Analytics

Friday, June 30, 2023

Post #6300 M: McClanahan on Could Lincolnian Nationalism Save America? ; Stossel and Lomberg on Solving the Biggest Problems; Censorship Fail: Americans turning Conservative

 Quote of the Day

The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is 
to be in reality what we would appear to be.
Socrates  

McClanahan on Could Lincolnian Nationalism Save America?

Stossel and Lomberg on Solving the Biggest Problems

Censorship Fail: Americans turning Conservative

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Political Cartoon


Courtesy of Henry Payne via Townhall

Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2012

Maroon 5, "One More Night" 

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Thursday, June 29, 2023

Post #6299 M: Capital Gains Taxes Destroy Wealth; 8 Facts about the SECOND AMENDMENT; McClanahan on Mark Levin is Really Bad at History

 Quote of the Day

You have succeeded in life 
when all you really want is 
only what you really need.
Vernon Howard  

Capital Gains Taxes Destroy Wealth

8 Facts about the SECOND AMENDMENT

McClanahan on Mark Levin is Really Bad at History

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Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2012

Taylor Swift, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"

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Wednesday, June 28, 2023

Post #6298 M: The feds sue Amazon; Myth #4: Every Time the Fed Tightens the Money Supply, Interest Rates Rise (Or Fall)

Quote of the Day

Take ownership of an idea 
and the idea will take ownership of you.
Mark Victor Hansen   

Man Caught Drinking Bud Light Insists He's Not Gay

The feds sue Amazon

Myth #4: Every Time the Fed Tightens the Money Supply, Interest Rates Rise (Or Fall)

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Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Michael Ramirez via Townhall

Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2012

Flo Rida, "Whistle"

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Tuesday, June 27, 2023

Post #6297 M: McClanahan on I'm Confused About Juneteenthl Explaining Record Profits and Inflation

Quote of the Day

Let every man be respected as an individual 
and no man idolized.
Albert Einstein  

McClanahan on I'm Confused About Juneteenth

Explaining Record Profits and Inflation

How To Destroy Trump

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Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Henry Payne via Townhall

Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2012 

Carly Rae Jepsen, "Call Me Maybe"

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Monday, June 26, 2023

Post #6296 M: Texas Dam Turns Family Farm into Lake. State Refuses to Pay; McClanahan on Originalism; Why Governments Love Secrecy and Hate Whistleblowers

 Quote of the Day

So, then, to every man his chance 
-- to every man, regardless of his birth, his shining golden opportunity 
-- to every man his right to live, to work, to be himself, 
to become whatever his manhood and his vision can combine to make him 
-- this, seeker, is the promise of America.
Thomas Wolfe  

Texas Dam Turns Family Farm into Lake. State Refuses to Pay

McClanahan on Originalism

Why Governments Love Secrecy and Hate Whistleblowers

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Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Michael Ramirez via Townhall

Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2012

Gotye, "Somebody That I Used to Know" (feat. Kimbra)

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Sunday, June 25, 2023

Post #6295 Social Media Digest

 Facebook

Twitter

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Post #6294 J

 Pandemic Report

The latest stats from CDC:


On the zoonotic vs lab leak origins of COVID-19:

US intelligence agencies found no direct evidence that the Covid-19 pandemic stemmed from an incident at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, a report declassified on Friday said.

The four-page report by the office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI) said the US intelligence community still could not rule out the possibility that the virus came from a laboratory, however, and had not been able to discover the origins of the pandemic.

No deductible coverage for COVID-19 ends next year:

High-deductible health plans (HDHPs) will generally no longer be permitted to cover testing for and the treatment of COVID-19 without a deductible or with a deductible below the minimum deductible (for self-only or family coverage) for an HDHP as of the end of 2024, the IRS said Friday in Notice 2023-37.

Moderna (mRNA vaccine maker) has submitted an application to the FDA for its fall booster targeting the XBB.1.5 subvariant of the virus

Other Notes

With just under a week left in the month, it's unlikely I'll improve on last month's below-trend numbers in part because it's a shorter month. It was a modestly improved week with one day above-average pageviews.

Just into summer this week, and Hallmark is promoting its upcoming Christmas (Movies) in July tradition. Sister channel HMM started its companion week this weekend. I don't follow all their programming shifts; I think HMM used to do a Christmas movie every Thursday evening like HC's every Friday evening. The first promo I've seen for an original cable Christmas is, surprise, surprise, the umpteenth royal theme Christmas movie.

Tech issues seem to crawl out of the woodwork. I've primarily used Thunderbird as an email client after Microsoft desupported Outlook Express. I quickly found the successor, Windows Mail, unusable for my tastes (it took forever to load message folders). I've since then integrated multiple external email accounts and constructed detailed email filters. Even though I currently have a licensed copy of Outlook (and have used Outlook at work for years), I really don't want to recreate another set of filters plus I can run nearly synchronous free Thunderbird clients on different PC's using cloud storage

I've occasionally run into Microsoft account integration issues. One day (no password change) it stopped connecting. Had something happened to my account? I went online and had no issue connecting. I noticed now my Thunderbird connection was working. Did Microsoft implement some timeout if you haven't accessed your account online in a while or was it simply a temporary server outage? Not sure.

A recent Thunderbird upgrade seemed to require reconfiguring my email clients, and the Microsoft account was difficult to implement using the default configuration. (I think I mentioned it in a journal post a few weeks back.)  Long story short, I ended up having to do a manual configuration, and I found a UT post with similar relevant setups.

So, over the weekend my Microsoft account in Thunderbird stopped working. Oh, there are workarounds, like my copy of Outlook, and I can run my Outlook profile through Mailstore (and there are ways to access Mailstore folders in Thunderbird). Long story short, I ran an alternative manual configuration of the account in Thunderbird which is currently functional.

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Post #6293 M: Woke Parents Tour Christian College; The Philosophical Roots of Wokeism with Bishop Robert Barron; "Family Friendly" Pride Celebrations

 Quote of the Day

He who finds diamonds must grapple in mud and mire 
because diamonds are not found in polished stones. 
They are made.
Henry B. Wilson  

Woke Parents Tour Christian College

The Philosophical Roots of Wokeism with Bishop Robert Barron

"Family Friendly" Pride Celebrations

Choose Life

Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2012

Fun, "We Are Young" ft. Janelle Monáe

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Saturday, June 24, 2023

Post #6292 M: Commentary: My Initial Take on the Trump Federal Indictment

 I have to discuss my own job history to provide context for my reaction to the indictment. Now the familiar reader can probably anticipate my reaction; I left the GOP (although never politically active) over Trump's 2016 nomination, supported both impeachments and have written literally thousands of critical tweets and up to dozens of blog posts. The recent indictment was hardly unexpected but I didn't really expect the nature and extent of charges.

In the aftermath of a stalled academic career due to a recession, I had reinvented myself as a professional Oracle DBA. My UH dissertation chair had taught a couple of graduate database courses; UH had installed an early version of Oracle on an IBM mainframe compatible; the campus DBA had such a hard time keeping the database open our entire class had to take an incomplete one semester. So that experience was always in the back of my mind if I ever needed to resume my professional IT career. Initially I faced a chicken or the egg problem with no professional exposure to Oracle. I got my foot in the door via a low-salary contractor at the EPA in Chicago and spent most of the next decade in the local area, more recently as a contractor or consultant. Work opportunities had largely dried up by 2004, when an Indian American company offered me a contractor role st National Archives in College Park, MD. In part, that explains my obsession over the fight between NARA and Trump on Presidential records.

I had a cluster of federal contractor gigs over the following decade, but for the most part I was shut out of the significant clearance job market, another chicken or the egg problem. It was next to impossible to get sponsored for a clearance; you're not billable and if the lengthy process clearance is denied, they have to restart their search.

I ended up moving to WV on an expiring contract; there were other DBA gigs if I were to stay in WV, e.g., at the FBI, but you had to qualify top secret through an even more stringent chicken or the egg process. I did get a contingent offer for a Pittsburgh area Department of Energy (comparable to TS) Q clearance gig. I remember a 2+ hour interview over my 75-oage background check at a fast-food place (she wanted to use the library but for some scheduling reason it was unavailable). It was like Waiting for Godot. My landlady had told her my apartment was unavailable my first week in WV (I had to pay the bill out of my pocket; commuting from over 200 miles away was not an option) So my POC calls screaming at me over a "material omission" to my paperwork, griping she now had to make a return visit to question motel management and staff about me. Seriously, dude? I checked in and checked out. End of story.

But a separate story I've mentioned in the past takes the cake, Apparently, they went to a 2009-10 employer headquarters and found it vacated. So, now they're demanding to know why I "lied" about my job history. It's not like former employers keep in contact over business issues. I had referenced Google to complete my background questionnaire, It took a lot of Googling to figure out what had happened, and the fact an investigator couldn't do the same sucks. It turns out my former employer had lost its key USPTO contract recompete; I saw a note they were suing the adverse award. I eventually found the CEO's resume on LinkedIn, mentioning they closed down the company in 2012.

I had been told by my agency it took their last candidate a couple of weeks, then it was "any day now", then weeks turned into months. Soon even my agency didn't return my calls. Not a rejection, but indirectly I heard that new DOE civilians automatically got priority. I got contacted by a Charleston, SC USMC vendor on an expiring contract. They tried to sell me the recompete was a lock, but the real sell was getting to update my EBS Apps DBA experience.

Of course, getting a clearance is not a "one-and-done" process but more of an ongoing one including periodic reviews and self-reports of relevant events, This includes adverse lifestyle changes (e.g., debt and personal bankruptcy), any legal issues, including arrests, unusual changes in behavior (e.g., emotional stability) and/or exacerbating dependency issues (e.g., alcohol, drug abuse, gambling), developing connections with foreigners or terrorists: anything that an adversary could use to compromise a cleared person for access.

Then there 'are the physical access and related restrictions/protections. You can't bring a cellphone, other smart devices or recordable media (e.g., flash drive into a SCIF, or a secure facility where you can access classified documents from secured containers or SIPR emails. I recall having to be escorted into the vault and having to do training before I could open the vault or a secure container. Typically, you might require separate tokens with multi-factor authentication before accessing NIPR and SIPR connected devices. There are protocols for marking media, scanning for malware, etc. for things like software updates or authorized data extracts. If a visitor is escorted into the SCIF, personnel are alerted so their work can be shielded. You may be subject to searches going in or out of the facility.

Just as a side note, when I, as an ensign, was training as a Nuclear Power School math instructor, we had to complete certain program requirements, like a course on reactor principles. I think the general constructs behind the nuclear-powered subs were well-known, in the open academic/industry literature, so I'm not sure why but we were required to mark our notes, and we couldn't take them home to study. Perhaps it was training in the classification process

The big picture is, as a DBA, I was more interested in maintaining the technical infrastructure than in functional access to sensitive data. For example, I might need to ensure all security patching on a database server is current, the current software version is actively supported by the vendor, support multi-factor authentication and enforce use of complex, frequently rotated passwords, verify database connection connections are encrypted as well as data in the database, etc. Various processes are audited and reviewed. Server files are controlled for need-to-know access. PII/ HIPAA data access is restricted. Proactive database monitoring is done for things like showstopper resource issues. Backups and flexible, rapid recovery strategies are reviewed. I'm not implying the above list is exhaustive, but it is a good taste of common concerns. If you have a disk failure, DoD retains custody of the disk to ensure it is degaussed or otherwise making any residual data unrecoverable

Of course, a cleared DBA must maintain various vendor and/or security certifications (e.g., Sec+) and various vendor and security trainings or refreshers like the ubiquitous Cyber Awareness, TARP, OPSEC, derivative classification, information security. To give a relevant example, any one of the photographs from the Trump indictment is 50 times worse than anything you will encounter in Cyber Awareness.

"Do as I say, not as I do?"   When I exhaustively reviewed the timeline of Trump v NARA, I came upon anecdotal incidents in media reports like a classified document found in a Trump White House women's restroom and some reports of aides having to retrieve documents from Trump's living quarters. Now I've been a critic of Trump's impulsive, undisciplined, shallow judgment and decision-making. Trump thinks he's above the law; he's a total hypocrite. One of his key talking points in the 2016 campaign was over alleged classified documents on Clinton's email server; In fact, in 2018, Trump signed into law tougher sanctions for classified data mishandling.

It wasn't just the anecdotal incidents mentioned above that troubled me about Trump's stewardship over the nation's secrets, but this incident from 2017:

The Post, citing current and former U.S. officials, reported Monday evening that the information relayed by the president to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak "jeopardized a critical source of intelligence" on ISIS:

"The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said Trump's decision to do so endangers cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trump's meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency...Trump 'revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.' "

Trump also reportedly boasted to the Russians about the intelligence he was receiving, telling the two men, "I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day":"Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the United States learned only through the espionage capabilities of a key partner. He did not reveal the specific intelligence-gathering method, but he described how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances. Most alarmingly, officials said, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic State's territory where the U.S. intelligence partner detected the threat.

Trump's narcissism is a fatal character flaw that puts our nation's security at risk. It wasn't even our own intelligence effort; it undermined the trust relationship with a key ally and put the covert operator's life at risk. Trump didn't have the judgment and self-discipline to keep his mouth shut. He was trying to impress 2 Russians for no legitimate reason, no matter how he tries to gaslight us otherwise.

I'm not going to go into detail here over the battle between Trump and NARA, eventually resulting in an FBI search at MAL. First, as a former POTUS, Trump had no need to know or right to possess classified or other government documents. 

Trump has been unambiguously wrong from the start; let me start with a few key points:

  • Trump had no right to government documents, period, on leaving office This includes any and all classified documents, even allegedly declassified ones, and any Presidential records.
  • "The PRA requires that all records created by Presidents (and Vice-Presidents) be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) at the end of their administrations...The Presidential Records Act (PRA) requires the President to separate personal documents from Presidential records before leaving office.,, There is no history, practice, or provision in law for presidents to take official records with them when they leave office to sort through. If a former President or Vice President finds Presidential records among personal materials, he or she is expected to contact NARA in a timely manner to secure the transfer of those Presidential records to NARA.Prior to the end of his administration, President Trump did not communicate any intent to NARA with regard to funding, building, endowing, and donating a Presidential Library to NARA under the Presidential Libraries Act. Accordingly, the Trump Presidential records have been and continue to be maintained by NARA in the Washington, DC, area, "
  • "Presidential records are ... prepared or utilized for, or circulated or communicated in the course of, transacting Government business.  Personal records include “diaries, journals, or other personal notes serving as the functional equivalent of a diary or journal".  The Presidential Records Act (PRA) requires the President to separate personal documents from Presidential records before leaving office.,, The PRA provides very specific requirements should a President seek to dispose of Presidential records that they determine “no longer have administrative, historical, informational, or evidentiary value.This must be done while they are in office, and they must first obtain the views of the Archivist of the U.S. in writing."
Trump fought returning records  (actually allowing a NARA pickup for nearly a full year, and only then when NARA threatened to escalate to the Justice Dept or Congress. Trump eventually released 15 boxes of government property NARA soon discovered there were marked classified documents. It was right for Trump to return them, of course, but I don't think NARA expected them and escalated the discovery. I don't know the context: maybe witnesses {Secret Service?) mentioned other documents/boxes  or Trump had mentioned at the pickup he was still going through boxes. In any event several weeks later, Trump was served a subpoena for remaining documents in  his possession, and his lawyers certified the government had everything in an early summer pickup. The government seemed to believe Trump did not release everything (witnesses?) leading to a MAL search in August when Trump was away.

The nature of the criminal indictment is beyond the scope of this post.

The indictment accuses Trump of breaking seven laws, including 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information and single counts of false statements and representations, conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document, concealing a document in a federal investigation and a scheme to conceal.

 I know at one time the government told Trump (before the MAL search) that he needed to padlock and video capture access to storage. And apparently a lot of boxes were moved just before an on-site government visit.  And let's be clear: the typical SCIF goes beyond padlocks and video monitoring. And MAL had a number of public events and did not vet visitors like DoD.does.

The indictment seems to be compelling, although Trump deserves his day in court. The documents he stole posed a grave risk to US security if released.  At one point Trump seems to suggest they work around the subpoena [obstruction of justice] . At another point, in a recorded conversation:

Prosecutors investigating former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents have obtained a July 2021 [post-subpoena] voice recording of Trump reportedly describing a classified document he kept at his Florida home, Mar-a-Lago.The voice recording was created by Trump’s own assistant during an interview of Trump by aides to his former chief of staff Mark Meadows, who was writing a book. On the recording, Trump reportedly talked about a document in his possession — believed to be a memo by Gen. Mark Milley about U.S.'s options to take military action against Iran — that Trump described as still classified.

If any cleared federal employee or contractor did a mere fraction of what is in Trump's indictment, they would be serving time. Trump is not above the law.                                                             

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Post #6291 M: McClanahan on Is Trump's Indictment Good for the Republican Party? ; Gov’t Caught Stealing Game Camera to Spy on Owner

 Quote of the Day

History is always written wrong, 
and so always needs to be rewritten.
George Santayana  

McClanahan on Is Trump's Indictment Good for the Republican Party?

Gov’t Caught Stealing Game Camera to Spy on Owner

Political Cartoon

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Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2012

Katy Perry, "Part of Me"

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Friday, June 23, 2023

Post #6290 M: McClanahan on Why Has Liberalism "Failed" and What Do We Do About It? ; NY Times pins gov’t failures on free markets

 Quote of the Day

God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. 
The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. 
The part which is wrong will be discontented, 
in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. 
If they remain quiet under such misconceptions,it is 
lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. 
...And what country can preserve its liberties,
 if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, 
that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? 
Let them take arms. 
The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. 
What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? 
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, 
with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
Thomas Jefferson  

McClanahan on Why Has Liberalism "Failed" and What Do We Do About It?

Grooming??? During PRIDE MONTH???

NY Times pins gov’t failures on free markets

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Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2012

Kelly Clarkson, "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)"

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Thursday, June 22, 2023

Post #6289 M: McClanahan on Why is Every Crisis in America a Constitutional Crisis? ; Stossel on America is the Least Free We’ve Ever Been

 Quote of the Day


Great is the road I climb, but the garland offered by an easier effort is not worth the gathering. - Sextus Propertius  

Political Humor

McClanahan on Why is Every Crisis in America a Constitutional Crisis?

Stossel on America is the Least Free We’ve Ever Been in a New Ranking of Economic Freedom

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Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Gary Varvel via Townhall

Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2012

Adele, "Set Fire to the Rain"

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Wednesday, June 21, 2023

Post #6288 M: Myth #3: Tax Increases Are a Cure for Deficits; McClanahan on Activist Historian Explains June 19, Sort Of; Fed Chair Powell: Inflation is stuck

 Quote of the Day

The man who strikes first admits 
that his ideas have given out. 
Chinese proverb  

Myth #3: Tax Increases Are a Cure for Deficits

McClanahan on Activist Historian Explains June 19, Sort Of

Fed Chair Powell: Inflation is stuck

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Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Michael Ramirez via Townhall

Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2012

LMFAO, "Sexy and I Know It"

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Tuesday, June 20, 2023

Post #6287 M: When a Jury Duty Scheme Backfires...; South Dakota and Tourism During the Pandemic; Yield Curve now predicts deep recession

 Quote of the Day

The human mind treats a new idea the same way 
the body treats a strange protein; 
it rejects it.
PB Medawar  

When a Jury Duty Scheme Backfires...

South Dakota and Tourism During the Pandemic

Yield Curve now predicts deep recession

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Michael Ramirez via Townhall

Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2011

Rihanna, "We Found Love" ft. Calvin Harris. And that's a wrap on 2011.

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Monday, June 19, 2023

Post #6286 Rant of the Day: Why I Dropped the "Good Morning Liberty" Podcast

 I subscribe to a limited number of podcasts, all of which I frequently disagree with from time to time. Of these, due to time constraints, only a select few are libertarian. Cato Institute has probably been the longest subscribed (I'm still working through a backlog of about 2900 episodes.) Justin Amash has a more recent podcast but hasn't released episodes for several weeks now. I used to clip episodes of Tom Woods over 2 stretches in the blog but had 2 unpleasant personal encounters with him, once in a former Facebook group (it had to with his cheap shot at Mitt Romney), the second in an email exchange (he sends out a periodic self-promotional email). The second one dealt with his obsession with COVID-19, and let's just say his zealous pursuit of an alternative perspective. As I recall, he was antagonistic to attempts to control the disease for children. When I rebuked his nonsense, he responded with a personal attack and removed me from his email list. I didn't mind spam emails going away on their own, but I had no desire to promote his content moving forward. (It was more than COVID-19; for example, he and Lew Rockwell had this weird libertarian crush on Trump (I think they like his anti-establishment rhetoric). Just while I wrote this, I found him in a search characterizing Trump's indictment as "ridiculous".)  I realize most people don't share any combination of my opinions, but the point I'm making is my concerns over his content had been building over time, and it was just a matter of time before I moved onto other sources for the blog.

Off the top of my head, I don't recall how I initially stumbled across the "Good Morning Liberty" podcast headed by Nate Thurston and Chuck Thompson, childhood friends who grew up in rural Illinois, had brief music careers (different bands) and currently live in the Nashville area.  I think Nate flipped houses after ending his music career and among other things has developed a day trading training portal. Chuck has been more involved in HealthCare software/services company management. The basic context is they probably grew up with traditional GOP /pro-interventionist views and credit Ron Paul with his (Nate's) migration to liberty.  It seems like Chuck is the senior partner with a heavy travel schedule, so it seems like Nate goes solo half the time and probably does most of the talking on joint episodes.

As I write, I don't quite recall the context of how I stumbled across GML It was likely a passing reference in an Internet search. I do think they have a Youtube version of their podcast, but I've never clipped it in my daily blog. (I may decide to start clipping their signature Friday Dumb BLEEP of the Week episodes.) The problem I generally had been uneven quality and Nate often goes over the line. Although Nate says he's never voted for Trump, he, like many libertarians, has this weird buy into Trump's talking points on numerous scandals, including the impeachments and DocumentGate. (I focus on a related issue to the first impeachment below.) Nate is also pretty much of a vaccine skeptic. (I think Chuck did do a vaccine for foreign travel.) I've written nearly a dozen posts criticizing mostly Nate rants.

So, the latest post-election GOP House majority obsession deals with this alleged FBI informant implying Joe Biden and his son Hunter being tied to Burisma through $5M bribes, supposedly backed up by a series of secretly recorded conversations with the Bidens.

For guidance, we have to reference the infamous call between Trump and Zelensky which is the scenario behind Trump's first impeachment. In 2014, Hunter Biden was appointed to the board of Burisma, founded by oligarch Zlochevsky. Zlochevsky was a former Ukraine minister who was suspected of corruption (embezzlement, money laundering, mineral rights transfers, etc.) by locals, the UK, the US, etc. Obama had delegated Ukraine handling post-revolution to his VP. It should be pointed out certain White House analysts considered Hunter's presence on the Burisma board as a potential conflict of interest.

Shokin was appointed solicitor general in the spring of 2015. He was particularly unpopular for rejecting prosecution of those who shot demonstrators during the revolution. Shokin argued his predecessor's files had disappeared. Under Shokin's year or so tenure, he slow-walked high-profile investigations and in fact targeted local anti-corruption groups, The UK had to drop a money-laundering case against Zlochevsky:

Hunter Biden had joined the board of Burisma in April 2014, the same month that British officials froze Zlochevsky’s London bank accounts containing $23 million. Britain’s Serious Fraud Office, an independent government agency, was conducting a money-laundering investigation and refused to allow Zlochevsky or Burisma Holdings, the company’s chief legal officer, and another company owned by Zlochevsky access to the accounts.

But the British money-laundering investigation was stymied by Ukrainian prosecutors’ refusal to cooperate. The Ukrainian prosecutors would not turn over documents needed in the British investigation, and without that documentary evidence, a British court ordered Britain’s Serious Fraud Office to unfreeze the assets.

In September 2015, then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt gave a speech in which he attacked the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office for failing to cooperate with the British investigation. .

“In the case of former Ecology Minister Mykola Zlochevsky, the U.K. authorities had seized $23 million in illicit assets that belonged to the Ukrainian people,” Pyatt said. Officials at the prosecutor general’s office, he added, were asked by the United Kingdom “to send documents supporting the seizure. Instead they sent letters to Zlochevsky’s attorneys attesting that there was no case against him. As a result, the money was freed by the U.K. court, and shortly thereafter the money was moved to Cyprus.”

And then there were the "diamond prosecutors":

David Sakvarelidze was five months into a new job as Ukraine’s reformist deputy chief prosecutor when a witness came forward with intelligence that would change the course of everything.

The witness, a sand producer in the Kiev region, complained of men extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars. It took a while to persuade the man to give evidence. But when he did, and the investigation began, the trail led to two of the country’s highest-placed prosecutors.

A search of the men’s apartments revealed a scene that looked like a comic heist: bags full of cash, diamonds and other precious stones. But that was not the only incriminating evidence. Documents seized at the time indicated the men appeared to have a connection to the top prosecutor in the land, Viktor Shokin.

Police found copies of Shokin’s passports, property registration certificates and even his licence to carry firearms. One of the two men, it transpired, was Shokin’s former driver who had subsequently climbed the ranks behind his boss.

Sakvarelidze soon found himself under investigation and forced out of the government. It was stuff like the above which not only alienated the Obama Administration, but other parties, like the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank, including significantly more than the US aid Biden cited in his late 2015 ultimatum:

Christine Lagarde, the IMF’s managing director, said on Wednesday that Ukraine needed to make a “substantial new effort” to invigorate reforms, warning that without such a push “it is hard to see how [a $40bn IMF-led rescue of the economy] can continue and be successful”.

Now let's be clear: I and others disliked the APPEARANCE of a conflict of interest between Biden and Ukrainian corruption in the form of Hunter Biden's lucrative appointment to a Zlochevsky-founded entity with its own issues. Many would argue that the US was sending mixed messages on corruption, e.g., Zlochevsky buying US protection. Biden's Dec. 2015 ultimatum to fire Shokin (initially unsuccessful: the Ukrainian parliament fired him a few months later) hardly was to Burisma's benefit because a less corrupt solicitor general could reinstate and prioritize the case{which happened)  Shokin would later rationalize his termination, falsely asserting it was due to corrupt influences opposing his emerging Burisma investigation (Hunter Biden was a convenient scapegoat although the charges under investigation predated Biden's appointment to the board). [I suspect, but do not know of evidence to prove, that Shokin and his goons were extorting Zlochevsky/Burisma for bribes, particularly over the UK money laundering case status. It wouldn't surprise me if Shokin did enough to leverage his claims for bribes.]

This basically sets the stage for the infamous "perfect call" between Trump and Zelensky, and the GML guys bought fully into Trump's. I've already written a couple of critical posts on this but some additional context. 

Trump signed Ukraine aid into law:


There were Ukraine corruption policy compliance contingencies in the aid package, but in fact DoD already certified compliance twice BEFORE Trump's phone call:

But DOD Had Twice Certified Ukraine’s Progress on Corruption: Long before President Trump ordered a halt to security assistance, the Secretary of Defense—in coordination with Secretary Pompeo—twice certified that Ukraine had made sufficient reforms to decrease corruption and increase accountability, and that the country could ensure accountability for U.S. provided military equipment. Further, after OMB held the assistance to Ukraine in July, the Department of Defense (DOD) conducted an additional analysis and concluded that the assistance was effective and should be resumed. [Amb. Taylor testimony, 10/22/19]. Finally, before the July 2019 hold, the Trump administration had approved sending foreign assistance to Ukraine nearly 50 separate times without ever holding it because of concerns that it would be diverted due to corruption.

Trump's infamous phone call was on 7/25/19. We know as late as June 18 the Pentagon had announced plans for some Ukraine aid release. Trump queried about June 19 about Ukraine assistance after a relevant news report. Apparently, by July 3, OMB had a hold on Ukraine aid under Trump's direction. Trump's hold was illegal, violating the 1974 budget law. Under bipartisan Senate pressure, Trump would release the money in September.

Now to the phone call:

I will say that we do a lot for Ukraine. We spend a lot of effort and a lot of time. Much more than the European countries are doing and they should be helping you more than they are. Germany does almost nothing for you. All they do is talk ...but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine. I wouldn’t say that it’s reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine.

I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it,,, I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller,,,they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it’s very important that you do it if that’s possible.

 Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that’s really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General.,. The other thing, There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me.

First, it's obvious from context that Trump is putting the squeeze on Zelensky; although he doesn't explicitly mention it, he has leverage in the form of unreleased aid, and I'm sure Zelensky is well-aware of it. He's pointing out the EU is all talk, but the US is a trustworthy ally which hasn't gotten much in return for all its material assistance. He wants a favor, an investigation into Biden's alleged wrongdoing. 

Trump's "very good prosecutor" is Shokin, of course; he's completely bought into Shokin's false face-saving excuse that he was fired because he was investigating Burisma. The opposition to Shokin was broad-based, including local anti-corruption groups, IMF, EU and World Bank. The fact is there was zero progress on any high-profile target, including Burisma, on Shokin's watch. And Trump is outright lying about Biden's claim. Biden never claimed credit for closing the Burisma investigation. Biden took credit for getting Shokin fired. But that happened months after Biden's ultimatum, and it was the Ukraine parliament. . And other allies dispute Biden was the first to call for Shokin's ouster. And the investigation wasn't shut down; as Zelensky points out, the case would be taken up under his own solicitor general. Biden went after not because Burisma was getting investigated but because the investigation had gone nowhere under Shokin. If anything, Biden was putting Hunter's appointment to the Burisma board at risk.

I've made it clear I believe Trump abused his Presidential foreign affairs authority in going after a political rival for self-serving, not national reasons. But the essay is really focusing on a more recent development. This involves a whistleblower complaint in the FBI alleging Biden and his son are recipients of $5M bribes involving Burisma:

In a Senate floor speech on Monday, Chuck Grassley said an FBI document that he had seen, detailing unverified claims of a confidential source, revealed that a Ukrainian gas company executive who allegedly bribed President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden made audio tapes of phone conversations with them.

While he did not say that the FD-1023 form disclosed any of the supposed conversations between the president, his son and the Burisma official, the senior Republican senator for Iowa claimed it said there were 17 such recordings in the executive's possession.

He continued: "According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses 15 audio recordings of phone calls between him and Hunter Biden. According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses two audio recordings of phone calls between him and then-Vice President Joe Biden."

The FBI previously told Newsweek that such forms only report a human source's claims, rather than additionally weighing the truth of those claims against other information the FBI has obtained.

One source familiar with the contents of the FD-1023 document suggested to Fox News that Zlochevsky could be the confidential source cited in the form, but added that the Burisma executive's identity is redacted.

The Ukrainian Supreme Anti-Corruption Court is seeking to try [Zlochevsky] in absentia over allegations of trying to bribe Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office with $5 million in benefits, Ukrainian outlet Slovo i Delo reported in February.

I have no doubt Trumpkin Congressmen still resent Trump's first impeachment and Republicans since Guliani have desperately been trying to turn the tables on Biden ever since. Of course, the problem is the FBI hasn't been able to recover the alleged tapes to date.

But this allegation really doesn't pass the smell test, Biden as VP had nothing to offer Burisma, never mind the fact he promotes green energy, not natural gas. He had no influence on the internal decisions of the Ukraine government.  True, there may be strings attached to foreign aid, but the POTUS/VP were largely constrained by legislation. I seriously doubt Biden would take or make a call to some Ukrainian businessman, especially given the administration's high priority on corruption. Every source I've seen shows Ukraine saying the Bidens aren't involved in Burisma legal matters, no attempt to carve out an exemption on corruption charges to Burisma, It's even harder to make a case for Hunter Biden, who has had no connections to US or Ukrainian power

But the possibility, even likelihood that the undisclosed source is Zlochevsky is troubling. This is a guy who was thought, at least in the US, UK, and local corruption groups, to be corrupt.  Given rampant corruption in the Ukraine government it would not surprise me if Zlochevsky was buying protection from Shokin and the Obama Administration's crackdown could open Pandora's Box of uncertainty. Someone who is claiming to have secretly recorded conversations with the VP of the US doesn't sound like someone "protecting himself" but someone trying to entrap someone in wrongdoing and use it for extortion. Who knows? Maybe Zlochevsky put Hunter on the Burisma board hoping it would stave off local prosecution and the VP was willing to move forward even at the expense of Hunter's board seat.

The prior discussion is speculative, of course. Maybe there really are recordings; I'm not sure why they haven't surfaced until now if they really existed. It's why I haven't done a separate essay on the kerfuffle. 

The issue I have with Thurston and Thompson is not the fact I disagree with them. It's more the lack of due diligence and the sarcastic tone. Almost everything I've written is available through the web.

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