The Ledes

Friday, October 11, 2024

Washington Post: “Floridians began returning to damaged and waterlogged homes on Thursday after Hurricane Milton carved a path of destruction and grief across the state, the second massive storm to strike Florida in as many weeks. At least 14 storm-related deaths were attributed to the hurricane, which made landfall south of Sarasota at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, officials said. Six of them were killed when two tornadoes touched down ahead of the storm in St. Lucie County on Florida’s central Atlantic coast. The deadly tornadoes, rising waters, torrential rain and punishing winds battered the state from coast to coast as Milton churned eastward before heading out to sea early Thursday.”

Washington Post: “Twelve people were rescued from an inactive Colorado gold mine after they were trapped 1,000 feet underground for about six hours following an elevator malfunction. One person was killed in the accident, which happened about 500 feet underground at the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine near Cripple Creek, Colo., Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell said at a Thursday news conference. The site is a tourist attraction. Eleven other people aboard the elevator at the time, including two children, were rescued shortly after the mechanical malfunction, which Mikesell said 'created a severe danger for the participants.' He said four suffered minor injuries.... Twelve others in a separate group remained trapped in a mine shaft 1,000 feet underground for several hours after the incident, before they were rescued Thursday evening, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said.”

The Wires
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The Ledes

Thursday, October 10, 2024

CNBC: “The pace of price increases over the past year was higher than forecast in September while jobless claims posted an unexpected jump following Hurricane Helene and the Boeing strike, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The consumer price index, a broad gauge measuring the costs of goods and services across the U.S. economy, increased a seasonally adjusted 0.2% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 2.4%. Both readings were 0.1 percentage point above the Dow Jones consensus. The annual inflation rate was 0.1 percentage point lower than August and is the lowest since February 2021.”

The New York Times' live updates of Hurrucane Milton consequences Thursday are here: “Milton was still producing damaging hurricane-force winds and heavy rainfall to parts of East and Central Florida, forecasters said early Thursday, even as the powerful storm roared away from the Atlantic coast and left deaths and widespread damage across the state. Cities along Florida’s east coast are now facing flash flooding, damaging winds and storm surges. Some had already been battered by powerful tornadoes spun out by the storm before it made landfall on the Gulf Coast on Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane. In [St. Lucie] county [Fort Pierce], several people in a retirement community were killed by a tornado, the police said.... More than three million customers were without power in Florida as of early Thursday.” ~~~

     ~~~ Here are the Weater Channel's live updates.

CNN: “The 2024 Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to Han Kang, a South Korean author, for her 'intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.' Han, 53, began her career with a group of poems in a South Korean magazine, before making her prose debut in 1995 with a short story collection. She later began writing longer prose works, most notably 'The Vegetarian,' one of her first books to be translated into English. The novel, which won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016, charts a young woman’s attempt to live a more 'plant-like' existence after suffering macabre nightmares about human cruelty. Han is the first South Korean author to win the literature prize, and just the 18th woman out of the 117 prizes awarded since 1901.” The New York Times story is here.

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Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

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Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns


Sunday
Sep062020

The Commentariat -- September 6, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Most Hilarious Weekend News Report:

Trump Skipped Cemetery Visit to Swipe Art Forgeries, Smuggle Them on AF1. Daniel Politi of Slate: "After Trump's cemetery trip was canceled, the president suddenly had a few hours to kill inside the U.S. ambassador's historic residence in Paris and it seems that during that time he took a particular liking to a few pieces of art. The next day, he ordered a Benjamin Franklin bust, a Franklin portrait and a set of figurines of Greek mythical characters be loaded on Air Force One to go back to Washington with him, reports Bloomberg.... 'The President brought these beautiful, historical pieces, which belong to the American people, back to the United States to be prominently displayed in the People's House,' White House spokesman Judd Deere said in response to questions from Bloomberg News.... But the truth is that they were fakes and replicas. The figurines that now sit in the Oval Office are from the early 20th century by an artist who was trying to claim they were from the 16th or 17 centuries. The figurines have little value and are really '20th century fakes of wannabe 17th century sculptures,' according to an art dealer.... White House officials ended up borrowing the original portrait [of Ben Franklin] from the National Portrait Gallery and hanging it up in the Oval Office rather than the replica Trump brought back from France." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump may think American soldiers fighting & dying in France were "suckers" & "losers," but when it comes to art appreciation, Trump is a sucker AND a loser. How perfect that he shirked his official duty to the American military so that he had time to pick out art forgeries to redecorate his own office. Yo, Donnie, I have the actual portrait of the Monna Lisa and it's bigger than that little fake in the Louvre. (This is 100% true, if you switch the words "actual" and "fake.") You can have my painting for $10mm, and if you want to use your campaign haul to pay for it, I'm good with that. Cash only.

Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Top administration officials on Sunday said they've never heard ... Donald Trump make disparaging remarks about veterans or the military, a subtle attempt to dispute a report in The Atlantic. But the president's top defender was the president himself.... Trump's defense of himself Sunday was to go on the attack. The president accused news organizations of partnering with the Democratic Party on 'a massive Disinformation Campaign' and urged his 85 million Twitter followers to let the magazine's owner [-- Laurene Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs --] 'know how you feel!!!'"

Alexis Benveniste of CNN: "Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, said his magazine's story about Trump calling Americans who died in battle 'losers' and 'suckers,' was just the tip of the iceberg. 'I would fully expect more reporting to come out about this and more confirmation and new pieces of information in the coming days and weeks,' Goldberg told CNN's Chief Media Correspondent Brian Stelter on 'Reliable Sources' Sunday.... 'We all have to use anonymous sources, especially in a climate where the president of the United States tries to actively intimidate,' Goldberg said of his editorial decision to cite nameless people. 'These are not people who are anonymous to me.'"

DeJoy Gained Influence via Illegal Straw-Donor Contributions to GOP. Aaron David, et al., of the Washington Post: "Louis DeJoy's prolific campaign fundraising, which helped position him as a top Republican power broker in North Carolina and ultimately as head of the U.S. Postal Service, was bolstered for more than a decade by a practice that left many employees feeling pressured to make political contributions to GOP candidates -- money DeJoy later reimbursed through bonuses, former employees say.... Two other employees familiar with [DeJoy's company] financial and payroll systems said DeJoy would instruct that bonus payments to staffers be boosted to help defray the cost of their contributions, an arrangement that would be unlawful.... Another former employee with knowledge of the process described a similar series of events, saying DeJoy orchestrated additional compensation for employees who had made political contributions, instructing managers to award bonuses to specific individuals.... Between 2000 and 2014, 124 individuals who worked for the company together gave more than $1 million to federal and state GOP candidates." Thanks to Ken W. for the link.

Amazing Grace. Ann Colwell of CNN: "Anita Hill never pictured herself voting for Joe Biden. But given the political reality the nation is facing, she's not only going to vote for Biden -- she's also willing to work with him, should he become president. 'Notwithstanding all of his limitations in the past, and the mistakes that he made in the past, notwithstanding those -- at this point, between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, I think Joe Biden is the person who should be elected in November,' Hill told CNN's Gloria Borger. But it's not just because he's running against Donald Trump, she adds. 'Its more about the survivors of gender violence. That's really what it's about.'"

The New York Times' live updates for coronavirus developments Sunday are here.

Sarah Watson, et al., of the New York Times: "... [at] about 100 college communities around the country ... [coronavirus] infections have spiked in recent weeks as students have returned for the fall semester. Though the rate of infection has bent downward in the Northeast, where the virus first peaked in the U.S., it continues to remain high across many states in the Midwest and South -- and evidence suggests that students returning to big campuses are a major factor. Despite the surge in cases, there has been no uptick in deaths in college communities, data shows. This suggests that most of the infections are stemming from campuses, since young people who contract the virus are far less likely to die than older people. However, leaders fear that young people who are infected will contribute to a spread of the virus throughout the community.... The result often is an exacerbation of traditional town-and-gown tensions...."

All the Best People, Ctd. Ewan Palmer of Newsweek: "A man who received thanks from Donald Trump for organizing boat parades showing support for the president is accused of using anti-Semitic language and sending threatening messages to a Florida resident. Carlos Gavidia, 53, was charged with sending a written threat to kill or do bodily injury after surrendering himself to police on Tuesday morning.... The 53-year-old received national attention for organizing a number of Trump boat parades.... Gavidia's Instagram page also shows him attending the president's RNC nomination speech on the White House lawn last week, as well as pictures with Trump at Admirals Cove and with the president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, taking part in one of his boat parades." --s

Jessica Wolfrom of the Washington Post: "Jacob Blake, the Black man who was shot by a police officer in Kenosha, Wis., in late August, spoke from a hospital bed, describing his physical pain and appealing to others to 'change y'all lives' in an emotional video released by his lawyer Saturday night. It was Blake's second public appearance since being shot seven times in the back in late August by Rusten Sheskey, a Kenosha police officer. The shooting left Blake paralyzed from the waist down. 'Every 24 hours, it's pain,' Blake said. 'It hurts to breathe. It hurts to sleep. It hurts to move from side to side. It hurts to eat.'" The Hill's story is here.

Ben Matthis-Lilley of Slate: "When an incident of police brutality against a Black person in the United States is captured on video, the aftermath follows a pattern. Activists, members of the community, and certain writers say that American policing and police discipline are fundamentally flawed.... In response, elected officials, police chiefs, and certain other writers say that most police officers are decent people doing a tough job to the best of their ability.... Which side are the police on? Do they favor the candidate [Biden] who believes law enforcement basically means well, as long as it keeps working to 'root out the bad apples' in police departments? Or the candidate [Trump] with a record of supporting criminal behavior, extrajudicial violence, and racism -- and of celebrating the bad apples? The country's largest municipal police union (the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York) picked ... [Trump]; its leader, Patrick Lynch, spoke at the Republican convention. On Friday, the largest national police organization, the Fraternal Order of Police, announced that it was endorsing Trump on behalf of its 355,000 members as well. The police say that they want members of minority communities to believe the officers patrolling their neighborhoods are motivated by the principle of upholding the law.... Those officers also keep choosing to endorse Donald Trump."

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race, Etc.

Caroline Kelly of CNN: "Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris said that ... Donald Trump's word alone on any potential coronavirus vaccine is not enough. Asked by CNN's Dana Bash in a clip released Saturday whether she would get a vaccine that was approved and distributed before the election, Harris replied..., 'I will say that I would not trust Donald Trump and it would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he's talking about,' she [said.] 'I will not take his word for it.'" ~~~

We remain on track to deliver a vaccine before the end of the year and maybe even before November 1st. We think we can probably have it some time during the month of October. -- Donald Trump, to reporters Friday

A Shot in the Arm -- to Trump's Campaign. Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump is so fixated on finding a vaccine for the novel coronavirus that in meetings about the U.S. pandemic response, little else captures his attention, according to administration officials. Trump has pressed health officials to speed up the vaccine timeline and urged them to deliver one by the end of the year. He has peppered them questions about the development status and mass-distribution plans. And, in recent days, he has told some advisers and aides that a vaccine may arrive by Nov. 1, which just happens to be two days before the presidential election. Trump's desire to deliver a vaccine -- or at least convince the public that one is very near -- by the time voters decide whether to elect him to a second term is in part a campaign gambit to improve his standing with an electorate that overwhelmingly disapproves of his management of the pandemic."

The Omen: Sunk. Colin Kalmbacher of Law & Crime: "Police in Austin, Texas say they have received several 911 calls about boats sinking into the waters of a large local lake during a boat parade being held in support of ... Donald Trump. According to local CBS affiliate KEYE-TV, the Travis County Sheriff's Office (TSCO) has received numerous distress calls from sinking boats -- apparently all along the route of the aquatic parade.... 'Several have sunk,' the TSCO reportedly told KVUE's Pattrik Perez.... According to citizen journalists who took stock of live updates from EMS response crews via the aptly-titled Citizen app, the parade participants were 'unruly' and 'not adhering to safety measures.'"(Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Bryan Pietsch & Aimee Ortiz of the New York Times: "... a spokeswoman for Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services, said no injuries had been reported.... 'We had an exceptional number of boats on the lake today,' [a spokesperson for the Travis County Sheriff's Office] said. 'When they all started moving at the same time, it generated significant waves.'... Other boat parades to display support for President Trump have taken place this summer. In Oregon, a boat sank after it was swamped by waves from a passing boat parade, The Oregonian reported."

The Biggest Grifter. Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "President Trump was proudly litigious before his victory in 2016 and has remained so in the White House. But one big factor has changed: He has drawn on campaign donations as a piggy bank for his legal expenses to a degree far greater than any of his predecessors.... The spending on behalf of Mr. Trump covers not only legal work that would be relatively routine for any president or candidate and some of the costs related to the Russia inquiry and his impeachment, but also cases in which he has a personal stake, including attempts to enforce nondisclosure agreements and protect his business interests.... [For instance,] Mr. Trump and his campaign affiliates hired lawyers to assist members of his staff and family -- including a onetime bodyguard, his oldest son and his son-in-law -- as they were pulled into investigations related to Russia and Ukraine.... Mr. Trump's tendency to turn to the courts -- and the legal issues that have stemmed from norm-breaking characteristics of his presidency -- helps explain how he and his affiliated political entities have spent at least $58.4 million in donations on legal and compliance work since 2015.... By comparison, President Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee spent $10.7 million on legal and compliance expenses during the equivalent period starting in 2007.

Trump Again Urges North Carolina Republicans to Commit Felony Voter Fraud. Dianne Gallagher, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump suggested to his supporters on Friday night that if they vote by mail they should also attempt to vote in person as a way to check that their vote is counted, which risks causing chaos at the polls and undermining confidence in the election. In a North Carolina 'telerally' Friday night, which was later posted on Facebook, Trump spent the first few minutes of the call explaining in detail how he wanted his voters to vote. If they vote by mail, they should go to their polling place anyway to 'see whether or not your mail-in vote has been tabulated or counted,' Trump said, noting that if it's been counted, they won't be able to vote. It's a federal crime to vote twice in the same election, and it's also a felony in almost every state, including North Carolina. Trump also addressed the possibility that a voter's mail-in ballot would be tabulated after they had voted in person." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Mark Niquette & Kartikay Mehrotra of Bloomberg, republished on MSN: "If the outcome of this November's election comes down to fights over counting mail-in ballots and claims of fraud by ... Donald Trump, Democrat Joe Biden may have a quiet advantage: The top election officials in many of the key states that could decide the election are Democrats." Thanks to PD Pepe for the link.

Jim Acosta of CNN: "... Donald Trump referred to fallen US service members at the Aisne-Marne cemetery in crude and derogatory terms during a November 2018 trip to France to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, a former senior administration official confirmed to CNN.... The former official, who declined to be named, largely confirmed reporting from Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic magazine, which cited sources who said Trump rejected the idea of a cemetery visit and proceeded to refer to the fallen soldiers as 'losers' and 'suckers.'... Trump said [Thursday] he ... 'called home, I spoke to my wife and I said, "I hate this. I came here to go to that ceremony." And to the one that was the following day, which I did go to. I said I feel terribly. And that was the end of it.'... First lady Melania Trump was on the same trip and was scheduled to visit the cemetery with the President. She was not in the US....Fox News, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Associated Press have also corroborated parts of The Atlantic's reporting." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Notice how Trump embellishes his lie about going to the Aisne-Marne cemetery with another lie: an anecdote that cannot possibly be true; it puts Melania on the wrong continent. ~~~

... Jennifer Griffin should be fired for this kind of reporting. Never even called us for comment. Fox News is gone! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet late Friday ~~~

~~~ Kill the Messenger. Daniel Politi of Slate: "... Donald Trump is calling for a Fox News reporter to be fired after she confirmed some details of a bombshell story that said he disparaged veterans.... Jennifer Griffin [of Fox 'News'] wrote a Twitter thread and also went on the network to lay out how she had confirmed several claims in the [Atlantic] piece." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Jeremy Barr of the Washington Post: "... the fact that [Jennifer] Griffin works for Fox, whose opinion hosts and corporate owners are seen as reliable supporters and defenders of the president, turned her revelations into a watershed development. It led to Trump's call for her firing late Friday on Twitter -- and an impassioned pushback from Fox News colleagues defending her journalistic honor.... Before the president took aim at her reporting, Griffin took veiled shots from some of her colleagues, most notably contributor Mollie Hemingway, a senior editor for the Federalist.... 'The Five' co-host Greg Gutfeld ... called the Atlantic's story 'a hoax' and 'a scam' that was 'created in a lab.' But Trump's attack on Griffin was a bridge too far for her colleagues, seven of whom took to Twitter over the weekend to defend her. 'Jennifer @JenGriffinFNC is a great reporter and a total class act,' wrote [Bret] Baier, the network's chief political anchor."

"You're All Losers." David Ignatius of the Washington Post: "... the fabric [of Trump's relationship with the military] began to fray by mid-2017. Trump increasingly treated the military as props in the reality-TV show of his presidency. He wanted them for parades and victory celebrations, not the anguish of combat. He seemed to take his strategic guidance from Fox News more than his commanders.... The bad marriage exploded this week, when former senior staff members told Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic of their shock at Trump's crude comments about combat and loss -- and his reported characterization of fallen warriors as 'suckers' and 'losers.'... It has been an open secret in Washington that many prominent retired four-stars have regarded Trump with growing horror.... The more [defense secretary & retired Gen. Jim] Mattis tried to educate Trump, as in his ... July 2017 seminar in the 'tank' at Pentagon, the more Trump became resentful. Trump berated his generals at that gathering -- with language that's eerily similar to what was reported in the Atlantic this week. According to Philip Rucker and Carol D. Leonnig in their book, 'A Very Stable Genius,' Trump said: 'You're all losers. You don't know how to win anymore.'"

Steve Benen of MSNBC: "Asked if he supports the military, Trump is quick to point to symbols and gestures: he has military flags in the Oval Office, for example, and his interest in military parades is borderline creepy. But there's no depth of thought or seriousness of purpose. It's what leads Trump to celebrate those accused of war crimes, while ridiculing those who serve honorably." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Special Relationship. Ben Riley-Smith of The Telegraph (UK): "[A]ccording to a cache of official notes taken during high-level UK-US meetings whose details have leaked to The Telegraph. The Prime Minister [Boris Johnson] is quoted telling the US ambassador to Britain in August 2017, when he was foreign secretary, that Mr Trump was doing 'fantastic stuff' on foreign policy issues like China, Syria and North Korea.... Mr Trump pushed back hard on Theresa May's pleas to expel Russian diplomats after the Skripal poisoning, saying 'I would rather follow than lead'.... The US president wondered why there was so much 'hatred' in Northern Ireland and asked Mrs May during a lunch why Mr Johnson was not prime minister.... The president was at times 'hectoring' towards Mrs May in 'nightmare' phone calls and would ask other world leaders what they thought of her.... Mr Trump cancelled his planned first visit to Britain as president at the last minute over the schedule and scrapped a call with Mrs May due to a foreign policy clash.​" --s

Your Tax Dollars at Work Lying about Latinos. Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "A fictionalized video produced by the Border Patrol and posted this week to its YouTube channel shows a Spanish-speaking attacker stabbing and killing a man in a dark alley after escaping from U.S. agents, a clip apparently created to dramatize President Trump's depiction of migrants as fearsome criminals. The three-minute video, titled 'The Gotaway,' is produced in the visual style of a television show..., with aerial drone footage, actors and fake blood.... The video ends with the lurid image of the stabbing victim bleeding and dying on the ground. 'Every apprehension matters,' a message on screen reads. 'Do you know who got away?' The message fades to a Fox News headline about the 2015 killing of Kate Steinle in San Francisco, followed by a rapid-fire cascade of other news clips and headlines about killings linked to immigrants illegally present in the United States. The Border Patrol's logo appears in the final scene, metallic and glinting. 'Protecting America Everyday,' it says. 'Honor First.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: It's no secret that the Border Patrol is out of control. I expect the majority of them should be fired.

Kentucky. AP: "An airplane circled above Churchill Downs on Saturday, flying a banner behind it: 'Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor,' it said. The 146th Kentucky Derby became a surreal distillation of the crises facing the country in 2020, in the hometown of Taylor, a 26-year-old Black emergency medical technician shot dead in her home in March when police burst in to serve a search warrant in the middle of the night. Inside the racetrack, the stands were mostly empty and wagering windows closed as fans were banned because of the coronavirus pandemic. Outside, thousands of protesters leaned into the gates, chanting Taylor's name. Armored police vehicles in the parking lot replaced the normal throngs of Derby-goers in seersucker and showy hats.... The protests were peaceful. The demonstrators marched 2 miles from a city park and circled the track. They chanted 'No justice, no derby!' and carried signs imploring people to say Taylor's name. Inside the gate, police stood guard in riot gear with clubs, some on horses and some with armored military vehicles."

New York. Laura Ly & Nicole Chavez of CNN: "New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Saturday that she's forming a grand jury to investigate the death of Daniel Prude, who was pinned on the ground with a spit sock on his head.... Prude died in Rochester, New York, in March following an encounter with police, but protests began earlier this week after police dash and bodycam videos of the incident were made public by attorneys representing Prude's family." ~~~

~~~ Rochester Democrat & Chronicle: "A fourth night of protests over the death of Daniel Prude was the largest yet, and again ended with pepper balls, tear gas and fireworks. Rochester police said they arrested nine people, including two on felony charges. Three officers were 'treated at local hospitals for injuries sustained as a result of projectiles and incendiary devices which were launched against them,' said Lt. Greg Bello in a news release.... Social media showed images of protesters hit by projectiles, including Monroe County legislator and former journalist Rachel Barnhart."

Zoë Richards of TPM: "White supremacists pose the most serious terror threat to the United States, according to a draft report from the Department of Homeland Security. Three different drafts of the report obtained by Politico characterize the threat from white supremacists as the deadliest domestic terror threat in the United States. All three documents also report that 2019 was the deadliest year for domestic violent extremists since the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995.... Later drafts of the report refer to 'Domestic Violent Extremists' -- shifting away from the terminology 'white supremacist extremists' -- as 'the most persistent and lethal threat.'" --s

Literary Corner, Ha Ha

Ashley Parker & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "President Trump's longtime lawyer and personal fixer, Michael Cohen, alleges in a new book that Trump made 'overt and covert attempts to get Russia to interfere in the 2016 election' and that the future commander in chief was also well aware of Cohen's hush-money payoff to adult-film star Stormy Daniels during that campaign. In the book, 'Disloyal: A Memoir,' which was obtained by The Washington Post ahead of its Tuesday publication date, Cohen lays out an alarming portrait of the constellation of characters orbiting around Trump, likening the arrangement to the mafia and calling himself 'one of Trump's bad guys.' He describes the president, meanwhile, as 'a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man.' The memoir also describes episodes of Trump's alleged racism and his 'hatred and contempt' of his predecessor, Barack Obama, the nation's only African American president.... 'The whole idea of patriotism and treason became irrelevant in his mind,' Cohen writes. 'Trump was using the [2016] campaign to make money for himself....'" ~~~

~~~ Erica Orden of CNN: Donald "Trump's model of a man in power, according to [Michael] Cohen, is Vladimir Putin, and Trump is described as enamored of Putin's wealth and unilateral influence, and awestruck by what he sees as the Russian president's ability to control everything from the country's press to its financial institutions.... In the wake of Trump's presidential kickoff announcement in 2015, in which he called Mexicans criminals and rapists, he dismissed concerns that he had alienated Latinos. 'Plus, I will never get the Hispanic vote,' Trump allegedly told Cohen. 'Like the blacks, they're too stupid to vote for Trump. They're not my people.' (Trump won 28% of the Latino vote in 2016.) Trump's contempt, in Cohen's telling, extends broadly. Cohen characterizes Trump bluntly as racist, and says that while he never heard Trump use the 'N-word,' Trump used other offensive language. Ranting about [Barack] Obama after he won office in 2008, Trump said, 'Tell me one country run by a black person that isn't a sh*thole...They are all complete f*cking toilets,'..."

Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "Former FBI agent Peter Strzok alleges in a new book that investigators came to believe it was 'conceivable, if unlikely' that Russia was secretly controlling President Trump after he took office -- a full-fledged 'Manchurian candidate' installed as America's commander in chief. In the book, 'Compromised,' Strzok describes how the FBI had to consider 'whether the man about to be inaugurated was willing to place his or Russia's interests above those of American citizens,' and if and how agents could investigate that. Strzok opened the FBI's 2016 investigation into whether Trump's campaign had coordinated with the Kremlin to help his election and later was involved in investigating Trump personally. He was ultimately removed from the case over private text messages disparaging of the president.... [Even now, Strzok says,] '... I do think the president is compromised, that he is unable to put the interests of our nation first, that he acts from hidden motives, because there is leverage over him, held specifically by the Russians but potentially others as well.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Natasha Bertrand of Politico: "[Peter] Strzok's team had uncovered so many suspicious contacts and communications between the campaign and Russians that they began debating whether to open a case on Trump himself.... Four months into Trump's presidency ... the discussion at the bureau had shifted from whether a case on Trump should be opened at all to whether there were any compelling arguments against it. In Strzok's telling, by May 16, 2017, there weren't. So Strzok's team, with permission from then-deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe, opened a counterintelligence case on the president that proved far more complicated than many at the FBI had anticipated. 'When you step back and look at it, it[']s fucking huge, Strzok said in an interview this week. At the time the FBI opened the case, Trump's financial disclosure forms detailed his ownership of more than 500 limited liability companies (LLCs).... Investigators would need to root through those records to identify areas where Russia might have financial leverage over him, not only now but 30 and 40 years ago. And despite his belief that tracing money was the most critical investigative trail the probe could follow -- 'even more than proving contacts with Russia,' he writes -- Strzok is fairly confident that that thread was never tugged at, let alone unraveled, after he was removed from the investigation in August 2017.... [Strozk] emphasized how suspicious he and other senior FBI leaders were of [Rob] Rosenstein's motivations...." --s ~~~

~~~ Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "A former senior F.B.I. agent [Peter Strzok] at the center of the investigations into Hillary Clinton's email server and the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, defends the handling of the inquiries and declares President Trump a national security threat in a new memoir, while admitting that the bureau made mistakes that upended the 2016 presidential election.... In a scathing appraisal, Mr. Strzok concludes that Mr. Trump is hopelessly corrupt and a national security threat. The investigations that Mr. Strzok oversaw showed the president's 'willingness to accept political assistance from an opponent like Russia -- and, it follows, his willingness to subvert everything America stands for.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

The Trumpidemic, Etc.

Bad News for the My Pillow Huckster. Jen Christensen & Jamie Gumbrecht of CNN: "The US Food and Drug Administration has rejected a submission from Phoenix Biotechnology Inc. to market oleandrin as a dietary supplement ingredient, citing 'significant concerns' about the safety evidence the company presented. Last month, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who recently joined the board of Phoenix Biotechnology and has a financial stake in the company, said he had participated in a July meeting at the White House with ... Donald Trump regarding the use of oleandrin as a potential therapeutic for the coronavirus. The extract comes from the Nerium oleander plant; the raw oleander plant is highly toxic and consuming it can be fatal. There are no peer-reviewed, published studies on the impact of oleandrin on Covid-19, and there's no public evidence it has been studied in patients with Covid-19.... Lindell ... has no scientific background or medical training...." Mrs. McC: So it's potentially fatal and completely untested. Otherwise, it's a great snake oil! Worth remembering: after Trump had kicked most of the scientists & doctors off his made-for-TV fake coronavirus briefings, he let the My Pillow guy lead off one of the briefings. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Way Beyond the Beltway

Jason Burke of the Guardian: "The terrorist [Carlos the Jackal], whose real name was Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, had gained global notoriety with a series of attacks carried out on behalf of Palestinian extremists between 1973 and 1975. In the west, the polyglot Venezuelan radical was frequently portrayed as an agent of the KGB, trained and armed on behalf of Moscow';s security service by counterparts in the Soviet satellite states of central and eastern Europe. Now, classified documents discovered in archives in eastern Europe reveal a different picture: not of a master terrorist working hand in glove with ruthlessly efficient regimes to launch attacks in the west, but of an arrogant, demanding, and unreliable terrorist entrepreneur who manipulated the anxieties of insecure decision-makers and the ignorance of security officials from the Baltic to the Black Sea until they finally ran out of patience." --s

News Lede

New York Times: "Lou Brock, the St. Louis Cardinals' Hall of Fame outfielder who became the greatest base-stealer the major leagues had ever known when he eclipsed the single-season and career records for steals in a career spanning two decades, died on Sunday. He was 81.... Louis Clark Brock was born on June 18, 1939, in El Dorado, Ark., and grew up in Collinston, La., in a family of sharecroppers who picked cotton.... As a boy, Brock never played organized baseball. Instead of a ball and bat, he swatted rocks with tree branches. But he received an academic scholarship to Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., and played baseball there...."

Comments Off
Saturday
Sep052020

The Commentariat -- September 5, 2020

Afternoon Update:

The Omen. Colin Kalmbacher of Law & Crime: "Police in Austin, Texas say they have received several 911 calls about boats sinking into the waters of a large local lake during a boat parade being held in support of ... Donald Trump. According to local CBS affiliate KEYE-TV, the Travis County Sheriff's Office (TSCO) has received numerous distress calls from sinking boats -- apparently all along the route of the aquatic parade.... 'Several have sunk,' the TSCO reportedly told KVUE's Pattrik Perez.... According to citizen journalists who took stock of live updates from EMS response crews via the aptly-titled Citizen app, the parade participants were 'unruly' and 'not adhering to safety measures.'"

Trump Again Urges North Carolina Republicans to Commit Felony Voter Fraud. Dianne Gallagher, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump suggested to his supporters on Friday night that if they vote by mail they should also attempt to vote in person as a way to check that their vote is counted, which risks causing chaos at the polls and undermining confidence in the election. In a North Carolina 'telerally' Friday night, which was later posted on Facebook, Trump spent the first few minutes of the call explaining in detail how he wanted his voters to vote. If they vote by mail, they should go to their polling place anyway to 'see whether or not your mail-in vote has been tabulated or counted,' Trump said, noting that if it's been counted, they won't be able to vote. It's a federal crime to vote twice in the same election, and it's also a felony in almost every state, including North Carolina. Trump also addressed the possibility that a voter's mail-in ballot would be tabulated after they had voted in person."

... Jennifer Griffin should be fired for this kind of reporting. Never even called us for comment. Fox News is gone! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet late Friday ~~~

~~~ Kill the Messenger. Daniel Politi of Slate: "... Donald Trump is calling for a Fox News reporter to be fired after she confirmed some details of a bombshell story that said he disparaged veterans.... Jennifer Griffin [of Fox 'News'] wrote a Twitter thread and also went on the network to lay out how she had confirmed several claims in the [Atlantic] piece."

Steve Benen of MSNBC: "Asked if he supports the military, Trump is quick to point to symbols and gestures: he has military flags in the Oval Office, for example, and his interest in military parades is borderline creepy. But there's no depth of thought or seriousness of purpose. It's what leads Trump to celebrate those accused of war crimes, while ridiculing those who serve honorably."

Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "Former FBI agent Peter Strzok alleges in a new book that investigators came to believe it was 'conceivable, if unlikely' that Russia was secretly controlling President Trump after he took office -- a full-fledged 'Manchurian candidate' installed as America's commander in chief. In the book, 'Compromised,' Strzok describes how the FBI had to consider 'whether the man about to be inaugurated was willing to place his or Russia's interests above those of American citizens,' and if and how agents could investigate that. Strzok opened the FBI's 2016 investigation into whether Trump's campaign had coordinated with the Kremlin to help his election and later was involved in investigating Trump personally. He was ultimately removed from the case over private text messages disparaging of the president.... [Even now, Strzok says,] '... I do think the president is compromised, that he is unable to put the interests of our nation first, that he acts from hidden motives, because there is leverage over him, held specifically by the Russians but potentially others as well.'" ~~~

~~~ Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "A former senior F.B.I. agent [Peter Strzok] at the center of the investigations into Hillary Clinton's email server and the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, defends the handling of the inquiries and declares President Trump a national security threat in a new memoir, while admitting that the bureau made mistakes that upended the 2016 presidential election.... In a scathing appraisal, Mr. Strzok concludes that Mr. Trump is hopelessly corrupt and a national security threat. The investigations that Mr. Strzok oversaw showed the president's 'willingness to accept political assistance from an opponent like Russia -- and, it follows, his willingness to subvert everything America stands for.'"

Bad News for the My Pillow Huckster. Jen Christensen & Jamie Gumbrecht of CNN: "The US Food and Drug Administration has rejected a submission from Phoenix Biotechnology Inc. to market oleandrin as a dietary supplement ingredient, citing 'significant concerns' about the safety evidence the company presented. Last month, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who recently joined the board of Phoenix Biotechnology and has a financial stake in the company, said he had participated in a July meeting at the White House with ... Donald Trump regarding the use of oleandrin as a potential therapeutic for the coronavirus. The extract comes from the Nerium oleander plant; the raw oleander plant is highly toxic and consuming it can be fatal. There are no peer-reviewed, published studies on the impact of oleandrin on Covid-19, and there's no public evidence it has been studied in patients with Covid-19.... Lindell ... has no scientific background or medical training...." Mrs. McC: So it's potentially fatal and completely untested. Otherwise, it's a great snake oil! Worth remembering: after Trump had kicked most of the scientists & doctors off his made-for-TV fake coronavirus briefings, he let the My Pillow guy lead off one of the briefings.

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race, Etc.

~~~ Thomas Kaplan & Katie Glueck of the New York Times: "Joseph R. Biden Jr. strained to contain his disgust with President Trump on Friday over a report that Mr. Trump had made extraordinarily disrespectful remarks about fallen soldiers. Then he turned to the coronavirus pandemic and the financial pain it had inflicted on millions of Americans. Mr. Trump, he said, 'just doesn't care.' And a day earlier, in Kenosha, Wis., Mr. Biden presented himself as a unifying force determined to confront racial injustice -- a very different message from the one Mr. Trump sent during his visit to the city two days earlier.... Over two days, in a key battleground state and in his own backyard, Mr. Biden drew unmistakably sharp contrasts with Mr. Trump -- not just about policy ideas or management competence, but also about showing respect and understanding Americans' struggles. On Friday, in a fiery speech and a subsequent news conference, Mr. Biden expressed outrage over a report by The Atlantic that Mr. Trump had referred to American soldiers killed in combat during World War I as 'losers' and 'suckers' and had repeatedly shown disdain for military service at other points in his presidency.... Ticking through a list of other well-documented instances in which Mr. Trump has dismissed the sacrifices of military veterans..., Mr. Biden continued, 'President Trump has demonstrated he has no sense of service, no loyalty to any cause other than himself.'" More on Biden's remarks in Baker & Haberman's NYT report, linked below.

Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "Long before The Atlantic published an article on Thursday night depicting President Trump disparaging America's war dead, liberal veterans groups had been feverishly working in battleground states to appeal to veterans and military family members, a cornerstone of President Trump's base.... By Friday morning, Democrats, especially those with a military background, were reacting with both outrage and a sense of opportunity denouncing Mr. Trump in news conferences and press releases and assuring veterans and military families that they had their backs.... On Friday, less than 12 hours after The Atlantic published its article, the largest liberal veteran organization, VoteVets, released an online ad featuring the parents of troops slain in Iraq and Afghanistan.... In the first five hours after it went up, the group said it raised $100,000 from 2,500 donors. The Democratic Party is also leaning heavily on its most popular veterans, like Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., and a former Democratic presidential candidate, to attack the president on his treatment of veterans and the military -- something that would traditionally be a strength for an incumbent Republican president but which is increasingly becoming a weak spot for Mr. Trump." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: You may recall that during the Obama presidency, Jill Biden & Michelle Obama made helping military families their No. 1 priority.

He cannot understand selflessness because he is selfish. He cannot conceive of courage because he is a coward. He cannot feel duty because he is disloyal.... We owe it not only to those who have served and sacrificed for our nation, but to ourselves and to succeeding generations to vote him out. -- Sully Sullenberger, in a series of tweets about Donald Trump ~~~

~~~ Reed Richardson of Mediaite: "Capt. Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger III unleashed a blistering tweetstorm on ... Donald Trump on Friday night, condemning him -- without ever naming him -- for the 'utter and vulgar contempt' he has reportedly shown to the military and urging Americans to 'vote him out.' Sullenberger, a former Air Force fighter pilot and captain, became a worldwide celebrity for his 'Miracle on the Hudson' emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549 on January 15, 2009. He retired in 2010 after 30 years as a commercial pilot. Earlier this year, Sullenberger joined ... Joe Biden at a Nevada caucus rally, endorsing his 2020 run."

Ursula Perano of Axios: "Over 190 law enforcement officials on Friday endorsed Joe Biden for president, per a campaign statement.... The endorsements rebut a theme of the Trump re-election campaign, which has falsely claimed that Biden wants to defund the police.... It's a blow to Trump, who's sought to brand himself as the law-and-order candidate.... 'Joe Biden has always stood on the right side of the law and is offering a much needed vision for our Nation. When asked the question, would you feel safe in Joe Biden's America? The answer is yes,' said Tom Manger, Retired Chief and former President of the Major Cities Chiefs Association." (Also linked yesterday.)

Shane Harris & Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "Russia is seeking 'to undermine public trust in the electoral process' by spreading false claims that mail-in-ballots are riddled with fraud and susceptible to manipulation, according to a new intelligence bulletin by the Department of Homeland Security. Many of the claims made by Russian sources are identical to repeated, unsupported public statements aired by President Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr, who have said that mailed ballots aren't trustworthy while warning of the potential for rampant fraud in November's elections.... The bulletin doesn't cite any particular statements by Trump, Barr or other U.S. officials, but it states that Russia is 'amplifying' claims that mail-in voting is prone to fraud." An ABC News report on the same topic is linked below. The Post story notes that ABC was first to report on the bulletin. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ AND Count Pompeo In. Laura Kelly of the Hill: "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday said there is a 'real risk' to the U.S. elections if states mail ballots to registered voters, echoing President Trump's criticism of efforts by states to ramp up mail voting amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Pompeo, speaking on Fox News' 'Fox and Friends,' was responding to a question about whether he shared Trump's worries about mail-in voting. The president has attacked the idea of mail-in voting as ripe for fraud despite little to no evidence of such risks. 'It's a little out of my lane as secretary of State, but it's a matter of logic,' Pompeo, a former Republican congressman from Kansas, told the program." (Also linked yesterday.)

Providing Aid & Comfort to the Enemy. Reuters in the Guardian: "China has taken the most active role among countries seeking to interfere in the US election and has the biggest program to influence domestic politics, the US national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, said on Friday, without providing any details. 'We know the Chinese have taken the most active role,' O'Brien told reporters at a briefing. He said China had 'the most massive program to influence the United States politically' followed by Iran and then Russia.... Attorney general, William Barr said on Wednesday he believed China was more of a threat than Russia when it came to election interference, also without offering details." --s ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: O'Brien & Barr have proved before that they are trained seals, and they bark when Trump orders then to. The unsupported assertions about China sound like (1) B.S. and (2) dangerous B.S. We should be able to count on the national security advisor & the attorney general to remain about the fray and give us the unbiased truth. We can't.

Georgia Congressional Race. QAnon Candidate Threatens Lives of Liberal Congresswomen. Rachel Bade & John Wagner of the Washington Post: "A House candidate whom President Trump recently called 'a future Republican Star' posted an image of herself holding a rifle with photos of three liberal congresswomen of color and the vow to 'go on the offense' against members of the 'Squad,' an unprecedented threat against lawmakers from a probable future colleague. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the GOP candidate for a Georgia congressional seat in a heavily Republican district and a professed QAnon conspiracy believer, posted the photoshopped image Thursday on Facebook. The image includes Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). On Friday, the post had been taken down. Before it was removed, the caption under the gun-toting Greene read: 'Squad's worst nightmare.'... House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called on Republicans to 'immediately condemn this dangerous threat of violence against Democratic Congresswomen.'"


Peter Baker & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump >confronted a political crisis on Friday that could undercut badly needed support in the military community for his re-election campaign as he sought to dispute a report that he privately referred to American soldiers killed in combat as 'losers' and 'suckers.' Mr. Trump, who has long portrayed himself as a champion of the armed forces and has boasted of rebuilding a military depleted after years of overseas wars, came under intense fire from Democrats and other opponents who said a report in The Atlantic demonstrated his actual contempt for those who serve their country in uniform.... While Mr. Trump demanded that allies knock down the article, aides recognized that few senior military officers were willing to openly defend the president....

"The president's foes organized conference calls, blasted out statements, flocked to television studios and quickly posted advertising online calling attention to the reported comments. At a news conference, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. ... grew emotional as he said that his son Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in 2015, 'wasn't a sucker' for serving in the Army in Iraq.... Mr. Biden called the reported comments 'disgusting,' 'sick, 'deplorable,' 'un-American' and 'absolutely damnable,' adding that he was closer to losing his temper than at any point during the campaign. 'I've just never been as disappointed in my whole career with a leader that I've worked with, president or otherwise.'"

Lara Seligman of Politico: "Trump and other administration officials moved quickly on Thursday and into Friday to blast a report from The Atlantic, which cited anonymous sources saying the president disparaged wounded and fallen U.S. service members on multiple occasions and that he asked that disabled veterans be excluded from military parades. 'It's a fake story and it's a disgrace that they're allowed to do it,' Trump said Friday, although reporters from The Associated Press, The Washington Post and Fox News confirmed elements of the story independently."

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Here's Trump once again complaining that the pesky First Amendment is a "disgrace." If we suspend disbelief for a moment & pretend that Trump's denials are true while Goldberg's sources are lying, it's still almost certainly true that the sources said what they said to Goldberg. He didn't just make up citations out of whole cloth. So unless Goldberg believes his sources are unreliable, he has a right to cite them. That is not a "disgrace." It's journalism. And it's journalism that was quickly confirmed, at least in part, by other journalists.

~~~ Bob Brigham of the Raw Story reposts a string of tweets by Fox "News" national correspondent Jennifer Griffin confirming much of the Atlantic's reporting. Also, Melania Trump is upset about the Atlantic report, charging that it's "activism," not journalism. ~~~

     ~~~ Paul Campos in LG&$: "This is the kind of thing that could matter at the margin, given Fox's considerable influence all across Wingnuttia."

Annie Karni of the New York Times: "John F. Kelly left the White House barely on speaking terms with President Trump. In the months since, Mr. Kelly, a retired four-star general and former White House chief of staff, has stayed mostly silent as other senior military figures have publicly and harshly criticized the president. Much to the consternation of friends and associates who have been pushing him to speak out, Mr. Kelly continued his silence on Friday about a report in The Atlantic that the president had privately referred to American troops killed in combat as 'losers' and 'suckers.' Mr. Kelly refused on-the-record interview requests about his of comments Mr. Trump had reportedly made when Mr. Kelly was with him on a 2018 trip to France. According to the report, the president said that he had decided against visiting a cemetery for American soldiers killed in World War I because 'it's filled with losers,' and that Marines slain in combat at Belleau Wood were 'suckers' for getting killed.... Mr. Kelly's silence did not save him from the president's wrath. 'This man was totally exhausted,' Mr. Trump said of Mr. Kelly at a news conference on Friday. 'He wasn't even able to function in the last number of months.'"

Fred Kaplan of Slate: "A new article by the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg could sink President Donald Trump's prospects for reelection -- but only if one more thing happens.... [A]ll of Goldberg's sources -- some of them generals, including at least one four-star general -- spoke to him on background (meaning they could be quoted but not identified by name). And so, it becomes a matter of Goldberg's word versus Trump's -- or, in the eyes of Trump supporters, a 'fake-news reporter' versus 'mypresident.' As a result, the story, which would otherwise be political dynamite so close to an election, might shift few, if any, votes.... If these stories are true, Goldberg's sources -- especially the generals, the more highly decorated, the better -- must go on the record.... One or more of these generals should weigh the competing values: their loyalty to the president versus their loyalty and lifelong dedication to the security of the nation and the lives of their fellow service members. It shouldn't be a tough choice." --s ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: If Kaplan had read Karni, he would have better understood these top officers' reluctance to speak on the record: they don't want to be seen as directly interfering in a political campaign. However, plenty of retired top guys have got involved in political campaigns -- like, say, Dwight Eisenhower -- so I don't think the excuse holds for, say, Kelly & Mattis.

David Mack of BuzzFeed News: "In a Twitter thread late Thursday night, [Donald Trump] denied that he had ever called McCain a loser.... 'I never called John a loser,' Trump wrote on Twitter.... But Trump, of course, famously did call McCain a loser. 'He lost [the 2008 election], so I never liked him as much after that because I don't like losers,' Trump said in 2015 as he ran for president in Iowa. 'He's not a war hero. He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured.' At the time, Trump even reshared his comments on Twitter." (Also linked yesterday.)

It's Because Trump Is an Inarticulate Pacifist! Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "In The Daily Beast's interviews with eleven senior administration officials, Trump aides, Republican operatives, and former and current friends of the president, several of them mounted a curious defense of Trump. Yes, they admitted, the commander in chief at times makes callous, tone-deaf comments about American military personnel behind closed doors. But it's because he hates the wars they're forced to fight, not the service members themselves. 'The president means no disrespect to our troops; it's just that the way he speaks, he can sound like an asshole sometimes,' one of these sources, a current senior administration official, told The Daily Beast. 'That's how he is [when the cameras are off] ... It's his style.'... Three people with direct knowledge of the president’s private remarks in the past three years about Robert Kelly, [John Kelly's son,] as well as other Americans who've died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said that Trump had made similar-sounding comments to them, too.... For all of Trump's talk about putting an end to these 'endless wars,' he has yet to actually end any of them...."

** Kathy Kiely in USA Today: "In a heretofore unpublicized recent memo, the Pentagon delivered an order to shutter Stars and Stripes, a newspaper that has been a lifeline and a voice for American troops since the Civil War. The memo orders the publisher of the news organization (which now publishes online as well as in print) to present a plan that 'dissolves the Stars and Stripes' by Sept. 15 including 'specific timeline for vacating government owned/leased space worldwide.' 'The last newspaper publication (in all forms) will be September 30, 2020,' writes Col. Paul Haverstick Jr., the memo's author.... The memo ordering the publication's dissolution claims the administration has the authority to make this move under the president's fiscal year 2021 defense department budget request. It zeroed out the $15.5 million annual subsidy for Stars and Stripes.... [The budget] the House approved earlier this summer explicitly overruled the decision to pull the plug on Stars and Stripes, restoring funding for the paper.... So far, the Senate hasn't acted." --s (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: As Kiely points out, normally funding for Stars & Stripes -- which is a tiny portion of the Pentagon's $700-billion budget -- would be folded into a continuing resolution. But instead of following SOP, the Trump administration has gone out of its way to shut down a publication that "is not answerable to the brass." But, gee, I'll bet Trump doesn't like the paper's top headline today: "More than 3,000 VA patients have now died from the coronavirus." And he likes the most popular headline even less: "Trump denies reports that he disparaged U.S. war dead as 'losers,' 'sucker.'" ~~~

     ~~~ UPDATE. Saved by Political Expediency. Oliver Darcy of CNN: "President Trump overrode his defense secretary and vowed to continue funding Stars and Stripes, the military's editorially independent newspaper that covers issues relevant to members of the armed forces, after news the administration ordered the organization to shutter leaked to the public. Trump tweeted Friday afternoon that the US 'will NOT be cutting funding' to the outlet. The President's tweet came as he faces significant uproar over a report in The Atlantic that said he disparaged military members." A New York Times story is here.

Black Lives Matter

~~~ But Not to Donald Trump. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump has directed administration officials to make significant changes to sensitivity training sessions across the government, calling such efforts that often focus on promoting awareness of racism 'divisive' and 'un-American propaganda.' The directive was laid out on Friday afternoon in a memo from the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell T. Vought, to executive branch agency heads. The brief memo -- which repeatedly referred to 'press reports,' not government documents -- tells the agencies to 'begin to identify all contracts or other agency spending related to any training on 'critical race theory,' 'white privilege,' or any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil.'... 'It has come to the president's attention that executive branch agencies have spent millions of taxpayer dollars to date "training" government workers to believe divisive, anti-American propaganda,' Mr. Vought wrote.... The memo comes at a time of a national discussion about race, in which Mr. Trump has been firmly against systemic changes in policing and government." An AP story is here.

Thugs on a Plane. Julia Ainsley of NBC News: "In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Customs and Border Protection chief Mark Morgan said that 'groups like Antifa' are sending organized protestors by plane to cities around the country to incite violence.... But when asked by NBC News to provide examples of groups sending protestors by plane to cause violence, a CBP spokesman said there was no information to support Acting Commissioner Morgan's claim. Instead, the spokesman said Morgan was referring generally to the fact that many protestors at protests around the country are from out of state.... On Wednesday, Fox News host John Roberts asked Morgan about Trump's claim [about a plane 'almost completely loaded with thugs wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms with gear'], and Morgan ... [said], 'So I don't have any information with respect to that specific incident.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Antifa is not an organization like, say, the NRA, with a treasury & a budget for paying airfare for thugs on a plane.

New York. Gwynne Hogan of WNYC & Jake Offenhartz of the Gothamist: "The vehicle used by a driver to plow through a crowd of Black Lives Matter marchers in Times Square on Thursday was carrying a group of Trump-supporting counterprotesters who had just received an NYPD escort, according to police and videos of the incident. A spokesperson for the NYPD said the black Ford Taurus was filled with several counterprotesters, who had been told to leave the area shortly after 8 p.m. They were being ushered by police officers through the parking lot of a nearby hotel, but 'missed the turn,' the spokesperson said, and instead drove straight toward the crowd of protesters.... Video taken at the scene shows an NYPD officer helping the counter-demonstrators into the vehicle.... NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said on Friday morning that police were still investigating whether a crime was committed. The vehicle has not been located and no arrests have been made, the department confirmed.... The vehicle's license plate matches that of another car frequently shared on social media by Hakim Gibson, a pro-NYPD activist who currently runs a 'law enforcement support page.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: "Missed the turn"? I'll bet. Sorta like I "missed the turn" when I accidentally drove into a Dunkin' Donuts drive-thru while I was on a diet. Oh, my mistake. Make that a Boston cream-filled, please. And a hazelnut latte.

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Friday are here: "On Friday, a team of Russian scientists published the first report on their controversial Covid-19 vaccine. Writing in the Lancet, they reported that volunteers produced a relatively modest amount of antibodies to the coronavirus. In August, President Vladimir V. Putin announced with great fanfare that the vaccine -- called Sputnik V -- 'works effectively enough' to be approved. He declared to be a 'very important step for our country, and generally for the whole world.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Friday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Katie Thomas, et al., of the New York Times: "A group of drug companies competing with one another to be among the first to develop coronavirus vaccines are planning to pledge early next week that they will not release any vaccines that do not follow rigorous efficacy and safety standards, according to representatives of three of the companies. The statement, which has not yet been finalized, is meant to reassure the public that the companies will not seek a premature approval of vaccines under political pressure from the Trump administration. President Trump has pushed for a vaccine to be available by October -- just before the presidential election -- and a growing number of scientists, regulators and public health experts have expressed concern over what they see as a pattern of political arm-twisting by the Trump administration in its efforts to combat the virus."

Joel Achenbach & William Wan of the Washington Post: "The global death toll from the coronavirus> pandemic could triple by year's end, with an additional 1.9 million deaths, while a fall wave of infections could drive fatalities in the United States to 410,000, according to a new forecast from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.... The institute's forecasts were influential earlier in the pandemic in guiding policies developed by the White House coronavirus task force, but they have been criticized by some experts as projecting further into the future than can be done reliably."

Eduardo Porter of the New York Times: "As companies reconsider their long-term need to have employees on site, low-wage workers depending on office-based businesses stand to lose the most.... If white-collar America doesn't return to the office, service workers will be left with nobody to serve. The worry is particularly acute in cities, which for decades have sustained tens of millions of jobs for workers without a college education.... And having discovered Zoom, what company will fly a manager across the country for a day's worth of meetings? A lasting reduction in business travel will endanger the ecosystem of hotel and restaurant workers serving corporate travelers."

Drusilla Moorhouse & Emerson Malone of BuzzFeed News explain why BuzzFeed will begin calling QAnon a "collective delusion" rather than a "conspiracy theory." Their post helpfully explains QAnon.

News Lede

CNN: "Labor Day may be the unofficial end of summer, but it won't feel like it in the West, where hundreds of heat records are likely to be broken....Heat warnings include nearly all of California and stretch from Arizona to Oregon. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency ahead of the heat, with the goal of alleviating heat-induced demands on the power grid. An alert has been issued to California residents to conserve power between 3 p.m. and 10 p.m., when demand is highest."

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Thursday
Sep032020

The Commentariat -- September 4, 2020

Afternoon Update:

** Kathy Kiely in USA Today: "In a heretofore unpublicized recent memo, the Pentagon delivered an order to shutter Stars and Stripes, a newspaper that has been a lifeline and a voice for American troops since the Civil War. The memo orders the publisher of the news organization (which now publishes online as well as in print) to present a plan that 'dissolves the Stars and Stripes' by Sept. 15 including 'specific timeline for vacating government owned/leased space worldwide.' 'The last newspaper publication (in all forms) will be September 30, 2020,' writes Col. Paul Haverstick Jr., the memo's author.... The memo ordering the publication's dissolution claims the administration has the authority to make this move under the president's fiscal year 2021 defense department budget request. It zeroed out the $15.5 million annual subsidy for Stars and Stripes.... [The budget] the House approved earlier this summer explicitly overruled the decision to pull the plug on Stars and Stripes, restoring funding for the paper.... So far, the Senate hasn't acted." --s ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: As Kiely points out, normally funding for Stars & Stripes -- which is a tiny portion of the Pentagon's $700-billion budget -- would be folded into a continuing resolution. But instead of following SOP, the Trump administration has gone out of its way to shut down a publication that "is not answerable to the brass." But, gee, I'll bet Trump doesn't like the paper's top headline today: "More than 3,000 VA patients have now died from the coronavirus." And he likes the most popular headline even less: "Trump denies reports that he disparaged U.S. war dead as 'losers,' 'sucker.'"

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Friday are here: "On Friday, a team of Russian scientists published the first report on their controversial Covid-19 vaccine. Writing in the Lancet, they reported that volunteers produced a relatively modest amount of antibodies to the coronavirus. In August, President Vladimir V. Putin announced with great fanfare that the vaccine -- called Sputnik V -- 'works effectively enough' to be approved. He declared to be a 'very important step for our country, and generally for the whole world.'" ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Friday are here.

Ursula Perano of Axios: "Over 190 law enforcement officials on Friday endorsed Joe Biden for president, per a campaign statement.... The endorsements rebut a theme of the Trump re-election campaign, which has falsely claimed that Biden wants to defund the police.... It's a blow to Trump, who's sought to brand himself as the law-and-order candidate.... 'Joe Biden has always stood on the right side of the law and is offering a much needed vision for our Nation. When asked the question, would you feel safe in Joe Biden's America? The answer is yes,' said Tom Manger, Retired Chief and former President of the Major Cities Chiefs Association."

Shane Harris & Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "Russia is seeking 'to undermine public trust in the electoral process' by spreading false claims that mail-in-ballots are riddled with fraud and susceptible to manipulation, according to a new intelligence bulletin by the Department of Homeland Security. Many of the claims made by Russian sources are identical to repeated, unsupported public statements aired by President Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr, who have said that mailed ballots aren't trustworthy while warning of the potential for rampant fraud in November's elections.... The bulletin doesn't cite any particular statements by Trump, Barr or other U.S. officials, but it states that Russia is 'amplifying' claims that mail-in voting is prone to fraud." An ABC News report on the same topic is linked below. The Post story notes that ABC was first to report on the bulletin. ~~~

~~~ AND Count Pompeo In. Laura Kelly of the Hill: "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday said there is a 'real risk' to the U.S. elections if states mail ballots to registered voters, echoing President Trump's criticism of efforts by states to ramp up mail voting amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Pompeo, speaking on Fox News' 'Fox and Friends,' was responding to a question about whether he shared Trump's worries about mail-in voting. The president has attacked the idea of mail-in voting as ripe for fraud despite little to no evidence of such risks. 'It's a little out of my lane as secretary of State, but it's a matter of logic,' Pompeo, a former Republican congressman from Kansas, told the program."

David Mack of BuzzFeed News: "In a Twitter thread late Thursday night, [Trump] denied that he had ever called McCain a loser.... 'I never called John a loser,' Trump wrote on Twitter.... But Trump, of course, famously did call McCain a loser. 'He lost [the 2008 election], so I never liked him as much after that because I don't like losers,' Trump said in 2015 as he ran for president in Iowa. 'He's not a war hero. He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured.' At the time, Trump even reshared his comments on Twitter."

New York. Gwynne Hogan of WNYC & Jake Offenhartz of the Gothamist: "The vehicle used by a driver to plow through a crowd of Black Lives Matter marchers in Times Square on Thursday was carrying a group of Trump-supporting counterprotesters who had just received an NYPD escort, according to police and videos of the incident. A spokesperson for the NYPD said the black Ford Taurus was filled with several counterprotesters, who had been told to leave the area shortly after 8 p.m. They were being ushered by police officers through the parking lot of a nearby hotel, but 'missed the turn,' the spokesperson said, and instead drove straight toward the crowd of protesters.... Video taken at the scene shows an NYPD officer helping the counter-demonstrators into the vehicle.... NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said on Friday morning that police were still investigating whether a crime was committed. The vehicle has not been located and no arrests have been made, the department confirmed.... The vehicle's license plate matches that of another car frequently shared on social media by Hakim Gibson, a pro-NYPD activist who currently runs a 'law enforcement support page.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: "Missed the turn"? I'll bet. Sorta like I "missed the turn" when I accidentally drove into a Dunkin' Donuts drive-thru while I was on a diet. Oh, my mistake. Make that a Boston cream-filled, please. And a hazelnut latte.

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race, Etc.

Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs & Katie Glueck of the New York Times: "Drawing a sharp contrast with President Trump, Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Thursday aligned himself strongly and sympathetically with protesters of racial injustice and with Black voters during an afternoon of raw interactions with people still grappling with the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Two days after Mr. Trump traveled to Kenosha to focus attention on street violence and disorder, Mr. Biden sought to strike a drastically different tone, as he repudiated the president's divisive approach to matters of racial injustice and civil unrest and offered an alternative vision focused on national unity.... The former vice president emphasized his commitment to correcting decades of systemic racism, as he acknowledged racial disparities in health care, education and the criminal justice system and said that 'we're finally now getting to the point' of addressing 'the original sin: slavery. And all the vestiges of it.'" A Washington Post story is here. ~~~

~~~ Eric Bradner of CNN: "... Joe Biden said he had spoken by phone Thursday with Jacob Blake, the 29-year-old Black man who was shot in the back by police, while meeting with Blake's family in Wisconsin. 'He talked about how nothing was going to defeat him. How whether he walked again or not, he was not going to give up,' Biden said. His comments came at a meeting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the site of Blake's shooting, with local political, law enforcement, religious and nonprofit leaders. Earlier Thursday, Biden had met privately in Milwaukee with members of Blake's family, who he said put him on the phone with Blake, who is out of the intensive care unit. He said he had spoken about faith with Blake.... Biden met in Milwaukee with Blake's father, brother and two sisters, with Blake's mother and attorneys joining by phone. Blake attorney Ben Crump tweeted a statement saying that it had been a 'very engaging' 90-minute meeting.... While in Kenosha Tuesday, [Donald] Trump did not meet with the family of Blake. Trump claimed that he's not meeting with Blake's family during his Wisconsin visit because they wanted to involve lawyers."

~~~ A Biden-Harris campaign ad, released Thursday:

~~~ Another ad released Thursday:

Former Michigan Republican Governor Endorses Joe Biden. Rick Snyder in a Detroit Free Press op-ed: "I will continue to support and stand up for Republican policies and values, and support Republican candidates, but I will not support Donald Trump for reelection.... He is a bully.... In addition, President Trump lacks a moral compass. He ignores the truth.... I had the opportunity to interact with Mr. Biden when he served as vice president. My interactions were always constructive and respectful. He has shown the desire to heal a deeply divided nation; has demonstrated strong moral character and empathy; and he seems willing to listen to people who have different perspectives from his own.... While I am endorsing Joe Biden for president, I am still a Republican who also will be publicly supporting Republican candidates at the local, state and federal level." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Tim Reid of Reuters: "Nearly 100 Republican and independent leaders will endorse Democrat Joe Biden for president on Thursday, including one-time 2020 Republican presidential candidate Bill Weld and the former Republican governors of Michigan and New Jersey, people involved in the effort told Reuters.... Called 'Republicans and Independents for Biden', the group is headed by Christine Todd Whitman, a former Republican governor of New Jersey who has become one of Trump's fiercest critics and who spoke at the recent Democratic National Convention in support of Biden." (Also linked yesterday.)

~~~ Teo Armus of the Washington Post: "In 2016, Army veteran David Weissman was an 'unapologetic, red-hat wearing' Donald Trump supporter.... Four years later, Weissman -- who served two tours in Afghanistan -- has now sparked a Twitter campaign of former service members against President Trump, over reports that he derided fallen U.S. soldiers as 'losers' and 'suckers.' 'I recommend all veterans to use their Military pics as a profile pic,' Weissman wrote on Twitter on Thursday evening, 'to let Trump know how many people he has offended. 'Weissman's online call to arms underscored the outpouring of anger that erupted from military veterans and their families overnight against Trump, following a bombshell article in the Atlantic that Trump and several top aides have vehemently denied.... As first reported by the Atlantic and later confirmed in part by other media outlets..., Trump said wounded veterans should not march in a military parade and canceled his visit to a French cemetery for American Marines killed in World War I because he had no interest in honoring his country's war dead." ~~~

     ~~~ Colby Itkowitz, et al., of the Washington Post confirm more details of the Atlantic report & add a few of their own. A former senior administration official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly, confirmed to The Washington Post that the president frequently made disparaging comments about veterans and soldiers missing in action, referring to them at times as 'losers.' In one account, the president told senior advisers that he didn't understand why the U.S. government placed such value on finding soldiers missing in action because they had performed poorly and gotten caught and deserved what they got, according to a person familiar with the discussion. Trump believed people who served in the Vietnam War must be 'losers' because they hadn't gotten out of it, according to a person familiar with the comments. Trump also complained bitterly to then-Chief of Staff John F. Kelly that he didn't understand why Kelly and others in the military treated [Sen. John] McCain, who had been imprisoned and tortured during the Vietnam War, with such reverence." ~~~

~~~ Peter Baker & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump heatedly denied on Thursday night that he referred to American soldiers killed in combat during World War I as 'losers' and 'suckers,' moving quickly to avoid losing support among the military and its allies just two months before an election. Marching over to reporters under the wing of Air Force One after returning from a campaign rally, a visibly angry Mr. Trump rebutted a magazine report that he decided against visiting a cemetery for American soldiers in France in 2018 because he feared the rain would mess up his hair and he did not believe it was important to honor the war dead.... People familiar with Mr. Trump's comments say he has long scorned those who served in Vietnam as being too dumb to have gotten out of it, as he did through a medical diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels. At other times, according to those familiar with the remarks, Mr. Trump would marvel at people choosing military service over making money. [Joe] Biden ... sought on Thursday night to capitalize on the Atlantic article, quickly issuing a statement condemning the president and saying it demonstrated that Mr. Trump was not fit for the office. Mr. Biden said the article, if true, showed 'another marker of how deeply President Trump and I disagree about the role of the president of the United States.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: You know, Donnie, when you lie more than 20,000 times in 3-1/2 years, people are not going to believe you when you deny a report that has been verified by multiple MSM outlets & which fits perfectly into your M.O of derogating other members of the armed services like John McCain & Jim Mattis. ~~~

~~~ ** Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic: "In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of [a] scheduled visit ... to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018..., Trump said, 'Why should I go to that cemetery? It's filled with losers.' In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as 'suckers' for getting killed.... According to sources with knowledge of the president's views, he seems to genuinely not understand why Americans treat former prisoners of war with respect. Nor does he understand why pilots who are shot down in combat are honored by the military.... Trump has been, for the duration of his presidency, fixated on staging military parades, but only of a certain sort. In a 2018 White House planning meeting for such an event, Trump asked his staff not to include wounded veterans, on grounds that spectators would feel uncomfortable in the presence of amputees. 'Nobody wants to see that,' he said." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Read the article. It is not long. It is probably the most shocking report I've read about any American public figure. James LaPorta, an AP reporter, told Rachel Maddow he found the report so unbelievable that he started calling around to verifying it. He has found two sources who have verified all most of Goldberg's reporting. Maddow also pointed to two related anecdotes: (1) that Robert Trump, Donald's brother, had told Mary Trump that Donald told Don Junior that he would disown him if Junior joined the military, something which Junior had expressed interest in doing; and (2) that as part of the pre-nuptial agreement between Donald Trump & Marla Maples, Donald would stop paying support to daughter Tiffany if Tiffany joined the military of the Peace Corps. Goldberg's report fills in perhaps the final piece of the Trump puzzle. Once you understand that Trump is a completely hollow man, lacking even the ability to understand self-sacrifice & love of country or liberty, then most of his other actions make a kind of "sense." ~~~

~~~ James LaPorta of the AP: "A new report details multiple instances of ... Donald Trump making disparaging remarks about members of the U.S. military who have been captured or killed, including referring to the American war dead at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France in 2018 as 'losers' and 'suckers.' Trump said Thursday that the story is 'totally false.' The allegations were first reported in The Atlantic. A senior Defense Department official with firsthand knowledge of events and a senior U.S. Marine Corps officer who was told about Trump's comments confirmed some of the remarks to The Associated Press, including the 2018 cemetery comments." ~~~

~~~ Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: "Jeffrey Goldberg has a stunning story today about President Trump's attitude toward the military. In a nutshell, he's contemptuous of anyone who served, anyone who was captured on the battlefield, or anyone who died.... I think Stalin had approximately the same view of the soldiers under his command. But then again, Stalin was a psychopath." ~~~

~~~ Scott Lemiuex in LG&$: "It's odd how much skepticism there was about this story before AP confirmed it, given that it's merely one of many expressions of Trump's fundamental worldview[.]... You don't become as successful a con artist as Trump without being remorselessly contemptuous of your marks, and he hates his actual and theoretical supporters more than anybody. It goes without saying that if a Democratic candidate for president said anything remotely resembling this there would be three A1 NYT stories a day about it for weeks but it is what it is."

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "... as Mr. Trump seeks to become the oldest individual ever elected to the office for a second term, recent questions about his mental and physical condition have sent him into paroxysms of pique. They have complicated his own efforts to question the health of his challenger and fellow septuagenarian, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. The president elevated the issue this week by taking the bait of a critic's tweet and denying that he had 'mini-strokes' last year around the time of a mysterious trip to the hospital. But Mr. Trump only raised more questions when he could not keep his explanations for that hospital visit straight. He wrote that it 'was to complete my yearly physical' -- contrary to how he explained it at the time, when he said it was 'phase one of my yearly physical' to be completed later." The story has more detail about Trump's remarks & tweets concerning his and others' fitness. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ "Donald Trump Would Like to Momentarily Pause This Campaign to Tell You How Good His Brain Is." Asawin Suebsaeng & Scott Bixby of the Daily Beast: "Following a carefully manicured, four-day convention in which Donald Trump's chief lieutenants branded him as an avatar of stability and Joe Biden as the pied-piper of race riots, the president did what he always does: He casually disposed of his team's messaging in the service of nursing personal grudges. This week, it was about how his brain isn't dying.... Shortly after Trump's [tweeted] tirade about 'mini-strokes,' his re-election campaign called for CNN to fire an analyst [-- former Bill Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart --] who asked his Twitter followers whether the president was hiding a past stroke from the American public.... When the Drudge Report ... led the site on Tuesday with Trump's furious denial [of having had 'mini-strokes,'] Trump blew up again.... Joe Biden's presidential campaign was practically thrilled to play along, arguing that Trump's focus on his own mental acuity was rooted in his failures on a more pressing health matter: the coronavirus pandemic...." (Also linked yesterday.)

Jesselyn Cook of the Huffington Post: “... Donald Trump's campaign launched a series of Facebook ads on Thursday featuring a manipulated photo of his presidential opponent Joe Biden edited to make the former vice president appear older. The ads, which label Biden 'Sleepy Joe,' show him gazing out against a dark background with his mouth slightly agape. The Trump campaign is also running near-identical Facebook ads featuring the same text along with the original, unedited photo of Biden, in which his skin looks much brighter and healthier. It's among the latest examples of Trump officials circulating imagery that has been deceptively altered or pulled out of context to attack Biden."

Trump's Vote-Twice Advice Alarms North Carolina Officials. Tucker Higgins of CNBC: "Officials in North Carolina are scrambling to counteract ... Donald Trump's call for residents of the state to attempt to vote twice in the upcoming contest for the White House, issuing a notice on Thursday warning voters that doing so intentionally is a felony. Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said in the memo to voters that the board also discouraged people from showing up at polling sites on Election Day to check whether their absentee ballot had been counted." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Bell's notice is here. It begins, "The following is a message to North Carolina voters from Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections: It is illegal to vote twice in an election. N.C.G.S. § 163-275(7) makes it a Class I felony for a voter, 'with intent to commit a fraud to register or vote at more than one precinct or more than one time ... in the same primary or election.' Attempting to vote twice in an election or soliciting someone to do so also is a violation of North Carolina law." Emphasis added. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Richard Hasen in Slate: "... Donald Trump on Thursday repeated his encouragement to his supporters to vote twice, first by mail and then -- if election officials allow -- in person. Voting twice -- as the president requests -- is not only illegal, but a recipe for chaos in November. Perhaps that is exactly the point. Trump defended his call as a way to test the system against voter fraud, but it's like encouraging his supporters to try to rob the 7-Eleven to make sure that the police can respond adequately to robberies.... Many people may hear his comments and think he is serious. This is particularly true given that he repeated the comments the very next day and his attorney general, William Barr, refused to acknowledge that double voting is illegal.... What's worse, the comments are going to put a strain on an election system stretched to its limits by trying to conduct a presidential election in the midst of a pandemic and with one of the candidates constantly casting doubt on the election's legitimacy. Again, this is probably Trump's real intent." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Stephanie Saul & Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: Trump's "comments have now created a new headache for state election officials, who are already dealing with the formidable task of holding an election during a pandemic.... Elections officials in North Carolina also hinted that the president himself could have committed a crime.... The state's Democratic attorney general, Josh Stein, said it was outrageous for the president to suggest that people 'break the law in order to help him sow chaos in our election.' And Jena Griswold, Colorado's Democratic secretary of state, said, '2020 has been unprecedented in so many ways, but I never imagined that as secretary of state I would have to inform both the president and the U.S. attorney general that it is illegal to vote twice.' That was after Attorney General William P. Barr suggested during an interview with CNN that he was not sure whether voting twice in North Carolina was illegal.... During a campaign speech in Latrobe, Penn., Thursday night, Mr. Trump repeated his claims from Wednesday, saying, 'Send in your early ballot and then go and make sure that ballot is tabulated and counted. And if it's not counted, then vote.' Then the election staff 'have the job of making sure they don't count it' twice."

Bill Barr Is So Trumpy He Makes Up Stuff. Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "In his latest warning about the dangers of mass mail-in voting, Attorney General William P. Barr pointed to a case in Texas that he said highlighted the risk of fraud. 'Elections that have been held with mail have found substantial fraud and coercion,' Barr told CNN on Wednesday. 'For example, we indicted someone in Texas, 1,700 ballots collected, he -- from people who could vote, he made them out and voted for the person he wanted to. Okay?' Federal prosecutors brought no such indictment. And while a Justice Department spokeswoman said Barr was referring to a local prosecution involving suspected mail-in voting fraud in a city council election, the assistant district attorney on that case said Barr's description doesn't match the facts. 'That's not what happened at all,' said Andy Chatham.... 'We didn't find any evidence of widespread voter fraud, and instead the ballots that were returned were consistent with the voter's choice,' Chatham said.... [One man] ultimately pleaded guilty in the case to improperly returning a marked ballot.... Chatham said he believed [the man] was a low-level player in a possibly larger scheme that never came to fruition, and that prosecutors never were able to fully unravel." Barr's spokesperson blamed his misstatement on an inaccurate DOJ memo he received. ~~~

~~~ Josh Margolin & Lucien Bruggeman of ABC News: "Russia has sought to 'amplify' concerns over the integrity of U.S. elections by promoting allegations that mail-in voting will lead to widespread fraud, according to an intelligence bulletin obtained by ABC News, again echoing a frequent and unfounded complaint raised by ... Donald Trump. Analysts with the Department of Homeland Security's intelligence branch issued the warning on Thursday to federal and state law enforcement partners after finding with 'high confidence' that 'Russian malign influence actors' have targeted the absentee voting process 'by spreading disinformation' since at least March." Mrs. McC: We know the Russians are working hand-in-glove with Trump. I wonder if Russia has put Bill Barr on retainer. It is a bit odd that an arm of the DHS is effectively "telling on" Trump & Barr, the country's top disinformation officials.

Jacques Billeaud of the AP: "A judge has barred Kanye West from appearing on the Nov. 3 ballot in Arizona, concluding that a voter who challenged his candidacy had shown he would probably prevail and had established the possibility of an irreparable harm if the rapper's name were to appear on the ballot.... West has already qualified to appear on the ballot in several states, including Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Tennessee and Utah. He didn't qualify in Ohio, Montana, West Virginia, Wisconsin and other states, though he has filed lawsuits challenging some of those decisions." ~~~

~~~ Laura Vozella of the Washington Post: "A Circuit Court judge ordered state officials to remove ... Kanye West from the Virginia ballot Thursday, granting an emergency order sought by two voters who said they were duped into helping the rapper-entrepreneur qualify for the ballot.... Justin Sheldon, who represented the two voters, asserted that West's campaign had 'secured the signatures to get on the ballot by fraud.'"

Elizabeth Dwoskin & Craig Timberg of the Washington Post: "Facebook plans to block new advertising the week before the presidential election -- the first time the company has taken action to limit political advertising in the United States, the company said Thursday.... The company also said that it would label posts by any candidate or campaign that tries to declare victory before the final results are in, directing people to the official results from Reuters. It will do the same for any posts that try to delegitimize the outcome of the election -- for example, a claim that voting by mail could lead to fraud. It has also started to limit users' ability to forward articles on its Messenger platform to large groups of people.... The Trump campaign blasted the company for its new policies." A New York Times story is here. The Guardian's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: The Trump campaign is pissed because there's been every indication that Trump does intend to declare victory prematurely, while Biden has not expressed any such inclination. The Guardian's story spells that out. Donie O'Sullivan of CNN said the Facebook move is a joke, that campaigns can still advertise in the last week before the election as long as they book the ads before the last week.

Ross Lincoln of Yahoo!: "Self-described 'fanatic about voting' Arnold Schwarzenegger moved to put his considerable money where his mouth is on Wednesday with an implied offer to fund the reopening of thousands of polling places in states that have shut them down. The former California governor was responding to a 2019 Reuters article which noted an enormous number of polling place closures that have occurred since the 2013 Supreme Court decision, Shelby County v. Holder.... Since then, there has been a wave of so-called reforms in former Jim Crow states that critics say are deliberately intended to disenfranchise nonwhite voters, along with the closure of more than 1200 polling stations...While it's unclear if anyone will take him up on this offer, the ex-Governator has pretty deep pockets. His current wealth is not known, but estimates from 2011 put his personal fortune north of $400 million." --s

Black Lives Matter

White You Win, Black You Lose. Bill Barr Puts His Fat Thumb on the Scale of Justice. Aris Folley of the Hill: "Attorney General William Barr said that he doesn't think the cases of George Floyd and Jacob Blake are 'interchangeable' when asked about both in an interview on Wednesday.... Pressed by host Wolf Blitzer for an explanation, Barr said Floyd, an unarmed Black man who died in Minneapolis earlier this year after a white police officer kneeled on his neck for more than eight minutes, was 'already subdued, incapacitated, in handcuffs and was not armed.... In the Jacob case, he was in the midst of committing a felony, and he was armed. So that's a big difference,' Barr claimed before adding moments later that he doesn't want to talk about either of the cases 'as if they're interchangeable.'... It's unclear if [Blake] was armed with a knife at the time of the shooting. The [Wisconsin Department of Justice] said the knife was recovered from the floorboard of Blake's car and that no other weapons were recovered during the search.... 'Attorney General Barr is misinformed. The police officers were the aggressors from start to finish, based on video and witness accounts,' [Blake's] legal team said in a joint statement. 'There was never any point in time when there was justification for deadly force. In fact, there were innocent bystanders in the line of fire when he shot seven times into Jacob's back.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Oregon. Hallie Golden, et al., of the New York Times: "Law enforcement agents shot and killed an antifa supporter on Thursday as they moved to arrest him in the fatal shooting of a right-wing activist who was part of a pro-Trump caravan in Portland, Ore., officials said. The suspect, Michael Forest Reinoehl, 48, was shot by officers from a federally led fugitive task force during the encounter in Lacey, Wash., southwest of Seattle, according to four law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation.... An arrest warrant had been issued by the Portland police earlier Thursday, on the same day that Vice News published an interview with Mr. Reinoehl in which he appeared to admit to the Aug. 29 shooting, saying, 'I had no choice.'... In the Vice interview, Mr. Reinoehl said he had acted in self-defense, believing that he and a friend were about to be stabbed. 'I could have sat there and watched them kill a friend of mine of color, but I wasn't going to do that,' he said." An AP story is here. The Oregonian's story is here.

New York. Sarah Nir, et al., of the New York Times: "Seven Rochester[, N.Y.,] police officers were suspended on Thursday in the suffocation of a Black man as he was being detained in March, although the mayor and senior state officials faced escalating questions about why more than five months passed before action was taken. The man, Daniel Prude, who was having a psychotic episode, was handcuffed by officers after he ran into the street naked in the middle of the cold night and told at least one passer-by that he had the coronavirus. Mr. Prude began spitting, and the officers responded by pulling a mesh hood over his head, according to police body camera footage. When he tried to rise, the officers forced Mr. Prude face down on the ground, one of them pushing his head to the pavement, the video footage showed. Mr. Prude was held down by the police for two minutes, and had to be resuscitated. He died a week later at the hospital."

California. Azi Paybarah of the New York Times: "A California police officer was charged on Wednesday with felony manslaughter for fatally shooting a Black man inside a Walmart in April in a swift confrontation that the district attorney said displayed an unreasonable use of deadly force. District Attorney Nancy E. O'Malley of Alameda County said in a statement on Wednesday that charging Officer Jason Fletcher of the San Leandro Police Department 'is not a decision that is made lightly, nor rashly.' She faulted the officer for 'his failure to attempt other de-escalation options,' which 'rendered his use of deadly force unreasonable and a violation' of state law." (Also linked yesterday.)

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

Jeff Cox of CNBC: "Nonfarm payrolls increased by 1.37 million in August and the unemployment rate tumbled to 8.4% as the U.S. economy continued to climb its way out of the pandemic downturn. The unemployment rate was by far the lowest since the coronavirus shutdown in March, according to Labor Department figures released Friday.... Government hiring helped boost the total, with the growth of 344,000 workers accounting for a quarter of the monthly gain. Most of that hiring came from Census workers.... The total of those on furlough also fell dramatically.... August's job gains mean that more than half of those displaced during the pandemic are back at work." Mrs. McC: Needless to say, those Census jobs are very temporary.

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Thursday are here: "Moncef Slaoui, the chief adviser for the White House vaccine program, said on Thursday that it was 'extremely unlikely but not impossible' that a vaccine could be available by the end of October. In an interview with National Public Radio, Dr. Slaoui, the chief scientific adviser of the Trump administration's coronavirus vaccine and treatment initiative, called Operation Warp Speed, explained that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's guidance to states to prepare for a vaccine as early as late October -- a notification Dr. Slaoui said he had learned of through the news media -- was 'the right thing to do' in case a vaccine was ready by that time. 'It would be irresponsible not to be ready if that was the case,' he said. However, he described that as a 'very, very low chance.'"

Jeff Cox of CNBC: "New filings for jobless claims totaled 881,000 last week, better than estimates as the employment market continued its gradual progress during the coronavirus pandemic recovery. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a total of 950,000. The number reflects an improving labor market as well as a change in methodology from the Labor Department to address seasonal factors. Unique circumstances associated with the coronavirus likely caused jobless claims totals to be overstated during the pandemic." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Scott Horsley of NPR: "Without the seasonal adjustment, state unemployment claims rose by more than 7,500. In addition to the state unemployment claims, 759,000 people applied for benefits under a special federal program for gig workers and the self-employed, who are ordinarily not eligible for unemployment. Those claims also increased from the previous week." (Also linked yesterday.)


Anne Gearan & Paul Sonne of the Washington Post: "The White House on Thursday denounced the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and suggested that the United States might retaliate if the Kremlin is to blame, but President Trump has failed to repudiate the attack himself, prompting criticism that he is once again being soft on Russian President Vladimir Putin. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany called the poisoning 'completely reprehensible' but did not address a question about whether Trump has 'made his voice known to the Russian government.' It was the strongest U.S. condemnation yet of the attack two weeks ago using what a German military lab says was a banned chemical weapon. Navalny survived and is now under treatment in Germany."

Pentagon Boosts Republican Senators. Paul Sonne of the Washington Post: "President Trump's decision to use Pentagon money to pay for his border wall created problems on the campaign trail for Republican senators seeking reelection in states that lost military construction projects to the president's effort. But the Defense Department's move in recent months to restart many of those domestic projects has provided political cover to several Republican incumbents facing tough reelections.... Some of the revived projects are in states with two Democrats representing them in the Senate. But others are hot-button projects in states such as North Carolina, Colorado and Arizona, where Republican senators in competitive races had been taking heat over their defunding." (Also linked yesterday.)

Nahal Toosi of Politico: "The Trump administration has quietly named a new acting State Department inspector general, the latest personnel shift to hit the troubled watchdog unit since Secretary of State Mike Pompeo engineered the firing of its longtime leader. Matthew Klimow, the U.S. ambassador to Turkmenistan since mid-2019, has been handed the reins of the inspector general's office for at least 90 days, according to a Wednesday email seen by Politico.... Klimow is a career government employee with a lengthy resume that includes receiving a Silver Star for valor in combat when he was in the Army. It was not immediately clear if Klimow is giving up his position as the U.S. envoy in hermetic, energy-rich Turkmenistan although in a note to the inspector general's staff, he said he would be with them for 'a relatively short time.'" Mrs. McC: I wonder how many coverups Klimow is supposed to finesse in that "relatively short time." (Also linked yesterday.)

Mark Mazzetti, et al., of the New York Times: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel privately went along with a plan for the Trump administration to sell advanced weapons to the United Arab Emirates, despite publicly saying later that he opposed the arms deal, according to officials familiar with the negotiations. Mr. Netanyahu chose not to try to block the deal as he took part in a broader effort in recent months to secure a diplomatic breakthrough normalizing relations between Israel and the Emirates, the officials said. President Trump announced the initiative to great fanfare last month, without mentioning the arms discussions that were proceeding on a parallel track. But after news of the arms sale became public late last month, the Israeli prime minister repeatedly denied that he had given assurances to the Trump administration that Israel would not oppose the Emirati arms deal. The officials said Mr. Netanyahu's public statements were false."

Jason Leopold, et al. of Buzzfeed: "The federal government has once again released hundreds of pages of previously unseen records from former special counsel Robert Mueller's two-year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and President Donald Trump's attempts to obstruct the inquiry.... They reveal what hundreds of people ... told federal investigators when they were questioned as part of the probe, which began in May 2017.... One witness said the Trump campaign had almost no fundraising structure and as late as May 2016 was 'dormant or non-existent.' The campaign seemed to have few controls, the witness said, and it was unclear whether anyone was checking to ensure that non-US citizens weren't donating to the campaign." --s

David Folkenflik of NPR: "At the Voice of America, staffers say the Trump appointee leading their parent agency is threatening to wash away legal protections intended to insulate their news reports from political meddling. 'What we're seeing now is the step-by-step and wholescale dismantling of the institutions that protect the independence and the integrity of our journalism,' says Shawn Powers, until recently the chief strategy officer for the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA.... [I]t appears that [the new CEO, Michael] Pack is, in fact, interested in influencing which stories get told, and how.... This story is based on interviews with 18 current and former executives and journalists at the U. S. Agency for Global Media and the Voice of America. Citing the tumult and firings at the agency, most would not speak to NPR on the record, saying they feared for their jobs or professional reputations." --safari Read on. They're destroying VOA.

Jeffrey Lambe of Law & Crime: "A privately-funded 3-mile section of border wall built thanks to Steve Bannon and Brian Kolfage's 'We Build the Wall' (WBTW) organization is destined to fail [structurally], according to a pair of engineering reports reviewed by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune. The inspections, both of which were conducted in relation to ongoing litigation surrounding the structure, confirm reports from May that said heavy erosion and inclement weather had left the wall 'in danger of falling into the Rio Grande.'... [T]he North Dakota construction firm that built the structurally unsound wall, Fisher Sand & Gravel, was also awarded a record-high $1.3 billion government contract to erect a portion of the federally funded U.S.-Mexico border wall. Despite FSG's prototype being rejected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for lacking in both 'quality' and 'sophistication,' President Trump directly inserted himself into the process for evaluating and awarding the contracts, lobbying on behalf of FSG and the firm's CEO Tommy Fisher." --s ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: It's hard to conjure up any outrage against Bannon & Kolfage's grift when you realize that every aspect of "the wall" was a scam. Trump, who isn't all that bright, is still able to grasp the concept of metaphors, and I expect the wall began as a metaphor -- a virtual wall to keep the brown people south of the border, similar, for instance to Thomas Jefferson's "wall of separation between Church & State." But his fans, who are dumb as rocks, thought he meant a real wall, and that suited Trump. Since he was pretending to be fiscally responsible during the 2016 campaign -- a facade he quickly dropped -- he first said Mexico would pay for the wall. That actually would be possible if the wall were strictly metaphorical; after all, the fake author of The Art of the Deal should be able to negotiate an arrangement where Mexico asserted a lot of border control. Once the concept of the wall became real, Trump had to convert it into a grift: contractor friends of his would build a POS, and somehow or the other, there would be a payoff for Donald.

Mark Hosenball of Reuters: "Attempts by former White House adviser Steve Bannon to export President Donald Trump's brand of populism to Europe are on the rocks, according to several of his current and former political partners in Italy and Belgium.... [T]wo people working with [Bannon] said an effort to found an academy [the Dignitatis Humanae Institute] for right-wing Roman Catholic activists in Italy faces a criminal inquiry by the Rome criminal court and a project aimed at ending the European Union has closed up shop.... In October, Italy's Culture Ministry revoked the institute's permission to use the monastery, saying [the] organization did not meet the requirements to manage it and had lied when applying to use the building.... In making its application, the institute said that it had operated an abbey in central Italy since 2015. However state television RAI said in a documentary that the abbey was an inaccessible ruin closed to the public.... In a separate action, Italy's Court of Auditors said the institute did not pay rent of around 200,000 euros ($236,340) for 2018 and 2019." --s

Update on the Horrifying Scandal of the Year. Ryan Saavedra of the Daily Wire: "Christine Pelosi, the daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), released a letter from a law firm on Wednesday afternoon that attacked the owner of the salon that Pelosi recently visited in apparent violation of coronavirus lockdown rules. The letter from attorney Matthew Soleimanpour was on behalf of Jonathan De Nardo, a California Certified Cosmetologist based out of San Francisco, California." Thanks to Anonymous for the link. Mrs. McC: The lawyer's letter, which Saavedra cites in full, completely exonerates Speaker Pelosi & implicates the salon owner Erica Kious in a sting. It's kinda worth reading, at least if you read any of the stories that preceded this one. (Also linked yesterday.)

Danny Hakim & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "The National Rifle Association's former second-in-command is breaking with the group's orthodoxy and calling for universal background checks and so-called red flag laws in a new book assailing the organization as more focused on money and internal intrigue than the Second Amendment, while thwarting constructive dialogue on gun violence. The former executive, Joshua L. Powell, who was fired by the N.R.A. in January, reinforces the kind of criticism made of the organization by gun control groups and state regulators, but it is the first critical look at its recent history by such a high-ranking insider. He describes the N.R.A.'s longtime chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, as a woefully inept manager, but also a skilled lobbyist with a deft touch at directing President Trump to support the group's objectives, and who repeatedly reeled in the president's flirtations with even modest gun control measures." (Also linked yesterday.)

Beyond the Beltway

California. Jennifer Medina of the New York Times: "It was an image that seemed destined to go viral: a masked mother holding a crying infant, while delivering an impassioned speech on the legislative floor. It was as if, for a single moment in the California State Capitol, the near-impossibility of the demands of new motherhood and work and pandemic living had converged in a swaddle in Buffy Wicks's arms. Ms. Wicks, a veteran of the Obama and Clinton presidential campaigns, said she had never expected to become a symbol when she took her month-old child with her to vote on several crucial bills on Monday, the last day of the legislative session. Ms. Wicks lives in Oakland, just over an hour southwest of the capital, Sacramento.... [In an interview, Wicks told Medina,] 'I asked the speaker directly if I could vote by proxy. He was really trying to make it work, but the legal interpretation he was advised was that it would leave us open to litigation if there was a close vote.... I felt compelled to go and decided to bring my daughter because we're feeding every two or three hours....'" Mrs. McC: Wicks seems like a lovely young woman. But, you know, she cares about other people, and she's making sacrifices. So I guess that makes her a loser in Donald Trump's mind.

News Lede

New York Times: "A study published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine reported that the experimental treatment [two] ...Brown student[s, Joshua Cohen and] Justin Klee, conceived might hold promise for slowing progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis [A.L.S.], the ruthless disease that robs people of their ability to move, speak, eat and ultimately breathe. More than 50 clinical trials over 25 years have failed to find effective treatments for A.L.S., also called Lou Gehrig's disease, which often causes death within two to five years. But now, scientific advances and an influx of funding are driving clinical trials for many potential therapies, generating hope and intense discussion among patients, doctors and researchers."

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