (or pick) an African-American female (or any female) as a Democratic vice presidential candidate, and believe there are plenty of great choices out there. But I also believe that designating race and gender as the overriding priority would be wrong because so many other considerations are at least as important.”

But they didn’t. And I strongly suspect that the reason is that a purist Identify Politics position actually is the dominant Democratic dogma, and that in Riguer’s case specifically yesterday, she feared being read the riot act if she deviated explicitly from that party line. So she resorted to creating fantasies about plausible African-American female Democratic vice presidential hopefuls who aren’t all-in with the views of the party’s leading black female politicians.

One hopeful possibility: As suggested above, much as “hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue,” Riguer’s logical somersaults are an implicit admission that these views don’t pass the intellectual honesty test.

Another hopeful possibility – Biden’s apology for his “you ain’t black” remark. He acknowledged that “No one should have to vote for any party, based on their race or religion or background.” But as with Riguer, if this is true, and if he really believes it, and if he includes gender in his definition of “background,” then why promise to choose any kind of female as his running mate? Doesn’t the same principle apply? Shouldn’t it?

Straight talk (and thinking) on a subject as painful and important as race relations has rarely been more important in American history. These remarks by Riguer and Biden justify some optimism that Democrats are at least groping this goal. But they also make clear how far they have to go.

 

Im-Politic: A (Huge) Nursing Home Factor in U.S. Virus Deaths

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ABC News, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, demographics, Europe, Im-Politic, lockdown, long-term care facilities, nursing homes, reopening, restart, seniors, shutdown, WHO, World Health Organization, Wuhan virus

Whenever I hear about a CCP Virus outbreak at a nursing home or similar seniors facility, I wonder how these especially tragic episodes have been influencing the national data. The issue matters greatly, because the numbers could reveal much about the virus’ spread and virulence among Americans not so aged and confined – i.e., the vast majority of the population.

Of course, avoidable and unavoidable testing shortcomings are making all the statistics dodgy.  And state and local authorities’ standards for identifying and reporting CCP Virus cases – and therefore deaths – are both highly diverse and constantly changing.  What’s emerged so far, though, shows that nursing homes and the like are indeed where the disease’s worst effects are appearing, and by wide margins. As a result, however, these statistics also strongly indicate that the virus is much less dangerous for other Americans than originally thought.

The most comprehensive picture we have of nursing homes’ role has come from ABC News. Its examination of state-level numbers concluded that, as of yesterday, at least 10,631 of nationwide CCP Virus-induced fatalities had been long-term care residents. That’s about a fifth of the U.S. total. But the “at least” in the previous sentence is really important. For the ABC numbers are based on information from only 28 of the states plus the District of Columbia. That leaves the nursing homes’ share of fatalities unknown for 22 states. ABC didn’t say which states were and weren’t included in the count, but it’s almost certain that the more state figures are examined, the higher the nursing home share will rise.

One reason for confidence in this conclusion: The World Health Organization (WHO) stated on Thursday that as many as half of all of Europe’s coronavirus-related deaths have occurred in long-term care facilities. Of course, WHO’s performance during the pandemic has been roundly criticized. But you have to assume that it’s found it much easier getting reliable data from Europe than from dangerously secretive China.

It’s also important to note that Europe’s populations are significantly older than the United States’, which no doubt explains much of that towering European estimate. In addition, Europe was hit by the virus earlier. But along with the incomplete nature of the U.S. data, the the demographic gap is narrow enough to suggest that nursing home residents’ share of American deaths will continue growing.     

Combined with mounting evidence (see, e.g., here and here) that the CCP Virus has infected many more Americans than first estimated – meaning that the disease’s lethality looks considerably lower than once feared – the apparent concentration in nursing homes is unquestionably good news for most of the nation (except, of course, if any of your loved ones lives in these facilities). One possible implication:  With the right, targeted, precautions, a more extensive earlier reopening of the U.S. economy is warranted. The bad news, however, is that the virus’ impact is most deadly in one of America’s most vulnerable populations. Let’s all hope that, if this finding holds up, one result will be more mitigation where it’s needed most.

Im-Politic: ABC’s Stephanopoulos Peddles Fake News on Mueller and Obstruction

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ABC News, Attorney General, Corey Lewandowski, Deputy Attorney General, Don McGahn, election 2016, George Stephanopoulos, Im-Politic, Jeff Sessions, Justice Department, Mueller Report, obstruction of justice, Robert S. Mueller III, Rod Rosenstein, This Week, Trump, Trump-Russia, White House Counsel, William P. Barr

The trade wars and resulting uproar have of course intensified lately due to President Trump’s threats to tariff Mexican imports to improve Mexico’s performance in helping ease the border crisis, and a New York Times report that his administration was mulling imposing levies on Australia in response to a surge in its aluminum exports to the United States.

But those developments – plus a terrific story in the Japanese press on metals tariffs that I’ll be posting about shortly as well – need to take a back seat today on RealityChek to a flagrant piece of fake news concerning the Mueller report’s conclusions propagated by a major broadcast media anchor that urgently needs to be debunked.

The culprit here is George Stephanopoulos, a top aide to Bill Clinton both during his first presidential campaign and his first term in the White House. The fake news involves his claim, made on yesterday’s This Week program, that in his report on Russian election interference and the responses of President Trump and his aides, the former Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller “laid out four incidents in the obstruction of justice section of the report that met all three criteria for obstruction of justice — an obstructive act, connection to an investigation, corrupt intent.”

His clear intimation was that Attorney General William P. Barr overlooked this major evidence and that his own decision (made in conjunction with his then Deputy, Rod Rosenstein, who decided to authorize a Special Counsel investigation of the above matters in the first place) to decline indicting the President was a transparently political effort to let Mr. Trump off the hook.

In fact, however, not only did the Mueller fail to identify four such incidents. The single set of incidents that could possibly qualify as an obstruction charge slam dunk – the President’s alleged efforts to remove Mueller himself as Special Counsel – was awfully weak beer.  Stephanopoulos might have two other groups of incidents in mind as well, but the case for so describing them is even feebler.

Before we proceed, however, keep in mind that in order to produce an obstruction conviction, a prosecutor needs to convince a jury, as with all criminal trials, that the defendant is guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt.” In addition, in order to decide to indict or to recommend an indictment, a government prosecutor must decide that “the admissible evidence will probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction….”

As I noted in my May 30 post, the Mueller report found “substantial evidence” that Mr. Trump committed obstructive acts in efforts to have Mueller fired (Vol. II, pp. 87 and 88). Ditto for the “connection to an investigation” and “corrupt intent” criteria for obstruction charges. (Vol. II, pp. 88-90).

But as I also noted, “even the substantial evidence [on the allegedly obstructive act count] simply ‘supports a conclusion.’ And there may be less to that conclusion than meets the eye. For couldn’t the presidential order to [then White House Counsel Don] McGahn to call Rosenstein have reflected “…concerns about Special Counsel team conflicts of interest?”

Regarding the critical matter of intent, Mueller wrote (Vol. II, p. 89) that “Substantial evidence indicates that the President’s attempts to remove the Special Counsel were linked to the Special Counsel’s oversight of investigations that involved the President’s conduct – and, most immediately, to reports that the President was being investigated for potential obstruction of justice.”

That verb “indicates,” though, is pretty wishy-washy, especially considering the (properly) tough standards long established by U.S. criminal law and Justice Department policy for bringing an obstruction charge. Why didn’t Mueller write that this substantial evidence “shows” or “demonstrates” that these Mueller-removing actions were linked to his ongoing investigation, which threatened the Trump presidency?

The first of the two other possible slam-dunk groups of incidents entails the President’s efforts to curtail the Mueller investigation (as opposed simply to firing the Special Counsel). This episode centers around Mr. Trump’s decision to send former campaign aide and frequent (unofficial) confidant Corey Lewandowski on a mission to tell then Attorney General Jeff Sessions to end the existing investigation into election 2016 and specific Trump-related matters, and concentrate his efforts on whatever foreign meddling might be threatening upcoming elections.

The second such group of events consist of other attempts made by Mr. Trump to direct Sessions to take over the Special Counsel investigation.

The report’s wording convince me, anyway, that Mueller believed that the Lewandowski-related incidents met the obstructive act and link to an ongoing investigation standards. Plenty of evidence is presented regarding intent as well.

But at this juncture, it’s necessary to point to other intent-related considerations that we know were influencing Mueller’s evaluation of these events. Specifically, as Mr. Trump has continually observed, the Special Counsel (Vol, I, p. 9) found no underlying crime (that candidate Trump or any member of his campaign either acted “as an unregistered agent of the Russian government or other Russian principal” or “conspired with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election”). Nor, even though this activity would not constitute a crime, did the investigation “establish that members of the Trump Campaign” even “coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” (Vol, 1, p. 2).

Although, as Barr noted in his March 24 letter to Congress announcing his decision not to indict Mr. Trump, the absence of an underlying crime does not preclude charging a defendant with obstruction, this absence “bears upon the President’s intent with respect to obstruction.” In other words, as I wrote on May 30, and as Barr made clear in a May 17 interview, Mr. Trump’s actions reflected his belief – which was both sincere and factually grounded – that he was being framed.

And guess what? Mueller agrees! On Vol. I, p. 7, his report states:

“[U]nlike cases in which a subject engages in obstruction of justice to cover up a crime, the evidence we obtained did not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference. Although the obstruction statutes do not require proof of such a crime, the absence of that evidence affects the analysis of the President’s intent and requires consideration of other possible motives for his conduct.”

As for the Trump efforts to ensure that his then Attorney General take over the Mueller investigation, the report doesn’t even come to any identifiable conclusion about whether any obstructive acts were committed. (Vol. II, p. 112)

The only other group of incidents that might legitimately qualify for the “slam dunk” category centered on Trump’s order to McGahn to deny that he had asked him to firer Mueller.

At the same time, Mueller’s conclusion as to whether any obstructive act was committed here is anything but clear, either. As the report notes (Vol II, p. 118):

“The President’s repeated efforts to get McGahn to create a record denying that the President had directed him to remove the Special Counsel would qualify as an obstructive act if it had the natural tendency to constrain McGahn from testifying truthfully or to undermine his credibility as a potential witness if he testified consistently with his memory, rather than with what the record said.”

There is some evidence that at the time the New York Times and Washington Post stories [reporting that such developments took place] were published in late January 2018, the President believed the stories were wrong and that he had never told McGahn to have Rosenstein remove the Special Counsel.”

In other words, the report is acknowledging these could have represented another group of Trump actions motivated by the sincere belief that he was being framed.

At the same time, the report states that “Other evidence cuts against that understanding of the President’s conduct.”

In sum, it’s obvious that contending that Mueller concluded that Mr. Trump was robustly indictable for even one of these sets of incidents rests on the shakiest of ground. Contending that the report found four such sets is nothing less than fiction. And the insinuation of a Barr cover-up is completely beyond the pale. Indeed, taken together, and given the various legal hurdles he needed to overcome to make a legitimate indictment recommendation, it’s obvious why – aside from the Justice Department policy barring the indictment of a sitting President – Mueller didn’t report to Barr that solid grounds existed even for a single obstruction charge.

In fact, as I also noted on May 30, the following was the most obstruction-friendly conclusion contained in the Mueller report – and it covers the above events related to the attempted Mueller firing:

“[T]here [is] a sufficient factual and legal basis to further investigate potential obstruction-of -justice issues involving the President.” (Vol. I, p. 12)

I.e., after a 2-year probe conducted by as many as 19 lawyers with the assistance of “approximately 40 FBI agents, intelligence analysts, forensic accountants, a paralegal, and professional staff ” that “issued more than 2,800 subpoenas under the auspices of a grand jury sitting in the District of Columbia; executed nearly 500 search-and-seizure warrants; obtained more than 230 orders for communications records under 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d); obtained almost 50 orders authorizing use of pen registers; made 13 requests to foreign governments pursuant to Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties; and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses, including almost 80 before a grand jury,” Mueller simply determined that reasons existed for continuing to investigate. (Vol. I, p. 13) And P.S.: He didn’t call them “substantial.”

If Stephanopoulos simply made a mistake by claiming that Mueller found four full-blown instances of Trump obstruction of justice, that’s fine – as long as he admits the error. Until he does, however, he’ll be as guilty of trafficking in fake news as he seems to believe Mr. Trump is guilty of obstruction.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Trump Metals Tariffs Coverage has Just (Again) Been Exposed as Largely Fake News

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ABC News, aluminum, Associated Press, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, durable goods, Financial Times, Jobs, Mainstream Media, manufacturing, Marketwatch.com, metals, metals-using industries, NBC News, PBS, private sector, Reuters, steel, tariffs, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Trade, Trump, Washington Post, {What's Left of) Our Economy

In case you still think that President Trump’s charges of fake news-peddling by the national news media are fake news themselves, consider this: For the second time in two months, if you decided to hold your breath till you found a Mainstream Media item reporting that the America’s metals-using industries have been major job-creation leaders, not laggards, you’d have died.

Such omissions are especially important because since the Trump administration began imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports (in March), the media has been filled not only with predictions of massive employment and production losses in metals-using manufacturing (because the prices of two noteworthy inputs for these industries was bound to rise), but with accounts of actual economic damage that numerous companies in these sectors have already suffered. (See here and here for just two examples.) 

Last month, I noted that, for all these accounts, authoritative government data (through June) showed that the metals-using industries’ performance by both measures had both generally improved, and had indeed both generally improved more than job creation and output in the rest of manufacturing.

Since then, more steel and aluminum tariffs were put in place (mainly because some major U.S. trade partners initially exempted from the tariffs were subjected to the levies). And what did we learn from the newest jobs report, which was released last Friday, and took the story through July (on a preliminary basis)? That the metals-using industries continue to set the national job-creation pace for the entire economy, not simply for manufacturing.

Here are the percentage gains for employment in some major sectors of the economy from April (the first month during which any metals tariffs effects would have been felt) through July except for the industries noted:

entire private sector: +0.53 percent

overall manufacturing: +0.73 percent

durable goods: +0.96 percent

fabricated metals products: +1.10 percent

non-electrical machinery: +1.43 percent

automotive vehicles & parts: +1.06 percent

household appliances (thru June): -0.63 percent

aerospace products & parts (thru June): +1.05 percent

Unfortunately, it was not possible to learn any of this from America’s leading news organizations. For these figures were completely ignored.

To their credit, some leading media mentioned that Trump tariffs and trade war fears in general seemed to be having no effect on manufacturing job creation overall despite industry’s exposure in principle to the fall-out. These included the Associated Press, The New York Times, the Financial Times, CNN, ABC News, and NBC News. Yet the metals-using sectors were never mentioned.

As for The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and CBS News, they made no connection of the tariff/trade war-manufacturing job connection whatever.

And several news organizations actually tried to rationalize the unexpected results. Reuters, for example, claimed that “With manufacturing payrolls increasing by the most in seven months, the moderation in hiring reported by the Labor Department on Friday likely does not reflect the rising trade tensions between the United States and other nations including China.”

According to PBS, “Economists say it is too early to tell whether the Trump administration’s tariffs on imported steel and aluminum are having a significant effect on manufacturing jobs.”

Bloomberg and Marketwatch.com weren’t as disingenuous, but still felt compelled to contend that rising trade tensions continued to cast a long shadow on the job markets’ future – without reporting that, if anything, new U.S. policies and statements were so far having exactly the opposite effect on parts of the economy most exposed to existing metals tariffs.

But no account of press coverage of these Trump trade policies would be complete without observing an equally weird development: Neither the President nor anyone else in his administration has pointed to the outperformance of the metals-using industries, either.

In a little over a week, the nation will get its next major opportunity to gauge the impact of metals and other tariffs, and future possibilities thereof – when the Federal Reserve releases the July industrial production data, which includes detailed statistics on inflation-adjusted manufacturing output. Will the Mainstream Media finally zero in on the sectors where the tariff rubber hits the road? At this rate, Americans should be grateful if they simply ended the string of job loss and other Chicken Little metals tariff impact stories.

Im-Politic: An Old Year Rung Out with Fake News

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ABC News, Barack Obama, Bloomberg.com, CNN.com, Gallup, Hillary Clinton, Im-Politic, Mainstream Media, Marketwatch.com, NBC News, Newsday, Politico.com, The New York Times, Trump, USAToday, Washington Post

Whatever you think of Donald Trump, his presidential campaign, and his first year in office, you can be sure of this: His charges that too much of the Mainstream Media publishes and broadcasts too much fake news will continue – and continue to resonate – as long as their performance in covering a new Gallup survey of the most admired men and women in America keeps typifying their output.

Gallup has asked Americans who they look up to most since the 1940s (for male figures) and since the 1950s (for female figures). As I see it, the 2017 poll’s results were a fascinating mix. They showed that former President Barack Obama and last year’s Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton continued their long strings at the top of their heaps. President Trump came in second on the men’s list – as he has since 2015.

In my view, Gallup played it right in its report on the survey, noting the winners in its lead paragraph and then immediately observing that the Obama and Clinton margins were “much narrower…than in the past.” The firm didn’t highlight that both Democrats’ edge fell at a faster rate than President Trump, but at least its tables made that trend clear.

Few major news organizations followed suit.

USAToday‘s headline, for example, blared, “Barack Obama beats Donald Trump for most admired man, Hillary Clinton tops list again in Gallup poll.” Reporter Ashley May never mentioned their diminishing leads.

CNN.com did better. Its header announced “Gallup: Obama, Hillary Clinton remain most admired” and noted the Obama dip in the second paragraph. But the Clinton fall-off wasn’t reported until the fifth (of ten) paragraphs.

The ABC News headline – “President Trump is America’s second-most admired man, poll finds” – at least accurately reflected the disparaging tone of the full article. “Digital reporter” Karma Allen led off by observing that “President Donald Trump snagged a major legislative victory with the signing of his landmark tax reform bill last week, but he’s still living in his predecessor’s shadow when it comes to public admiration, according to a new poll.”

He continued with the factoid that the results marked “one of the very few times in recent history that an incumbent president hasn’t taken the top spot.” (It’s actually 13 out of 71 times.) And he simply ignored the declining Obama and Clinton numbers.

Bloomberg,com chose as its headline a reasonable “Obama Tops Trump as Most Admired, Gallup Poll of Americans Finds,” but although specifying that the margin was “close,” never mentioned the weakening Obama or Clinton ratings, either. The same held for the article run in Politico.com. The New York Times headline was a similarly accurate “Clinton and Obama Top U.S. Poll on Most Admired People” but the article neglected to include the trend over time as well.

The two worst performances? The Washington Post‘s headline was a gratuitously snarky “Obama beats Trump where it will sting: He’s the most admired man in America.” A graphic made clear the closing Trump-Obama gap, but this development never made it into the article itself. However reporter Philip Bump did consider it important to write that the overall results “coming at this moment, will probably be somewhat galling to Trump.”

Whoever wrote the headlines for the coverage by Long Island’s Newsday seemed like he or she was auditioning for a job at the higher profile Post. “Gallup ‘most admired’ poll is an ‘Obamanation’ for Trump,” was the first description of the survey the paper’s readers saw. The second description, in a subhead? “He just can’t win the popular vote.” The article itself, by William Goldschlag, simply continued in this vein.

But I’d be just as remiss as much of the Mainstream Media by failing to mention journalists who recognized the deteriorating relative Obama and Clinton ratings. So Rachel Koning Beals of Marketwatch.com and Phil Helsel of NBC News, please take richly deserved bows. Let’s all hope your news judgment spreads to many more of your colleagues in the New Year!

Im-Politic: Latest Charlottesville Polls Suggest a U.S. Race Relations Muddle

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ABC News, CBS News, Charlottesville, Confederate monuments, Harris, Harvard University, Huffington Post, Im-Politic, Marist University, Mark Penn, Morning Consult, NPR, Politic, polls, race relations, The Hill, Trump, Washington Post, white nationalists, white supremacists

Keeping in mind how flawed they are, and keeping in mind that the wording of their questions matters a lot, several polls are now in (out?) on the intertwined issues of what to do about the nation’s various (and variegated!) Confederate monuments, and how Americans viewed President Trump’s response to the recent Charlottesville, Virginia “Unite the Right” rally, the counter-protests it attracted, and the violence that resulted – which of course produced the death of counter-protester Heather Heyer. The findings seem pretty clear, if somewhat challenging to explain: Most Americans don’t want the statues etc, removed from public spaces, but at the same time, most Americans disapproved of Mr. Trump’s response to the controversy – which included a defense of keeping the monuments in place.

Huffington Post, a news outlet I rarely cite, just performed a useful service by compiling the results of seven surveys on the Confederate monuments question conducted this month by six organizations. In five of the seven (including the NPR-Marist poll I wrote about last Friday), majorities backed keeping the monuments exactly where they are. In one of the outliers, this position was backed by a big plurality (49 percent).

The only survey showing a widespread desire for change found that by a wide 58 percent to 26 percent margin, respondents supported “relocating monuments honoring the Confederacy from government property and moving them to museums or other historic sites where they can be viewed in proper historical context.” Unless it’s assumed that “proper historical context” would portray the Confederate cause in an overall less-than-flattering light, even this arguably moderate viewpoint doesn’t exactly demonstrate that most Americans view its links to slavery and treason as especially troubling. Which of course I find especially troubling.

It’s possible to explain how these opinions dovetail with the negative reviews drawn by the president’s Charlottesville-related words and deeds, but it’s anything but easy, as I’ll elaborate on in a moment. But first the actual findings.

The earliest survey on the matter yielded results that could be seen as ambiguous. It was the NPR-Marist poll, and it showed that by 51 percent to 31 percent, the public viewed the Trump “response to the violence in Charlottesville” was “not strong enough” (as opposed to being “strong enough). This poll, remember, came out on August 17, and was only asking respondents about the president’s remarks as of Monday, August 14 and Tuesday, August 15 – before his late Tuesday afternoon press conference, when he made much more controversial comments. So it wasn’t entirely clear of whom Mr. Trump should have spoken more “strongly” – if any group or individual.

Subsequent polls, however, have made clear that most Americans believe that the racial issues as well as that Trump performance lay at the heart of their criticisms. The first clue came in a CBS News poll that was released on Thursday, the 17^th. According to the pollsters, a strong majority disapproved of “Trump’s response to Charlottesville” attack and that “Disapproval of the president’s handling of events rose [in interviews conducted] following the [Tuesday] press conference.” Indeed, those interviewed by CBS Tuesday and Wednesday frowned on Mr. Trump’s remarks by a 58 percent to 33 percent margin. The Monday interviewees disapproved by a 52 percent to 35 percent margin.

On August 21, the Washington Post reported that a poll it conducted with ABC News found that that Mr. Trump’s Charlottesville comments earned a failing grade from Americans by a two-to-one ration (56 percent versus 28 percent). And three days later, a survey conducted by Harvard University and the Harris polling firm found that 57 percent of respondents viewed the Trump remarks as a missed opportunity to bring the country together, and 57 percent believed he should do more to promote racial unity. (And in case you’re wondering, 59 percent agreed that the President should be doing more in this respect.)

Moreover a similar Harris finding – that the Trump comments did more to divide the country than to unite it – was supported by data both from the CBS News poll and a separate Politico/Morning Consult survey released on August 23). 

Nevertheless, these polls all presented results that raise important questions as to exactly how their Charlottesville-related views are or aren’t influencing Americans’ views on race relations above and beyond the Confederate monuments controversy.

For example, despite the stated desire both for better race relations and for a greater presidential effort to bring them about, and even though Mr. Trump’s comments on Charlottesville were broadly unpopular, most of the polling evidence shows agreement with the President’s view that both sides deserve equal blame for the violence in that city. (CBS’ was the only poll I found with contrasting results.) Those two sets of views don’t easily jibe with the great dissatisfaction expressed with Mr. Trump’s comments ostensibly because they weren’t racially sensitive enough.

Moreover, fully nine percent of Americans, according to the Post-ABC poll, said that it is “acceptable” to “hold neo-Nazi or white supremacist views.” Another eight percent were undecided. (The NPR-Marist poll, held before the heated Trump press conference, found support for “white supremacist” and “white nationalist” groups at only half these levels.)

The best explanation I’ve found for these apparent inconsistencies comes from Mark Penn, a well known pollster who helps direct the Harvard-Harris operations. Penn centered on that Trump press conference and contended, “His arguing the point about the violence is a Pyrrhic victory as he still gets the blame for the polarization in the country. The voters are looking for a uniter and he is coming off as a divider.”

I fully agree that Mr. Trump’s big post-Charlottesville problem has been being too argumentative (on top of firing off inconsistent comments seemingly from day to day) and that most Americans want a unifier in the White House. Yet the polls and Penn’s observation leave me less convinced that a critical mass of the country agrees on what it wants this unifying message to be, especially when it comes to race issues.

Im-Politic: The Polls Say “Let Trump Be [Campaign-Version] Trump”

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2016 election, ABC News, budget, conservatism, discretionary spending, entitlements, Freedom Caucus, healthcare, Im-Politic, Immigration, independents, NBC News, Paul Ryan, polls, poverty, Republicans, The Wall Street Journal, Trade, Trump, Washington Post

They’re only polls and we all should remember how badly most polls blew their calls in the last presidential election. But two new surveys from the Washington Post and ABC News on the one hand, and the Wall Street Journal and NBC News on the other, are signaling to me anyway that Donald Trump has made a major mistake so far in his young presidency in tilting so markedly toward the keepers of the orthodoxy (especially the most doctrinaire versions) in his own party. Instead, he should have been focusing all along on developing a promising new American political center of gravity that he started defining (in his own imitable way) during his campaign.

As widely observed during the 2016 elections, Mr. Trump was anything but a conventional conservative – at least as the term has been understood for the last quarter century. Yes, he made frequent nods toward cutting taxes and regulations, as well as to balancing budgets (objectives that of course aren’t always consistent). He also expressed some support for social conservative positions like further restricting abortion and appointing “strict constructionists” to the Supreme Court. But as also widely observed, if that mix of views was what voters in the Republican primaries and general elections really wanted, they would have voted for an orthodox conservative.

Instead, Mr. Trump trounced his opponents even though he at least as often promised to protect massive federal entitlement programs heavily relied on by the middle class and senior citizens; to guarantee adequate healthcare for non-seniors who can’t afford it; to preserve government support for Planned Parenthood’s provision of non-abortion-related women’s health services; to uphold the rights of gay, lesbian, and transgender Americans; and of course to ignore free market dictates when they seemed to undermine public safety and prosperity by fostering unrestricted trade and immigration.

Undoubtedly, much of candidate Trump’s appeal also sprang from simple, nonpartisan voter anger at the failures and self-serving priorities of the bipartisan national political establishment. But Mr. Trump did the best job of all last year’s presidential hopefuls of identifying the combination of specific grievances that created this anger: notably, over those jobs and incomes lost to Americans Last trade and immigration policies, over those related dangers posed by terrorism and leaky borders, and over the astronomical costs and risks of fighting seemingly futile foreign wars and defending free-riding allies.

The president’s Inaugural Address – which declared his intention to fix these problems with America- and Americans’- First policies – unabashedly proclaimed that President Trump would govern like candidate Trump.

Yet although the president has by and large kept his immigration promises, and approved some (limited) measures to combat foreign trade predation, his domestic policy proposals look like they’re right out of the Chamber of Commerce and Moral Majority playbooks. Nowhere has this development been more obvious than in his endorsement of House Speaker Paul Ryan’s healthcare plan, and in his release of a budget outline that, outside of defense spending, libertarians should be swooning over.

Late last month, I ventured that the president’s support for the “Ryan Care” proposal was a head fake: He had knowingly backed a measure so draconian that he knew it would fail, in order to establish some orthodox conservative street cred with Congressional Republicans and thus enlist their support for the pivot to greater moderation he had planned all along. Something like this scenario could still unfold; according to press reports, even the hard-core anti-government House Freedom Caucus members are growing more amenable to a compromise proposal that would preserve many of the more popular provisions of President Obama’s healthcare reforms.

But Mr. Trump’s continuing insistence on a federal spending blueprint that either eliminates or greatly slashes funding for medical and other scientific research, Chesapeake Bay cleanup, and food and heating aid for the poor, is not only plain bizarre, especially since the dollars involved are trivially small. It’s also politically inexplicable, because there’s absolutely no evidence that these are viewed as priority savings among any important Trump constituencies.

And that’s where the new polls come in. As per the headline results, Mr. Trump’s popularity at this point in his presidency is much lower than the ratings of most of his predecessors early in their first terms. In fairness, the Post-ABC survey also shows that the president would beat his chief 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton, in the popular vote if a new election was held – showing that he’s even more popular versus the Democratic nominee than on election day.

But the both polls showed the president’s support tightly concentrated among his own core voters and Republicans generally. Even accepting the claim that rapid partisanship by Democratic party leaders is proving effective in limiting Mr. Trump’s appeal to their rank and file, it’s still a sign of trouble for the president that his ratings among self-described political independents is markedly on the wane according to the Journal-NBC findings (falling to 30 percent) and low (38 percent) according to the Post-ABC survey.

One main reason: The Washington Republicans President Trump is apparently still courting are even less popular than he is. The Journal-NBC poll reports that many more Americans are dissatisfied with the Republican-led Congress nowadays than in February, and Ryan’s approval ratings are even lower. Moreover, the Republican-led Congress and the Speaker, in turn, are less popular than the president even among voters identifying as Republicans.

None of these results necessarily bodes ill for the Freedom Caucus. Its members don’t care for Ryan, either – allegedly for being too moderate. But many of the latest measures of Americans’ views of major policy issues do. For example, the Journal-NBC poll found that, since February, the share of respondents agreeing that “Government should do more to solve problems and help meet people’s needs” shot up to 57 percent. Even more independents (59 percent) endorsed this position. The share of total respondents believing that “Government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals plummeted to 39 percent.

More pointedly, the Post-ABC poll showed Americans opposing the Trump budget proposals by 50 percent to 37 percent overall, and independents disapproving by an even wider 52 percent to 35 percent margin.

The Journal-NBC survey also found record shares of Americans viewing “free trade” and “immigration” positively – at 57 percent and 60 percent, respectively. But the abstract nature of these questions could well have tilted these answers. One reason for supposing so: The Post-ABC poll reporting that, by a strong 73 percent to 22 percent, Americans favor “Trump pressuring companies to keep jobs in the United States.” Among independents, the results are an even better 75 percent to 19 percent.

So the recipe for Trump political success seems pretty clear: Dump the Freedom Caucus under the Trump Train on the budget and healthcare; preserve (and even boost to some extent) discretionary spending programs that strengthen the economy’s foundations and provide for the needy; keep the campaign promises on entitlements so highly prized by the middle class; and take bolder measures to Buy American and Hire American (as one new set of trade-related Trump jobs programs is called).

Keeping the focus on these priorities, along with a well thought out infrastructure program, should attract and keep enough backing among Republicans and independents to offset any losses in Freedom Caucus ranks, both in Congress and at the grassroots level (where they seem modest in number). Adding new policies to combat predatory foreign trade practices, moreover, should please organized labor enough to bring into the fold many union members and leaders plus the Congressional Democrats they strongly influence. An extra bonus – this program could well give President Trump the political leeway he needs to stay his course on immigration (which of course has seen a softening of his views on the so-called Dreamers).

Often in American history, calls to “Let [name your favorite politician] be [name that same politician]” have reflected core supporters’ naive beliefs that campaign promises can easily be turned into policy by the office-seekers they elect. But as is so often the case with the current president, Letting Trump be Trump, could confound the political conventional wisdom.

Im-Politic: The U.S. Mainstream Media Keeps Merging with the Political Class

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ABC News, chattering classes, Democratic National Committee, Donna Brazile, Im-Politic, Jonathan Karl, Mainstream Media, This Week with George Stephanopoulos

If you want a revealingly stomach-churning-inducing example of much of what’s whoppingly wrong with the nation’s intertwined media and political chattering classes – and a big reason for Donald Trump’s presidential victory – check out a video of yesterday’s edition of ABC-TV’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. The episode was capped by a sit-down joint interview by guest anchor Jonathan Karl of Newt Gingrich and Donna Brazile.

What’s outrageous about this? That’s the same Donna Brazile who unmistakably took advantage of her position as a CNN political analyst to leak presidential debate questions to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primaries. In other words, it’s the same Donna Brazile who is nothing better than a common thief.

Now it isn’t the fault of Karl or ABC News that Brazile is still interim chair of the Democratic National Committee. That’s on the party. Nor is it the fault of Karl or ABC that Brazile’s sense of ethics is so perverted that she’s refused to apologize for the misdeed. That’s on her. What is the fault of Karl and ABC is giving this crook a national forum and treating her like some venerable sage – with Karl failing even to mention her perfidy.

Clearly, America’s political culture has traveled far from the notion of the press as watchdog of the public interest. But what Karl’s treatment of Brazile demonstrates – yet again – is that the problem only secondarily stems from the liberal bias of which the media is widely accused. The fundamental problem is a pro-establishment and pro-conventional-wisdom bias that originates less in ideology (for it’s bipartisan) but in sociology.

For whatever their personal backgrounds, Karl and Brazile (and so many other Beltway denizens) now belong to the same class, live the same kinds of lives and in the same kinds of neighborhoods, socialize with the same kinds of people – and often get invited to the same cocktail and dinner parties. As a result, they too often share the same kinds of values – especially about personal and professional norms of behavior. They thus tend to overlook all but the most flagrant (and highly publicized) transgressions. As Karl has just demonstrated, they even tend to act protectively of each other’s interests. And of course this mutual admiration society and support network takes on special importance in years like the one just past, when outsiders start breaching their common fortress.

Back in ancient Roman days, the poet Juvenal is credited with asking what’s become one of the most important questions in political philosophy and day-to-day governance: “Who guards the guardians?” Karl’s session with Brazile once more reminds Americans that the Mainstream Media has become all but structurally incapable of playing this role.