Citizen Cartwright

One dog barking

by John Dineen

Comey drops an October surprise on the presidential race

“… in a brief letter and in the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood.”

So wrote FBI Director James Comey in a memo to bureau employees in one of the more bizarre understatements of the 2016 election.

Comey’s opaque letter to Congress — about “the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent” to the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server — was followed, predictably, by FBI leaks of additional, and sometimes contradictory, details.

Comey’s action, 11 days before the election, set off a furor — although little of it about the emails themselves, about which apparently little is known. The FBI on Sunday obtained a warrant to examine the emails, which reportedly were found on a laptop belonging to former Rep. Anthony Weiner, estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

According to The Washington Post, FBI investigators knew of the existence of the emails for weeks, but informed Comey of their discovery on Thursday.

Comey acted in the face of objections from Justice Department officials, who warned him of the department’s longstanding policy against taking any public legal actions that might affect an election. While some observers were sympathetic to what was described as the “horrible” choice Comey faced, other former law enforcement officials excoriated him for inserting the bureau into the middle of a presidential campaign in its final days.

One analysis pointed to Comey’s original decision — to testify before Congress about the bureau’s decision not to pursue prosecution of Clinton and to characterize Clinton’s handling of classified material — as the first step onto a slippery slope.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused Comey of a double standard, saying he was withholding information on connections between Donald Trump, his advisers and the Russian government. Reid also warned Comey in a letter that he might be in violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits political activity by federal employees.

Underscoring Reid’s Hatch Act concern, a former chief White House ethics lawyer during the George W. Bush administration said in an op-ed piece in The New York Times that he was filing a complaint against the FBI.

At least one report placed Comey’s action in the context of struggles between the Justice Department and the FBI — and within the bureau itself — over the Clinton case.

While Comey’s action gave Donald Trump a new attack line for his campaign, it may be days before the actual impact of the disclosure on the election can be gauged. The Clinton campaign seemed determined to project confidence in the face of the development while simultaneously using it to fire up her base.

Among the many questions: Just how much of an impact do October surprises really have?

And looming on a potential post-election-day agenda should Clinton win: the incoming president’s relationship with her FBI director.

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Putin on U.S. ‘hysteria’ over Russian interference in election

The Russian president on Thursday accused American politicians of whipping up hysteria about a mythical Russian threat as a ploy to distract voters from their own failings in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election.

Speaking to foreign policy experts in southern Russia, Putin said the Obama administration didn’t keep its word on Syria, didn’t honor deals, and has falsely accused Moscow of all manner of sins, Reuters reports.

The U.S. government has formally accused Russia of a campaign of cyberattacks against Democratic Party organizations, and Clinton has called Trump a Putin “puppet.”

Putin said he found it hard to believe that anyone seriously thought Moscow was capable of influencing the U.S. election. He said the U.S. accusations were a ruse to cover up for the fact that the American political elite had nothing to say about serious issues such as the country’s national debt or gun control.

“Hysteria has been whipped up,” Putin said.

“It’s much simpler to distract people with so-called Russian hackers, spies, and agents of influence,” he said. "Does anyone really think that Russia could influence the American people’s choice in any way? Is America a banana republic or what? America is a great power.”

Asked about Trump, whom he once described as "very talented," Putin said the GOP candidate was deliberately adopting a showy style because he wanted to get his message across and that he represented ordinary voters fed up with the U.S. political elite.

"He has chosen a method to get through to voters' hearts," said Putin. "He behaves extravagantly of course, we see this, but I think there's a reason for this."

Protecting the Antarctic, and why my uncle would be happy

An historic agreement was reached Friday to create the world’s largest marine protected area, covering 600,000 square miles of the ocean next to the frozen continent.

The agreement by delegates from 24 countries and the European Union to protect the Ross Sea comes after years of protracted negotiations, with Russia the last holdout.

There will be a blanket ban on commercial fishing across about three-quarters of the area.

The region is important to the rest of the planet, as the upwelling of nutrients from the deep waters are carried on currents around the world.

The designation was welcomed not just by environmentalists but by those with close links to the area, says BBC News.

“The Ross family are euphoric that our family legacy has been honoured in the 175th anniversary year since James first discovered the Ross Sea,” said Phillipa Ross, great, great, great granddaughter to Sir James Clark Ross, after whom the Ross Sea is named.

And, hey, my family, too.

My uncle, Gordon Cartwright, was the only American scientist to spend a year working with 180 Russians on the frozen continent, at the Soviet Antarctic station Mirny, during the International Geophysical Year of 1957-1958.

A mountain in Antarctica subsequently was named for him. My grandmother, who herself left school after sixth grade to work in a rope factory to help support her family, was so proud. A photo of Mount Cartwright hung above her fireplace.

New rules to protect your privacy online

Federal officials approved on Thursday landmark protections for Internet users, preventing companies like AT&T and Comcast from collecting and giving out digital information about individuals, such as the websites they visited and the apps they used.

The 3-to-2 vote is the first time the Federal Communications Commission has passed such online protections. The agency made privacy rules for phones and cable TV in the past, but high-speed internet providers like AT&T weren’t held to any privacy restrictions, even though such behemoth companies arguably have one of the most expansive views of the habits of web users, says The New York Times.

Online ad juggernauts, including Google, Facebook and other web companies, aren’t subject to the new regulations; the FCC doesn’t have jurisdiction over web companies.

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One dog barking

By John Dineen

Trump and the press, it seems, were made for each other from the beginning

When the postmortems for this presidential campaign begin, the press will likely return to the summer of 2015, when Donald Trump began his unlikely ascent to the top of the Republican heap.

And the press will readily plead mea culpa, that it did not take Trump seriously enough, early enough.

But, as Dylan Byers of CNN helpfully pointed out Wednesday, it would be instructive to set the way-back machine for 2013, when Trump was dropping in on presidential preliminaries.

Byers tweeted a link to his August 2013 Politico piece on Trump and the press reaction to his toe in the presidential pond. Now, Byers, being human, probably wouldn’t have directed our attention to his piece unless it looked pretty good in retrospect. In fact, it was uncanny — disconcertingly so.

Byers wrote:

“Even as reporters suggest that Trump should not be taken seriously, many media organizations continue to cover him as a potential legitimate candidate, as they did in 2012. The reason for that is something Trump, the executive producer and host of NBC’s “The Apprentice,” is very familiar with: ratings.

“Trump’s noncandidacy tests the traditional view at news organizations that political journalists are the gatekeepers, the arbiters of which candidates deserve serious attention by virtue of their fundraising and endorsements and the strength of their ideas. Trump is making a mockery of all that. The attention he gets shows the media just can’t help themselves when high Web traffic and ratings get into the mix. And it seems both the celebrity-businessman and the journalists are in on the joke.”

Trump met none of the traditional standards for a presidential candidate — but his audience didn’t care. The press was, in turns, dismissive, then derisive. But it was also obliging: Trump delivered TV ratings and website page views and news organizations, struggling to find a working business model, profited.

I’ve called it presidential politics’ Boaty McBoatface — Votey McVoteface, I suppose — moment.

Whatever the outcome of this election, the postmortems are likely to characterize the Trump phenomenon as an outlier. Maybe — but the factors Trump exploited will still be in place the day after the election.

Trump may have gotten here first, but why would he be the last?

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Don’t expect male-female economic equality for 170 years

What?!

Efforts to close gender gaps in pay and workforce participation slowed so dramatically in the past year that men and women may not reach economic equality for another 170 years, according to a World Economic Forum report.

Last year, the estimate was that the gap would close in 118 years.

Iceland and Finland rank highest among the 144 nations measured on progress in equality in education, health and survival, economic opportunity and political empowerment in WEF’s The Global Gender Gap Report 2016.

Next are Norway and Sweden. And then comes Rwanda — which has improved economic participation and income equality and has the highest share of female parliamentarians in the world, the WEF says.

The United States ranks 73rd in political empowerment, which measures the ratio of men to women in the highest levels of political decision-making. It ranks 45th in the global list overall.

I have to go lay down. Have a nice day, girl friends.

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