Ohio River Raised for Veep Kayaking Trip
The optics are not good.
Guardian (“JD Vance’s team had water level of Ohio river raised for family’s boating trip“):
JD Vance’s team had the army corps of engineers take the unusual step of changing the outflow of a lake in Ohio to accommodate a recent boating excursion on a family holiday, the Guardian has learned.
The request from the US Secret Service was made to “support safe navigation” of the US vice-president’s security detail for an August outing on the Little Miami River, according to a statement by the US army corps of engineers (USACE).
Vance was spotted in the south-western Ohio area on 2 August, his 41st birthday, according to social media posts that noted he was seen canoeing on the river, a tributary that Caesar Creek Lake feeds into.
One source with knowledge of the matter who communicated with the Guardian anonymously alleged that the outflow request for the Caesar Creek Lake was not just to support the vice-president’s Secret Service detail, but also to create “ideal kayaking conditions”. The Guardian could not independently confirm this specific claim.
Given that there’s no actual evidence that this was done to “create ideal kayaking conditions,” much less that Vance himself ordered it, let’s take the Secret Service at their word. It’s still quite problematic, if not outrageous, on its face.
Perhaps because I worked in downtown DC for several years and was frequently greatly inconvenienced by police stopping traffic for long stretches to accommodate the motorcades of people too important to wait in traffic, I’ve questioned the reasonableness of these measures for a long time. I get that Presidents, Vice Presidents, and cabinet secretaries occasionally need to get places on time and that they need security when doing so. But, because they’re ostensibly public servants, the frequency and timing of these ventures should be weighed against the public harm.
That goes a thousand-fold for activities that are not the public business. I find it simply outrageous when, for example, presidents attend sporting events in person and subject tens of thousands of paid ticket holders to significant inconvenience. There’s just no need for them to be there. If the Vice President’s kayaking trip requires raising the water level of a river, he should do something else on his vacation.
And, then, of course, there’s this:
While there is no allegation that Vance’s office did anything illegal, the ethics lawyer Richard Painter, who served in the George W Bush administration, said it seemed hypocritical and “pretty outrageous” for Vance to be receiving these particular accommodations for his family holiday when the administration’s cuts have led to drastic cuts in the National Park Service (NPS).
The National Parks Conservation Association has estimated that the NPS has lost about a quarter of its staff since January, which in turn has led to sections of some parks to be closed and hours to be changed due to staffing issues.
“Those cuts are directly impacting middle-class families’ vacations,” Painter said. “Whether they are doing it for the Secret Service or for him I think is splitting hairs. What he ought to be doing is choosing another place.”
Norm Eisen, a former White House special counsel for ethics and government reform, said: “When I was President Obama’s ethics czar in the White House I got a lot of unusual requests, but I never got one to increase the outflow of a waterway as part of a government official going kayaking.
“My nickname was ‘Mr No’ and I certainly would have lived up to it in this situation. I never would have permitted this kind of a thing because whether it technically violates the rules or not, it creates the appearance that the vice-president of the United States is getting special treatment that’s not available to the average person who wants to utilise that body of water for recreational purposes.
“While there may well be security-related explanations or justifications that come into the analysis, my reaction is: I don’t care. We shouldn’t be utilising government resources in this way. I never would have allowed it.”
I suspect there is no one filling Eisen’s post in the current administration.
The most succinct illustration of how the current regime sees the federal government as their personal property, to hell with everyone else, and just try to wrench it out of their fingers.
JD Vance is an entitled asshat with a tenuous at best relation to the state of Ohio. He uses the state as a prop…holding himself out as a Midwest Everyman when he is, in fact, the prototypical elitist he disdains when he is performing for the MAGA base. Trump makes little (no?) attempt to hide the fact that he is a conman and a grifter, while Vance is a shape-shifting, blinded by ambition phony.
That JD Vance guy is no elite, he’s just a normal guy. A man of the people. People who receive extraordinary accommodations.
In April.
Vance’s Wife Visits Colosseum, Tourists Left Fuming
Vance also went to India with his family. It appears he is regularly mixing personal and government business at taxpayer expense.
The sense of entitlement is strong in this guy.
Why are you giving them the benefit of the doubt? Why at all. What have they done that have given you the impression that, 1. the Trump/Vance people haven’t thoroughly corrupted all aspects of the Federal Government under their direct control, and 2. are all inveterate liars.
This is worse than some MAGA chud spouting this sort of half-ass defense. You are a very intelligent man bending your (admirable) morals, backbone, intelligence and clarity to defend people that would absolutely piss in your face and laugh while they tell you it’s raining.
You have to put all of what you know of the Trump/Vance coterie out of your head and give THEM your intelligence and will. You’re smarter and better than this.
We are in an era of pure Power Politics, and this is just further evidence of it.
I submit that this helps further the “we’ll do whatever we want” meme that defines this administration.
And frankly, it has worked well for them.
It’s high time the Democrats descend from our high horse and play the game the way it is being played on the other side. We can stand on our morals later, once democracy is secured.
Per Norm Eisen:
How quaint is that? Consideration of technical rule violations versus appearances when Trump has already established that following laws (let alone rules) shouldn’t hinder a president’s power and the Roberts Court has ruled in favor of his position. “Sure it looks really bad, but at least it isn’t illegal” is so 2010’s.
Besides, what do optics screaming entitlement matter to a GOP that wants and needs a king? Special treatment that’s not available to the average person is what kings (and princes like JD) deserve.
@Beth:
Except he isn’t. I get your position–anything that seems to be assigning good faith to these people feels offensive. But he isn’t defending anything. First, he is doing what we who try to be objective do, noting that there is a lack of proof about the most outrageous interpretation. Second, and more importantly, he notes, as you quote, “It’s still quite problematic, if not outrageous, on its face.”
See, for those of us who try to be analytical about all of this while also making moral judgments, believe that the best way to make a strong moral critique is to do so on the strongest set of known facts. I would argue, and I think James would agree, that it is actually a better way to make the moral claim. Note that the entire piece is a criticism of Vance and this action.
I understand why you would focus on what appears to be letting him off the worst hook, but you are missing what the post is doing by focusing on that one statement.
While this administration is profoundly entitled, hypocritical, and corrupt, as well as thoroughly incompetent, raising the level of this creek for Vance’s party is barely noise in the signal. As the article says, the creek gauge data is publicly available. But zooming back to the 30-day or 1-year view paints a different picture than the article—that the change in flow was well within the range of changes that happen frequently. Vance’s people wouldn’t have even needed to call in a favor with Hegseth for the Army Corps of Engineers to do this. Speaking of which, just two days ago trump was still blustering about his ridiculous claim that he sent water from the Pacific Northwest to the CA wildfires earlier this year, which of course didn’t happen. But what did happen was a Hegseth-ordered USACE water release in central CA that is an excellent case study of incompetent authoritarianism at work.
Why didn’t Vance just alter the river’s level with a Sharpie?
@Kathy:
I just nominated you for the prestigious Daily Nobel Internet Prize.
Made my morning. Thanks
@Beth: In addition to the analytic reasons @Steven L. Taylor aptly outlines, it’s also just the nature of the Secret Service and the security culture. It’s more than plausible to me that, preparing their protection plan, they decided that it would be a lot easier if they had higher water levels and thus more maneuverability. Relatedly, it strikes me as rather unlikely that Vance or his wife would have spent considerable time well in advance of their trip investigating the water levels of the Ohio River.
But, yes, I had the same reaction as Norm Eisen before reading it: “While there may well be security-related explanations or justifications that come into the analysis, my reaction is: I don’t care. We shouldn’t be utilising government resources in this way.”
Today I invite The Honorable Vice-President James David Vance and family to bring their watercraft to Little Grassy Lake in the Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge in Southern Illinois.
Refuge provides update on Little Grassy Lake drawdown
I went swimming in Little Grassy Lake years ago til a cottonmouth water moccasin chased me back to the shore. Now I stay on dry land. Since then the most snakes that I’ve seen were in the underground vaults that held the water meters that I used to read for the City of Murphysboro (IL) and in the bottoms of the telephone cable pedestals that were near rivers and lakes. The serpents get inside my beat up old trailer house now and then despite my efforts to keep them out. Sometimes all they leave is their shed snakeskin between the water valves and the faucet of my kitchen sink.
It’s the Secret Service’s JOB to make sure POTUS and VP aren’t doing anything terribly risky. Not only are they to keep those two safe, they also don’t want a situation that risks the agents unduly if they have to step in. They WILL make requests that reduce risk.
THIS is the solution.
Seems to me this is standard king/dictator, even vice dictator stuff. Once you’ve set yourself up as above the little people, you have to keep reminding them.
@Steven L. Taylor:
@James Joyner:
Please understand that I’m in a bad place as I type this, so that’s going to color this. Also, as far as I know, neither of you have any training a lawyer. That being said, you’re both wrong and, worse, your framework is wrong. You are choosing an analytical framework that explicitly covers for people in power that should not be covered for at all. I note your opprobrium, but you are still willing to let Trump & Vance (hereinafter, “The Administration”) off the hook.
The Statement
Joyner
I’m going to cite to Illinois here because I know it and as best I can tell it’s both run of the mill and has been subject to work over the last few years.
Dr. Joyner stated that there is no actual evidence that The Administration did this to provide ideal kayaking conditions for Vance on his Birthday vacation. However, immediately preceding this the quote from the Guardian says:
So, right there, the Guardian says that actual, relevant evidence exists, in fact, they based their reporting on it. Again, per Rule 401, evidence is something that tends to show something is more probable or less probable than it would be without the it. The retort is that this is an anonymous source, well:
Again, the Guardian says that the source has knowledge of what they are claiming. We can, because we are neither a criminal, nor a civil court, presume that were this source be subpoenaed, they would be able to testify where they got this knowledge from, how they got the knowledge, and likely with other indications of both their knowledge and truthfulness. We can also presume that the Guardian would not print such facts without some indication that they would be safe from criminal or civil litigation.
Moreover, what do we know about the habits of both The Administration and the Secret Service under The Administration?
There was the time that Vance forced the Closure of the Colosseum so that his family had a tour all by themselves. Or when Vance took pictures in a place you are not allowed to. Or that Greenland bs he forced his way into. How about his lies about people eating their neighbor’s pets? All the evidence is that Vance his a very scummy person, who lies (wildly and freely), who forces himself and his family into places they should be and believes that he doesn’t have to follow the rules. This is his habit, ritual and practice. This is the way for the whole Administration. Lawless and unrestrained. You have all the evidence of that you need.
As for the Secret Service under Trump, why are they entitled to any deference. The fact of the matter is that for our purposes they are just as corrupt as the rest of them. How could you have experienced the First Trump Term and how bad that was, AND be experiencing the unprecedented corruption present in The Administration (and for that matter SCOTUS and Congress) and say, “well, based on what the agency and government was like 16 years ago and what I feel is the likelihood that these hypothetical agents I’ve invented would take their job seriously and not be corrupt, this tiny part of the government, directly in contact with Trump every second of the day is due deference.” The evidence is all there, you don’t need any more evidence. Hell, the quoted article has the evidence you claim doesn’t exist. It cites that evidence. It is ACTUAL RELEVANT EVIDENCE.
You and your analytical framework’s problem is not evidence, it is “Burden of Proof”
First, and I didn’t catch this when I started responding, and I don’t think you meant to do this, but you changed “evidence” which was in the original post and I objected to, to “proof” which does not appear in the original post (“actual evidence”). You and I both know that evidence and proof are not necessarily the same thing. Because I’m going to assume you actually intended “evidence”.
Turning to your comment, the actually is relevant evidence. The source, WITH KNOWLEDGE, stated this happened. It’s actual evidence.
What you have divided however, is that the be “objective” one must have evidence that is of provenance and kind that is beyond a reasonable doubt. Basically, the only evidence you will accept as being objective is if Vance goes on tv and is like “Fuck yeah I did it, Hillbilly up!” And that evidentiary requirement is absurd. Hell, in criminal courts the evidence doesn’t need to be that perfect.
Remembering that evidence is only a “tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without” and that lots of things can be relevant evidence. And you could hold that to a preponderance of the evidence standard, or if you insist on being wrong, you could even make it clear and convincing, but those are all still being objective. What your framework demands is that you concede to power every indulgence unless the most perfect evidence exists to counter it. Don’t you see how it helps people like Vance and Trump to do this? You get to claim to be “objective” while Vance and Trump and all these vile people we despise get to skate.
Or, you could take a preponderance of the evidence tack and say well, “based on all the other evidence I have of corruption, and the fact that this evidence is being presented in a large well-funded newspaper with an interest in at least attempting truth, what is a the likelihood that a source with knowledge is lying, weighed against all the other corruption I have evidence for. What is the likelihood that this fact tends to show the existence of corruption. This is objective as well.
Demanding perfect evidence evidence and holding to the absolute highest of standards allows someone to lie about the evidence and if you can’t prove they are 100% not lying then you have to let them go, because you can’t claim to be “objective” then. You are choosing to bear 100% of risk that you are wrong and the bad actor doesn’t have to do anything but lie.
That whole framework is screwing us over constantly, because smart guys like you refuse to see how bad your getting it wrong and giving the bad people cover to continue to be bad.
This is why I have no hope. I spent hours working on this today and i’m just sad. It’s not going to get any better. Why try? why bother. This is pointless and won’t do a damn thing. Won’t change a mind. Anyway.
@Scott F.: His judgement is questionable. Anybody with a bit of basic political horse-sense would’ve known his trip to Greenland was, for him, a terrible idea and would’ve tried to get out of it. Or at least taken steps to make it as low-profile and brief as possible. But not Vance, that guy invited the press to come along. He must have believed he had a real shot at talking Greenland into annexation.
Given that the Italian government closed the Colosseum so the Vance family could enjoy a private tour, and the Indian government did the same with the Taj Mahal, and the Walt Disney Company did the same with Disneyland, making a nice creek for them to paddle on was the least grateful taxpayers could do.
I agree with Beth 100% (110% if it were possible). JD Vance repeated lies about the Haitian community eating pets. He knew they were lies, he even admitted they were lies. These lies had real life consequences, they were a type of blood libel. JD Vance NEVER deserves the benefit of the doubt. They should have told him to find a safer river, but not one dollar of taxpayer money should have been spent on this.
@Beth: I am sorry you are sad and I am sorry you spent time on that response if it didn’t serve your purpose.
I would note that the way lawyers think and argue is not the same way that political scientists think and argue. The goals and approach are different.
You and @Lucys Football are more than entitled to your views on this.
But the notion that James and I are not critical of this administration are simply misplaced and, quite frankly, unfair. Indeed, you want to discuss that in legal terms, I would suggest that the daily preponderance of the evidence is overwhelmingly in our favor on that count.
And while I sincerely want to be sympathetic to you and others on how difficult this moment is, let me speak for for myself, but I am finding all of this Trump stuff difficult to discuss and process and it is frustrating to be told that we aren’t doing it right. I have tried to daily chronicle the abuses of this administration while also maintaining a certain level analysis and academic comportment.
It is often quite exhausting.
If this had been done for Kamala Harris, there’d be scolding across the political spectrum: “Where’s Kamala?” and “Such waste, fraud, abuse!” and “out of touch elitist, this is why Democrats lose” etc, following by congressional hearings. Not just because there’s a different standard for her/women/Democrats, but the pundit class just couldn’t stand the boring, quiet competence of the Biden administration. That’s why the press had to nitpick Biden’s gait, speech, and scream inflation inflation inflation crime crime crime daily. The Biden+Harris admin wouldn’t give them their preferred shitshow, like the Epstein-bestie pedo does.
Imagine Biden wandering around on the White House roof, yelling incoherently at reporters and dancing awkwardly. You’d have have seen warp speed 25th Amendment think pieces from the New York Slimes, Washington Compost, and Jake Tapper. But with dementia Don, it’s just *shrug*
JD Vance should cut back on the vacations, get to work helping his boss he once compared to Hitler with lowering prices and ending wars — as was promised “on day one” — and with releasing the Epstein files.
Prices are rising and unaffordability is worse than ever, but somehow the wall-to-wall inflation coverage has gone missing. Trump Republicans have just engineered the worst three months of job growth since COVID, highest number of Americans on unemployment in years.
Meanwhile, the latest FBI data just confirmed that 2024 crime reached 60 year lows under Biden, with violent crime falling to 20 year year record lows. Clearly, we need more presidents who are too old and in “mental decline.” Especially compared to the current incompetent MAGA White House clown car of weirdos, pathological liars, felons, internet trolls, perverted sex criminals, Nazis, drug addicts, alcoholics, reality TV freaks, and dog killers.