Another bizarre week in Trump Land: FBI, Russia, Barred Reporters, Kansas City "Get Out of My Country" Shooting, Record Temperatures, Warren Buffet

Another bizarre week in Trump Land: FBI, Russia, Barred Reporters, Kansas City "Get Out of My Country" Shooting, Record Temperatures, Warren Buffet

Mike Victor

February 26, 2017

Only 1,345 days until the next presidential election

As I write this, Trump has only been in office 38 days, just 2.6% of his administration if he manages to serve his entire 4-year term without implosion, indictment, or impeachment.  

It's only 617 days until the Midterm Elections, folks, when the balance of power could start to change, and 1,345 days until the next Presidential Elections.    But who's counting?  

Trump Contacts FBI To Help Downplay Russia-Trump Ties; FBI Rejects Request

The Russian-Trump scandal continues to develop.  According to CNN,  senior White House officials contacted the FBI in an effort to get the agency to knock down the Trump-Russia ties story.   As CNN put it:

The Trump administration's efforts to press Comey run contrary to Justice Department procedure memos issued in 2007 and 2009 that limit direct communications on pending investigations between the White House and the FBI.

"Initial communications between the [Justice] Department and the White House concerning pending or contemplated criminal investigations or cases will involve only the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General, from the side of the Department, and the Counsel to the President, the Principal Deputy Counsel to the President, the President, or the Vice President from the side of the White House," reads the 2009 memo.

The memos say the communication should only happen when it is important for the President's duties and where appropriate from a law enforcement perspective.

The White House was enraged by this story, saying they were only trying to get the "truth."  They initially denied that White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus took FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe aside during another meeting, then later admitted this had happened.  Priebus then contacted McCabe and FBI Director James Comey asking for the FBI to talk to reporters to downplay the Trump campaigns 2016 contacts with Russia.  Comey rejected this request because it is involves an ongoing investigation.

Trump bashes the free press, continues to try to redefine "fake news"

On Friday morning, Trump told an annual right-wing gathering that the press is phony and an enemy of the people.   He insinuated that any story relying on anonymous sources must be "fake news," hoping perhaps to redefine the term by deliberately and repeatedly misusing it.
It's important to recognize that simply because the public doesn't know who a source is, this doesn't mean that the journalist and often the editor of the publication don't know and haven't made some effort to vet and corroborate the story.  There is nothing unethical or inappropriate about using anonymous sources and if all sources had to be named, it is very likely that our government and most large corporations would be able to act with relative impunity, protected by a shield of de facto privacy.   The track record of anonymous sources is mixed, but some important cases, such as Watergate, would not have been broken and made public were it not for anonymous sources.

It's interesting that the White House calls stories based on anonymous sources "fake" but often ends up admitting that most or all of the facts in the stories are in fact correct (often after initially lying or obfuscating).  

At the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump even tried to downplay the high number of corroborating leakers (after earlier complaining about the high number of leakers):  

I saw one story recently where they said,  "nine people have confirmed. …"  There are no nine people. I don't believe there was one or two people.  And I said, "Give me a break."  Because I know the people, I know who they talk to. There were no nine people."

The Washington Post  did cite nine unnamed sources in a recent story that then-national security adviser Michael Flynn discussed sanctions against Russia then lied about it.  Trump fired Flynn shortly after the story ran.  

"Everything we published regarding Gen. Flynn was true," The Post's executive editor, Marty Baron, said in a statement.   "As confirmed by subsequent events and on-the-record statements from administration officials themselves. The story led directly to the general's dismissal as national security adviser. Calling press reports fake doesn't make them so."   [emphasis added]

Trump bars CNN, the New York Times, and media who criticized him

On Friday, the Trump administration did something that had never been done by any president in United States history, and selectively barred news organizations from the afternoon "gaggle", an informal press briefing with press secretary Sean Spicer.   According to NPR, "journalists for CNN and other news outlets, including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed, and Politico" were barred from Spicer's briefing.  

Ironically, Donald Trump as a private citizen used to call major newspapers using an assumed name to plant stories, in effect acting as his own "anonymous source" publicity agent.  

During the briefing, Spicer admitted that the targeting was retaliation:  "We're going to aggressively push back. We're just not going to sit back and let false narratives, false stories and inaccurate facts get out there."  
Trump's move drew swift condemnation.  

"These are moves that governments around the world make when they are less sophisticated and they want to block the press from doing its job, and it's sad to see that it's a tactic that the Trump White House is employing," CNN Worldwide President Jeff Zucker told NPR.

CNN anchor Jake Tapper criticized Trump on Friday for his "lack of a basic understanding of how an adult White House functions" which he called "un-American."
"It's silly on their part to retaliate like this," Zucker said. "I think it says more about them and the way they view the press, and the truth, than anything else."

The New York Times said it was unprecedented in the paper's history of covering administrations of both parties.  

"Free media access to a transparent government is obviously of crucial national interest," Baquet said. The White House Correspondents' Association and the National Press Club also weighed in.

In solidarity, reporters from Time magazine and The Associated Press boycotted because their peers were barred.  

De facto Muslim travel ban might be struck down, but its effects linger

Although Trump's travel ban on 7 predominantly Muslim countries was struck down by the courts, the confusing anti-Muslim message the ban sent continues to create ugly situations.  

Abu Romman, whose father attended the University of Illinois and always heaped praise on the United States as a land of opportunity and openness, was stopped at Chicago's O'Hare airport and questioned extensively by a Customs and Border Protection official.  

Abu Romman is a Jordanian citizen, but born in Syria. He's been to Syria only once since birth — and being born in an Arab country doesn't automatically confer citizenship there. Instead, citizenship is generally based your father's nationality. Still, Abu Romman couldn't persuade the border officer at O'Hare that he wasn't Syrian.

"He said, 'Sir, if you were born in Syria, you should have a Syrian passport,' " says Abu Romman at his family's home off a winding street in the Jordanian capital. "I said, 'Why should I have a Syrian passport? My father is Jordanian. My mother is Jordanian. We all are Jordanian, but it happened to be in Syria where I was born.' He knocked on the glass next to him, to his colleague. He said, 'We might have a problem with this."...

The officer wasn't convinced that he wasn't planning to stay in the U.S.

"He said, 'Sir, we're going to be cancelling your visa,'" says Abu Romman...

The officer told him he would not be allowed to call his embassy before he signed papers agreeing to be deported. He says he wasn't allowed to phone a lawyer or a family member.

"He said, 'If you refuse to sign the papers ... I will ban you from entering the United States for the rest of your life,'" Abu Romman says…

CBP officers took his jacket, his belt, his phone and his shoelaces, he says, and put him in a cold cell with a steel door and open toilet, along with five other people.

He was deported back to Jordan.

Syrian Rescue Worker and documentary film-maker Khaled Khatib was blocked by the United States from attending the Oscars, where his movie “The White Helmets” is nominated for an Academy Award.  According to the Associated Press and the New York Times,

The Department of Homeland Security blocked Mr. Khatib after discovering “derogatory information” about him… Mr. Khatib had planned to attend the ceremony after the Trump administration’s travel ban was lifted… A member of the White Helmets, a group that searches for survivors in the rubble of bombed-out buildings, Mr. Khatib also filmed the group’s rescue efforts for the 40-minute film… In an interview with The Times earlier this month, Mr. Khatib said he hoped his appearance at the Oscars would convey the urgent message of the movie, and pressure President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the Russian government to stop bombing Syrian civilians.

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi boycotted the Oscars because of Trump's travel ban, instead asking Anousheh Ansari to read the following statement after the filmmaker won Best Foreign Language Film for "The Salesman":

I'm sorry I'm not with you tonight. My absence is out of respect for the people of my country, and those of [the] other six nations who have been disrespected by the inhumane law that bans entry of immigrants to the U.S. Dividing the world into the 'us' and 'our enemies' categories creates fear – a deceitful justification for aggression and war. These wars prevent democracy and human rights in countries which have themselves been victims of aggression.
Filmmakers can turn their cameras to capture shared human qualities and break stereotypes of various nationalities and religions. They create empathy between us and others, an empathy which we need today more than ever.

As the brain drain from State continues, a retiring diplomat gives a withering critique of Trump's policies:   "The option of a white man's republic ended at Appomattox."

Daniel Fried delivered a powerful defense of the liberal international order at the retirement celebration honoring his 40-year career as a diplomat who helped guide America through the end of the Cold War in Europe.   He has long been critical of Russia, but before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  He was the lead expert on sanctions at the State Department, helping craft those imposed on Russia after Putin annexed Crimea in 2014 and started fighting in eastern Ukraine.

In his

"The West's great institutions, NATO and the EU, grew to embrace 100 million liberated Europeans," Fried said.

He noted the 1930s appeasement echoes in Trump's talk of a separate "deal" with Russia.  Germany offered Britain a sphere of influence deal in 1940, Fried said. "Churchill didn't take the deal then.  We shouldn't take similar deals now."

"We are not an ethno-state, with identity rooted in shared blood," he noted. "The option of a white man's republic ended at Appomattox."

 

Meanwhile, a Kansas man shot two men because they "looked Arab"; his victim was actually Indian-American

        

Gun-owner and self-appointed Make America White Again agitator Adam Purinton was arrested Thursday after shooting 3 men, killing one of them, after first yelling "get out of my country" just before opening fire  in a bar and grill in Olathe, Kansas.  According to the New York Times, "two of the victims, Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani, work for Garmin, which has its U.S. headquarters in the town...Kuchibhotla, 32, died after being taken to a hospital; Madasani, 32, is recovering from the attack, as is the other victim, Ian Grillot, 24.

Purinton fled the scene then reportedly told a bartender that he needed a place to hide "because he had just killed two Middle Eastern men."  He now faces murder charges on a $2 million bond.   "It kind of sent chills down the spine," Sridhar Harohalli of the India Association of Kansas City said. "I was like, wow. This has hit us close to home ... this is home to us."

More evidence of reality's well-known liberal bias:  Temperatures In Boston And Buffalo Rewrite Record Book

Twitter

On Friday, the temperature in both Buffalo, N.Y., and Boston hit 71 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.  These are both records, the hottest temperature since records began in 1872.  The last time Buffalo was close to this hot was 111 years ago when Theodore Roosevelt was president.

This is the latest reminder of record-setting rising temperatures.  2016 was the hottest year on record according to separate reports by both the  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA

If you have any climate skeptics among your friends and family who agree with Trump's allegation that climate change is a "hoax" perpetrated by the Chinese to gain competitive advantage with American manufacturers, please show them this chart.

According Deke Arndt, chief of the monitoring group at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information in Asheville, N.C., 2016 "was the warmest year on record, beating 2015 by a few hundredths of a degree, and together those two years really blow away the rest of our record… The long-term warming is driven almost entirely by greenhouse gases.  We've seen a warming trend related to greenhouse gases for four, five, six decades now."  

               

Warren Buffet, in a rebuke to Trump, celebrates the amazing strength of the United States economy

In his annual message to shareholders, billionaire investor and philanthropist  Warren Buffett, celebrated the “miraculous” United States economy.  He's usually bullish, but his latest letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders was especially optimistic.
He also sang the praises of "a tide of talented and ambitious immigrants" as well as "the rule of law to deliver abundance beyond any dreams of our forefathers."  
He didn't mention Trump by name, but his optimism about American growth is a rebuke to Trump's insistence that the economy is a "disaster" or a "bubble" or "disaster."  
Warren Buffet is no armchair leftist, of course.  Last year, his stock price surged 23%, twice that of the S&P 500.
Buffet has been extremely critical of the outrageous fees hedge funds charge for underperforming the market.  He encourages index funds and low fee index exchange-traded funds.  Nine years ago, he bet that an index fund could beat a basket of hedge funds.  He is on target to win that bet:  Vanguard's flagship S&P 500 Index Fund is up 85% since then, way ahead of the 22% return of the hedge funds.  Annualized, that works out to 7% for the index funds versus only 2.2% for the hedge funds.  According to the New York Times:

As usual, Mr. Buffett did not mince words in expressing his astonishment as to how elite investment professionals could register such mediocre returns while raking in steep fees.

“I’m certain that in almost all cases the managers at both levels were honest and intelligent people. But the results for their investors were dismal — really dismal,” he wrote. “And, alas, the huge fixed fees charged by all of the funds and funds-of-funds involved — fees that were totally unwarranted by performance — were such that their managers were showered with compensation over the nine years that have passed.”