Can President Trump do that? Can he really personally revoke former CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance, with a stroke of a pen?

Yes, he probably can. At least in the short term. His Article II constitutional powers regarding national security make him theoretically the top arbiter of United States secrets – who gets them, who doesn’t, and what they are.

The question is whether the action will cause that power to be circumscribed in the long term. No president has ever done anything like this before, say clearance experts. And in turning this particular dial of presidential power to “11,” he may push Congress and the courts to reexamine precedents and think of ways to curtail its use in the future.

“It just seems dangerous to our institutions that the president would just . . . strip someone of their security clearances because he doesn’t like what they have to say,” says Barbara McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor who was US Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan from 2010 to 2017.

On Monday, Mr. Trump and his allies appeared energized by the Brennan controversy. Trump tweeted that he would welcome a threatened lawsuit from Mr. Brennan, and taunted his adversary as the “worst CIA director in our country’s history.”

At the same time, former CIA officials and other top security officials clamored to sign on to protest lists registering their opposition to something they said was undertaking purely in retaliation for Brennan’s criticisms of Trump. Ret. Adm. William McRaven, who led the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, was among the first to speak out, in a Washington Post opinion piece headlined, “Revoke my security clearance, too, Mr. President.”

Signees said that not all agreed with Brennan’s words. But the latest version of the protest letter on Monday said the signatures do represent “our firm belief that the country will be weakened if there is a political litmus test applied before seasoned experts are allowed to share their views.”

The outcome of a Brennan lawsuit would likely be difficult to predict. The former intelligence official would be better off to challenge the decision on Fifth Amendment due process grounds than on First Amendment free speech grounds, according to Bradley Moss, an attorney who specializes in clearance cases. Virtually all clearance revocations are carried out by procedures, list reasons for the action, and allow for appeal.

“These types of national security determinations are supposed to be above party,” Mr. Moss said on a podcast hosted by the national security blog Lawfare over the weekend.

Other experts said it would be possible for Brennan to win such a suit, but it would be an “uphill climb,” in the words of Brookings Institution expert Norman Eisen.

The courts are extremely reluctant to question the substance of executive branch national security decisions. But this singular move, aimed at a political critic, could push judges to set limits on presidential decisionmaking authority in this area, according to Mr. Eisen.

And if courts – or Congress – push back with such limits, Trump’s move would have produced an unintended effect. By using power to its limit, he would have limited that power, via reaction. An analogy might be the 22^nd Amendment, limiting presidents to two terms. Ratified in 1951, it was a reaction against Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who ran and ran and ran, winning four terms.

One other long-term effect of the Brennan uproar might be the politicization of intelligence agencies, or at least a growing tendency among voters to see the agencies as political actors.

That is clearly a motive on the part of the administration. Trump’s continued attacks on the FBI and his reluctance to admit that Russia interfered with the 2016 election appear meant to lessen the credibility of the intelligence community at large, and special counsel Robert Mueller in particular.

But as Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith writes, “Trump and his allies are not the only culprits here.” In reaction to Trump, some officials somewhere in the government leaked information from National Security Agency electronic surveillance early in the administration to damage former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. When former intelligence officials criticize Trump on television, they often use intemperate language – Brennan included.

These officials have every right to express their opinions, according to Professor Goldsmith. But it was not that long ago that ex-top intelligence officials did not appear on TV panels.

“I do think that the credibility of the intelligence community as neutral and trustworthy suffers as a result,” writes Goldsmith.

Presidential Press Service/AP

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan throws flowers to his supporters as he arrives to deliver a speech at his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) congress in Ankara, Turkey, on Aug. 18.

Not all trade wars are created equal. And the latest one to hit the headlines – between the United States and its fellow NATO member, Turkey – could turn out to be among the most consequential of all.

In purely economic terms, it’s straightforward: a battle the US has not the slightest prospect of losing. But the political context is more complex, the political ripples more important, and the longer-term political effects unpredictable and potentially risky.

Turkey was among the dozens of countries on which President Trump imposed steel and aluminum tariffs in March. But he went a step further this month by doubling them on Turkey, over President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s failure to release an American evangelical minister arrested on what Mr. Trump and Washington say are baseless charges of anti-government activity.

The duties on Turkey don’t risk a major disruption to American companies. And even before the new tariffs, the Turkish economy was in crisis, saddled by double-digit inflation, a devaluing currency, and huge foreign debt.

Yet as is so often the case on an international stage where institutions, alliances, and assumptions have been shifting, the economics of the dispute will probably prove less important than the politics.

Turkey matters in geopolitical terms. Straddling Europe and Asia, it has NATO’s second-largest army after the US. The Turks are not only central players in neighboring Syria, where their forces control the area across the border, but in the European Union’s strategy for avoiding a repeat of the huge influx of Middle East refugees of several years ago.

During the cold war, Turkey was a linchpin of the Western alliance: a majority-Muslim country which, after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, became a secular republic under its founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. In the decades that followed, a kind of fractious democratic balance emerged, punctuated by periodic stints of intervention by the army, which saw itself as the guardian of stability, Atatürk’s secularism, and close ties with the West.

Mr. Erdoğan, in power since 2003, has reshaped Turkey. Though his political roots were in a banned Islamist party, he has ruled less as an Islamist than a populist-nationalist firebrand. Since a failed army coup in July 2016 and his ascendancy to the presidency, he has increasingly concentrated power in his own hands, purged the army, arrested thousands of alleged enemies as well as journalists, and moved to take control of all the reins of the economy. One factor in Turkey’s financial crisis has been his opposition – shared by his son-in-law, whom he has put in charge of the economy – to an almost universally accepted fiscal response to rising inflation: an increase in interest rates.

Yet just as Turkey’s economic woes predate the tariffs, its political relationship with the US and other Western countries has been fraying for some time. In northern Syria, Turkey has been seeking to expel the Kurdish forces, trained and armed by the Americans and indispensable in defeating ISIS. Erdoğan sees them as allies of the PKK, the mainstay of Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey since the 1980s. He also angered Washington and other NATO allies late last year by signing a $2.5-billion deal to buy missile defense from Russia.

The most likely route to de-escalation of the latest US-Turkey conflict would be a face-saving formula under which Turkey sends home the detained American minister, Andrew Brunson. But there seems no sign of that yet. Speaking last Friday, Trump ridiculed the idea Mr. Brunson was getting a fair trial and said Washington would not take his continued detention “lying down.”

Erdoğan is blaming the country’s economic crisis on Western governments, bankers, and financial institutions. “We know your shenanigans, and we will defy you,” he told his party’s congress over the weekend.

The open question is whether, and how, he will follow through on that threat. Economically, his options are limited. A pledge of $15 billion from Qatar last week did briefly stabilize Turkey’s currency fall. But while a tilt towards closer ties with Russia and Iran – both with key roles in Syria – might be tempting as a response, neither country can offer him the financial support needed to deal with Turkey’s enormous debt.

The more serious prospect would involve practical measures on the ground. A concern for Europe is the deal reached in 2016 under which around 3 million refugees from Syria are now in Turkey, with EU funding – a response to the arrival of around 1 million through Greece and into other European countries during 2015. Erdoğan has threatened before to renege on the deal and reopen the refugees’ access to Europe: a political and logistical nightmare for Europe’s leaders.

For NATO, one potential issue is continued access to the airbase at İncirlik in southern Turkey, a key strategic asset during the cold war which allied aircraft have continued to use for Middle East operations, including the fight against ISIS. For the roughly 2,000 American troops still in Syria, there could be an additional question mark over the delicate coordination arrangements that have so far forestalled a full-scale Turkish campaign to drive America’s Kurdish allies out of the country.

All of that is yet to be determined. Yet should the tariff dispute further escalate US-Turkish tensions, one thing at least does seems certain. It would add to the already-difficult challenge of finding a stable arrangement for Syria’s future, especially given Trump’s desire to bring US troops there back home.

John Minchillo/AP

A voter cast their ballot in a polling station at Quest Community Church, Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2018, in Westerville, Ohio.

In about three months, voters will head to the ballot box for the first midterm elections under President Trump – midterms both parties are billing as crucial for the direction of the country. Here’s a refresher on what to keep in mind ahead of Nov. 6.

Q: What’s at stake in the 2018 midterms?

This vote represents the first nationwide referendum on the Trump administration, where voters can collectively send a message about how satisfied they are with the direction of the government, and whether they want a change in course. If Democrats gain control of either chamber of Congress, it would effectively shut down the Republican legislative agenda, since any legislation would need Democratic votes to pass. A Democratic majority would also present a much stronger counterweight to Mr. Trump. 

Republicans currently hold a 236-to-193 advantage in the House (six House seats are vacant) and a 51-to-49 majority in the Senate. That edge gives the GOP the power to pass legislation like last year’s $1.5 trillion tax cut and to confirm Supreme Court nominees without Democratic support.

If Democrats gain control of the Senate, in addition to potential legislative gridlock, future Supreme Court picks and other judicial appointees could run into a similar challenge. If they take the House, Democratic leadership could feel empowered to start impeachment proceedings against the president. Committee chairmanships would also flip, which would likely mean more investigations into the Trump administration.

Q: At this point, how likely is it that a “blue wave” will take place?

The latest from political analysts suggests that things are looking good for Democrats, at least in the House. The party has held a consistent lead on the generic congressional ballot, which asks voters which party they’d vote for without naming specific candidates and is considered a good predictor of the popular vote. Democrats are also doing better in the money department, with challengers eclipsing Republican incumbents in 56 House districts during second-quarter fundraising.

Recent special elections – from Democrat Conor Lamb’s victory in Pennsylvania earlier this year to the whisker-close race in Ohio’s solidly red 12th district this month – also bode well for Democrats’ chances in November, political analysts say.

History shows that the incumbent president’s party tends to lose seats during midterm elections. Since 1934, the president’s party has given up an average of 28 seats in the House and five seats in the Senate during midterms. With the GOP defending more than 40 open seats in November, “the battle for the Republicans to keep the House is very real,” former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said at a recent Monitor Breakfast.

It’s more of an uphill climb in the Senate this year, where Democrats need to hold 10 seats in states that Mr. Trump won in 2016, plus take two more from Republicans. If a “wave” is coming – and there’s no consensus yet on the definition of a wave election – it’s more likely to happen in the House.

But even that could change by Nov. 6.

“Democrats capturing the majority is not a slam dunk,” Kyle Klondik writes for the University of Virginia’s Crystal Ball, a top election forecaster.

Q: Which races should we be watching?

With all 435 seats in the House up for election, it’s no surprise that there are plenty of close contests to keep an eye on. Axios identified five House races – in Iowa, Florida, Texas, California, and Maine – that are tighter than most. All five seats are currently held by Republicans but have begun inching toward Democrats. The reasons range from diversifying populations and declining Republican voter registrations, as in California’s 48th, to a strong union tradition that could be leveraged by a Conor Lamb-style candidate, as in Maine’s 2nd district.  

As for the Senate, political analysts are keeping close tabs on Arizona, where the departure of Sen. Jeff Flake (R) could serve as a test for whether demographic changes might swing the state to the left. Florida’s Sen. Bill Nelson (D) is facing a tough road to retain his seat against Republican Gov. Rick Scott, in what Bloomberg columnist Albert Hunt has dubbed “the mother of all Senate races.” In Texas, Democrat Beto O’Rourke, is proving an unexpectedly strong competitor against Sen. Ted Cruz, consistently outraising the Republican – but the state hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office in 25 years.

Other notable contests include Indiana, Missouri, and North Dakota, where Democratic incumbents are facing tough reelection prospects; Tennessee, where a popular former governor might have a shot at becoming the state’s first Democratic senator since 1990; and Nevada, where Republican Sen. Dean Heller is considered the most vulnerable incumbent among both parties. 

Q: What about governors’ mansions and state legislatures?

Huge Republican gains in state legislatures and governors’ mansions in 2010 and 2014 allowed the GOP to enact policies at the state level when they couldn’t in Washington. They also gave the party an opportunity to lead redistricting efforts following the 2010 Census, since state lawmakers draw redistricting maps and governors approve them.

Today, Republicans control both chambers of Congress, 33 governors’ mansions, and 56 percent of all state legislative seats. Democrats will have to make a dent in those seats if they want to have any say in redistricting after the 2020 Census and rebuild a base of power for elections over the next decade.

The midterms could give them that chance: Republicans are defending 26 of the 36 gubernatorial seats up for grabs. More than 80 percent of state legislative seats across the country are also in play – and here, as in Congress, seats held by the incumbent president’s party are more vulnerable.

“We are playing heavy defense,” Jon Thompson, communications director with the Republican Governors Association, told The Washington Post, “but there are a strong handful of states that we plan to play offense in.”

Q: There’s been a lot of talk about first-time candidates, especially among women, this cycle. What other notable firsts have we seen so far?

Among the biggest talking points ahead of the November midterms is the record number of women running for office this year. According to the Center for American Women and Politics:

• 476 filed for candidacy in the House;
• 54 filed to run in the Senate;
• 62 filed to run for governor;
• 119 filed for candidacy in other statewide offices;
• and more than 2,600 filed to run in their state legislatures.  

Though there are plenty of Republicans among their ranks, the majority of these new candidates are running as Democrats – spurred, analysts say, by the election of Donald Trump and the rise of the #MeToo movement, among other things.

But the firsts go beyond women running for office.

Last week, Democrats in Vermont nominated Christine Hallquist in their gubernatorial primary, making her the first transgender candidate to be nominated for the governorship by a major party. In Georgia, Stacey Abrams could potentially become the country’s first black female governor. Former Dallas County sheriff Lupe Valdez became the first Latina and open lesbian to top the Democratic ticket in the Texas gubernatorial race.

Michigan Democrats – who have nominated women for every statewide office on the November ballot – also chose former state Rep. Rashida Tlaib as the unopposed candidate to represent the state’s 13th district. She will be the first Muslim woman to serve in Congress.

“It’s historic,” California Rep. Anna Eshoo (D), who was elected to the House in 1992 – the original “Year of the Woman” – told Politico. “This year a lot of unspoken but tough walls, I think, have come tumbling down.”

Low clouds hang over the pier as fishing boats line up to drop off their catch for the day. Fishermen in orange suspendered waders and rugged boots perch on the edges of their boats. The fishermen, with weathered faces and hands toughened by their work, ignore the tourists gawking and snapping photos from a viewing platform overhead.

Then, the fog descends, giving the scene a sense of timelessness. But this scene has changed from decades past. For 400 years, fishermen across Cape Cod caught boatloads of, well, cod. The fish was so plentiful and valuable that fishermen bought houses and new boats off cod profits alone. But today, there’s a different fish filling the piers: spiny dogfish.

Cape Cod has nearly lost its namesake fish, due to overfishing and climate change. So fishermen have switched to dogfish, skates, and other more plentiful options. This move could help revive the Massachusetts fishing industry, and might even help the cod rebound, researchers say. But getting Americans to bite may not be as easy.

“This is the fish we could feed the United States with,” says Chatham fisherman Doug Feeney. “We have people that are hungry. We have prison systems. We have vets. We have homeless people. There’s just so much that can be done with this product.”

For a long time, fishermen saw dogfish as an annoyance. They were a “trash fish” with little value that often ended up clogging their nets. The large spines on their fins especially made them a pain to throw back, and they eat pretty much everything smaller than them – including juvenile codfish.

“They’re just a giant menace in the ocean,” Chatham fisherman Tim Linnell says. “You’ve got to get a lot of these out.”

Dogfish aren’t new to the area, but as cod populations have dwindled in recent decades, dogfish have flourished in their absence. So when cod could no longer pay the bills and became highly restricted to fish, fishermen turned to the thing that was already filling their nets.

“There’s no way around it,” says Mr. Feeney. “The dogs have taken over.”

Stephan Savoia/AP/File

After pulling a dogfish from one of his longlines skipper Jamie Eldredge tosses the fish onto the deck aboard his fishing vessel, 'Yellow Bird,' in the Atlantic waters off Chatham, Mass. Commercial fisherman are permitted to bring in 6,000 pounds of dogfish per trip.

A dog’s tale

Spiny dogfish are actually small sharks that reach just about 4 feet long. Thousands swim together in packs (like dogs), making them easy for fishermen to catch.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, as the cod population crashed, dogfish seemed like a great option for Cape Cod fishermen. Dogfish practically jumped into their boats and were unregulated, so fishermen could catch as many as they could fit on their boats. But by the turn of the century, the dogfish population up and down the East Coast had plummeted. Regulators sharply curtailed dogfishing in 2000. Processors stopped working with dogfish.

Nearly a decade later, the population of dogfish had risen significantly again, and regulations have relaxed. The fishery is now certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council, and commercial fishermen are allowed catch up to 6,000 pounds worth of dogfish on a given fishing trip – and they do. Sometimes they even have to throw some back when too many end up in their nets.

But the catch isn’t so sustainable for the fishermen themselves. Dogfish doesn’t pay the bills like cod once did. Cod can fetch dollars on the pound, while a pound of dogfish is typically worth around 25 cents.

So what would it take to make dogfishing economically sustainable for fishermen?

Mr. Linnell is among those who say the catch limit for each trip should be increased. “If you get 10,000 pounds with the current prices, you’re able to support your boat, your business,” he says. Others point out that with the current trip limits, fishermen along the East Coast bring in less than half of the total yearly quota for the entire coast. 

But Feeney cautions that expanding trip limits may not be good for all fishermen. Small boat fishermen would start to go out of business with a 10,000 pound trip limit, he says, as their boats can’t carry that much. Instead, he says, the focus should be on increasing prices.

“It’s just the classic supply-demand situation where they don’t yet get paid much more per pound,” says Jen Levin, manager of the Sustainable Seafood Program at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, who has done research on the marketability of dogfish in New England. “So it’s a long-term solution around building up markets, building up demand with a higher quality product. And it really is going to take a long time to do that before that price per pound goes up.”

Today the majority of dogfish is sent to Europe where it’s commonly used for fish and chips. About 2.6 million pounds of dogfish is currently exported from Massachusetts. Some, like Feeney, have been working to expand a market in Asia, too, offering a sustainable source of shark fins.

But there isn’t really a market in the US for dogfish. In fact, in Chatham, where 6 million pounds of dogfish are caught each year, this reporter called 15 restaurants looking for a place to try the local seafood and none had it on their menu.

Changing perceptions

There are a few projects pushing to build a market in the US for dogfish. Last year, as part of their “Pier to Plate” project, the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance gave away more than 4,000 pounds of dogfish to local restaurants and events to promote locally caught fish. Separately, Feeney has worked with other fishermen to form the Chatham Harvesters Cooperative. They are working to cultivate a market for value-added products from dogfish like fish burgers, fish sticks, and breaded fish. Feeney and others are also marketing dogfish to universities and other large institutions with an eye toward volume.

The idea, says Steven Costas, a salesman for Marder Trawling Inc. in New Bedford, Mass., is to lay the groundwork. Once a market is established for dogfish as an inexpensive fish, demand will rise and so will price.

But it will take time, says Ms. Levin. For one thing, “the idea of replacing other seafood sales with dogfish is probably not as realistic,” she says. Diners accustomed to the light, flaky texture of cod, for instance, are likely to be disappointed by dogfish's firm and slightly oily meat. Dogfish needs its own place in the market.

“If we are able to grow overall seafood sales,” she adds, “then I think that there’s a lot of potential for dogfish.”

One challenge is the name. Dogfish is often thought of as a lower quality fish, or is unknown entirely. Some have toyed with the idea of renaming it “cape shark,” for example; foodservice distributor US Foods launched “Cape Shark Tenders” in 2017. In England, they call dogfish “rock salmon.”

But others say a name is just a name. “I think that the more people experience dogfish, the more they hear about it, the more they understand what it is, the more normal dogfish will be. We eat catfish. I don’t know why we wouldn’t eat dogfish,” says Levin. “Giving people those experiences is where we should focus our efforts.”

That’s the approach the University of Massachusetts Amherst is taking in using dogfish in the dining halls. Ken Toong, the executive director of auxiliary enterprises at UMass, was looking for more locally sourced seafood to feed students. Dogfish provided that opportunity, but he and his staff also discussed calling the fish something else, perhaps cape shark or something generic like whitefish. Ultimately, he says, they decided to just call it dogfish and use it as an opportunity to tell the story of the edible shark and where it came from. So far, Mr. Toong says, students have given dogfish good reviews.

Schools may be a good way to get Americans tasting dogfish. Chefs in dining halls can experiment with fish tacos, fish and chips, and even more creative cooking. And students are developing their habits for adulthood. Toong says: “I think we have lots of influence on our students’ dining habits now, and in the future.”

This story was produced with support from an Energy Foundation grant to cover the environment.

AP Photo

The New York Stock Exchange.

Investors in the stocks of corporations are often categorized as being either patient for long-term returns (the ants) or impatient for short-term profits (the grasshoppers). On Friday, President Trump joined a rising chorus of critics by asking federal regulators to move toward rules that would further favor the patient investor – which can include funds in which about a third of Americans put aside money for retirement. 

Mr. Trump tweeted that he had asked the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to consider ending the practice of corporations issuing quarterly reports on their earnings and shift toward releasing such financial information every six months. Perhaps out of concern over competition from China, he explained that the United States is “not thinking far enough out.”

His request came after years of calls by many top business leaders to reduce the focus of stock analysts on a company’s quarterly returns. In June, long-haul investor Warren Buffett and Jamie Dimon, the JPMorgan Chase chief executive, issued a joint call on behalf of some 200 chief executives to reduce “short-termism” in corporations by abandoning the quarterly earnings estimates. “Public companies should be managed for long-term prosperity, not to meet the latest forecast,” their statement said.

A recent study of about 600 firms by the McKinsey Global Institute found that 73 percent of public companies are short-termist. Firms that are long-termist saw profits that were 36 percent higher between 2001 and 2014.

The main issue with quarterly reports is that they can easily push executives to shortchange investments in research, employees, and customers in order to meet the expectations of investors who seek a quick buck. Yet investors do deserve timely information on how well a company is doing and whether executives are hiding bad news. Finding a balance is difficult. In 2007, Europe moved from six-month reporting to quarterly reporting. After seven years, it returned to the longer perspective.

In corporations listed on stock exchanges, the hassles of answering to investors have proved an incentive for private companies not to go public. In the past two decades, the average number of annual public offerings of stock has dropped by about two-thirds. This reduces the number of places where people can buy and sell stock, giving wealthy investors greater opportunity to make investments in privately held companies.

Every investor has a different time frame, of course, but all investors have one question in common: What is the fundamental value of the service or product that a company is selling? Measuring that value can include looking at the long-term trust that a company has built, and not only with its customers. The worth of a company depends on its integrity with employees, with the communities it operates in, and even with the environment.

Such values are not easy to measure and can take years to cement in a company’s culture. If the SEC were to tilt toward the patient investor, it could nudge executives to explain the long-term narrative of a company’s sustainability with metrics far beyond quarterly earnings. Are a company’s founders more eager to build market share than their own wealth? Are they creating quality patents, satisfied customers, employees who innovate, and products that pollute less?

In business as elsewhere, patience is a virtue that requires careful thought beyond one’s self-interest. The issue of whether public companies should report quarterly or every six months should be only the start of a debate by the SEC on how companies can broaden their role in society beyond short-term profits.