Fire Hydrant of Freedom

Just wondering how there could be a crown prosecutor of Russia when the crown and his family were all murdered 99 years ago?

Or did Crown Princess Anastasia have children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren?

IMO, many Dem's think this is retaliation for the Obama was born in Kenya narrative made by many after his election in 2008.  Especially since Trump himself attempted to profit from it with his "reward" for "the real birth certificate."

Big difference though.  None of the actors in that false narrative were government officials, leaked government information, or created a plethora of government funded "investigations" to decide the issue. 

Also, if you scream loudly about the alleged "wolf" of Russian interference, you can distract investigators from those events that might be highly embarrassing to your side.  For example, Podesta's ties to Putin-backed Russian operatives get subsumed by the Trump narrative.  So, does Clinton's uranium deal.  And so does Podesta's embarrassing fall for a Russian phishing scheme for his gmail account.  And so does the Russian hack of the DNC network.   

This is why the Dem's began complaining loudly about Manafort's prior political consulting deals with the pro-Russian candidates in Ukraine.  And why they expanded upon it to include any Trump associate who may have done business in Russia - including the Trump corporations themselves. 

And when Trump surrogates float an idea to fire Mueller, that part of the bureaucracy responds with a leak that Mueller's group is "investigating" Trump's ties to Russia.  Which is nothing more likely than some people in that group were reviewing the FBI files on the entire matter.

The result will be billions of dollars and thousands of man hours spent investigating a non-event while the real Russian interference attempts get short shrift and the needed security measures to reduce the likelihood of successful future hacks are ignored and not implemented in the same manner that so many government agencies still operate on 30-50 year old computing networks that do not communicate with each other.

The inertia continues because all anyone seems interested in is protecting their phony baloney jobs.

Rubio's questioning of Comey distills well the gist of this political soap opera.

http://eblnews.com/video/sen-rubio-recaps-3-things-president-trump-asked-james-comey-125148

Comey did not like how his firing was handled by Trump.  He felt embarrassed and defamed (his own word) by some of Trump's comments about how he was viewed by others in the Bureau.  He then does not like Trump's tweet about Comey better be sure that Trump himself does not have any tapes of their conversations before he begins leaking to the press. So, Comey leaks his CYA memos recounting his conversations with Trump to the NYT via a friend who is a law school professor.  In other words, Comey did what Trump thought he would do ... leak. 

This enables Trump to get publicized that he has never been under investigation in the Russia probe.  And Comey is forced to admit that Trump agreed with him that it would be good to get the whole story out there and that it would be good for Trump to learn if some of his "satellites" in the campaign were in fact violating the law.

House subpoenas unmasking records concerning Rice, Brennan, and Samantha Power, UN Ambassador and wife of Cass Sunstein.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/31/house-intelligence-committee-sends-subpoenas-to-intel-agencies.html

Both theories hold that the President is a unitary executive.

The plain language I cited from Article II, Sec 1 says so. 

Congress has a check on the President through the Senate's power to confirm appointments of those officers to whom the President wishes to delegate part of his executive power.  This is a separate power written in Article II, Sec. 2.  Congress does not have the power to prevent the President from firing an officer; but it could express its political displeasure by screwing around with the confirmation proceedings for the successor. 

The President has a right to expect loyalty from his officers.  Of course, that expectations cannot include illegal acts.  But it does include policy preferences.  Thus, if Comey did not see the importance of investigating the leaks and unmaskings of Trump people, then Trump has the power to fire him and replace him with an FBI Director that will investigate those issues. 

This is not Watergate where the burglars were caught in the Watergate Office complex during the commission of that felony against office of the DNC.  And the burglars were directed by a member of the President's staff and were funded in part by campaign contributions to the Committee to Re-Elect the President.  And, then, Nixon used his powers as President to keep the investigation from uncovering the links between the burglars and his aides and campaign staff.

This is a case in which Trump did not trust Comey to carry out his policies.  He saw how Comey had interfered in the election.  Comey would not give him any affirmation of loyalty to Trump's policy priorities.  So, Trump did not order any investigations stopped.  But he wanted to get his own guy in there.  Whether or not Trump's assessment of Comey is accurate, Trump still has the power to fire him and replace him with a different FBI Director.

Given the performance of the same group of agenda-driven people after Benghazi in 2012, I distrust every alleged leak coming from unnamed sources. 

The current atmosphere really demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the power of the President as executive and the legislation that created the 10 year term for the FBI Director.

All executive power is vested in the President.  Congress cannot take any of that power away from the President by legislation.  The President can order the DOJ or the FBI to conduct any investigation he wants conducted.  Also, he can order the DOJ and FBI Director not to conduct any investigation that he does not want conducted.  The President can make his views about any investigation known to the FBI or DOJ.  The President is the ultimate executive power and his delegation of duties to members of his cabinet or staff does not strip the President of that constitutional power.

This is no different than the Commander-in-Chief clause.  The President can overrule any commander's decision about anything.  He is the top dog in that chain of command.  In fact, many writers applaud JFK's decision to override the Joint Chiefs during the Cuban Missile Crisis and impose a naval blockade instead of ordering air strikes.  Same with Truman and MacArthur during the Korean War.

The 10 year term for FBI Director was established to prevent another J. Edgar Hoover from recurring.  That term places a limit on how long the Director can act before his position requires a review and oversight by both the President and Congress.  This limit was not added in order to make the Director somehow independent of the President.  You would not want a national police force to be independent of oversight for 10 years. 

The constitutional issue is whether the President abused his executive power when he asked Comey to move on from Flynn now that Flynn had resigned the day before.  And whether the President abused his power when he fired Comey on May 9.  And when he asked Comey whether he (Trump) was the subject of any FBI investigation.

IMO, the answer in all 3 cases is, "No."  Looking at these issues in reverse order.

3.  Trump, as the repository of all executive power under the Constitution, has a right to know if he is the subject of any FBI investigations before he makes any decisions that could constitute an abuse of power.  That includes the decision to fire Comey.  The AG and his underlings owe any President that duty because each President is elected by the majority of votes in the Electoral College.  Those election results reflect the consent of the governed for that 4-year term.  And the duty of all federal employees and officers is to the Constitution.  An act that constitutes an abuse of power under one set of circumstances and not an abuse of power under another set should not depend upon the decision of an underling not to disclose certain facts to POTUS.  Trump had a right to know all of the facts relevant to any personnel decision before making it.

2.  Comey served at the pleasure of any President who held office during his maximum term as FBI Director.  He owed any President loyalty to the extent that the President did not violate the Constitution or was seeking not to faithfully execute the laws of the land.  If Comey did not see the current leaks from the Executive office as a priority, then Trump had every power, right and duty to fire him.  Comey had no more power to set the parameters of the counterintelligence investigation into Russia or any other investigation into anything related to the 2016 election than MacArthur had to cross the Yalu into China aganst TRuman's wishes.

1.  Any President has the power to tell any subordinate what he thinks should be done in any investigation.  Clearly Trump did not tell Comey to end any investigation into Flynn because that investigation has supposedly progressed to grand jury subpoenas.  The actions of Comey and the Bureau after the Feb 14 conversation prove that Comey was not ordered to do anything.  Thus, Trump did not abuse his executive power.

Good choice for independent counsel.  But this will not stop the drumbeat.

marc - why is it inappropriate for the President to tell the FBI Director how he sees the priorities in the counterintelligence investigation into Russian election interference when there is not AG and no Deputy AG?  Was it unwise?  Yes, due to the fact that Comey was part of the swamp.  But not inappropriate and not obstruction of justice.  My guess is that when we see the entire memo and hear its full context, Trump was telling Comey to investigate the leaks with as much vigor as they were investigating the Russians.  In that context, getting past Flynn now that he has resigned is a completely proper comment since Yates had presented the whole issue as a personnel problem - not a criminal investigation. 

If this is so bad, then why didn't Comey report it or resign?  After all, this supposedly occurred 3 months ago.  And the investigation of Flynn has continued.  

Since Comey worked for the FBI, his memos are FBI property.  We should be able to see all of Comey's memos about all of his meetings with superiors while he was FBI Director.

The Russian offer is a good way for Putin to get back those chemicals, delivery mechannisms and other agents that he and the USSR sent to Assad's father and to the late Saddam Hussein.  We would not want to find that a permanent member of the UN Security Council had been trading those items in violation of the 1993 UN Treaty - would we?

Yesterday, I finished a one year term as a federal grand juror.  Every other week we would meet and review the cases presented to us by the US Attorney before any case could proceed to indictment and arrest.  It was a great inconvenience to my work.  It also interfered with my ability to participate consistently in this group.

Inside the jury room, I was impressed by the seriousness that some of “the lowest common denominator” jurors applied to their duty.  Everyone understood that we stood between an unjust indictment and the accused.  And many of the presumptive more highly educated (mainly teachers) were pushovers for government authority.  

Here are some thoughts.

1.  Every federal agent is called a special agent; but no one could explain to me why they are special.

2.  The federal government has defined for itself a huge amount of power; and it has assumed all of that power and then some.  The lip service paid to the Commerce Clause is scary.  Everything is now a federal crime as long as something used in the crime has been a part of interstate commerce at one time in its existence.  That includes a firearm or ammunition purchased legally in a private sale in your own State as long as that firearm or ammo was manufactured years earlier in another State. (When this applies to a convicted felon, there is not a lot of sympathy.  But when will it be applied to everyone?)  It also includes file sharing if the contents of the file were ever involved in interstate commerce even though the accused himself did not use interstate commerce to obtain the file.  The government's theory is that if an ISP owns a server in another State, that is a sufficient interstate nexus even if the user's packets never left the State. (Again, when this concept is applied to a person selling child pornography, it engenders little sympathy for the accused.  What happens when it is applied to someone sharing a political file?)There is no crime for which the Federal government cannot prosecute a person.  (For example, it is a federal crime to possess or brandish a firearm if that action would constitute another crime.)  The most cynical were bank fraud cases in which a lender makes a bad loan and then co-opts the federal criminal justice system to try and collect the bad debt via criminal prosecution by flyspecking a liar loan application.

3.  The federal government is devoting a lot of its resources to the apprehension and eviction of illegal aliens.  That was the largest group of cases that we heard.  But the southern border is like a sieve.  Unless that border is secured, there is no point to other reforms.

4.  I wonder what is intended for the new agency called Homeland Security Investigations.  Keep an eye on this agency because it seems to be popping up in a lot of different situations.  It was originally the new name for ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement).  But we encountered their “special” agents in more than just immigration and customs cases.

5.  Be very careful with your personal data.  The new growing crime is acquisition of your personal data by crooks who then electronically file false income tax returns under your data and receive large refunds sent to debit cards that they control.  They get your information from all sorts of different places including medical facilities.   They don't get the data from hacking computers.  They have people on the inside who are authorized to look at your data.  They are paid to record it and transmit it to the ringleader.  

6.  The IRS does not need a search warrant to invade your privacy.  To us, it was apparent that it was out of control months before the current scandal hit the media.

7.  HHS seeks to indict people and recover money on the basis of statistical samples from "audits" rather than actual proof of every fraudulent billing.

I was glad that I served.  There are a lot of well-intentioned and hard working bureaucrats.  However, the power assumed by the federal government is all-encompassing.  We no longer have a real federal system.  We have a national government with a lot of subservient provinces instead of a federal republic of States.  When the feds need to bolster their stats, they reach into the State system and federalize a case.  And the States are only too happy to transfer the financial cost of these prosecutions to the Feds.

I'm not as concerned about the federal employees as I am concerned about the Congresses that have enacted all of these laws.  They all took oaths to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.  Now, the social contract seems to be ignored for the mere sake of expediency.

It would not surprise me that these "leaks" are still another cover story to justify the decision not to respond. 

Whether or not the Benghazi facility was a consulate or a CIA operation is irrelevant to me.  Likely, it was used as both.  After all, Benghazi is the capital of the old province of Cyrenaica.  Also, it was a center of the resistance to Qaddafi.  The two "contractors" were killed at a safe house. 

Rather than devising these convoluted explanations, Occam's Razor says that this attack was launched on 9-11-12 as part of a coordinated effort in North Africa to remind the US that despite the death of UBL, the forces of the new al Qaidas have been dispersed but not defeated.  Benghazi was an easier target than Tripoli. This contradicted Obama's message at the Pentagon that morning.  The administration's quick response turned out to be wrong.  They persisted in the false narrative mainly for political reasons and because their polls disclosed that most Americans did not view this as a major election issue.  They went too far with Rice, but she was a perfect unwitting accomplice.  By the time the story began to unravel, it did not matter any more in the election.

It will settle down now and consolidate for several weeks.  Q3 earnings will be announced around 15 November.  Expect some more action around that time.

Too bad the contributions weren't made in the form of toys. 

Hey crafty,

You like your LNOP? 

Another 52 week high and closing high today.  I think that the company is close to placing the remainder of its secondary.  It has already sold 900,000 shares of the secondary to one private investor with a last name of Cheney.  The stock is up 50% during this placement.

Here are some more fundamental tidbits that I have discovered since my last post here.  The newly announced NP-4 chip will be cost competitive with ASIC's.  This is huge because it opens up the opportunity to move downspeed with cheaper,slower chips in other parts of the network.  It will be usable with any company's switch fabric.  It incorporates the physical layer on to the chip and includes many functions that now require additional chips in a linecard.  Market share in the target market is about 50% higher than any assumption out there.  The initial ramp will run through 2012.  It has design wins at Lockheed Martin, Motorola and with the Israeli government.

The more I learn about this company, the better its prospects look.  Gilder may have stumbled onto another big winner like QCOM at its zenith and EQIX.

EZChip NPU's operate in line cards in the metro networks.  These cards are installed in switches that route traffic from the core networks, the big pipes between cities, to the netwroks that ring the various metro areas.  They are also installed to route traffic from the metro netwroks to the networks; e.g., enterprise networks, and other end users that exist at the other edge of the metro network.  Their appeal is their programmability which is very useful to the carriers in the metro because their functions can be adjusted to meet changing circumstances.

LNOP, the parent of EZChip is a fabless company.  Thus, war in Israel would not impact the company's ability to produce NPU's.  They are produced at Taiwan Semi and IBM.  The company backs up its intellectual property in several ways.  It does have operations here in the US.  They are mainly sales offices.

LVLT and Broadwing/Corvis focused more upon the core network.  There is not as great a need for lots of programmable switching in the core because there are not as many destinations for traffic as exist in the metro networks.  They can install ASIC's in the core more efficiently.  However, in the metro, the ASIC may not be as efficient because the carriers would need to replace them frequently as needs changed.  The NPU serves these needs better.

EZChip just announced a successful design of a 100gb NPU that should be ready for production in 2-3 years.

Revenues are expected to ramp seriously beginning in 2008.  A good stock to own in conjunction with EZChip is NETL.  They make a Layer 7 solution to overflow that occurs at that point.  The performance of that stock also gives the investor an idea of what to expect from LNOP.

Compare this news wire story from today

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061025/sc_nm/environment_pacific_dc

with the following excerpt from the introduction to Michael Crichton's novel State of Fear.

"In late 2003, at the Sustainable Earth Summit Conference in Johannesburg, the Pacific island nation of Vanutu announced that it was preparing a lawsuit against the Envrionmental Protection Agency of the United States over global warming.  Vanutu stood only a few feet above sea level, and the island's eight thousand inhabitantswere in danger of having to evacuate their country because of rising sea levels caused by global warming..."

Of course, Crichton's critics claimed that he exaggerated the methods and goals of the environmental movement.  Did he?

This has got to be the most overly-analyzed war in history!  Everyone is likely partly right and partly wrong in their assessments.  However, it should be remembered that a full political solution in the United States took about 20 years from the First Continental Congress to the final ratification of the Constitution by the 12th and 13th colonies.  There were two failed governmental systems before the Constitution, the Continental Congress and the Articles of Confederation.  Sixty-eight years after Washington began his second term as President, political factions in the South commenced another armed revolt against the central government.

Consequently, I do not understand why there is an expectation of quickly establishing a stable government, let alone a popularly elected one, in Iraq.  Our own history tells us not to expect stability in Iraq until at least 2011 and a stable governmental system there until 2023.