Making News: Back on National Radio Tonight Talking Trump and China – & More!

Tags

China, Gordon G. Chang, Making News, The Daily Beast, The John Batchelor Show, The Washington Post, Trade, Trump

I’m pleased to announce that I’m scheduled to return to John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show tonight to discuss the latest – and arguably the strangest – twists and turns in President Trump’s China trade policy.  Click here to listen live on-line to what’s sure to be a lively segment with John, co-host Gordon G. Chang, and me at 10 PM EST.

Also, Gordon has been good enough to quote my views in two articles he published on this subject yesterday .  The first, a Washington Post op-ed focused on the threat posed by China’s predatory policies to the global trade system. You can read it at this link.

The second, a column for TheDailyBeast.com, analyzed the President’s bizarre decision to let off the legal hook a Chinese telecommunications entity convicted of violating American sanctions on countries like North Korea and Iran. (I refuse to use the word “company,” or “business” when describing these outfits because they have nothing to do with free market capitalism as practiced in the United States or anywhere else in the world.) 

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

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Im-Politic: Why Prioritizing Dead White Guys’ Literature Isn’t Bigoted

Tags

academia, critical thinking, culture wars, education, higher education, identity politics, Im-Politic, literature, racism, scholarship, The Washington Post, Trump, Viet Thanh Nguyen

One of the most dispiriting findings in recent years about the state of the nation concerns evidence that colleges are failing to achieve a fundamental goal: improving students’ critical thinking skills. (Click here, here, and here, for some leading studies showing that these institutions have failed to teach undergraduates “how to sift fact from opinion, make a clear written argument or objectively review conflicting reports of a situation or event,” in the words of a typical description of the conclusions. Here’s a dissenting view.)

And if Viet Thanh Nguyen, a University of Southern California professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist to boot, is the slightest bit typical, then it’s painfully obvious that a main reason for this sorry record is that way too many college faculty lack these skills themselves.

As presented in a Washington Post article yesterday, Nguyen’s argument is…well, it’s actually hard to tell what his argument is. As best as I can surmise, he’s upset that, in too many instances, American college students are discouraged from reading non-western literature, and that young literary scholars are discouraged (by continuing bleak job prospects stemming from intolerant appointment committees) from researching and writing on these works.

He cites his own experiences trying to climb the academic career ladder, as well as a controversy that’s just broken out at Barnard College in New York City over the demands of “some English majors” for “greater diversity in their curriculum.”

At the same time, Nguyen makes clear that since such issues became a bone of contention in the late-1980s and 1990s, reformers who “demanded more space for works by women, people of color, the working class, the queer and the non-white” have “triumphed.” In fact, their victory had taken place by the late-1990s.

The author’s belief that these “culture wars” are flaring anew on campuses, and that a Donald Trump-fueled revival of “white identity politics” is mainly responsible, is also puzzling – to say the least. After all, neither the President nor his more extreme, racially motivated supporters seem to have many supporters in the ranks of U.S. professors or higher education administrators. Nor does there seem to be any scarcity of courses and degree programs in non-western literature and culture in American academia.

So Nguyen’s article flunks three basic texts of critical thinking – advancing a coherent argument, providing serious evidence on its behalf, and refuting major evidence-based counter-arguments.

Nguyen’s real beef seems to be somewhat narrower, but no less important:  A charge that higher ed’s English and American literature curricula, especially in courses covering their seminal works (i.e., their canon), don’t make enough room for non-white and female writers. But here he falls short of meeting another important critical thinking challenge: placing objects or ideas in their proper categories. Here’s what I mean.

The study of literature obviously has to include a study of the entire environment in which that literature is created – including its history, economy, social structure, other aspects of its culture, etc. But first and foremost the study of literature is the study of an art form (which can be both fictional and non-fictional in nature). Therefore, it’s primarily concerned with how and why and how this literature’s aesthetic features have evolved; how successfully and skillfully, and creatively or derivatively, various authors achieved their goals and sent their messages; what the artistry of these works can tell us about how their creators perceived and interpreted, both knowingly and unwittingly, the various elements of their environments, characteristics of human psychology, and the crucial ideas that have molded the human experience; how these factors in turn influenced these authors; what their works reveal about these circumstances; and what, if anything, they can teach us today.

To apply Nguyen’s complaint and this definition of literature to the American canon, there can be no doubt that throughout its history, the nation’s population has consisted of many racial and ethnic groups (and more than one gender). There’s no doubt also that the various forms of contact these groups and genders have had with each other have influenced the worldviews, and therefore the literary output generated by each.

But there’s also no doubt that the influence of white males of European descent has been dominant, and that this dominance was especially pronounced in the nation’s formative years and decades – when the ideas and values and perspectives that have (so far) contributed the most to American culture (and other elements of its environment) began crystallizing. And the degree of injustice in part responsible for this group’s dominance has no intrinsic bearing on its role and its lasting influence. Nor does the inarguable fact that the influence of these white European-descended men itself consists both of admirable and shameful aspects.

So it makes perfect sense that American literature courses, especially at the more general level, to date have emphasized the works of these white males. By extension, it makes perfect sense that much less emphasis has been placed on the works of authors from other groups. Indeed, Nguyen himself explains why: In his words, these authors have been “submerged, overlooked and forgotten.”

Now, if the aim is the entirely worthy objective of learning more about these marginalized groups as such, then of course exposure of their literature is essential. But the greatest responsibility for achieving this goal logically belongs with other academic disciplines – which focus on the histories, social structures, broader cultures, etc. of these groups. Acquaintance with their literature is also needed to understand how these groups have influenced the dominant culture.

And of course, as greater opportunities have opened up for marginalized groups, their output inevitably has become more influential as well, and requires more attention in order for purely literary studies to remain truly representative and accurate. For example, it’s clearly not now legitimate to study American literature as a whole since the early or mid-twentieth century without recognizing the substantial role played by female, African-American, and Jewish authors.

More recently, writers from other groups have gained significant audiences and critical acclaim. Their works will surely wind up making lasting notable and lasting contributions to the nation’s culture. As a result, they should surely be spotlighted prominently in future curricula, and in particular in survey-type as opposed to more specialized courses. In addition, scholars right now should by all means be debating which works should qualify for this status. But it’s far too early for academia to reach an intellectually respectable consensus on the matter.

Moreover, this more recent prominence of previously marginalized groups creates no valid reason for concluding that their contributions to the national canon have so far been comparable with the contributions of the dominant group for most of U.S. history. Think of it this way: As stated above, Jewish authors have played an important role in American literature since roughly the middle of the twentieth century. But it would be utterly misleading to argue that Jewish authors played an important role in American literature before then.

One interesting wrinkle here – how to handle the likelihood that any number of overlooked works by submerged American groups fully measure up in artistic terms to the acknowledged classics. These works need to be found because, by definition, they would contain major insights into all the crucial issues addressed by great literature. Scholars should be searching for them and describing their virtues, and their discovery should be deeply appreciated by everyone who appreciates the value of great literature.

But because prologue cannot be past, even in these cases (and if readers have any examples or candidates, feel free to let me know about them), it would be essential — and intellectually honest — to specify that their effect on the nation’s literary and broader cultural life would need to be potential and prospective. Claiming a marked effect on the American story to date would amount to speculation or wishful thinking at best, and cheerleading at worst – none of which should have any place in genuine scholarship.

Im-Politic: Why America (Desperately) Needs that White House Correspondents’ Dinner

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CNBC John Harwood, Im-Politic, Mainstream Media, Margaret Sullivan, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Trump, White House Correspondents Association, White House Correspondents' Association Dinner

The pre-Trump era version of myself would be heartily applauding part of Margaret Sullivan’s recommendation for the annual White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. According to the Washington Post media columnist, this event, “should be the last. It never has been a particularly good idea for journalists to don their fanciest clothes and cozy up to the people they cover, alongside Hollywood celebrities who have ventured to wonky Washington to join the fun.”

The post-Trump era version of myself is more struck by this follow-on Sullivan observation: that nowadays, the event

“has become close to suicidal for the press’s credibility.

“Trust in the mainstream media is low, a new populism has caught fire all over the Western world, and President Trump constantly pounds the news media as a bunch of out-of-touch elites who don’t represent the interests of real Americans.

“The annual dinner — or at least the optics of the dinner — seems to back him up.”

In fact, that points to the reason that I believe and hope the dinner continues: as Sullivan and other defenders of the establishment press indignantly insist that this stereotype is at best completely inaccurate at best and at worst a malicious lie spread by figures – like the President – who hope to destroy this pillar of democracy.

But since the 2016 presidential campaign began in earnest, nothing has been clearer than how the mainstream media’s hostility to Mr. Trump has stemmed from far more than dismay about his personal vulgarity or from journalists’ legitimate concerns about his personal business and possible conflicts of interest. (By contrast, in my view, for reasons described here, the Russia collusion charges look manufactured.) The President’s harsh coverage has also resulted from his strong opposition to the longstanding elite consensus on trade, immigration, and foreign policies that too often have put Main Street Americans last, but that the national media has swallowed hook, line, and sinker.

Indeed, these reporters and editors and pundits have repeatedly hanged themselves with their own words. Remember CNBC’s John Harwood asking Mr. Trump at an October, 2015 Republican candidates’ debate if he was running “a comic book version of a presidential campaign”? Remember The New York Times‘ publisher acknowledging after the Trump victory that such dismissive (at best) views so pervaded the newspaper’s campaign coverage that it needed to “rededicate itself” to the “fundamental mission of Times journalist. That is, to report America and the world honestly…”?

How nice it would be to report that the Mainstream Media has learned some lessons and changed its tune, or at least its smug posture. But no one who’s literate, who follows many Big Media journalists on Twitter, or who watches the vast majority of news talk shows, could possibly see any progress. In news coverage, the treatment of major issues continues following the apparent rule that the only valid – or indeed, sane – position to take is the one opposite of the President’s. On the televised talk shows, this Trump Derangement Syndrome continues to be invariably accompanied by non-stop sniggering, chortling, and raised eyebrows seem just as common as ever.

So please, White House Correspondents’ Association! Keep holding this so-called “Nerd Prom” (the favorite, false modesty-dripping insider nickname for the event)! In fact, double down on the current format! Keep booking hate-mongering comedians/ennes! Keep hobnobbing with virtue-signaling celebrities! Keep looking like courtiers rather than watchdogs!

In other words, keep taking every opportunity to remind the public how completely you’ve merged with the comfortable you’re supposed to be afflicting! Keep sinking your own credibility beyond repair! And as a result, keep hastening the day when you’ll be replaced by the kind of press corps a healthy democracy needs.

Making News: Cited in The Washington Post, Newsweek…& More!

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Breitbart.com, Making News, Newsweek, steel, Steel News, tariffs, The Washington Post, Trade, Trump, WAKR-AM

Those Trump tariffs kept me awfully busy this past week – here’s a quick rundown of media-related developments:

Yesterday morning, I was interviewed on Akron, Ohio’s WAKR-AM on the new course apparently being taken in U.S. trade policy. I’ll post a link to any podcast that becomes available, but unfortunately, WAKR doesn’t present podcasts comprehensively.

Also yesterday, my analysis of the new U.S. manufacturing jobs numbers was cited in a post on the subject by Breitbart.com Economics and Finance Editor John Carney. Here’s the link.

On March 7, my views on senior White House economic aide Gary Cohn’s tariff-related resignation were quoted in this Washington Post article.

That same day, this Newsweek piece referenced my findings strongly indicating that many other U.S. trade partners have filling the vacuum that’s been left in the American market by tariffs that have kept out much Chinese steel – including by simply sending their imports from China stateside.

And also on March 7, Steel News featured coverage of my Monday CNBC appearance on the Trump tariffs. Here’s the link.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other events.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Trump Steel Trade Critics Offer Recipes for (Continued) Failure

Tags

Barack Obama, China, European Union, globalization, Japan, national security, Russia, steel, tariffs, The Washington Post, Trade, trade law, Trump, World Steel Organization, World Trade Organization, {What's Left of) Our Economy

The case for bold new Trump administration steps to ensure the U.S. steel industry’s continued viability is so clear that even opponents can’t help but (unwittingly) make it.

Thus this morning, The Washington Post editorial board praised – or at least seems to have praised – the Obama administration’s imposition of the tariffs on imports of Chinese steel because the world’s overwhelming source of overcapacity is China. The Post also urged the White House to remember that in order to avoid “international destabilization,” it’s critical to keep relying on “global institutions such as the World Trade Organization.”

Yet as the paper implicitly recognizes, none of these approaches has succeeded. What else can reasonably be concluded from its acknowledgment that the although the world’s “major governments, including President Barack Obama’s administration, have long recognized” the problem of Chinese fueled steel overcapacity,” the glut continues to create “unsustainable downward pressure on producers’ prices….” That’s “unsustainable” as in “can’t be sustained.” As in “if the downward pressure isn’t stopped, steel producers will start going under.”

The Post, however, has left out some crucial information. Specifically, the pressure on global steel producers has been far from uniformly felt. According to the latest (2015) figures from the World Steel Organization, which represents most of the global industry, the United States runs the world’s largest steel trade deficit by far measured in volume (which leaves out the distortions created by falling prices). At 26.5 million tons, it was nearly 80 percent greater than that of the world’s next biggest net steel importer (Vietnam, at 14.9 million tons), and nearly seven times greater than that of the European Union (3.9 million tons).

China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and others are running surpluses, with China lapping the pack at 98.4 million tons and Japan, universally described as a staunch U.S. ally, coming in second at still-impressive 34.9 million tons.

These skewed trade patterns, moreover, are unmistakably affecting national steel output. For example, according to the World Steel Organization, in 2010, as the world’s recovery from the Great Recession was becoming established, the United States accounted for 7.46 percent of global steel output by volume. In 2016, its share had shrunk to 4.95 percent.

China clearly has been the big winner, with its share of world steel production rising from 42.62 percent to 50.16 percent during this period. Japan has boosted market share as well – albeit only from 6.49 percent to 6.60 percent. The European Union and Russia have lost ground – but the losses have been minimal. The former’s global market share has dipped from 11.54 percent to 10.43 percent. The latter’s is down from 4.48 percent to 4.45 percent.

Even weirder: America’s economic growth during this period has outstripped the recoveries of all these countries except China, and its manufacturing sector has recovered (though not completely) thanks largely to a rebound in the steel-intensive automotive industry.

In other words, according to the Post editorial board, due to global overcapacity, the U.S. steel industry is facing unsustainable (and largely artificial) pricing pressure, the worldwide statistics make clear that this pressure is in a class by itself…and the Trump administration is being advised to stick with responses that have been manifestly incapable of preventing this dangerous situation.

It’s perfectly respectable to oppose as a solution the kind of national security-focused tariffs that the Trump administration is considering – even though the advantages they offer (they need no Congressional approval and they can be implemented relatively quickly as well as flexibly) are substantial. But if critics – domestic and foreign – are genuinely interested in solving the longstanding world steel problem in a timely manner, they’ll start proposing alternatives that haven’t already failed.

Im-Politic: More Illegal Immigration Coddling from the Washington Post

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Associated Press, crime, Darwin Martinez Torres, detainers, Germantown, hate crimes, illegal immigrants, Im-Politic, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Maryland, Montgomery County, Muslims, Nabra Hassanen, Northern Virginia, Rockville, The Washington Post

Hard as it is to believe, The Washington Post news department’s coddling of illegal immigrants looks to have passed a new milestone. On April, I explained how the paper’s news editors and reporters (not the opinion folks) apparently have decided that drunk driving isn’t a serious crime when the guilty are living in the United States illegally.

This past week, the Post has acted conspicuously determined to ignore crucial questions of suspected criminals’ immigration status when they threaten to ruin or even complicate another prized narrative – that Muslim Americans are being victimized by a record surge in hate crimes prompted by irrational fears of Islamic terrorists stoked cynically by politicians like President Trump. Such journalistic selectivity is bound to intensify questions about the legality of any Americans of Hispanic heritage arrested for crimes, both when they’re justified and when they’re not.

There’s an alternative explanation for the paper’s behavior that’s comparably disturbing: In an effort to calm public fears about the public safety risks created by indulgent immigration policies, it’s been trying to sweep such immigration questions under the rug because it did report the status of two Hispanic teenage immigrants just a month before, when they were charged with a rape at a high school in the area. In early May, the charges were dropped, seeming to vindicate allegations that immigration policy critics had been using the case to demagogue their cause.      

The latest crime in question was the abominable killing of an Muslim teenage girl from the Virginia suburbs early last Sunday morning. The story quickly attracted national attention, and the Post‘s early coverage demonstrated the obvious reason: The local police seemed determined to classify the murder as an instance of road rage, while many in the local Islamic community — including the victim’s family — along with others insisted that it amounted to the latest hate crime committed against innocent Muslim Americans.

As the Post pointedly reminded readers in its report on Monday:

“Police said Monday they aren’t investigating the death as a hate crime, but the issue was on the minds of many Muslims on Sunday.

“Last month, two men on a Portland train were stabbed and killed after they intervened to protect two girls who were being harassed with anti-Muslim threats, according to authorities.

“Sunday night, a van struck a crowd of pedestrians, including worshipers leaving a pair of mosques in London. Witnesses said the pedestrians were struck as they departed late-night prayers.

“The ADAMS Center [victim Nabra Hassanen’s mosque] has a paid armed security guard at the Sterling site, according to [Arsalan Iftkhar, an “international human rights lawyer and commentator” who attended services at the mosque]. He said many mosques have increased security since six Muslim worshipers were killed at a mosque in Quebec earlier this year.

“Sunday night, a van struck a crowd of pedestrians, including worshipers leaving a pair of mosques in London. Witnesses said the pedestrians were struck as they departed late-night prayers.

“The ADAMS Center has a paid armed security guard at the Sterling site, according to Iftikhar. He said many mosques have increased security since six Muslim worshipers were killed at a mosque in Quebec earlier this year.”

And this focus on the hate crimes charge continued through the Post‘s last comprehensive coverage of the murder, on Wednesday.

But from the start, one crucial aspect of the murder appeared to be undermining claims that animus against Muslims was the suspect’s motivation – an aspect oddly neglected by the Post. As the paper specified from the outset, he was a young Hispanic-surnamed male – Darwin Martinez Torres. But nothing else about him was reported.

That may not sound suspicious to someone unfamiliar with that part of northern Virginia – or even worth writing about at all. But Sterling and environs have long hosted a large population of illegal immigrants. The offense in question was unmistakably felonious and abhorrent, not some trifle. So there are valid public safety issues involved, with large numbers of Americans understandably wanting to what kinds of individuals their leaders have – knowingly – welcomed into their country and their neighborhoods.

Moreover, a Post update later that day offered evidence suggesting Torres’ illegal status: U.S. immigration authorities had requested that local officials put a “detainer” on him – meaning that they were looking into deportation. Now on the one hand, the federal government can place detainers on and deport legal immigrants as well as illegal. But on the other hand, that decision should have raised a red flag with the Post right away, and the question could have been answered with little effort. But no one on the team of reporters assigned the story by the paper seems to have pursued the matter. The hate crimes issue and related concerns voiced nationally about American Muslims’ safety clearly were their top priorities.

As early as Monday, however, it was clear that Martinez’ immigration status was indeed in doubt with the authorities. The Associated Press reported that day that they determined he is “a citizen of El Salvador and there’s probable cause to believe he lacks permission to be in the U.S.”

But even though this AP report appears on the Post‘s website, it prompted no investigation of Torres’ status by the paper itself, either.

Moreover, on Tuesday, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson announced that Torres is in the United States illegally. Readers of the The New York Times, FoxNews.com, The Daily Caller, and CNN received this information. But nearly a week later, the Post staff itself still has not mentioned it. Neither, weirdly, has the Associated Press – but it’s not the Washington, D.C. area’s leading news organization.

Sadly, this journalistic inevitably raises the question of whether the Post has decided to cover up the legal status of other Hispanic Americans arrested for crimes. For example, also earlier this month, two Germantown, Maryland high school students were murdered on the eve of their graduation. The trio arrested? Jose Canales-Yanez, Edgar Garcia-Gaona, and his brother Roger Garcia. Any mention of their immigration status in the Post coverage? Nope.

But like Sterling, the Germantown area is home to many illegal immigrants, as well as a center of violence from criminal gangs whose crimes are becoming ever more brutal and that are often extensions of similar organizations in Central America. The police force of surrounding Montgomery County has not ruled out a gang angle, and according to Help Save Maryland, an organization favoring stricter immigration controls and enforcement, a photo of one of the suspects reveals a form of tattoo often sported by Central American gang members.  

It’s true that Montgomery police chief Thomas Manger has stated that “to my knowledge, there were no ICE detainers filed in those cases” resulting from some of the suspects’ previous arrests.” But it’s also true that Montgomery County has declared itself to be a safe haven for immigrants – if not an out-and-out sanctuary city – and that Manger has dutifully declared that it’s not his job to determine anyone’s immigration status.

Curiously, moreover, Post reporters and editors were decidedly more aggressive in March, when two Hispanic teenagers, including a minor, were accused of raping a younger schoolmate at Rockville High School in Rockville, Maryland — also in Montgomery County.  The paper’s first article on the incident prominently mentioned that Henry E. Sanchez “a native of Guatemala who arrived in the United States about seven months ago, has a pending ‘alien removal’ case against him, court officials said Friday. ‘He is a substantial flight risk,’ Montgomery County Assistant States Attorney Rebecca MacVittie said in court Friday.

“[Jose O.] Montano has been in the United States for about eight months, MacVittie said. Details about Sanchez’s removal case, or Montano’s immigration status, couldn’t immediately be learned Friday.”

Moreover, the Post‘s own reporting several days later contend that both suspects “were among tens of thousands of young people who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally in 2016.” Prosecutors dropped the rape charges against the pair in early May. Was the paper’s much more restrained coverage of immigration issues in the two, more recent, murder cases an attempt to keep anti-immigration sentiment in the public under control?    

It’s vitally important to be clear here. As suggested immediately above, I believe that many municipalities and states are ignoring their responsibilities to help the federal government enforce immigration law. But insisting that the Post inquire about the immigration status of criminal suspects is completely different from insisting that state and local governments, whose immigration law enforcement responsibilities are limited and reactive, proactively publicize the immigration status of criminal suspects.

It’s also completely different from insisting that the federal government, whose immigration law responsibilities are extensive and often proactive, seek out and publicize this information whenever an arrest is made by any level of government, even for serious infractions (although I’m leaning strongly in this direction, given the nation’s enormous and possibly still growing population of illegals).

Instead, insisting that the Post and the rest of the media at least seek this information simply entails insisting that they play their proper role as watchdogs of democracy – pressing for accountability for wielders of public and private power, and letting the chips fall where they may.

Viewed from a different perspective, the government at all levels enjoys certain established authority to keep information from the public for various, highly specific reasons – e.g., to protect national security or safeguard Constitutionally guaranteed privacy rights. In order to help ensure that this authority is not abused, the media’s job is to release whatever information it can procure, with certain exceptions that it generally has complied with voluntarily (e.g., protecting information whose exposure would immediately threaten national security and/or the lives of military and intelligence personnel whose lives literally are on the line, or the privacy of minors). When disputes arise over where these respective lines should be drawn, the judiciary steps in to try to provide the answer.

At least since the era of Watergate and the Pentagon Papers, the Post has epitomized a national media that understands these distinctions and acts accordingly. Does it now believe that, for reasons it has yet to explain, that its coverage of illegal immigration is an exception?

 

Im-Politic: Initial Thoughts on the Trump Wars

Tags

2016 election, Andrew McCabe, Director of National Intelligence, FBI, hacking, Hillary Clinton, Im-Politic, impeachment, intelligence community, James Clapper, James Comey, John McCain, Justice Department, Lindsey Graham, Loretta Lynch, Michael T. Flynn, Richard M. Nixon, Russia, Russiagate, Sally Yates, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Trump, Wategate

Since I’m not a Trump or intelligence community insider, I’ve refrained from posting any items on the last crisis that began surrounding the administration starting with the president’s firing of James Comey as FBI Director. (I have commented on some aspects briefly on Twitter.) But since I’m a strong supporter of many positions championed by Mr. Trump both during the campaign and – to a lesser extent – in the White House, I thought that RealityChek readers would be interested in some observations about aspects of the uproar that deserve more consideration.

First and most important: Both current and former officials in the federal bureaucracy and even the intelligence community clearly hope to end the Trump presidency, and have decided to leak to the equally anti-Trump Mainstream Media even the most highly classified material if it’s judged to be potentially harmful to the president. Yet no leaks have revealed any evidence supporting the central allegation against the president: the charge that he or close aides colluded in any way with Russian efforts to fix the presidential election in his favor.

Given that the president’s foes long viewed the prospect of his victory with alarm, and given that they have sought to de-legitimize this victory since it unfolded the evening of last November 8, the absence of such a smoking gun after so many months is absolutely startling. If this evidence exists, what are President Trump’s adversaries waiting for?

P.S. – this argument pertains to retired General Michael T. Flynn, who advised candidate Trump and briefly became his White House national security adviser. Flynn has certainly acted in several instances like he’s had something (or things) to hide. But he’s been tracked for months by intelligence officials who – again – have been anything but reluctant to make troubling findings public. And nothing has emerged pointing to working with Russia to undermine the campaign of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

One possible explanation? Many anti-Trump-ers are waiting for the 2018 mid-term elections to get closer and closer, in order to boost the chances of a Democratic landslide before the administration had a chance to rebut the charges conclusively – and before Congressional Republicans have a chance to dissociate themselves from Mr. Trump. And maybe they’re being joined by some establishment Republicans, who hope to recapture their party from the Trump-ist forces. And maybe both factions are motivated mainly by the belief that Mr. Trump is such an unprecedented danger to the republic that any means are warranted to remove him from the Oval Office.

If so, however, some big legal issues pop up.  For instance:  Are individuals privy to information about crimes – and in fact major crimes – withholding them from law enforcement authorities? 

Second: Not only has no evidence of collusion been leaked. The former head of the entire intelligence community has just made clear that, during his own prolonged probe of Russia’s efforts to interfere with the election (a related but clearly separate issue, for which strong evidence exists), he saw none.

In March, James Clapper, who resigned as Director of National Intelligence soon after the election, had tantalizingly hinted at the existence of such material by telling a reporter that the intelligence community “did not include any evidence” in its January report on the Russian campaign “that had anything, that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. There was no evidence of that included in our report.”

But when pressed by “Meet the Press” anchor Chuck Todd to confirm whether such evidence existed, Clapper responded, “Not to my knowledge.” And when asked under oath in Senate testimony on three months later whether that statement was still accurate, Clapper stated, “It is.” In other words, Clapper’s probe, which reflected the work of 16 intelligence agencies including his own Director’s office uncovered no collusion evidence.

The issue was briefly muddied during that same hearing by former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. Like Clapper, an Obama administration appointee to her latest position, Yates initially answered the question about collusion by demurring. She explained that her “answer to that question would require me to reveal classified information. And so, I — I can’t answer that.”

As noted by questioner Senator Lindsey Graham – no admirer of President Trump – the FBI that Yates helped supervise as the second-in-command at the Justice Department was part of Clapper’s Russia investigation. After Yates indicated that the FBI was conducting its own separate counter-intelligence inquiry into Russia’s activities, Graham asked Clapper if the evidence found by the Bureau at that time “was not mature enough” to justify including in the broader intelligence community report.

Responded Clapper: “[T]he evidence, if there was any, didn’t reach the evidentiary bar in terms of the level of confidence that we were striving for in that intelligence community assessment.”

So again, a protracted look into Russia’s Election 2016 hacking produced no evidence of collusion that the intelligence community as a whole believed was solid enough to justify even hinting at in its publicly stated conclusions.

Third: One highly damaging allegation that’s been made over the last week was the Washington Post‘s claim that Comey requested more resources from the Justice Department for his investigation just before he was fired. The clear implication: The president became convinced that Comey was ramping up his investigation – which began in July – and decided to fire him in order to deny him the funds needed to do the job adequately. Such an action, of course, would at least strongly resemble obstruction of justice.

This article, however, too, looks fishy. Post reporter Ashley Parker did include an on-the-record flat Justice Department denial, but needless to say, government spokespersons lie or dissemble all the time. Much more difficult to dismiss: Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe – who had been Comey’s former top deputy – stated in his own sworn testimony to Congress that he was unaware of any such request.

Yes, it’s true that Comey might have made the request without telling McCabe. But how much sense does that make? Nor can anyone accuse McCabe of being a Trump toady. His wife, Jill, had run for office in 2015 as a Democrat and had accepted $500,000 in campaign contributions from the political organization of a long-time Clinton family ally, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe.

Finally (for now!), comes the subject, as reported in The New York Times, of Comey’s alleged memo claiming that President Trump asked him to drop his Russia investigation in a February meeting. The former FBI Director will surely have the chance to confirm, deny, or otherwise elaborate on this story and the conversation in his own testimony under oath to Congress.

As suggested by prominent Trump critic Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, if this request was made, we’re talking about a genuinely Nixonian case of obstruction of justice. (The “smoking gun” tape that played such a decisive role in Richard Nixon’s impeachment and removal in 1974 centered precisely on a decision by the former President to order the FBI to stop its Watergate investigation.)

As Mr. Trump’s critics like to say, however, the Times article “raises questions” – indeed, big ones. First, it’s crucial to note that, as Nixon himself admitted, his actions were intended to cover up criminal activity. As noted above, there’s no evidence yet of a Russia-related crime committed by the Trump administration.

More immediately, Comey has not exactly been shy about loudly expressing, acting on, and widely sharing his concerns about obstacles to official inquests and other behavior he considered improper. In 2004, he threatened to resign as Deputy Attorney General over post-September 11 domestic surveillance programs he viewed as illegal. Last July, he famously held a press conference in which he took the extraordinary step of moving beyond his position’s investigative role to explain extensively his decision to recommend against indicting Hillary Clinton for using a personal email system as Secretary of State. And earlier this month, Comey said – again, under oath – that he took this step because he unilaterally decided that his superior, Attorney General Loretta Lynch had lost credibility as a Clinton investigator because of her meeting with the candidate’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, in June.

It’s certainly possible that Comey has decided to keep firsthand evidence of clear Trump criminality under wraps for going on three months now. But it sure looks out of character.

All of the above notwithstanding, there’s no question that the President’s undisciplined and often contradictory statements understandably have created major suspicions – which are by no means confined to his enemies’ ranks. The consequently confused efforts by his surrogates to clean up these messes have only compounded the problem. And even if the administration had its communications act together, one indisputable lesson of Washington and other scandals is that shoes keep dropping. Moreover, numerous continuing global business ties and burgeoning official responsibilities of the President’s children, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and his family keep failing valid smell tests.

At the same time, the clearly organized Dump Trump effort by numerous persons with detailed knowledge of seemingly the full range of the federal government’s most sensitive activities suggests that “RussiaGate,” at least, could be different. Not in the sense that damaging claims won’t continue to be made, but in the sense that the anti-Trump-ers might have already leaked their worst.

The only certainty at this point appears to be that the various Trump Wars will rage on for months at a minimum – which means that the valid policy grievances of the president’s supporters and so many other Americans will continue to be neglected by their government.

Making News: Back on National Radio Tonight & in The Weekly Standard

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China, Ethan Epstein, Gordon G. Chang, illegal immigration, Making News, North Korea, The John Batchelor Show, The Washington Post, The Weekly Standard, Trade, Trump

I’m pleased to announce that I’m scheduled to return to John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show tonight to talk about the latest twists and turns in President Trump’s approach to China.  The segment is slated to start at 9 PM EST and will focus on Mr. Trump’s stated belief that he’s likelier to get China’s cooperation in quelling North Korea’s nuclear threat if he refrains from cracking down on Beijing’s predatory trade practices.

You can listen live on-line here to what’s sure to be a provocative discussion among John, co-host Gordon G. Chang, and me.  And if you can’t tune in, as usual, I’ll post a link to the podcast as soon as one’s available.

In addition, it was great to see my recent report on The Washington Post‘s latest example of shameful hypocrisy on immigration issues written up in The Weekly Standard. As you’ll see, author Ethan Epstein deserves special credit for adding to the evidence that the paper will go to almost any length to justify lenient treatment for illegals.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Following Up: The Establishment’s Pro-Mass Immigration Bias Goes On and On and…

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crime, deportations, drunk driving, Ed O'Keefe, Following Up, ICE, illegal immigration, Immigration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Maria Sacchetti, The Washington Post

Last Thursday, I wrote about how a combination of Trump Derangement Syndrome and a determination to uphold America’s current mass immigration policies had apparently driven no less than the U.S. Supreme Court to equate committing war crimes with speeding tickets. Two days ago, the Washington Post made appallingly clear that its hard news staff, including its editors, also ranks mass immigration – in this case, illegal immigration – uber alles. Specifically, in an article purporting to show how unreasonable the Trump administration’s deportation policies have been, the paper decided that drunk driving should not be considered a serious crime.

The article’s tone was set by the headline: “ICE data shows half of immigrants arrested in raids had traffic convictions or no record.” And in case you doubt that the piece’s aim was to demonstrate that President Trump’s policies are squandering precious immigration enforcement funds on residents of the country who are clearly no danger to their communities, here’s the lead written by reporters Maria Sacchetti and Ed O’Keefe:

“About half of the 675 immigrants picked up in roundups across the United States in the days after President Trump took office either had no criminal convictions or had committed traffic offenses, mostly drunken driving, as their most serious crimes, according to data obtained by The Washington Post.”

Obviously disgraceful, right? Except the Post account could only get even close to this conclusion by belittling the importance of drunk driving. Here’s how. The article analyzes the backgrounds of immigrants rounded up in early February by agents from regional offices in Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, San Antonio and New York, and contends that the records reveal 139 to have been convicted of assault or involvement with “dangerous drugs.” That’s over 20 percent of the total. Only about 26 percent of those rounded up (177 individuals) had no criminal convictions on their record, though 66 of them (more than 37 percent) had charges pending (“largely immigration or traffic offenses).

Sacchetti and O’Keefe went on to write that “The largest single group — 163 [were] immigrants convicted of traffic offenses….” Kind of trifling, right? We all speed or something to that effect now and then. But it turns out that more than 90 percent of these traffic convictions were for drunk driving – which outside the Mainstream Media is surely and rightly viewed as anything but trifling.

In fact, just to remind, during the last full year for which data is available (2015), 10,265 Americans died in “alcohol-impaired crashes” – 300 more than in 2014. And from what we already know, 2016 will see an even higher toll.

So of the 675 immigrant pickups analyzed by the Post, it looks like 139 were convicted for crimes that even the Post evidently considers serious, and at least 147 (90 percent of 163) were drunk drivers. So more than 42 percent had been convicted of crimes that any thinking person would consider serious. And then there were 66 more currently being charged with “traffic offenses” (mainly drunk driving?) or immigration offenses (which could well include such unmistakably serious matters as reentering the United States after being deported or lying on an immigration form).

If only half of the 66 belong in the serious crime category (which seems to be low-balling the issue, based on the other data we have), then more than 47 percent of the pickups looked at by the Post were, by any reasonable standard, menaces to public safety.

But the article’s original claim indicates that this number is actually much higher. After all, Sacchetti and O’Keefe contend that “About half of the 675 immigrants picked up in roundups across the United States in the days after President Trump took office either had no criminal convictions or had committed traffic offenses, mostly drunken driving, as their most serious crimes….”

In other words, a substantial share of the immigrants picked up could have been convicted of crimes perhaps less serious than drunk driving, homicide, assault, or dangerous drug involvement, but still legitimately seen as major offenses. Unfortunately, the piece itself was so poorly written (and edited) that it’s simply not possible to tell. But in a tweet on the article, the Post itself cleared up the mystery, stating that the share of the 675 pickups with no criminal convictions at all was only about 25 percent.

So it’s plain as day that this article’s real message is that the great majority of the individuals being picked up by the Trump administration have taken or endangered American lives, and would remain in positions to do so without federal intervention. The rest, even if they’re simply “undocumented,” have violated the nation’s laws. And that’s a record to condemn?

Im-Politic: Mainstream Media’s Pro-Open Borders Bias Remains Widespread

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assimilation, civil religion, CNN, Donie O'Sullivan, illegal immigrants, Im-Politic, immigrants, Immigration, Irish-Americans, Mainstream Media, national identity, National Public Radio, Open Borders, Samuel P. Huningtom, Seymour Martin Lipset, The Washington Post, Tom Gjelten

The pro-Open Borders slant of the Mainstream Media has become so pervasive that the last few days alone have served up no less than two major instances by leading news organizations. One should be painfully obvious – at least to anyone familiar with the history of immigration in the United States and the nation’s (until unquestionably successful) approach towards assimilating newcomers. The other is more difficult to detect. Both also entail telling failures of professional judgment by writers and editors alike. You decide which (if either) is the most worrisome.

The obvious example of bias came from a Washington Post piece Sunday by National Public Radio correspondent Tom Gjelten. If you ignore the lessons Gjelten claims flow from that American immigration history, you can learn a lot from his article about (or be usefully reminded of) the various efforts made from the early 19^th to the mid-20^th century to address the various social and cultural issues large inflows from regions outside Britain (though still mainly from Europe) in particular posed. Of course, far too many were products of simple bigotry.

But Gjelten then ventures deeply into a dangerous fantasyland when he discusses those lessons and what they mean today. He all but explicitly states that, given the more recent waves of immigrants, now dominated by non-Europeans, Americans should not only reject race and ethnicity or religion the bases of their national identity. They should also reject using what’s long been called a “civil” or “political” religion – a group of political beliefs and values that can surely be argued over around the edges, but that surely closely approximates a formula developed by political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset. As Gjelten summarizes it: “liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism and a laissez-faire approach to governance and daily life.”

Since I’d add separation of church and state, another common definition of Americanism – advanced by another political scientist, Samuel P. Huntington – is more problematic. “Anglo-Protestant culture and political values.” But if you think about it, it’s not that much more problematic, especially since the overlap between Lipset and Huntington is so substantial.

Moreover, look at the matter from the opposite perspective. How many other peoples and contemporary regions have created political values in particular (“cultural values” is a concept that’s much too sweeping and much too prone to intolerant abuse for me) that most Americans today would want to live under? Latin America? East Asia? The Middle East? Please. So if you employ a little common sense, and substitute something like “European Enlightenment” for “Anglo-Protestant,” you arrive at a basis for American identity that not only should offend no one, but that, more important, has underlain much of the nation’s extraordinary success.

But Gjelten seems not to agree. In response to Huntington’s (poorly formulated) contention that successful assimilation has entailed “people who were not white Anglo-Saxon Protestants [becoming] Americans by adopting America’s Anglo-Protestant culture and political values,” he maintains:

“Whether that had really happened or was even possible was debatable. ‘A nation of more than 130 cultural groups cannot hope to have all of them Anglo-Saxonized,’ argued Molefi Kete Asante in his book ‘The Painful Demise of Eurocentrism.’ Trying to do so, he argued, would only alienate minorities and deepen disunity.”

Yet having apparently dismissed civil religion as well as (rightly) race and ethnicity as the source of America’s national identity, does Gjelten come up with any viable alternatives? None that I can see. In fact, at this point, his article dissolves into an endorsement of concepts like “nondiscrimination,” “diversity,” and “multiculturalism” that are not only gauzy but lacking in any particular content.

The author maintains that what he terms “nondiscriminatory immigration” based on these empty principles has succeeded in America by making it “more resilient.” But his evidence can’t possibly impress: that “In comparison with Western European countries that have also received large numbers of immigrants, America has proved to be more capable of absorbing and successfully integrating a diverse population.” Of course, this observation practically defines “low bar.”

It’s Gjelten’s right to believe in a definition of national identity evidently distinguished only by what it isn’t – though he sure didn’t provide any examples of countries that have been held together adequately simply by ideals such as multiculturalism and diversity. It’s also his right to believe – as actually seems to be the case – that the idea of a national identity is either pointless or undesirable. But he should have the intellectual honesty to say so. Further, his editors should have had the competence to challenge his case more than they obviously did.

The other troubling instance of journalistic failure by a reporter and editors alike – this CNN post noting that a significant chunk of America’s illegal immigrant population is Irish. That’s unquestionably useful information. But neither author Donie O’Sullivan nor his editors had anything direct to say about the real significance of the article: It powerfully undercuts claims that President Trump’s immigration policies, and even his focus on illegal immigration, stem largely from racism.

Starting with its headline, the article does point out that the illegal Irish have a major advantage over much of the rest of the nation’s illegals – their ability to pass more easily for native-born since they’re white. So obviously, enforcement of immigration law nowadays will inevitably be affected to some extent by race and ethnicity. (At the same time, the article helpfully observes that there are many fewer Irish illegals than Mexican illegals in particular.)

O’Sullivan makes abundantly clear how much fear the administration’s policies have struck among the illegal Irish, and even presents some evidence that these fears have some basis in reality, their physical appearance edge notwithstanding. He quotes an official at an organization providing support services for all Irish newcomers as stating that “it seems that the ICE [immigration law enforcement] agents are using their discretion in a much greater capacity now than ever before.”

But it’s absolutely astonishing (or is it?) that the author says absolutely nothing about the screamingly obvious implication of this claim: It’s a sign that immigration law is being enforced in a race- and ethnicity-blind way. And even though the racism charge has deeply colored the national immigration debate especially since President Trump’s harsh description of some Mexican immigrants when he declared his candidacy for the White House, it’s equally astonishing (or is it?) that none of O’Sullivan’s editors at CNN apparently noted this fact’s omission or importance, either.

Bias-free journalism admittedly is difficult to produce, and the challenge is made all the more formidable by the numerous forms bias can take, and how difficult many can be to spot. All the same, these Washington Post and CNN offerings stand as vivid reminders of how far the Mainstream Media that still dominate news dissemination in our democracy remain from meeting it.