It was a hypothetical to demonstrate that a “thing of value” is not tied to the labor that went into it, as was claimed by that poster. Sometimes labor produces something of value, and sometimes it doesn’t.
The fact that the information came from the public domain in the hypothetical does not automatically make the collection valueless. If it’s well-researched and reveals some previously unseen insights, it could be worth far more than the wage-value of the hours that went into collecting it. If it’s a bunch of random unconnected nonsense, it could be worth nothing.
There’s a reason why search engines are a viable business, after all.
There is no value except labor. Gold is valuable because of the labor involved in finding and extracting it. Granted, you might find a lump just sitting at your feet in the forest, but market prices are determined by the average labor involved (in general) not per-instance (again, in general). If all gold could be simply spooned out of the air in infinite quantities, it would be valueless.
Donating something to the general public doesn’t mean the thing didn’t hold value. It simply means that you’ve personally chosen to donate it to the general public. There’s no relationship between that decision and whether the thing had value before that point.
Did the people that Donny Jr met with actually provide professional opposition research services on a regular basis? Do they regularly engage in said business and charge people money for that service? What they suggested was that they had information that was potentially damaging to Donald Trump’s opponent? There’s nothing AFAIK that says the mere act of passing along previously undisclosed facts, even if they are embarrassing and damaging to a political opponent, is something of value in the absolute sense. I’ve seen TV lawyers weigh in on this one but AFAIK none of the ones I’ve seen are really familiar with campaign finance laws or IRS 527 and the like. I have to acknowledge that since campaign finance laws are voluminous it’s possible I might be missing something, but I’m not aware of any outright violations of finance laws that are easy to prove in federal court.
Financial crimes on the other hand…that remains to be seen. And those, by the way, are far more serious than finance law violations.
We’re talking about a Russian conduit trying to set up a meeting with the son of a presidential candidate and suggesting that she might have some damaging information to pass along. She wasn’t offering legal services and if she’s strictly a Russian barrister then it would be a crime for her to do so as she is presumably unlicensed in the United States. If anyone on this board says “Hey Donny, guess what, I’ve got an old video from candidate X’s high school days. Why don’t I bring it over to your office?” it’s just a private person who might have embarrassing information on someone. Now if said private person hands it over to ABC Political Consulting, and if they turn it over to Donny Jr, then that might be a different matter.
And believe me, I take no pleasure in defending Trump, but I don’t necessarily believe the meeting, as ill-advised as it is, is by itself proof of illegality. However, what the meeting does absolutely show is intent to work with the Russian government in exchange for something (most likely sanctions relief) in return. The meeting and what took place might not be illegal, but it definitely points to possible illegal conduct that has yet to be discovered.
If they thought it had value then it did. That’s what value is.
If they wanted to break that law they did. That’s what that law is.
Of course, we all know having been President never made anyone any money.
There are a number of future Johnnie Cochrans in this crowd. You can smell it a mile away.
I have a feeling Ulysses S. Grant was the last person to survive his tenure as POTUS and not make money off the office.
Not that he didn’t try. He just got swindled.
Actually, Grant’s “Memoirs” made his family a ridiculous amount of money - the equivalent of well over $10 million in 2017 dollars - and he conveniently died right after he was done writing them so no one had a chance to steal the money from him, which probably would have happened; Grant was a brilliant general but the kind of guy who’d fall for a 419 scam. His being President elevated his profile and heroic status, and probably helped sales. So he made money from the office in that way, I guess.
Truman had little money after his Presidency and IIRC they started paying Presidents pensions after he retired partly to make sure he would be comfortable.
Uh, no.
Uh, no.
Got any more of these? Like if they didn’t want to break the law, they didn’t. Or, if they thought they were married to Jessica Alba, they were.
I had forgotten that. Imagine, a former President who won’t accept a position on a corporate board or do commercial endorsements because it would be unseemly or damaging to the integrity of the office. We sure don’t make them like that anymore.
Lindsay Graham is double dog daring Trump to fire Sessions. Please, please, please take the bait!
Much like McCain, Graham talks a good game, but when roll call comes around he’s a good little fall-in-line Republican.
Yes. Call me when he actually DOES anything, rather than flapping his gums.
With past Presidents this wouldn’t be the case, but daring Trump to do something actually is an action that might get results, rather than being pointless gum-flapping.
Trump, of course, is too much of a cowering weakling to fire Sessions–all Trump is capable of is Twitter-whining.
Trump just might take Sens. Graham and Grassley up on those dares, now that he has the House Judiciary Committee deliberately attempting to muddle the investigations into Trump with one of their own into Comey’s handling of the Clinton investigation.
This is what I was afraid of. The House, now worried about the impact of Trump’s incompetence at governing, building coalitions, and his increasing legal jeopardy on their ability to maintain power are going to partner with Trump where politically feasible. They might not be out to help Trump per se but they can do so in the process of trying to create another pseudo scandal.
Trump probably knows enough to know that impeachment begins in the House, and the House is in no mood to even go there until after the end of 2018. There’s a lot of time for Trump to do a lot of firing and there’s a lot of time to end the investigation. And there’s not a goddamn thing Lindsay Graham can do about it.
I would be careful with that assumption. His hand just got strengthened by the House Judiciary Committee, and he has shown no aversion to pitting various factions of his own party against each other. And each time he has, the moderates have backed down.
Again, see what the Senate’s thinking here. McConnell, Graham, McCain…none of these guys ever for a moment felt comfortable around Trump, but they believe that they think that he’s a novice president who depends on them and their support, and that, as such, they can control him. Trump doesn’t see it that way. Trump has every intention of being his own guy, and if anything, he sees it in the reverse: he sees the occasional piece of legislation as a chance to legitimize himself and in that sense, it is they who can be useful to him.
Trump may be unpopular, but Congress is even less popular. Congress is seen as the institution that can’t tell its ass from its elbow. In the minds of voters, it’s congress that is failing to get anything done. It is the entire federal government that is failing to move past bipartisanship. In the eyes of many voters, democracy is the problem. Trump, or any autocrat, is the solution.
Nine days, I would have agreed with you, asahi; since then we’ve seen something I doubted we ever would: Congressional Republicans actually criticizing Trump publicly. They may do so in muted tones, but they’re doing it. And each time they do it without experiencing major uproar from their constituents, they are more likely to do it again.
It’s actually possible that those Republicans may be considering whether or not the political pain of acting against Trump might be less than they feared–and whether they could get so much done under President Pence that the pain would be wiped out by a list of achievements that would let them ignore the Trump cultists. By getting done things their constituents want done, instead of being extras in the never-ending Donald Drama…well, I suspect many of them are giving this more thought than pessimists like you or I could imagine.
Well, this is something too.
*
"Sen. Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) said Thursday that he is writing a bill that will limit President Trump’s ability to fire the special counsel investigating Russian election meddling.
Graham said his bill, which he will introduce next week, will block a president from firing the special counsel without a federal judge’s approval if that counsel is investigating the president or his administration, according to The Wall Street Journal."*
Huh. Guess my concerns weren’t such a “nothingburger” after all.
Reposting asahi’s link for context.
As for Lindsey Graham, he’s as two-faced as they come. He’s been reliably doing his part to throw shade on Comey/Clinton/Lynch/Rice/Obama. His “Oh, shucky darn, I’m so confused about what this means,” routine pretending to be ignorant about the “unmasking” issue is as disingenuous as it gets. He knows perfectly well the difference between “unmasking” and “leaking,” but here he is conflating the two, as he does every time he’s in front of the cameras, in his efforts to smear various Democrats:
I agree with asahi. This counterattack is just getting underway.