monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Earlier, I pasted a graph that shows the Dow moving steadily upwards from 2009 (I think it was). The arrival of Trump and the last six months shows no change in that graph. He's not causal in any way. You could make the reasonable argument that Trump so far has not caused a decline in the existing trend, but that's the only warranted claim.

Man do you hate me

Trump's executive orders and rhetoric have been business friendly and that, at least helps a confident market remain bullish.

If the market had tanked after he was elected, his opponents would have, of course, blamed him, so he's as entitled to take credit for the rise has much as folks like maporche wanted to grant Obama credit during his tenure.

blatham wrote:

Quote:

Pretty clear that Mother Jones (and Blatham) want to suggest that the market has been falling off since Trump was elected

Neither said nor implied.

That's so interesting... It was neither said, nor implied - yet it's "pretty clear" to Finn. Must be some kind of ESP. That, or he's drawing again from that bottomless reservoir of knowledge, the library of 'pulled out of his arse'.

Like many denizens of Washington DC, President Donald Trump is escaping the heat that smothers the nation's capital in August.
But his respite is anything but brief. The president will spend 17 days at his private golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, for what the White House bills as a "working vacation".
For someone who brands himself as an indefatigable worker, the nearly three-week holiday has raised a few eyebrows.
In his 2004 book, Think Like a Billionaire, Mr Trump offered the advice: "Don't take vacations. What's the point? If you're not enjoying your work, you're in the wrong job."
Mr Trump often carped about President Barack Obama's penchant for golf.
But as critics point out, Mr Trump's 17-day holiday is nearly twice as long as the one Mr Obama took in August during his first year.
If weekends are included, that means he's taking off 13 days, compared with Mr Obama's eight.
"I'm going to be working for you, I'm not going to have time to go play golf," Mr Trump told a Virginia crowd during the campaign, in a gibe at Mr Obama.
Before Mr Obama's August 2009 holiday in Martha's Vineyard, he took two other vacations that were said to entail work, including a weekend trip to Arizona and Colorado and a four-day trip to the family home in Chicago for Valentine's Day.
By comparison, Mr Trump has taken 11 such "working" vacations before this month to his properties in Palm Beach, Florida, and New Jersey. He also spent a weekend in June at the government-owned presidential retreat, Camp David, Maryland.
Mr Obama was labelled a hypocrite, too, after writing in his 2008 book The Audacity of Hope that no president should take vacations.
Mr Trump told 60 Minutes in November: "There's just so much to be done, so I don't think we'll be very big on vacations, no."
Last month, he told Republican senators to cancel their holidays until lawmakers could pass a plan to overturn the health law known as Obamacare.
The bill failed to pass the Senate, and Congress has adjourned for summer recess until 5 September.
Newsweek's cover on Thursday depicted the president lounging in a reclining chair calling him a "Lazy Boy".
"Imagine how bad he'd feel if he did any work," the magazine sniped.

There's also a statute making it a felony to "publish" classified information.

Good luck with that, WaPo.

Paul Ryan: Intel leaks 'the problem of the leaker, not the journalist'

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) defended journalists Friday, saying that while intelligence leaks compromise national security, it's "the problem of the leaker, not the journalist."

"Leaks are concerning because leaks can often compromise national security, but that’s the problem of the leaker not the journalist," Ryan said at an event in Muskego, Wis., on Friday afternoon.

What Fart is saying that despite expectations he's still not fucked up the economy like he's fucked everything else up. Give him time, even Dubya didn't **** the economy up during his first year in office, but he did **** it up.

Early this year, Attorney General Jeff Sessions would not directly answer when asked at his confirmation hearing whether he would subpoena or prosecute reporters. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press noted that he has opposed legal protections for reporters who refuse to disclose the identity of their sources in court.

Judith Miller, then a reporter for The New York Times, spent 85 days in prison after refusing to disclose who had told her the identity of an undercover CIA agent.

New York Times reporter James Risen was ordered to testify in a case involving a CIA source, which was initiated under the Bush administration and prosecuted in the Obama years.

Inside most American newsrooms, the matter might seem closed. There is a pervasive belief that reporters do not break the law when they break news, even if the scoop involves national security. And yet, freedom of the press is not absolute, even in the U.S.

"We're in a new age right now, so all bets are off," said University of North Carolina law professor Mary-Rose Papandrea, who has written extensively on the legal status of journalists. "It's more of a historical fact that the government has not prosecuted a journalist" than any guarantee under the law, she said.

Papandrea, a former board member of the Massachusetts chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, says she does not retain confidence the courts would give freedom of the press greater status than national security.

In No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State, Greenwald writes that attorneys for the largest publications in the country routinely advise editors that articles containing classified information must be vetted by the U.S. government.

“This consultative process with the government, the Guardian lawyers explained, is what enables newspapers to demonstrate they have no intent to harm national security by publishing top secret documents, and thus lack the requisite criminal intent to be prosecuted,” he said, adding that papers such as the New York Times and Washington Post often spend weeks having controversial stories reviewed by the feds.

Many people mistakenly think that the American press is protected by the 1971 decision in the famous Pentagon Papers case, where the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. government did not have the authority to prevent the New York Times from printing classified documents revealing that the military had secretly bombed Cambodia and Laos in the Vietnam War, among other transgressions.

The Pentagon Papers case only raised the issue of whether the U.S. had the power to issue an injunction against publication, not whether it could criminally prosecute someone after the fact.

House Speaker Paul Ryan criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions' insinuation that the Justice Department could subpoena journalists in its investigations of information leaks.

Sessions made the suggestion in a Friday press conference in which he outlined steps being taken to reduce the volume of leaks that have frequently embarrassed President Donald Trump and his administration.

Ryan took issue with Sessions' characterization of journalists' roles in reporting stories that include leaked information. While speaking at an event in Muskego, Wisconsin, on Friday, Ryan said it's "the problem of the leaker, not the journalist," the Journal Sentinel reported Friday afternoon.

"Leaks are concerning because leaks can often compromise national security, but that’s the problem of the leaker not the journalist," Ryan said.

Session said earlier Friday: "We respect the important role that the press plays and will give them respect, but it is not unlimited. They cannot place lives at risk with impunity. We must balance their role with protecting our national security and the lives of those who serve in our intelligence community, the armed forces, and all law-abiding Americans."

A number of press-advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), criticized Sessions' remarks. The ACLU's privacy, and technology director, Ben Wizner, said: "Americans should be concerned about the Trump administration's threat to step up its efforts against whistleblowers and journalists."

Citing the importance of a free and independent press, Wizner said, "leaders can't be trusted to disclose vital information that reflects poorly on themselves."

Isn't it interesting that it probably was someone in the Trump White House with access to classified information who decided that it was worth the risk to pass this on to the press?

A lot of the white house staff was brought in by Priebus--the same mainstream republican who told Trump he should drop out of the race. Some of them have been fired, most of the others see that they soon will be fired, and they're all pissed that Spicer (another Priebus man) and Preibus were forced out. They'll regret their treasonous acts of petty spite, without question. Aint nobody gunna just look the other way and act like nothing happened no more. Kelly will deliver their names to Sessions, and the fun will begin.

18 U.S. Code § 798 - Disclosure of classified information

(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information...Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.