Update no.924

Update from the Sunland

No.924

23.9.19 – 29.9.19

Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

            To all,

            The follow-up news items:

-- The IRI released a British-flagged tanker seized in July [914] in advance of a United Nations summit regarding the missile attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities [922].

-- The so-called “whistleblower complaint” [923] and the notes from the BIC’s telephone conversation with President Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelensky of Ukraine that is an essential element of the whistleblower’s complaint were made public.

            The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) released the whistleblower’s complaint, dated: August 12, 2019.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/house-intelligence-committee-releases-whistleblower-complaint; 20190812_-_whistleblower_complaint_unclass.pdf

The unclassified, nine-page letter was professionally done.  Several sentences are of particular note.  On page 1, s/he said, “In the course of my official duties, I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.”  So, there are least two, direct, inside sources.  Further, the wording suggests the whistleblower possesses some degree of positional anonymity, so that s/he can represent the larger group.  On page 3, s/he observed, “In the days following the phone call, I learned from multiple U.S. officials that senior White House officials had intervened to ‘lock down’ all records of the phone call, especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced-as is customary-by the White House Situation Room.”  It is the ‘lock down’ action that proved problematic.  Further, and of particular significance, a proper word-for-word transcript exists rather than the summary notes disclosed, as noted below.  Then, on page 4, s/he stated, “Instead, the transcript was loaded into a separate electronic system that is otherwise used to store and handle classified information of an especially sensitive nature.  One White House official described this act as an abuse of this electronic system because the call did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective.”

            Having read and studied the whistleblower complaint, I am left with the impression that the individual was likely a legal and/or intelligence professional, temporarily assigned to the White House.  Because of his temporary status, s/he became the designated whistleblower to represent two (and more likely more) White House staff employees.  From everything I have seen so far, the whistleblower followed the law precisely—the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998 {§702 (112 Stat. 2414), Title VII of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999 [PL 105-272; 112 Stat. 2396; 20.10.1998}.  Interestingly, the title of Title VII is “Whistleblower Protection for Intelligence Community Employees Reporting Urgent Concerns to Congress.”  Sadly and regrettably, Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph McGuire [Vice Admiral, USN (Ret.), a career special warfare officer], who was the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, was caught in the middle of the BIC and Congress.  I listened to McGuire’s testimony before the HPSCI and learned that he initially sought legal counsel for what to do with the whistleblower complaint from the White House Counsel, which in retrospect is quite akin to asking a Mafia don what to do about a snitch.  McGuire was between a rock and a hard spot; he made the wrong choice

            The White House released the second and related document.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Unclassified09.2019.pdf

MEMORANDUM OF TELEPHONE CONVERSATION Telephone Conversation with President Zelensky of Ukraine; July 25, 2019, 9:03 - 9:33 a.m. EDT Residence

A caution at the bottom of the first page says it all:

“CAUTION: A Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation (TELCON) is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion.”

The document is NOT a transcript.  Further, to emphasize the point, the editors utilize ellipses in several places; the punctuation usually connotes omitted information.  How on God’s little green Earth are we to believe anything in this document?  At the bottom line, after illumination the support to the Ukraine from the United States, the BIC says on page three, “I would like you to do us a favor . . . .”  The subsequent conversation reads like a wiretap surveillance report involving a Mafia don.  And then, he sends his personal lawyer (not a government employee or government professional) to dig up dirt on a potential political opponent.  And, Zelensky made sure to gush over the BIC (since flattery is the best tool to engage the BIC) and inform the BIC that he stayed at the BIC’s primary property in New York City.

            The conversation notes were classified SECRET/ORCON/NOFORN.  Secret is a mid-level classification; the subsequent qualifiers are: ORCON = ORiginator CONtrols dissemination, and NOFORN = NO FOReign National access allowed.  Nothing in the document qualifies for SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information), code word controls.  Based on my experience with classified material, I would say the classification of the telephone conversation notes appear to be consistent with such documents.  However, a document with this classification is NOT consistent with SCI material and moving such a document to an SCI network and/or server was done for another reason other than national security.

            Watching and listening to Republicans spin all this is both entertaining and disgusting.  Using the BIC familial name and “law-abiding president” in the same sentence is laughable in the extreme—a very clear statement of the tribalism that has corroded the fabric of this Grand Republic.

-- The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom issued an unprecedented judicial rebuke to Prime Minister Johnson {R (Miller) v The Prime Minister [2019] UKSC 41 (24 September 2019)}, deciding that the PM misused his authority to advise Queen Elizabeth II to suspend Parliament [920] in the protracted Brexit process [758].  The Court decided the PM’s extraordinary action was unlawful.

-- Well, the day is finally here.  On Tuesday, 24.September.2019, House Speaker Pelosi publicly announced the opening of an official impeachment inquiry of the president under Article I, Section 2, Clause 5, and Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution.  The BIC now goes down in history as the 4^th president to face formal impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives.  The talking heads of all persuasions have erupted with pronouncements of one form or another.  Just for clarity, the House action is an inquiry; it is NOT an impeachment proceeding . . . yet.  The Speaker’s move adds weight and brings additional tools to the inquiry.  This should play out under public scrutiny.  It is now the direct burden of the House of Representatives to develop articles of impeachment of sufficient weightiness to convince We, the People, that impeachment and conviction in the Senate are necessary and unavoidable.  Time shall tell the tale.

-- The Wall Street Journal reported that “people familiar with the matter” indicated Boeing engineers working on a flight-control system for the 737 MAX [878, 889] omitted key safeguards that had been included in an earlier version of the same system used on a military tanker jet.  I will freely confess my bias, but I cannot imagine engineers ever compromising flight safety without serious management pressure to do so.  I can only hope the various legal investigations identify, charge, try, convict and punish the Boeing managers who have done this to the once noble company, all to save a few bucks on the cost of a multi-million dollar aircraft that carries passengers.

            The casualty list continues to grow rapidly as the BIC uses and discards people who do not service his egocentric, megalomaniacal purposes.  The latest casualty is U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations (a post created by the BIC) Kurt Douglas Volker resigned his post on the 27^th for reasons as yet unknown.  He follows U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Louise Yovanovitch, who was recalled early because she reportedly got crosswise with Rudy Giuliani and his activities in Ukraine.  I suspect these will not be the last casualties in the wake of the BIC’s extortion of the Ukraine as noted above.

            Comments and contributions from Update no.923:

Comment to the Blog:

“With respect to the Saudi oilfield bombing, the Saudis are one of the best customers of the defense industry, but they compete with our petroleum producers.  That’s what I see as relevant.  The Saudi oil industry took a little hit, to the benefit of our oil producers.  U.S. defense contractors will sell the Saudis another immensely profitable armory.

“As far as the Chump lowering California’s fuel standards, it’s about the petroleum industry.

“It appears the economic slowdown will come soon enough to undercut the Chump’s re-election.  That’s good, because the management of the Democratic Party has not changed the funding model.

“Boeing can behave irresponsibly because they are no longer regulated.  Moral values aside (as they usually are), expecting any motivation but profitability from top management of a corporation is unrealistic.  I’ll note that one goal in Boeing’s process was avoiding additional pilot training.

“In that debate, O’Rourke could/should have offered a buyback, pretty much in the format of, ‘No, we’re going to buy your assault weapons from you.  We know you need money in Trump’s economy.’

“I’m not a Democrat; I’m a Green.  I’d pay for new and expanded social and infrastructure programs by halving the military budget, which could be done without reducing readiness, and by requiring the wealthy to pay at least the same bottom-line tax rate as the median income earner.  That would involve taxing capital gains and large estates appropriately and getting rid of many corporate tax breaks.  (If corporations are people, let’s tax them like people.)

“You want the President to work with a divided Congress.  I want both houses of Congress.

“We need to see the contents of the whistle-blower complaint about the Chump.  I’m inclined to believe he does criminal acts.  If not in this instance, we need to know that.  The act(s) might be anything from one more count of emoluments to literal treason.

“The Wikipedia article on impeachment 

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_States - History_of_federal_constitutional_impeachment)
is worth studying, including the Founders’ discussion of the reasons for it.  The House part of the process is long overdue.  Both prior impeachments of Presidents resulted in acquittals, but that doesn’t mean they had no effect.  We can count Nixon’s resignation as another result of the process, although that one ended short of actual impeachment for his lesser crimes.”

My response to the Blog:

            So, are you implying that the attack on the Saudi oil refineries was indeed a false-flag operation carried out by the U.S. oil and defense industry to spark a war for their profits?

            I hope California challenges the BIC in court.  What the BIC did was wrong, period, full stop, end of story.

            I am not hoping for an economic slowdown to defeat the BIC, but the signs suggest to me that such a slowdown is nearly inevitable.  I have no expectation that a slowdown will hurt the BIC’s reelection campaign.

            Yes, Boeing sought to avoid additional pilot training, as it is a cost to customers, and especially to avoid a separate type rating for the B737-MAX.  I have sympathy for the engineers, so I am not yet willing to condemn all of Boeing; only management who forced these foolish changes, so far.

            LOL.  Interesting supposition in the O’Rourke “take your guns” remark.

            I am none of the political parties and all of the political parties.  There is good in each political party.  I am just finding less and less so in the Republican Party—not yet zero, but approaching that threshold.

            Well, how about that!  We are in agreement on taxes.  While my (our) tax burden is reduced by various federal laws, the vast preponderance of tax breaks ONLY benefit the wealthy, so yes, I am all in for the wealthy to pay tax at an effective tax rate as you and me.  Corporations, like the wealthy, employ an army of accountants and lawyers to exploit every possible loophole in tax law.  Congress must reform tax law.

            I do not advocate for any party to dominate government, period, full stop.  The PPACA was a valiant attempt to improve health care in this Grand Republic, but it was doomed when the Democrats jammed it through without one Republican vote.  We need debate, negotiation, and compromise to find reasonable solutions.  One party dictating to the other on anything—laws, judges, enforcement, anything—is a recipe and encouragement for the tribalism we face today.  We must find the path to get passed this tribalism.  Frankly, I think retirement of the Senate Majority Leader is almost more important than the presidency.

            I am hearing voices suggesting the whistleblower should take his complaint directly to Congress, since he tried the proper, legal path for reporting potential wrongdoing and has been stonewalled by the aforementioned tribalism.  If I was him, I doubt I would be able to trust the FBI, given the compromise of the Justice Department—a very sad state of affairs in the history of this Grand Republic.  I am rapidly approaching my threshold of tolerance and may soon join you in advocating for impeachment regardless of the Senate Republican obstruction—make them go on record and vote.  The criminal conduct of the BIC simply cannot continue, and he is truly undisturbed by the mounting evidence against him.

 . . . Round two:

“There's no clear way to know what's a ‘false flag’ operation or spy operation generally.  Whatever happened, we can predict the U.S. response to it by following the money.

“I'm not ‘hoping’ for a slowdown, but recognizing that all booms come to an end.  My point is that if this one ends soon, as it well might, that will put a stop to the Chump supporters' favorite claim.

“We know that the let's-all-own-firearms crowd has a deep fear of emasculation.  Let's not trigger that.  Offering them money makes much more sense.

“I hadn't noticed the net good in the Republican Party recently, but I've only been following politics since the Nixon era.  The Democrats made an effort until their financial affairs changed under the Clintons.

“We will not get past this ‘tribalism’ without reform of government financial matters.  At this point, Senator McConnell is the sole actor enabling not only the Chump but the quieter changes for which he provides distractions.

“The current whistle-blower is in a very dangerous situation.  I appreciate their service and wish them well.”

 . . . my response to round two:

            Well, that is the point of false flag operations.  However, the USG has the ability to sort things out.  We may never know the truth.  Plus, as noted previously, it will be very difficult to trust whatever the USG tells us, predominantly because of the damage the BIC has done to credibility.  Yes, follow the money is usually a productive path of investigation.  We shall see.

            If the BIC standing on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and shooting someone will not shake his supporters, then I doubt a declining economy or recession will shake their support either.  I am not worried about the BIC; he is what he is, and he is incapable of improving and/or unwilling to improve.  I am far more apprehensive about his army of blindly loyal supporters.  We cannot and must not ignore the 62M American citizens who ignored the blatant flaws of the BIC to vote for him in the first place.

            OK, so you say on the buy back option.

            I’m not so sure the Clintons were that pivotal, but I accept your observations.

            I absolutely agree with your assessment of McConnell . . . and more.

            The current whistleblower affair is of immense concern for a host of reasons, not least of which is the obstruction of the BIC, and the defiance of the law and the Constitution by the BIC.  Whatever it was, the actions were serious enough to pass the ONI IG’s assessment as urgent, only to be stopped by the Justice Department OLC & DNI.  The proper criterion would have been to err on the side of caution, which they failed to do.  I suspect, when truth be told, we will find the BIC personally directed the stonewalling—another tick mark on the list of charges.  Like you, I laud the courage and integrity of the whistleblower.  I hope and trust s/he shall continue to enjoy protection as this is sorted out.

 . . . Round three:

“Following the money really comes into its own as a means of predicting the future.  Regardless of whether the Houthi rebels did as they claimed, someone helped them, or the whole thing was fabricated by someone else, we can guess the future by where the money goes.  I'll leave investigations for prosecutors or historians.

“Following the (perceptions about) money also leads to a better understanding of the Chump's supporters.  They're concerned about their position in society, which depends on two things that are closely related in those simple minds: money and white privilege.  If those go away, the Chump's promises fail and the supporters' feelings will change as if by magic.

“The Clintons were the face of the Democratic Leadership Council, which led the party away from the likes of me.  They're worth studying a little to understand the last couple of decades of U.S. politics.

“I worry about the whistle-blower.  He or she confronts the highest level of government, and all governments have people available who can and might dispose of inconvenient people.  One important function of bringing their complaint into the open is that it lessens the risk to the person. I'm not sure who you expect to protect them.  The spy agencies work for the government in question and their ethic is in-group loyalty.”

 . . . my response to round three:

            No disagreement, so we will watch, listen and pay attention.

            Certainly, money and white privilege (more the latter than the former) are factors, but I see BIC supporters in more complex terms, e.g., simple tribal loyalty cannot be discounted.  If the factors you note occupy a position on primacy, then I suspect we are entering a cataclysmic episode of change.

            You may well be correct regarding the Clintons.

            Like you, I worry about the whistleblower.  S/he abided the law and rules; the law had damn well better protect him/her, or it will gut the law in an instant.  Who should protect her/him?  Whatever number of good people who might remain in the USG.  The legal task belongs to ONI, Justice and Congress, so hope is under assault, but I continue to hold onto that hope, for now.

 . . . Round four:

 “I think you overestimate tribal loyalty.  If the Chump fails, he’s no longer part of the in-group.

“I question not whether people ‘should’ protect the whistleblower, but whether anyone who can, will.”

 . . . my response to round four:

            I would rather overestimate than risk underestimation.  Nonetheless, I truly hope you are correct.  At this point, I am not so sure.  I know there are people who tick the box simply because of party affiliation; it does not matter who or what is the candidate.  That sounds pretty tribal to me, and that is also why I use the term blindly loyal with reference to such folks.

 . . . Round five:

“I believe there are people who are indeed blindly loyal to the party.  However, the 2016 election showed that Democrats will stay home rather than vote for a lesser candidate.  Plenty of Republicans stayed home, too.  The Chump's loyalists are blind to his personality flaws and criminal tendencies, but if he lets the tribe down, they'll get over him.”

 . . . my response to round five:

            Oh yes indeedie!  From my perspective, Democrats stay home more than Republicans.  It is my opinion that Republicans vote.  I have not yet sensed the BIC’s tribe turning on him.  I am looking for that day.  Ultimately, Republicans want to control the instruments of power so they can impose their values on everyone else, and they will abandon the BIC in a heartbeat when they sense power is slipping from their control.  I cannot see them going down with the ship.  The prospect of losing control of the Senate, or worse losing control with a veto-proof majority against them, might well be that tipping point.  We still have a long way to go.  Hang on!

           My very best wishes to all.  Take care of yourselves and each other.

Cheers,

Cap                        :-)