The Commentariat -- Sept. 18, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Marc Santora of the New York Times: "Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said that a powerful explosion that rocked the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan on Saturday night, injuring 29 people, did not appear to be linked to international terrorism, but that it was a powerful bomb designed to kill. 'This is one of the nightmare scenarios,' he said at a news conference on Sunday.... He said all of the injured had been released from the hospital. A few hours after the explosion, the authorities found and removed what they described as a second device four blocks away, raising the possibility that two bombs had been planted in the heart of the city. Mr. Cuomo said the devices appeared to be similar in design." -- CW

Kristine Guerra of the Washington Post: "A man who was killed after stabbing nine people Saturday night inside a Minnesota mall was 'a soldier of the Islamic State,' an ISIS-linked news agency said Sunday morning.... In a statement Sunday, Amaq News Agency said the suspect 'carried out the operation in response to calls to target citizens of countries belonging to the crusader coalition.'" -- CW

Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump has yet to take questions from reporters about why he finally decided Friday that President Obama was, in fact, born in the United States, forcing some of his top surrogates to answer for him during Sunday morning news shows." CW: The responses of mike pence, Kellyanne Conway & Chris Christie were, not surpringly, farcical. Maybe Trump figured his minions could come up with something better than he could, but they didn't. Christie at least gave us a preview of what to expect if debate moderators refute Trump when he spouts "his facts." ...

... On CNN's "State of the Union," Jake Tapper said to Gov. Chris Christie "... Donald Trump did not accept when Barack Obama released his birth certificate in 2011. He kept up this whole birther thing until Friday. That's five years....," hereupon Christie replied, "No, but, Jake, that's just not true. It's not true that he kept it up for five years."

Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "A sitting governor goes on national television and when he is called out for an obvious falsehood, he simply repeats the inaccurate talking points over and over.... This is such bogus spin that we have to wonder how Christie manages to say it with a straight face. Regular readers know we shy away from using the word 'lie,' but clearly Christie is either lying or he is so misinformed that he has no business appearing on television. Kudos to Tapper for refusing to let Christie get away with it."

*****

Christopher Mele, et al., of the New York Times: "A powerful explosion caused by what the authorities believe was a homemade bomb injured at least 29 people on a crowded sidewalk in the bustling Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan on Saturday night, according to the police. A few hours later, the authorities found and removed what they described as a second explosive device four blocks away, raising the possibility that two bombs had been planted in the heart of the city. Mayor Bill de Blasio called the explosion -- which occurred about 8:30 p.m. on West 23rd Street -- 'an intentional act' but initially said there was no connection to terrorism and no immediate claim of responsibility." -- CW ...

     ... CW: "No connection to terrorism"? What does that mean? No connection to Muslims? Detonating a bomb on a busy city street is an act of terrorism, whatever the political leanings of the terrorist(s). Update: According to the Daily News story, linked below, de Blasio's exact words were, "There is no evidence at this point of a terror connection." ...

... The New York Daily News story, by Edgar Sandoval & others, is here. The harrowing incident thrust NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill into the spotlight on his first full day on the job." The story includes CCTV video of the moment of explosion. -- CW

Spencer Kent of NJ.com: "An explosive device went off in a garbage pail Saturday morning [in Seaside Park, N.J.,] along the route of a 5K run and walk to benefit military soldiers. Multiple devices were also found 'wired together' in the same garbage pail, but they did not detonate, according to Al Della Fave, spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office." -- CW

Presidential Race

Philip Rucker & Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "Public polls over the past week show Trump leading Clinton in Ohio, Florida and Iowa; moving into a virtual tie with her in Nevada and North Carolina; and cutting into what had been comfortable Clinton leads in New Hampshire as well as in Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Virginia." -- CW

Natasha Geiling of Think Progress: "Former Defense Secretary Bob Gates is not a big fan of either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton's ideas about foreign policy. But when it comes to national security, he only thinks one candidate --  Trump --  is 'beyond repair.' In a scathing op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, Gates --  who served under both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama --  takes both candidates to task for their ideas about dealing with potentially hostile relations in China, Russia, the Middle East, and beyond.... Gates ... says [Trump] is 'in a league of his own' when it comes to credibility issues. He brings up Trump's support of autocrats like Vladimir Putin and dictators like Saddam Hussein, Trump's calls for torture and the killing of terrorist's families, and Trump's willingness to allow Japan and South Korea to develop their own nuclear weapons." -- CW

** Blond Ambition. Clare Foran of the Atlantic looks to the responses of a focus group conducted by right-wing pollster Frank Luntz (but one that included Democrats, Republicans & independents), to highlight the double standard that voters apply to Clinton & Trump. "A number of participants in the focus group rated Donald Trump as more trustworthy than Clinton. Trump also leads Clinton on the question of trust in some national polls. That's remarkable considering that ... evidence suggest that Clinton is in fact more trustworthy.... [One] man explicitly applied different standards to Trump and Clinton in evaluating honesty. 'Clinton has a responsibility to be honest because she was an elected official,' he said, 'whereas Trump just had his organization.'... It seems odd, however, to suggest that simply because Trump doesn't have experience in politics he does not have a responsibility to be truthful...." -- CW

Bill Bradley of the Huffington Post: "Many criticized Jimmy Fallon's recent Donald Trump interview for being too soft on the Republican presidential nominee. Now, as a follow up, the comedian is wearing a surgical mask to interview ... Hillary Clinton. In retrospect, maybe this wasn't the best idea." CW: No kidding. Fallon might as well put a Trump for President sticker on the front of his desk.

It's not about golf course promotions or birth certificates. It comes down to who will fight for the forgotten. Who will invest in your children and who will really have your back in the White House. We need ideas, not insults, real plans to help struggling Americans, to help communities that have been left out and left behind. Not prejudice and paranoia. We can't let Barack Obama's legacy fall into the hands of someone who doesn't understand that. Whose dangerous and divisive vision for our country will drag us backwards. -- Hillary Clinton, at a Congressional Black Caucus event ...

... Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "Hillary Clinton took aim at Donald Trump on Saturday for his involvement in the birther movement, working to keep Trump's role in the conspiracy theory on voters' minds.... Speaking to more than a thousand attendees Saturday night at the Congressional Black Caucus's annual gala in Washington..., [Clinton] lit into her Republican rival for a Friday event in which the GOP nominee conceded -- after years of falsely suggesting otherwise -- that Barack Obama is a naturally-born U.S. citizen and eligible to serve as president." -- CW ...

... John Wagner of the Washington Post: "In a fiery speech Saturday night, President Obama said he would consider it 'a personal insult' if the African American community does not turn out to vote in great numbers in November and help carry on his legacy by supporting ... Hillary Clinton. 'If you care about our legacy, realize everything we stand for is at stake,' Obama ... said in an address to an annual dinner of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. 'My name may not be on the ballot, but our progress is on the ballot.'... 'And to think with just 124 days to go, under the wire, we got that [birther] thing resolved,' Obama said to laughter from the predominantly African American audience. 'In other breaking news, the world is round, not flat.'" -- CW

Trumpelthinskin, Ctd. Rebecca Morin of Politico: "Donald Trump returned fire at former Defense Secretary Bob Gates at a Colorado rally Saturday, calling him a 'nasty guy' who 'probably has a problem we don't know about.' The GOP nominee's comments come after Gates' scathing Wall Street Journal op-ed published online Friday, where he attacks Trump as 'cavalier about the use of nuclear weapons,' with 'a record of insults to servicemen, their families and the military.'" -- CW ...

... Rebecca Morin: "Donald Trump turned his attention back to cable network guests in a Saturday tweetstorm, slamming New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd as a 'neurotic dope' and a CNN panel as 'losers.'... [Trump], who has spoken to [Dowd] ... several times throughout the election cycle, tweeted that Dowd 'makes up things that I never said for her boring interviews and columns.' Trump's tweets come after Dowd was interviewed on CNN by Michael Smerconish on her new book 'The Year of Voting Dangerously,' a collection of her columns on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump released this week." -- CW ...

By Driftglass.... Tom Dart of the Guardian: At a closed-door luncheon in Houston, Texas, Donald Trump described "Hillary Clinton's plan for comprehensive immigration reform, including a pathway to citizenship, as an 'amnesty' that would mean 'a virtual end to immigration enforcement in the United States of America'. Trump claimed his Democratic rival was 'effectively proposing to abolish the borders around the country that she is supposed to be representing.'... After initially inviting applications from members of the media to attend, the Project said on Friday that it was now a private event. It was livestreamed on YouTube.... [A Vice News reporter was arrested] for alleged trespassing at the hotel 'while inquiring about press access'." ...

... CW: Given Trump's comments about Maureen Dowd, it might not be mere coincidence that the reporter, Alex Thompson, was once an editorial assistant to Dowd, though the Trump campaign claims it had nothing to do with Thompson's arrest.

Harper Neidig of the Hill: "Former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.) and her husband Mark Kelly lashed out at Donald Trump on Friday for saying that Hillary Clinton's bodyguards should be 'disarmed.' 'Tonight we have even more evidence of just how dangerously unfit Donald Trump is to be president of this great country,' Giffords and Kelly, both Clinton supporters, said in a statement. 'He is reckless, irresponsible and unworthy of the office he seeks.... We call on him to immediately renounce these comments, apologize to Hillary Clinton, and acknowledge that once again he has gone dangerously too far.'" -- CW ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: Donald "Trump has floated the idea of Clinton disarming her guards on many occasions before.... But ... what Trump said Friday night went beyond what he'd said previously.... When Trump said, 'Let's see what happens to her,' and 'It would be very dangerous,' he's taking things to a new level and talking about the actual result...." That is, the assassination of Hillary Clinton. -- CW

Donald Trump, Welfare King. Charles Bagli of the New York Times: Donald Trump "used his father's, and, later, his own, extensive political connections, and relied on a huge amount of assistance from the government and taxpayers in the form of tax breaks, grants and incentives to benefit the 15 buildings at the core of his Manhattan real estate empire. Since then, Mr. Trump has reaped at least $885 million in tax breaks, grants and other subsidies for luxury apartments, hotels and office buildings in New York, according to city tax, housing and finance records. The subsidies helped him lower his own costs and sell apartments at higher prices because of their reduced taxes.... No possible subsidy was left untapped.... The level of subsidies he has received along with his doggedness in claiming them seem at odds with his rhetoric as an outsider candidate who boasts of his single-handed success and who has denounced what he calls the pay-to-play culture of politics and a 'rigged' system of government." -- CW

Worst Candidate in the World. Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "... this past week offered a vivid illustration of how little regard Mr. Trump has for the long-held expectations of America's leaders. He is not only breaking the country's political norms, he and his campaign aides are now all but mocking them. Besides using his campaign as a platform to make money on a new hotel, Mr. Trump leveled an untrue assertion that Hillary Clinton had been the first to claim Mr. Obama was born abroad. He also boasted about his health on the show of a daytime television celebrity while releasing just his testosterone levels and a few other details.... Mr. Trump also continued to flout 40 years of tradition by refusing to release his tax returns, a decision that his eldest son admitted this week was not based on an audit, as Mr. Trump has repeatedly claimed.... [Trump Senior] also casually accused the chairwoman of the Federal Reserve of corruption, claimed that the bipartisan national debate commission was rigged against him, and stated that Mrs. Clinton had not proposed a child care plan. (She has, and did so a year before he did.) He also mocked an African-American pastor..., and again referred to Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who once said she had Native American roots, as 'Pocahontas.' And that was all before Friday night, when Mr. Trump hinted at violence against Mrs. Clinton by inviting her Secret Service detail to disarm 'and see what happens to her.'" -- CW

... OR in the Philippines, or France, or England, or, or, or.

CW: I'm really sorry I missed this commentary on Donald Trump's Washington, D.C., hotel, which he introduced in his INFOMERCIAL/birther announcement and a tour that followed. Many thanks to Jackalizer for the link:

Jen Hayden of Daily Kos (Sept. 16): "... the folks from American Bridge did get a look around [the hotel] and what they found was a hotel filled with goods made overseas, mostly in China." CW: Hayden posts American Bridge's photographic evidence of how Trump is going to bring back American jobs -- I guess as dockworkers at ports of entry for foreign-made goods, though I suppose he'll bust the International Longshore & Warehouse Union "on Day One."

Dana Milbank (Sept. 16) spent a night at the Trump hotel on Jeff Bezos' dime. "Examining my posh surroundings -- Italian bed linens, French table linens, Chinese duvet, Korean TV and, yes, Mexican tequila ($14 for a shot of Patrón Silver) in the minibar, er, 'private bar,' I came across the Gideon Bible in the nightstand with a note on 'TRUMP HOTELS ™' stationery: 'If you would like to continue your spiritual journey, we also offer the followings [sic]: Talmud. Quran. Gita. Avesta. Tripitaka (Pali Canon). Shri Guru Granth Sahib. Book of Mormon....'... [Trump] portrays himself as a populist friend of the little guy, yet he makes money renting out a presidential suite for $18,000 a night (a sign informed me that the maximum nightly rate for my room was $5,600). He derides the 'establishment' but makes his living catering to it." Milbank was wearing his "made-in-China 'Trump Hotels' bathrobe and Trump slippers" when he accepted a copy of the Koran from housekeeping.

BTW, didja notice the not-American accent of the clerk who answered Milbanks' room-service call? Of course the guy could be a naturalized American citizen like my husband who never lost his Italian accent. But the odds are he's one of those foreign guest-workers like like the construction crew that helped build Trump's Washington, D.C. hotel.

Barbara Ross & Stephen Brown of the New York Daily News: "Explosive court papers containing embarrassing details about Ivana Trump's divorce from Donald have been abruptly concealed after a Daily News inquiry.... The dusty documents stored in a box in the clerk's office of Manhattan Supreme Court contain allegations that Trump 'verbally abused and demeaned' his ex-wife. Ivana alleged that he 'lied' and that his treatment of her was 'cruel and inhuman.' In the end, it was 'unsafe or improper for them to be married,' the papers charge.... Over 100 pages of documents in the case filed in 1990 -- including key portions of a sworn deposition from Ivana -- are missing.... The documents are no longer publicly available. They are now part of the trove of paperwork relating to the Ivana-Donald divorce that The New York Times and Gannet newspaper chain have sued to unseal." -- CW

Aaron Blake: "A lot of Donald Trump Jr.'s trail missteps seem to involve white nationalists and Nazis. Blake provides a list. CW: This, of course, is no accident: it's because, like father, like son, the Junior Grand Wizard gets all his "news" from the White Supremacists Daily.

Other News & Views

Thanks, Paul Ryan! Max Ehrenfreund of the Washington Post: "The House Republicans' proposal for tax relief could force the government to borrow trillions of dollars to continue operating and might even weaken the economy, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. By 2025, when the reductions would be fully implemented, 99.6 percent of the tax cuts would benefit the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, according to the analysis. This group would enjoy the greatest relief as a share of their income ... and in terms of dollars.... (Emphasis added.) CW: Ryan, of course, will get his horrifying tax plan implemented if Trump becomes president. The Wasteland commeth.

Beyond the Beltway

St. Cloud (Minnesota) Times: "Eight people were injured and the suspect died at Crossroads Center [shopping mall] on Saturday after an attack reported about 8:15 p.m. St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson said the victims were stabbed by a man dressed in a private security uniform. An off-duty police officer from another jurisdiction shot and killed the attacker, Anderson said. Anderson did not say where that officer serves during the news conference that started after midnight. According to St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis, the shooting happened inside Macy's.... The stabbings occurred in several places within the mall: corridors, businesses and common areas." -- CW

Robert Moran, et al., of Philly.com: "A gunman ambushed a Philadelphia police sergeant late Friday night in West Philadelphia, firing more than a dozen rounds before taking off, and then shot four civilians, killing one young woman, and wounded a University of Pennsylvania police officer during his flight before he was finally cornered and killed by police.... [The shooter Nicholas] Glenn was carrying a white, sealed envelope that read 'Doomed People' on it, [Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard] Ross said. The commissioner said police found a 'rambling' letter allegedly written by the gunman in which he expressed hatred toward police and probation officers. He said there was no reason to believe at this point that the gunman had any religious beliefs that drove him to the shootings." -- CW

Marc Ramirez of the Dallas Morning News: "A Dallas police sergeant has filed a federal lawsuit against Black Lives Matter leaders and others, blaming the movement for race riots and violence against police officers. Sgt. Demetrick Pennie, president of the Dallas Fallen Officer Foundation..., filed the amended complaint in federal court Friday.... The listed defendants include ... public figures such as the Rev. Al Sharpton, Louis Farrahkan, George Soros, the New Black Panthers Party and even President Barack Obama and presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.... Pennie is being represented by [right-wing attack dog] Larry Klayman of lobbying organization FreedomWatch." -- CW

Y R R Kidz So Dum? Marisa Gerber of the Los Angeles Times: A suburban Dallas high school builds a $60-million football stadium; a rival high school in a nearby town one-ups the school by building a $70-million stadium. CW: Now let's see what percentage of the students can name the three branches of government and explain Darwin's theory of evolution.

The Commentariat -- Sept. 17, 2016

Presidential Race

Harper Neidig of the Hill: "The Commission on Presidential Debates announced on Friday that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and their running mates are the only candidates who will participate in the upcoming debates. This means Trump (R) and Clinton (D) will take part in the Sept. 26 debate at Hofstra University in New York and that Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein have not been invited. -- CW

Burgess Everett of Politico: "In one of the most overt displays of campaign theatrics this year, two separate proposals targeting Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on transparency were blocked on the Senate floor on Thursday. Democrats struck first with an attempt to highlight Trump's opaque financial history. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) took to the floor press for a bill that would force presidential candidates to release three years of their tax returns. Trump, of course, has refused to do so, and Wyden's proposal would have the Treasury secretary release a presidential candidate's returns if he or she refuses to do so.... Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) ... then pushed for a bill written by Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) that would effectively block Clinton from accessing classified information because FBI Director James Comey found Clinton's use of a private email server 'extremely careless.'" -- CW

Evelyn Rupert of the Hill: "Hillary Clinton's campaign said in a statement Friday that Donald Trump's remark that Clinton's bodyguards should be disarmed fit into a 'pattern of inciting people to violence.' 'Whether this is done to provoke protesters at a rally or casually or even as a joke, it is an unacceptable quality in anyone seeking the job of Commander in Chief,' campaign manager Robby Mook said. 'This kind of talk should be out of bounds for a presidential candidate, just like it should be out of bounds for a presidential candidate to peddle a conspiracy theory about the President of the United States for five years.'" -- CW

David Goldstein of McClatchy News: "Two supporters of Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign reportedly shared the claim that then-rival Barack Obama was not born in the United States.... One was a volunteer in Iowa, who was fired, Clinton's former campaign manager said Friday. The other was Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal, according to [James Asher,] a former McClatchy Washington Bureau chief.... There is no evidence that Clinton herself or her campaign spread the story.... Asher tweeted Friday that Blumenthal had 'told me in person' that Obama was born in Kenya. 'During the 2008 Democratic primary, Sid Blumenthal visited the Washington Bureau of McClatchy Co.,' Asher said in an email Friday to McClatchy. 'During that meeting..., he strongly urged me to investigate the exact place of President Obama's birth, which he suggested was in Kenya. We assigned a reporter to go to Kenya, and that reporter determined that the allegation was false." Blumenthal denies Asher's claim. Clinton's 2008 campaign manager Mark Penn also encouraged Clinton to contrast her own Midwestern roots with Obama's Obama's 'lack of American roots.'" -- CW ...

Lauren Gambino of the Guardian: "Michelle Obama used her debut appearance on the campaign trail on Friday to cast Donald Trump as unprepared to succeed her husband in the White House, saying: 'Being president isn't anything like reality TV.' Speaking at George Mason University in Virginia, Obama described the election as a choice between 'one of the most qualified people who has ever endeavored to become president' and someone who did not 'take the job seriously'." -- CW

The Meeting Is the Message. Krissah Thompson of the Washington Post: "Laura Bush & Michelle Obama got together again Friday. During election season, such events featuring political figures are seldom accidental. -- CW

By Driftglass.... Nick Corasaniti, et al., of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump once again raised the specter of violence against Hillary Clinton, calling on Friday for the Secret Service agents who guard her to voluntarily disarm to 'see what happens to her' without their protection. 'I think that her bodyguards should drop all weapons,' Mr. Trump said at a rally in Miami, to loud applause. 'I think they should disarm. Immediately.' He went on: 'Let's see what happens to her. Take their guns away, O.K. It'll be very dangerous.'... He gestured emphatically with his hands as he spoke.... Mr. Trump's comments were a provocative echo of condemned remarks he made at a campaign rally in Wilmington, N.C., in early August." -- CW ...

... Richard Luscombe of the Guardian: "After a bruising day dominated by his non-apology for promoting the 'birther' conspiracy theory, Donald Trump attempted to regain control of the direction of his presidential campaign at a Miami rally in which he appeared to hint at the assassination of Hillary Clinton. In a sometimes bizarre 45-minute speech on Friday night..., the Republican nominee went off-script to call for his opponent's bodyguards to 'disarm immediately' -- adding, 'Let's see what happens to her.'" -- CW

Every Word out of Trump's Mouth Is Meaningless. Marc Caputo of Politico: "Donald Trump once called President Barack Obama's rapprochement with Cuba 'fine' and said that, though he would've cut a better deal, '50 years is enough' for the U.S. embargo. But during a Friday rally in Miami, Trump sounded very much like every other Republican presidential nominee promising to keep a hard line on Cuba as he seeks the support of the influential Cuban-American exile community." -- CW

The New York Times thinks this is top-o'-the-page breaking news: "Donald J. Trump publicly retreated from his 'birther' campaign on Friday, acknowledging that President Obama was born in the United States and saying that he wanted to move on from the conspiracy theory that he has been clinging to for years.... Mr. Trump also falsely accused Hillary Clinton of having first raised questions about Mr. Obama's birthplace during the 2008 Democratic primary." At the end of the story, we read, "In a speech in Washington on Friday before Mr. Trump made his statement, Mrs. Clinton said that Mr. Trump owes Mr. Obama and the country an apology and that it is too late for him to walk back what he has done. 'For five years he has led the birther movement to delegitimize our first black president,' Mrs. Clinton said. 'His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie.' She added, 'There is no erasing it in history.'" -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... The Washington Post makes Clinton's critique of Trump's birtherism a stand-alone story. -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

Here's how NBC Nightly News covered Trump's Biggest Lies of the Day:

... Eli Stokols of Politico: "Donald Trump did not apologize Friday for driving one of the uglier, most blatantly racist narratives in American political culture during the Obama presidency. The most prominent proponent of the birther movement..., [Trump] instead lied about his role in conspiracy theory's popularity and, without any evidence, attempted to pin the blame on Hillary Clinton. With the first general election debate 10 days away, Trump attempted to neutralize a likely Clinton attack line -- that he spent five years questioning the American citizenship of the country's first African-American president. Trump's concession to reality came only after he leveraged the spectacle of his walk-back into 30 minutes of live cable coverage that served as a branding opportunity for his new Trump Hotel in Washington -- where the event was held -- and for himself.... After the event, Trump led a small pool of still photographers and television crews on a tour of his hotel. But when the print pooler was excluded from the tour, the networks voted to pull their camera and erase the footage." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... CW: This is the second time in two days that members of the press have revolted against Trump's manipulations. See the story linked below by Eli Stokols & Hadas Gold of Politico. ...

... Tierney Sneed of TPM Earns the Headline of the Day: "Trump Introduced By A Birther At Event Where He Walked Back Birtherism." CW: So Trump says Obama is a U.S. citizen after all, wink, wink. P.S. For you non-birthers, well, the whole birther thing is Hillary's fault. ...

... Jamelle Bouie: "Donald Trump is still a birther.... It takes a certain audacity to open a press conference about birtherism with a supporter who backs the very conspiracy supposedly being renounced. And although Trump mouthed the words that affirmed Obama's citizenship, he ignored his role in fanning the conspiracy by pointing the finger at [Hillary Clinton].... Birtherism only entered widespread consciousness after Trump adopted it as a cause, revitalizing the conspiracy. Indeed, birtherism was the catapult that launched Trump into conservative fame.... You have Trump's one-sentence disavowal on Friday, delivered alongside two outright lies during a scam of an event at his new hotel.... We can choose to believe Trump. Given the evidence, we shouldn't." ...

... Gail Collins: "What we have here is a candidate for president of the United States who makes stuff up all the time, but is either incapable of realizing that he's telling a lie, or constitutionally unable to take blame for being untruthful. Yet, according to the polls, Hillary Clinton's biggest problem is that the public thinks she's dishonest. Amazing." CW: For once, Collins treats a threat to the republic as a serious matter instead of delivering her usual tee-hee-hee Erma Bombeck column. Maybe Trump's birther scam really will be his undoing, which couldn't be more fitting. ...

... Patrick Caldwell of Mother Jones: "When Donald Trump tried to pin the birther movement on Hillary Clinton..., the media jumped in to factcheck.... Late Friday afternoon, the Trump campaign sent a press release to reporters in an attempt to back up its claims -- but instead it only contradicted the GOP candidate's entire argument.... The campaign pointed to a Friday CNN interview with Clinton's 2008 campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, in which she said when a low-level volunteer coordinator with the campaign sent an email advancing the birther conspiracy, the Clinton campaign immediately fired the person." -- CW ...

... Charles Pierce: "In an interview with The Washington Post's Robert Costa, Donald Trump again declined to speculate on the president's birthplace. This set off a scramble in the court of the Czar, which culminated in a statement from its communications director that fairly well suits what Mary McCarthy once said about Lillian Hellman and the truth -- every word of the statement is a lie, except (perhaps) the communications director's name.... And then, of course, there was the farce in which [Trump] engaged on Friday morning.... [He] gave a three-sentence statement on the alleged topic du jour. Two of the sentences were lies.... The Trump campaign believes that the elite political media is as much of a dumb beast as the Trump campaign believes the voters are. There is no longer any reason to cover this campaign as anything but a truthless danger to the American republic." -- CW ...

... ** Libby Nelson of Vox: "Donald Trump promised a major statement about his embrace of conspiracy theories about President Obama's birthplace. Instead, he fooled the three major cable news networks into airing a 20-minute infomercial about his hotel and his candidacy. With the 'breaking news' chyron on, MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN played footage of veterans praising Trump and Trump praising his own hotel. And then Trump showed up on stage for less than two minutes to say that Obama was born in the United States. This is what people mean when they complain about how 'the media' has covered the Trump campaign." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump ... held the media hostage for nearly an hour after promising a major news announcement.... While they waited, and waited, Trump provided what amounted to a campaign infomercial and shamelessly promoted his new Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington. When it was over, and he had said the absurdly obvious -- that he now accepts that President Obama was born in the United States -- there was, at least, some long overdue indignation.... CNN's [John] King..., Jake Tapper and Gloria Borger denounced the way Trump had played the media. And they flatly denounced Trump's notion that [Hillary] Clinton started the birther rumors.'CNN and others were pulled into the whole three-ring circus -- I've never seen anything as crass and disingenuous,' said Frank Sesno, a former CNN Washington bureau chief.... Meanwhile..., [Clinton] was doing something unexciting, substantial and workmanlike: addressing the Black Women's Agenda Symposium, talking about the economic challenges faced by women of color. It got, of course, only a fraction of the media's attention." -- CW ...

... Contributor Nancy wrote yesterday, "Trump-loving media: Like a country bumpkin in the big city, marked by the con on the corner. Now will you stop covering this guy?" ...

... New York Times Editors: "Did he apologize to Mr. Obama and the American people for the political poison he spread for so long? Of course not. Being Mr. Trump, he instead substituted a lie for a lie. He falsely accused Hillary Clinton of starting the birther myth, then further claimed he had nobly 'finished' it off by badgering the White House for proof that Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii, not Africa." -- CW

... Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "Mr. Obama's citizenship was never in question. No credible evidence ever suggested otherwise.... Yet it took Mr. Trump five years of dodging, winking and joking to surrender, finally on Friday, to reality after a remarkable campaign of relentless deception that tried to undermine the legitimacy of the nation's first black president.... Surrounded by, and in many ways shielded by, decorated veterans in his new Washington, D.C., hotel, he could not resist indulging in another falsehood -- that his opponent, Hillary Clinton, had started the so-called birther movement. She did not.... [The birther lie] this lie was different from [his other lies from] the start, an insidious, calculated calumny that sought to undo the embrace of an African-American president by the 69 million voters who elected him in 2008." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Andrew Prokop of Vox: "Finally, on Friday, Trump himself begrudgingly gave an extremely brief statement that "President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period,' and again dishonestly blamed [Hillary] Clinton for supposedly starting the controversy. But he shouldn't be allowed to worm out of this so easily, because birtherism is in many ways the urtext of Trump's presidential campaign. It demonstrates his willingness to mainstream fringe racism, his desire to flout the norms of political discourse, his ability to play the media, and his imperviousness to facts. And Trump has never truly been held to account for it during this campaign." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Tim Murphy of Mother Jones: "... virtually every line of the statement [Donald Trump's campaign released before his birther brief/infomercial] is a lie." -- CW

Robert O'Harrow, Jr., of the Washington Post: "During his run for the White House, Trump has maintained he always operated aboveboard as a real estate developer and casino operator, at a time when corruption and organized crime were rampant in New York and Atlantic City. But the details of Trump's relationships with [FBI informant Daniel] Sullivan and [FBI agent Walt] Stowe show that he worked with men with underworld connections to further and protect his business interests. In doing so, Trump risked his reputation and his dream of becoming a tycoon. He entered into a land deal with Sullivan and an organized crime figure who was later targeted for a hit. He agreed to finance Sullivan's purchase of a company under FBI investigation for racketeering. And he collaborated on a plan with Stowe and other FBI agents to allow an undercover operation at his first casino." -- CW (Also linked yesterday.)

Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "Food poisoning will make America great again! Or, at least, that's what Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump appears to be banking on with a new proposal released on Thursday. Trump's campaign distributed a fact sheet outlining 'specific regulations to be eliminated.' Among other things, this fact sheet took aim at 'the FDA Food Police.'... America has already tested the idea that we can have safe foods without adequate regulation." Millhiser relates a short history of the American ketchup market. "As it turns out, the invisible hand of the market delivered moldy, rancid ketchup that used vinegar and spice to cover up the flavor of decay. It took regulation, the very kind of regulation that Trump now seems to be out to get, to enable Americans to trust their food." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Ben Schreckinger of Politico: "Nude photos at the center of questions about Melania Trump's immigration history were first published in early 1997, timing that contradicts previous reports but is consistent with Trump's own timeline of her immigration. Trump has consistently said she came to the United States in 1996, but in August, the New York Post published nude photos of her that the newspaper reported were taken in New York in 1995 for the January 1996 issue of Max Magazine, a publication that is now defunct." -- CW

Maxwell Strachan of the Huffington Post: Late-nite host Jimmy Fallon invites white supremacist on his show, kids around with him & ruffles his orange hair. CW: This would be a good place to post the HuffPost's disclaimer on all things Trump: Editor's note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims -- 1.6 billion members of an entire religion -- from entering the U.S." Yeah, go ahead, kid around with that guy, Jimmy.

Other News & Views

Thomas Gibbons-Neff of the Washington Post: "U.S. Special Operations forces have begun partnering with Turkish troops and a contingent of Syrian opposition groups for a new operation in northern Syria, defense officials said Friday. The move comes just weeks after Turkey launched a blitz operation over the Turkish border, seizing the northern city of Jarabulus and injecting a new dynamic into the five-year-old conflict." -- CW

They warned us about this type of behavior and said, 'You must report it,' but the reality was that people had to meet their goals. They needed a paycheck. -- Khalid Taha, a former Wells Fargo personal banker who resigned in July ...

... Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Michael Corkery & Stacy Cowley of the New York Times: "Three years after the first false accounts were exposed publicly and the authorities began investigating, Wells [Fargo] ... said it was still firing employees over the questionable accounts well into this year. Some former employees say the explanation is simple: Wells has continued to push the sales goals that caused employees to break the rules in the first place. In fact, the goals at the center of a $185 million civil settlement and investigations by prosecutors in three states are not set to be phased out for another three months." -- CW ...

... Jonnelle Marte & Renae Merle of the Washington Post: "Wells Fargo is hardly alone in aggressively pushing accounts, industry veterans say. Consumers have filed more than 31,000 complaints since 2011 about the opening, closing and management of their accounts and issues dealing with unauthorized credit cards, according to an analysis of complaints filed with the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The complaints name many of the nation's largest institutions.... Efforts to combat the problem have been episodic, and few top executives have been held accountable.... At the center of the bad behavior appears to be an effort by banks to persuade customers to sign up for multiple products, known as 'cross-selling.'" -- CW

Andrew Roth & Dana Priest of the Washington Post: "The recent spate of embarrassing emails and other records stolen by Russian hackers is President Vladimir Putin's splashy response to years of what he sees as U.S. efforts to weaken and shame him on the world stage and with his own people, according to Russia experts here and in the U.S. intelligence world and academia. Putin is seeking revenge and respect...." -- CW

Winnie Hu of the New York Times: "Six former New York City correction officers returned to Rikers Island -- this time as inmates -- after being sentenced on Friday to prison terms of from four and a half years to six and a half years for their roles in the brutal beating of an inmate there in 2012. The sentencing of the former officers in State Supreme Court in the Bronx came three months after they were convicted of first-degree attempted gang assault, the most serious offense, and other charges. The case opened a window on a pervasive culture of violence at Rikers, the troubled city jail complex that houses 8,000 inmates, at a time when many critics, including Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, have called for it to be closed." -- CW

The Commentariat -- Sept. 16, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Honest to Pete, the New York Times thinks this is top-o'-the-page breaking news: "Donald J. Trump publicly retreated from his 'birther' campaign on Friday, acknowledging that President Obama was born in the United States and saying that he wanted to move on from the conspiracy theory that he has been clinging to for years.... Mr. Trump also falsely accused Hillary Clinton of having first raised questions about Mr. Obama's birthplace during the 2008 Democratic primary." At the end of the story, we read, "In a speech in Washington on Friday before Mr. Trump made his statement, Mrs. Clinton said that Mr. Trump owes Mr. Obama and the country an apology and that it is too late for him to walk back what he has done. 'For five years he has led the birther movement to delegitimize our first black president,' Mrs. Clinton said. 'His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie.' She added, 'There is no erasing it in history.'" -- CW ...

... The Washington Post makes Clinton's critique of Trump's birtherism a stand-alone story. -- CW ...

... Eli Stokols of Politico: "Donald Trump did not apologize Friday for driving one of the uglier, most blatantly racist narratives in American political culture during the Obama presidency. The most prominent proponent of the birther movement..., [Trump] instead lied about his role in conspiracy theory's popularity and, without any evidence, attempted to pin the blame on Hillary Clinton. With the first general election debate 10 days away, Trump attempted to neutralize a likely Clinton attack line ' that he spent five years questioning the American citizenship of the country's first African-American president. Trump's concession to reality came only after he leveraged the spectacle of his walk-back into 30 minutes of live cable coverage that served as a branding opportunity for his new Trump Hotel in Washington -- where the event was held -- and for himself.... After the event, Trump led a small pool of still photographers and television crews on a tour of his hotel. But when the print pooler was excluded from the tour, the networks voted to pull their camera and erase the footage." -- CW ...

... CW: This is the second time in two days that members of the press have revolted against Trump's manipulations. See the story linked below by Eli Stokols & Hadas Gold of Politico. ...

... ** Libby Nelson of Vox: "Donald Trump promised a major statement about his embrace of conspiracy theories about President Obama’s birthplace. Instead, he fooled the three major cable news networks into airing a 20-minute infomercial about his hotel and his candidacy. With the 'breaking news' chyron on, MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN played footage of veterans praising Trump and Trump praising his own hotel. And then Trump showed up on stage for less than two minutes to say that Obama was born in the United States. This is what people mean when they complain about how 'the media' has covered the Trump campaign." -- CW ...

... Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "Mr. Obama's citizenship was never in question. No credible evidence ever suggested otherwise.... Yet it took Mr. Trump five years of dodging, winking and joking to surrender, finally on Friday, to reality after a remarkable campaign of relentless deception that tried to undermine the legitimacy of the nation's first black president.... Surrounded by, and in many ways shielded by, decorated veterans in his new Washington, D.C., hotel, he could not resist indulging in another falsehood -- that his opponent, Hillary Clinton, had started the so-called birther movement. She did not.... [The birther lie] this lie was different from [his other lies from] the start, an insidious, calculated calumny that sought to undo the embrace of an African-American president by the 69 million voters who elected him in 2008." -- CW ...

... Andrew Prokop of Vox: "Finally, on Friday, Trump himself begrudgingly gave an extremely brief statement that "President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period,' and again dishonestly blamed [Hillary] Clinton for supposedly starting the controversy. But he shouldn't be allowed to worm out of this so easily, because birtherism is in many ways the urtext of Trump's presidential campaign. It demonstrates his willingness to mainstream fringe racism, his desire to flout the norms of political discourse, his ability to play the media, and his imperviousness to facts. And Trump has never truly been held to account for it during this campaign." -- CW

Robert O'Harrow, Jr., of the Washington Post: "During his run for the White House, Trump has maintained he always operated aboveboard as a real estate developer and casino operator, at a time when corruption and organized crime were rampant in New York and Atlantic City. But the details of Trump's relationships with [FBI informant Daniel] Sullivan and [FBI agent Walt] Stowe show that he worked with men with underworld connections to further and protect his business interests. In doing so, Trump risked his reputation and his dream of becoming a tycoon. He entered into a land deal with Sullivan and an organized crime figure who was later targeted for a hit. He agreed to finance Sullivan's purchase of a company under FBI investigation for racketeering. And he collaborated on a plan with Stowe and other FBI agents to allow an undercover operation at his first casino." -- CW

Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "Food poisoning will make America great again! Or, at least, that's what Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump appears to be banking on with a new proposal released on Thursday. Trump's campaign distributed a fact sheet outlining 'specific regulations to be eliminated.' Among other things, this fact sheet took aim at '"the FDA Food Police.'... America has already tested the idea that we can have safe foods without adequate regulation." Millhiser relates a short history of the American ketchup market. "As it turns out, the invisible hand of the market delivered moldy, rancid ketchup that used vinegar and spice to cover up the flavor of decay. It took regulation, the very kind of regulation that Trump now seems to be out to get, to enable Americans to trust their food." -- CW

*****

Presidential Race

CW: Here's a hard, depressing analysis of the electorate, with which I am inclined to agree: Charles Pierce: "Had the Republican Party nominated someone more dedicated to the hard work of demagoguery, someone more committed to the craft of being a dictator, instead of the scatterbrained dilettante currently campaigning as a performance piece, that candidate would be even money to defeat anyone the Democrats put up in opposition. A substantial portion of this country wants someone not to govern, but to rule, to defeat the imaginary enemies they have concocted so as not to bestir themselves to resist the forces that actually are working against their interest.... Largely due to the presence in it of this ridiculous man and his ridiculous campaign, the American people have proven themselves profoundly unworthy of being called citizens." ...

     ... CW: That is, with perhaps exceptions in a few isolated Zip codes, half (or more) of your neighbors -- people you like, people you'd invite over for a Sunday barbecue -- are pathetic, ignorant jerks.

Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "A rested Hillary Clinton returned to the campaign trail [in Greensboro, N.C.,] on Thursday after three days of recovering at home from pneumonia, and vowed a different approach on the final stretch of the campaign, one more focused on her own positive vision for the country, rather than eviscerating her rival.... 'People like me, we're lucky,' she [said.] 'When I'm under the weather, I can afford to take a few days off. Millions of Americans can't.'" --CW ...

... Abby Phillip & Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "Hillary Clinton returned to the campaign trail on Thursday..., giving an address on improving the welfare of children and families that is part of an effort by the Democratic candidate to refocus the presidential race on her credentials.... Clinton said that being off the trail gave her time to reflect on the core issues that brought her into public service in the first place. She noted that many families aren't able to take paid time off in the event of sickness.... 'I have met so many people living on a razor's edge -- one illness away from losing their job; one paycheck away from losing their home.'... 'I want to give Americans something to vote for, not just against,' Clinton later told reporters traveling with her. 'We are offering ideas, not insults,' she said. 'Plans that will make a difference in people's lives.'" -- CW

Abby Phillip: "Hillary Clinton denounced Donald Trump for his continued refusal to acknowledge that President Obama was born in the United States. 'He was asked one more time: "Where was President Obama born?" And he still wouldn't say Hawaii. He still wouldn't say America,' Clinton said at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute gala dinner in Washington. 'This man wants to be our next president? When will he stop this ugliness, this bigotry?'" CW: See Robert Costa's report below.

Jonathan Martin & Amy Chozick: "Hillary Clinton and her Democratic allies, unnerved by the tightening presidential race, are making a major push to dissuade disaffected voters from backing third-party candidates, and pouring more energy into Rust Belt states, where Donald J. Trump is gaining ground.... Her campaign and affiliated Democratic groups are shifting their focus to those voters, many of them millennials, who recoil at Mr. Trump ... but now favor the Libertarian nominee, Gary Johnson, or the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein." -- CW ...

... Russell Berman of the Atlantic: "Hillary Clinton, the 68-year-old Democratic nominee for president, has a problem with young voters, and she's turning to the big guns for help: 75-year-old Bernie Sanders and 67-year-old Elizabeth Warren. The Clinton campaign is sending those two liberal senior citizens on a college tour of Ohio this weekend in a bid to whip up enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket among millennials." CW: Couldn't the campaign have added Sherrod Brown to the team, who at 63, is only 43 years older than the average college student? Also, too, his librul creds are unimpeachable. He was my first pick for president this year. Instead, they're sending Chelsea Clinton into Ohio, whose vapidity would be unmatched among candidates' offspring in most races where Donald Trump is not running. ...

... Jim Newell of Slate outlines the many, many reasons, both practical & ideological, the kids should not vote for Gary Johnson. CW: I'm guessing all they know about him is that he's pro-weed. They should see the rest of his platform.

** Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Paul Waldman: "If you dropped into our presidential campaign last weekend knowing nothing about it, you probably would have been puzzled at why everyone was making such a big deal out of the fact that one of our major party nominees got light-headed one day -- the result, we later learned, of pneumonia and probably dehydration, conditions that are easy to treat. What exactly was so momentous about this event, that it should have the news media so worked up? The answer is just about everything that's wrong with the way the 2016 campaign has been covered." CW: Please read on.

I don't care. My facts are good. My facts are good. I don't get enough credit for having my facts right. They'll say I'm wrong even when I'm right. -- Donald Trump, on the possibility debate moderators will fact-check the candidates ...

... Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump said in an interview [in Canton, Ohio,] that he remains unwilling to say that President Obama was born in the United States, that he is more bullish than ever on his chances to win and that he is not exploring the launch of a new media company in case he loses the race.... 'I'll answer that question [about Obama's birthplace] at the right time,' Trump said. 'I just don't want to answer it yet.'... In the interview, Trump defended his wife's immigration history; attacked targets including CNN host Anderson Cooper and Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.); and said he had been 'respectful' since Clinton fell ill but 'that doesn't mean that I'm going to stay there.'... Since Clinton fell ill Sunday..., Trump has been mixed in his responses. He has sounded taunting in some of his recent remarks.... 'The alt-right. You know they came up with the term "alt-right,"' Trump said, blaming Clinton and her allies, although the term has been used within the movement for years.... Trump said [Dr. Harold] Bornstein's letter will be the final document that he will release on his health before the election.'" CW: It's nice to see that Costa, who is a right-wing guy, is fact-checking Trump. ...

... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: Meanwhile, "... Trump's campaign said that [Trump] acknowledged [that President Obama was born in the U.S.], in a statement that was itself riddled with falsehoods." First, the statement repeatedly blamed Hillary Clinton for putting the issue out there, which is false. Then it claimed Trump was an heroic "closer" for forcing Obama to release his long-form birth certificate. BTW, in a December 2013 tweet, Trump suggested the president had had Hawaii's health director killed in a plane crash to cover up the fact that the birth certificate was a fake. And as recently as December 2014, Trump was still claiming the birth certificates Obama produced were fakes. CW: So, um, if Obama's birth certificates are fakes, how is that a win for our heroic closer?

Michael Finnegan of the Los Angeles Times: "Donald Trump released a new doctor’s letter Thursday saying he is 'in excellent physical health,' but offered limited details about his medical history apart from his use of a drug that lowers cholesterol.... Trump's campaign released a statement claiming incorrectly that Trump was 'setting records for number of events, size of crowds, and breadth of travel on the campaign trail.' Presidential candidates routinely travel more than Trump does, and President Obama's crowds in 2008 were far larger than Trump's. For months, Trump has said Clinton lacks the strength and stamina to lead the nation. 'We are pleased to disclose all of the test results which show that Mr. Trump is in excellent health, and has the stamina to endure -- uninterrupted -- the rigors of a punishing and unprecedented presidential campaign and, more importantly, the singularly demanding job of president,' his statement said." -- CW ...

... Max Rosenthal of Mother Jones: "The letter Donald Trump released on Thursday from his longtime physician, Dr. Harold Bornstein, featured one strange-but-Trumpian detail: his testosterone level. That unusual data point got big applause when Trump appeared on the Dr. Oz Show on Tuesday, seemingly fueling his self-proclaimed case that he's in excellent health and feels like Tom Brady. According to Dr. Vito Imbasciani, a urologist who's the current president of the Los Angeles County Medical Association, testosterone would not normally be ordered as part of a routine physical or health checkup." Imbasciani said there were two reasons that a person would get a testosterone test: if there was a concern about (1) his bone density or (2) infertility. He said Trump's testosterone level, as reported in Dr. Bornstein's letter, "perfectly, absolutely, boringly average and normal." "Imbasciani does say the public should take Bornstein's word with a grain of salt given Bornstein's apparent exaggerations about his credentials. 'He's not telling the truth about his credentials,' Imbasciani says. 'Therefore anybody, doctor or not, would have to question what he says.'" ...

... CW: The obvious point is that Hillary Clinton likely has a much lower testosterone level, making her unfit to be president. I suspect that Trump sought the presidency as a reaction to his horror at his waning virility. There are photos of Trump -- like the one above & in the Heil Trump pic to the right -- where he appears to have a "widow's stoop," or "dowager's hump," which is indicative of osteoporosis. Just saying. Too bad these photos aren't producing left-wing conspiracy rants -- "Trump is Falling Apart!", "Likely to Crack Any Minute!" "Dense Head; Undense Body".

Nothing Is Sacred. Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: Speaking on Fox "News," "Donald J. Trump said on Thursday that the pastor who interrupted his remarks at an African-American church in Flint, Mich., was 'a nervous mess' when she introduced him and that he thought 'something was up' with her.... 'Everyone plays their games, it doesn't bother me,' Mr. Trump said, claiming Pastor [Faith Green] Timmons was shaking when she came up to him.... 'The audience was saying "let him speak, let him speak,"' Mr. Trump said. 'The audience was so great.' But a pool reporter who was traveling Mr. Trump disputed his account, describing a scene where several members of the audience actually heckled Mr. Trump and questioned him about reports that he had discriminated against black people as a landlord." ...

     ... CW: In the Realm of the Mad Trump, the Worst Person in the World is someone who even mildly rebukes him for pulling some stunt. As contributor Diane wrote yesterday, "Trump was nearly speechless and went all wobbly when Pastor Timmons redirected him. Others should take note. Trump is a coward." Among the others gleefully taking note will be anti-American heads-of-state who can hardly wait to steamroll the Chickenshit Blowhard of the Free World. ...

... Nick Gass of Politico: "Donald Trump's newfound commitment to message discipline and restraint showed some cracks on Thursday, with [Trump ... attacking an African-American pastor who cut off his political speech in a Flint, Michigan, church.... Trump's slam on [the Rev. Faith Green] Timmons was a return to form, after the brash billionaire scorched through the Republican primary field with a steady delivery of incendiary comments about minorities, women and his GOP rivals.... [Trump] initially refrained from delivering an 'I told you so' when [Hillary] Clinton nearly collapsed after appearing at a 9/11 memorial service [during a bout of pneumonia]... But on Wednesday night, Trump apparently couldn't resist, and he again questioned Clinton's stamina during a rally in Canton, Ohio.... Trump's children also offered up some unhelpful headlines." CW: Read on. I like the parts where Trumpelthinskin Junior more-or-less walked out on a Pittsburgh WTAE reporter when the questions got tougher than "How great is the old man?", and, as we learned yesterday, Ivanka Trump did walk out on a Cosmo interviewer who wouldn't stick to questions about how pretty Ivanka's line of dresses were. See also stories about Junior's gaffes below.

Eli Stokols & Hadas Gold of Politico: "DonaldTrump on Thursday mocked his traveling press corps for being late to his rally, even though his campaign is responsible for arranging the pool's travel. 'I have really good news for you,' [he] ... told supporters [in Laconia, N.H.], according to a livestream of the rally.... 'I just heard the press is stuck on their airplane. They can't get here. I love it. So they're trying to get here now. They're going to be about 30 minutes late. They called us and said could you wait? I said absolutely not. Let's get going, New Hampshire.' While television cameras continued to roll live on the rally, still photographers already at the venue opted not to shoot any images of the event out of solidarity with their pool colleagues." Reporters were furious. "The reporters said they had yet to receive an explanation or response as to why they were left behind." -- CW

Lydia Wheeler of the Hill: "Donald Trump floated rolling back food safety regulations if he wins the White House in November.... The fact sheet [containing the proposals] was later removed from the website and a new fact sheet detailing Trump's economic agenda did not include mention of the FDA." CW: Luckily for me, I have enough land to become a subsistence farmer. Guess I'll have to lobby the town to allow chickens.

Trumpus, Aspiring War Criminal. Tim Egan: Donald Trump has "already called for war crimes -- killing family members of terrorists, torturing suspects. He would further violate the Geneva Conventions by making thieves out of a first-class military.... Under Trump's plan, American men and women would die for oil, victims of endless rounds of lethal sabotage and terror strikes.... For this kind of plunder, there is in fact a precedent for Trump's plan: Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.... Of course, the Mideast would be aflame with violent anti-Americanism if Trump's troops sat on the oil wells in the desert.... But, by then, Trump would already be at war with Iran, as he suggested in another of his overlooked recent statements.... Trump would become a war criminal, a role he seems to relish -- typical for a man who has never served a day in the military.... But Trump would have an ally in kleptocracy with his favorite world leader, the former K.G.B. operative Vladimir Putin." -- CW

Courtney Weaver of Financial Times: "Putin finds a fan base in Trump country." "Right now there are a lot of people who are very frustrated and very angry that have been cast aside. They're looking for someone to come around and be forceful ... and have someone at the helm." This is not unlike why women seem to prefer "bad boys." ~LT

Because he's got a 12,000-page tax return that would create .. financial auditors out of every person in the country asking questions that would detract from (his father's) main message. -- Donald Trump, Jr., on why Trump won't release his tax reports ...

... Matt Yglesias of Vox: "Donald Trump has thus far declined to follow the precedent set by the past 40 or so years' worth of presidential campaigns and release copies of his recent tax returns. He says the reason for this is that his returns are under audit by the IRS, an explanation that lawyers and accountants find baffling -- there's no reason audited returns can't be released to the public. Speaking to the Pittsburgh Tribune, Trump;s son cleared things up admirably. Donald Trump Jr. said the real reason Trump won't release his returns is that if he released them, then the public would get a chance to see what they say, and Trump doesn't want the public to see what they say and ask questions about it." CW: Read on: Yglesias speculates on a number of reasons Trump doesn't want the public to know what an anti-American tax cheat he is. Here's one point: "... what seems ... probable to me is that he'd like to avoid scrutiny of how much he's abused the charitable deduction to claim breaks for giveaways of little social value."

The media has been [Clinton's] No. 1 surrogate in this. Without the media, this wouldn't even be a contest, but the media has built her up. They've let her slide on every indiscrepancy, on every lie, on every DNC game trying to get Bernie Sanders out of this thing. If Republicans were doing that, they'd be warming up the gas chamber right now. -- Donald Trump, Jr., suggesting that the American media were the new Nazis

Junior's gift for Stormfront metaphors proves (again) that the one great uncovered story of this campaign is what truly horrible people these are. -- Charles Pierce ...

... Louis Nelson of Politico: "Donald Trump's campaign lashed out at the media on Thursday after some construed a comment from Donald Trump Jr. as a Holocaust joke.... Conservative independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin [wrote ] ... on Twitter that it was 'an unsurprising Nazi reference from the 'alt-right' movement's presidential campaign. This is the real Trump.' [Hillary] Clinton then ... retweet[ed] McMullin's message.... The National Jewish Democratic Council also weighed in with a statement, arguing that Trump's comments were unsurprising given his campaign's track record.... 'Donald Trump Jr.'s reference to gas chambers is outrageous....'... But Trump spokesman Jason Miller said..., 'The liberal dishonest media is so quick to attack one of the Trumps that they never let the truth get in the way of a good smear....'" ...

     ... CW: So McMullin, Clinton & the NJDC are part of the "liberal dishonest media"? As for Pierce's commentary, guess what the chances are we'll see a front-page headline "Donald Trump and Family Are Horrible People, Analysis Indicates."

Other News & Views

Paul Krugman: Middle-class incomes rise, thanks to "socialist, redistributionist" Obama. -- CW

Beyond the Beltway

Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times: "Officials in Columbus, Ohio, appealed for calm, patience and investigative help Thursday, hours after a white police officer fatally shot a 13-year-old African-American boy who had apparently brandished a firearm that was later determined to be a BB gun. Speaking at a news conference, the mayor, the police chief and other officials offered few details about what led to the death Wednesday night of the teenager, Tyree King. They cautioned that the investigation, which will be presented to a grand jury, will not be quick. So far, they said, they do not know of any video recording of the shooting." -- CW ...

... The Columbus Dispatch story is here.

News Lede

New York Times: "Edward Albee, widely considered the foremost American playwright of his generation, whose psychologically astute and piercing dramas explored the contentiousness of intimacy, the gap between self-delusion and truth and the roiling desperation beneath the facade of contemporary life, died Friday at his home in Montauk, N.Y. He was 88." -- CW